No verdict yet for Michael Jackson's doctor

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Jurors in the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor worked for more than seven hours Friday before telling the judge that they had not reached a verdict and were ready to go home for the weekend.

The seven men and five women deciding the fate of Dr. Conrad Murray, who is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 death of the pop icon, will resume deliberations Monday morning.

Katherine and Joe Jackson, the parents of the Jackson family, were so anxious for a verdict that they spent Friday afternoon in a hotel near the courthouse so they could get there quickly.

Dozens of Jackson fans filled the plaza outside of the downtown Los Angeles County courthouse, shouting slogans, waving signs and sometimes arguing with Murray supporters.

The jury heard from 49 witnesses over 23 days, including Murray's girlfriends and patients, Jackson's former employees, investigators, and medical experts for each side.

Prosecutor David Walgren told them Thursday the evidence that Murray caused Jackson's death is "overwhelming" and "abundantly clear," while defense lawyer Ed Chernoff argued no crime was committed.

"If it were anybody else but Michael Jackson, would this doctor be here today?" Chernoff asked, saying it's a negligence case that should instead be heard by the state medical board.

"He was just a little fish in a big, dirty pond," Chernoff said, pointing the finger at other doctors who treated Jackson, and at Jackson himself.

The singer's death on June 25, 2009, was caused by acute propofol intoxication in combination with two sedatives, the Los Angeles County coroner ruled.

Jurors must decide if the overdose of the surgical anesthetic propofol was infused into Jackson's blood by a steady IV drip, as the prosecution contends, or if Jackson injected himself with a syringe left nearby by Murray, as the defense argues.

Prosecutors argue that Murray's use of propofol in Jackson's home to treat his insomnia was so reckless it was criminally negligent.

"Conrad Murray left Prince, Paris and Blanket without a father," Walgren said. "For them, this case doesn't end today, or tomorrow. For Michael's children, this case will go on forever, because they do not have a father. They do not have a father because of the actions of Conrad Murray."

Walgren argued that until Jackson's death, no one ever heard of propofol being in a home every night to put someone to sleep. He called it "a pharmaceutical experiment on Michael Jackson ... an obscene experiment."

The defense contends Jackson self-administered the fatal overdose of drugs in a desperate search for sleep without Murray's knowing.

"What they're really asking you to do is to convict Dr. Murray for the actions of Michael Jackson," Chernoff said.

After Chernoff finished his arguments, Walgren attacked the defense for trying to blame "everybody but Conrad Murray, poor Conrad Murray."

"If allowed more time to argue, I am sure they would find a way to blame Michael's son, Prince," Walgren said in his rebuttal.

Walgren painted Murray as a selfish doctor who agreed to take $150,000 a month to give Jackson nightly infusions of propofol in his home, something an ethical doctor would never do because of the dangers.

While Jackson was hooked up to a constant intravenous drip of propofol, Murray was not paying attention, the prosecutor said. Telephone records and testimony showed he was talking to Sade Anding, a Houston cocktail waitress, when he realized Jackson had stopped breathing.

"What was so important to Conrad Murray that he had to call Sade Anding at that time? What was so important to this doctor that he needed to call one of his female friends in Houston? What was so pressing that he just couldn't care for Michael Jackson, that he had to call Sade Anding?"

It will never be known how long Jackson had not been breathing when Murray dropped the phone in the middle of his conversation with Anding, the prosecutor said.

"Was Conrad Murray in another room? Did Michael Jackson yell out for help? Did he gasp? Did he choke? Were there sounds? We don't know and we'll never know, because of the neglect and negligence of Conrad Murray."

Walgren questioned why Murray waited at least 20 minutes after he found Jackson was not breathing before he asked a security guard call for an ambulance.

"To speak to a 911 operator was the only hope of Michael Jackson being revived to see another day," Walgren said.

Paramedics arrived just four minutes after the call, but too late to save Jackson, he said.

Chernoff argued that Murray depended on chef Kai Chase to send up a security guard while he was trying to revive Jackson, but she only sent son Prince.

When Murray spoke with police two days after Jackson's death, it was "to get ahead of the story," because he knew there would be toxicology reports showing he died from propofol and sedatives, Walgren said.

"Unfortunately, his version doesn't match up with the evidence, the phone records, the e-mails, but he knew what toxicology findings would show," Walgren said.

Jurors heard from two anesthesiology experts who offered competing theories, Dr. Steven Shafer for the prosecution and Dr. Paul White for the defense.

Walgren attacked White for his determination "to find a theory or way to blame it on Michael Jackson."

White testified that the levels of propofol and sedatives found in Jackson's stomach, blood and urine during the autopsy convinced him that Jackson swallowed a large does of lorazepam and later gave himself a rapid injection of propofol, which led to his death.

"What you were presented from Dr. White was junk science," Walgren said.

Chernoff defended his expert and attacked Shafer, saying he was "not a scientist; he was an advocate. He was trying to prove a point; he was trying to prove a case."

"Dr. White knows more about propofol than Dr. Shafer will ever, ever know," Chernoff said.

Shafer testified that the "only scenario" in Jackson's death was one involving an IV drip system infusing a steady flow of propofol into Jackson over several hours before his death.

Chernoff argued that the prosecution fabricated the theory because they "desperately needed a drip," because "without a drip, what Dr. Murray gave Michael Jackson would not have harmed him."

"If Dr. Murray did what he said he did, there was no danger to Michael Jackson," Chernoff said. "Michael Jackson was not going to die and it doesn't matter if you leave the room and go outside and play basketball."

Chernoff attacked the credibility of Alberto Alvarez, Jackson's former bodyguard, who testified that he saw a propofol bottle inside an empty saline bag suspended on an IV stand by Jackson's bed. Alvarez waited two months after Jackson's death to tell the story, Chernoff said.

"All of a sudden, his story becomes monumentally more compelling and more valuable," Chernoff said.

Alvarez acknowledged he turned down a $500,000 offer for an interview, Chernoff said.

"Do you honestly believe that Alberto Alvarez is not going to cash in?"

Alavarez, who placed the 911 call from Jackson's bedroom, also testified he helped remove Jackson from the bed and performed CPR on him, but a paramedic contradicted that testimony.

Investigators who found the cut saline bag and propofol bottle never photographed them together or document the bottle being inside the bag, Chernoff said.

The "bottle in a bag" theory was even less believable because the propofol bottle had a plastic strip attached to it so it could be hung from an IV stand, he said. That strip was never used, both sides agreed.

"Dr. Murray didn't have to go through the ridiculous, absurd step of cutting a bag, propping it up into a cut IV bag, hanging it up where it could fall," Chernoff said.

Murray, if convicted, faces up to four years in prison and the loss of his medical license.

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Review: 'Tower Heist' is overblinged

(EW.com) -- Although the tower in question in the gimcrack action comedy "Tower Heist" is fictional, many New York tourists will recognize the aggressive nouveau-riche opulence of the building's exterior as that of an actual Manhattan hotel condominium owned by aggressive nouveau-riche Donald Trump.

The aesthetic pairing of The Donald and director Brett Ratner is a natural. This brassy production, an imitation "Ocean's 13 ," features the name-brand talents of Ben Stiller (as an honorable Tower manager named Josh) and Eddie Murphy (as a con man called Slide) leading rookie thieves in an elaborate Robin Hood-style heist. Their target? The oversize penthouse of one Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), a shady billionaire who keeps a rare 1963 Ferrari in his living room.

In other words, "Tower Heist" is the cinematic version of a Trump property: overblinged, eye-catching, and essentially tacky. For a movie that claims its heart is with the masses -- the 99 percent! -- there's an awful lot of production-design admiration lavished on the trappings of the effin-rich 1 percent. (Ratner had specific ideas about which pedigreed modern-art reproductions he wanted on the walls.) Shaw is a fictional variation on Bernie Madoff: Entrusted with the retirement savings of the multicultural low-wage employees who keep the Tower running, he takes their money and ruins their lives.

And so, rallied by egalitarian friend-to-all Josh -- the guy takes the subway to work from Queens, so you know he's a mensch -- and hastily educated in criminal technique by Josh's less honorable Queens neighbor Slide, these blue-collar little people rise up in triumph to steal their money back. By the moral standards of Occupy Hollywood, the crime earns an ethical thumbs-up.

You may think I am picking too much on what's built to be a fun, diverting, New York-state-of-mind caper comedy -- a joke-filled cavalcade that marks 50-year-old Eddie Murphy's welcome return to the edgier stuff that made him famous. Alrighty, let's talk about Murphy: He's nowhere to be found in the first half of the movie! And he's only there to illuminate selected scenes in the second: He's like the spot lighting supplied by a big-a** chandelier in an ostentatious Trump lobby. That's too bad, because when Murphy is on screen, his comedic vigor -- reminiscent of Chris Tucker's jive-talk mania in Ratner's "Rush Hour" movies but with a blast of Murphy-specific danger -- gooses the movie's energy level. I've missed that guy.

But whenever Murphy wanders off, the movie's pulse rate drops. Tower Heist is in effect two movies: One belongs to Murphy, the other to the rest of the cast. Josh's drippy in-house recruits include Matthew Broderick as a broke ex--Wall Streeter and Tower resident (and the kind of fretful nebbish he perfected on Broadway in The Producers); Michael Pe a as an uncouth rookie bellhop; and "Ocean"'s alumnus Casey Affleck as an unreliable concierge who happens to be Josh's stressed-out brother-in-law. (The band of gentlemen credited with the story and screenplay includes Ted Griffin, who worked on Steven Soderbergh's 2001 "Ocean's Eleven.")

Two female characters also join the increasingly frantic male-driven mayhem. (Here's where I mention with an eye roll that, in what I hope is a quickly passing trend in male- as well as female-driven comedies, vaginas are briefly discussed, this time by Affleck.) T a Leoni, who worked with the director 11 years ago in "The Family Man," gamely plays a no-nonsense FBI agent with cute rough edges. And Gabourey Sidibe, the striking plus-size Oscar-nominated star of "Precious," makes her Hollywood leap as a feisty Jamaican chambermaid who gets in on the heist action. (The girl's got mad safecracking skills.)

I don't know why Ratner and cinematographer Dante Spinotti felt compelled to push the camera in close, as if gawking at Sidibe's dramatic coloring and size. But then, I also don't know why she wasn't used more: Murphy never looks more alive and excited by a fellow actor -- challenged to peak performance -- than during ribald, flirtatious banter with Sidibe's self-possessed working girl. She's something new; Murphy in "Tower Heist" is something rebooted. Together they build something with more visual interest than any Trump Tower on any tourist map.

EW.com rating: C+

See the full article at EW.com.

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Cain accuser alleges series of incidents

Washington (CNN) -- One of the women who accused Republican presidential contender Herman Cain of sexual harassment released a statement through her lawyer Friday saying that she "stands by" her complaint, which was made "in good faith about a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances."

There was "more than one incident" of harassment involving Cain and his client over the span of a couple of months in 1999, attorney Joel Bennett said.

Bennett said his client, married for 26 years, will not reveal her identity because "she and her husband see no value in revisiting this matter now nor in discussing the matter any further publicly or privately."

"In fact," he added, "it would be extremely painful for her to do so."

Bennett released the statement after reaching an agreement to do so with the National Restaurant Association, the organization headed by Cain during the time of the alleged harassment. The group has an agreement with the alleged victim that includes a series of confidentiality and non-disparagement provisions.

Dawn Sweeney, the current head of the association, issued a statement confirming that in July 1999, Bennett's client "filed a formal internal complaint, in accordance with the association's existing policies prohibiting discrimination and harassment."

Cain, she noted, "disputed the allegations in the complaint."

Sweeney said the association is prepared to fully release Bennett's client from her confidentiality agreement in the event she wants to disclose additional details.

The controversy has dominated Cain's front-running campaign for the past week. A defiant Cain insists he did nothing wrong, and will not let the issue deter him.

Cain spokesman J.D. Gordon said in response to Bennett's statement that the Cain campaign looks "forward to focusing our attention on the real issues impacting this country -- like fixing this broken economy and putting Americans back to work."

Cain's campaign said earlier Friday it is considering filing a lawsuit against Politico, the news organization which broke the harassment story last Sunday.

A possible lawsuit "is being discussed," Gordon told CNN. Gordon declined, however, to discuss the timetable or legal basis for such a move. Cain and his campaign aides have been highly critical of Politico's use of anonymous sources, among other things.

Politico executive editor Jim VandeHei told CNN he had heard nothing from the Cain campaign, and said the organization "stands confidently behind every story (our) reporters have written on the topic."

Cain has cited strong poll numbers and fund-raising to claim voters know the allegations are a baseless political attack.

"The American people are starting to see through this stuff, and they are sick of gutter politics," Cain declared in a radio interview with conservative commentator Sean Hannity on Thursday. "This will not deter me."

Asked about money paid to two women -- including Bennett's client -- when they left the National Restaurant Association, Cain said in the one case he recalled, it was severance money because accusations of impropriety on his part proved unfounded.

Bennett insisted Friday there was no severance agreement, but rather a financial settlement of the harassment complaint.

Cain on Thursday also repeated his accusation that the campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a conservative rival for the GOP nomination, was behind the allegations emerging as Cain rose to the top of the polls in the race.

In particular, he noted that a former aide, Curt Anderson, signed on with the Perry campaign shortly before the allegations surfaced in Politico.

"These are the facts. Connect the dots," Cain said, adding that "as more of the information comes out, the more baseless it appears to people."

In an interview Thursday with CNN, however, Perry flatly denied that his campaign had anything to do with the story. He also vowed that he'd fire any staffer if he found out they were "passing on rumors."

"(There is) no apology needed," Perry said. "We found out about this the same time that I suppose the rest of America found out about it. I don't know how to tell it any other way, except I knew nothing about it."

Cain later softened his earlier claim that he told Anderson about one of the allegations against him in a private discussion in 2003. On Thursday, he told Hannity he was "almost certain" the discussion took place.

The allegations have set off a fierce round of claims and counter-claims regarding how the information became public. At the same time, Cain's campaign announced Thursday he has raised $1.2 million this week since the allegations first surfaced on Sunday in a big boost from supporters.

The news appears to have had little impact so far on Cain's standing in the GOP race. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released Friday morning -- the first survey conducted entirely after news of the alleged harassment broke -- showed Cain in a dead heat with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney atop the GOP field.

According to the poll, 24% of Republicans and independents who lean toward the GOP now say they support Romney, compared with 23% for Cain. Romney and Cain have been neck-and-neck in most major national surveys over the past month.

What exactly transpired during the alleged harassment incidents remains unclear. Asked by Hannity if he ever made flirtatious comments to female subordinates or comments such as "you look hot" or anything, Cain replied: "No, no, no, I didn't."

As a business leader, he said, he "learned a long time ago" not to comment on a woman's appearance or make any kind of personal comment unless he was "really, really comfortable" with a colleague. Cain told HLN earlier this week that he has never committed sexual harassment "in (his) entire career. Period."

For his part, Anderson denied in a CNN interview Thursday that he was responsible for leaking the allegations.

Anderson, who worked on Cain's unsuccessful 2004 U.S. Senate campaign in Georgia and now is a consultant to Perry's campaign, insisted Cain never told him about the accusations.

"It's hard to leak something you don't know anything about," he said. "I don't have any knowledge of any of this and, you know, it's just not true."

Later, Cain's chief campaign strategist, Mark Block, said he accepted Anderson's denial, and wanted to move on from the controversy that has dogged his candidate all week.

"Until we get all the facts, I'm just going to say that we accept what Mr. Anderson has said, and we want to move on with the campaign," Block told Fox News. Block had earlier called for Perry to apologize to Cain for allegedly leaking the harassment allegations to the media.

Politico first published a report late Sunday claiming that two female employees at the National Restaurant Association accused Cain of inappropriate behavior during his tenure as head of the organization. The women, according to Politico, each received separation packages in the five-figure range.

The package for one of the women totaled between $32,000 to $37,000 -- approximately equivalent to her annual salary at the time, according to a former National Restaurant Association employee who knows one of the accusers.

"The workplace (had become) uncommunicative," the former employee told CNN. "They didn't give her work. She didn't interact with people."

The New York Times previously reported that one of the packages totaled $35,000. On Thursday, Politico reported the other package was for $45,000.

Cain criticized the Politico report in Thursday's interview, saying the Politico reporters never showed him any documentation or talked to the women who allegedly made the claims. When a Politico reporter was asked on CNN whether another campaign tipped him to the story, he refused to answer, Cain noted.

"I didn't know there were so many women named 'anonymous' in America, frankly," Cain joked in Thursday's interview about the lack of details about his accusers. Politico editor-in-chief John Harris told CNN the organization is following ordinary media standards by protecting its sources.

Cain has provided differing accounts of the allegations this week, raising further questions about what happened and the ability of the candidate and his campaign to deal with the controversy. While Cain's campaign was first approached by Politico 10 days before the story was first published, the candidate said he was only remembering many details of the incident on Monday.

Cain has seized on the uproar as an example of alleged liberal media bias.

On Wednesday, Cain's campaign called a report that a third former employee had claimed that he had engaged in inappropriate behavior an example of "baseless allegations."

"He has never acted in the way alleged by inside-the-Beltway media, and his distinguished record over 40 years spent climbing the corporate ladder speaks for itself," said J.D. Gordon, a Cain campaign spokesman. "Since his critics have not been successful in attacking his ideas, they are resorting to bitter personal attacks. Mr. Cain deserves better."

In the Hannity interview, Cain accused his critics of engaging in the politics of personal destruction, and he insisted his candidacy would survive the maelstrom.

He blasted what he called a "vicious liberal attack on me," saying the false accusations are because opponents can't coherently challenge his message and want to "intimidate other black conservatives to not go public."

So far, Cain has only released details about one of the allegations, saying it involved him gesturing to one of the women that she was the same height as his wife -- about 5 feet tall -- and came up to his chin.

Bennett has not indicated which of the alleged victims he represents, though he said his client is taller than 5 feet. He said earlier this week that his client is "happily married."

For his part, Cain has said he has no recollection of a second incident. According to Politico, however, one of the allegations involves an "unwanted sexual advance" at a hotel room in Chicago.

An independent group trying to help Cain released a web video Friday defending him against the harassment allegations and harshly criticizing media coverage of the story.

The video, by a super political action committee called the 9-9-9 Fund, includes clips of conservative hosts, including Rush Limbaugh. It also uses television clips of liberal pundits attacking Cain, as well as the famous clip of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas calling his grilling during his confirmation hearings two decades ago "a high-tech lynching."

The video ends with the onscreen message, "Don't let the left do it again."

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Prime minister faces key vote

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Prime Minister George Papandreou faces a crunch confidence vote Friday, after days of political turmoil sparked by his controversial proposal to hold a referendum on an international bailout for his country.

His socialist PASOK party has a tiny majority in parliament and it is unclear whether he will survive the vote, or what might follow if he does.

The political instability in Greece has caused political and financial jitters throughout Europe and beyond, as world leaders meet in Cannes, France, for the G-20 economic summit.

U.S. President Barack Obama told the summit Friday he was confident that Europe had the capacity to meet the challenge presented by the troubled global economy.

"Make no mistake, there is more hard work ahead and more difficult changes to make but our European partners have laid a foundation on which to build," Obama said.

Recent events in Greece have underscored the importance of implementing a Greek economic bailout plan fully and quickly, he said, but the elements were in place to ensure stability -- including a firewall around European debt, the strengthening of European banks, charting a sustainable path for Greece and making structural reforms.

"All of us have an enormous interest in Europe's success and all of us will be affected if Europe is not growing," he said.

In an interview with France 2-TF1, Obama said, "One of the most important things I can do for the European economy is to make sure the American economy is growing."

In the same interview, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was time for action on the Greek bailout. "We cannot simply stand by and watch as people -- tens of thousands of people who have nothing to do with this, whose fault it is not -- lose their jobs and simply flap our hands."

Papandreou's surprise call this week for a referendum on the bailout deal was ill-advised, Sarkozy said. "The real issue was: Do you want to remain in the euro or not?" Sarkozy said. "We cannot ask French taxpayers to continue lending money to Greece while the Greeks say, 'These rules don't belong to us.'"

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos has told the European Commission that there will be no referendum on the bailout deal agreed to last week in Brussels, his office said Friday.

The move followed heavy international pressure on Papandreou to drop the planned referendum, announced at the start of the week to the surprise of many, including his own ministers.

Among the concerns high on the G-20 agenda was the potential for Greece's woes to spread to major European economies like Italy, where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is struggling to gain support for austerity measures and may face his own confidence vote next week. Borrowing costs for his government continue to rise amid the uncertainty.

Berlusconi said Friday that Italy had agreed to let the International Monetary Fund "certify" its reform program, a step designed to boost investor confidence.

European markets turned sour as of lunchtime on Friday, following a slightly stronger opening. U.S. stocks dipped on the back of a disappointing jobs report.

Lawmakers in Greece debated the confidence motion for a third day Friday before a vote expected after midnight (6 p.m. ET).

Under a motion of confidence, lawmakers signal to the head of state whether the government has the support of parliament. A loss typically results in the government's dissolution and the holding of a general election unless the head of state asks someone with more support to form a government.

Papandreou's own party appeared divided on his fate hours ahead of the vote, with some telling members of the Greek news media that they hoped he would win the vote but then step down to allow a government of national unity to be formed.

Speculation had been rife Thursday that Papandreou might resign, or that a unity government might be formed with a different leader at its head who could find consensus on how to handle the crisis.

The prime minister backed off from his proposal to hold a referendum, saying it would not be necessary if the opposition were to support the tough austerity measures that accompany it.

Opposition leader Antonis Samaras responded that he would support the bailout but wanted Papandreou to step aside and for early elections to be held.

"We are asking you to resign to give power to people to negotiate new measures," he told the prime minister.

"It's nothing that I can rule out, and I'm not clinging to any chair," Papandreou said about the prospect of giving up his job. "That's the political cost I'm taking on, me personally, for something which I did not cause."

Papandreou said he was not interested in being re-elected, only in saving the country from economic disaster should Greece default on its debts.

"Everything is on the table," Papandreou said. "Well, the government will be. But let's talk about it. Let's debate it. You don't expect -- out of the blue -- for a government to resign. That would be irresponsible."

He called on Samaras "to come back to the room and participate in this conversation about forming a government, of a wider support for the good of the country."

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told CNN that a default for Greece would be "dramatic, severe and painful for the population" but that Europe would do what it could.

The package would wipe out 100 billion euros of Greek debt and comes with the promise of 30 billion euros from the public sector to help pay off some of the remaining debt, making the whole deal worth 130 billion euros ($178 billion).

But it would require Greece to slash government jobs, privatize some businesses and reduce pensions.

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Graphic take on bin Laden raid

(CNN) -- Stealth helicopters zoom toward a mystery compound in northern Pakistan, intent on capturing or killing the most wanted man in the world. Under cover of night they reach their target, but within moments one chopper is down and the mission is in jeopardy.

The daring raid against Osama bin Laden contained equal parts action, suspense, risk and bravery. In other words (from a purely literary standpoint), all of the elements of a great story.

So it should come as no surprise that Simon & Schuster has announced plans to publish a graphic novel about the secret mission, which co-author Jerome Maida describes as a "complex labyrinth of intrigue, danger and politics."

But it won't be the first graphic novel to recount Operation Neptune Spear (the military name for the raid). That distinction belongs to "Code Word: Geronimo" which hit bookstores and Amazon.com less than six months after bin Laden's killing.

"Code Word: Geronimo" is the work of Capt. Dale Dye, a retired Marine and frequent military consultant on Hollywood films, and his wife Julia Dye, who holds a Ph.D. in the anthropology of human conflict. The novel features the artwork of Gerry Kissell and Amin Amat.

CNN spoke with the Dyes about their book and the challenge of telling the story of the raid without divulging military secrets. What follows is an edited version of the conversation.

CNN: Why did you decide to tell the story in graphic novel form?

Dale Dye: We wanted to reach folks in a sort of 18-35 short attention span demographic and see if we could use the graphic novel to sort of reflect the capability and professionalism of the men and women who pulled this raid off, this Operation Neptune Spear... I think [graphic novels] are a coming thing. I don't know if it's good, bad or indifferent, but it is a venue for communicating and we'll take it.

CNN: As military stories go, this one is hard to beat.

Dale: I mean it was fantastic. It was nothing like Desert One [the failed attempt in 1980 to free American hostages in Iran] and the other special operations efforts in which we haven't done so well. This one was really almost perfect, and that's hard to say when you're dealing deep behind people's lines.

CNN: Tell me about the research you did for the book.

Julia Dye: The challenge in this case wasn't so much digging up the information, it's that there was too much information and often conflicting. So it's discernment, how do you decide what is the most appropriate, what is most likely, what is true from a variety of sources.

Dale: I was able to call some people in the special operations community that I have contacts with and draw on my own background and sort of fill in what gaps Julia left where we didn't know... There are some areas in which I like to say we used "SWAG", which is "Scientific Wild- A** Guesses".

CNN: Were you concerned at all about revealing sensitive information in the book?

Dale: We did a lot of talking, Julia and I did, "If we do this, if we say this, if we depict this, are we giving away the secrets to the bad guys?"

Julia: There are certainly operational concerns and we wanted to make sure the information that is in there was appropriate... and keep what should remain classified, classified and still tell a compelling story.

CNN: There are some panels in the graphic novel showing bin Laden in bed the night of the raid, without a turban. How did you decide the right way to depict his domestic life?

Dale: That's one of those "SWAG" things. Nobody really knows what his domestic life was about. So we put it together and we said, "Given what we know about him, or what we purport to know about him, what would his private life be like?" In large measure, it seemed to us it would be like anybody else's in the Muslim community. There was a woman in bed with him and he was undressed and he was the domestic Osama bid Laden, if you will. And so that's the way we depicted it.

CNN: A canine was part of the Navy SEAL team that stormed the bin Laden compound. Do you know what became of Cairo the dog?

Dale: As far we know Cairo is still out there operating with his handler and with members of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He's one of many K9s that they use. I don't know that Cairo got a medal or a bone or any special plate of dog food, but we're dog lovers and we considered him to be a hero and Julia would have broken my neck if we hadn't put him in there.

CNN: In a couple of the panels Cairo is wearing goggles.

Julia: Doggles, they're called Doggles, no they really exist. There is a civilian type you can buy. But they actually have night-vision capabilities and lots of great nifty things in there.

Dale: They can put the K9 cam on him so that you can see what he sees and he has a little flak jacket that he wears, body armor, and maybe even little boots that K9s can wear to keep on their feet, the pads of their paws to keep them from burning on concrete and that sort of thing. They've gone a long way with the pooches.

CNN: Tell me about your collaboration with the illustrators.

Dale: A graphic novel is a challenge in itself. Because while I write words and essentially design what happens in the storyline, the artists, Gerry Kissel and his partner Amin [Amat] are trying to get inside your emotional storyteller brain and say 'What would that picture look like?' And so there was a lot of backing and forthing...

That's where [my] military background really comes in. We know what things look like, we know what they're supposed to look like so it's not "Captain Marvel attacks the Martians," this is the real deal.

CNN: Director Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker") is working on a movie about SEAL Team 6, the counterterrorism unit that conducted the raid. Do you think that project is in good hands?

Dale: She's a brilliant director and did such a great job with "The Hurt Locker." I hope she gets it right, I hope she knocks it out of the ballpark.

The problem with [depicting] the global war on terrorism is that it's still going on. It's very close to people. You guys [the media] stuff it into our face 24 hours a day. It's virtually the thing that fills the news hole. So it's difficult to back off and get some perspective and tell a story.

Julia: I think it would be wonderful to have films in the future that advance wonderful stories from the war on terror. I think many of them up to now have a tendency to advance agendas rather than stories.

Dale: That's one of the reasons why we wanted to do the graphic novel now. I mean it hits a mid-ground between that big definitive book that some enterprising reporter is going to do and the movie maybe that Kathryn Bigelow will do. This is a mid-ground. It's got pictures and it's got a story. And it's got some really vital information in it.

CNN: Finally, what are your thoughts about the people who pulled off this raid?

Dale: We're talking about some of the most selfless, really true professional public servants the world will ever know. These are folks who aren't in it for medals, they aren't in it for glamor, they aren't in it for prestige, they aren't in it for notoriety. They're in it because they believe it's the right thing to do, because they think it's an important and vital mission. That was our mission when we started out [writing the graphic novel], to reflect some light, some glory, without ripping away the veil of secrecy, but reflect some light and glory on truly professional, dedicated, patriotic men and women.

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Users griping about iPhone 4S battery life

(CNN) -- It all sounds eerily familiar. A new iPhone. Massive sales. Then, an apparent glitch that, while it doesn't affect everyone, is prevalent enough to irk customers and catch the eyes of tech journalists everywhere.

Poor battery life on the iPhone 4S, released on October 14 to great fanfare and record sales, has been the new model's Achilles' heel in the minds of many users.

While complaints about the perceived problem haven't reached the fevered pitch that last year's iPhone 4 release saw about its so-called "death grip" problem, they don't seem to be going away.

There were, of course, the expected number of early-adopter quibbles with the phone: from troubles with new carrier Sprint, to a sometimes slow-moving camera, to limits on the voice-activated Siri "personal assistant" outside the United States.

But as most of those gripes either got sorted or users got used to the limitations, complaints about the phone's battery life have persisted.

A post on the Apple support forums, begun on October 15 to discuss battery problems, was still active Tuesday -- two weeks and 185 pages worth of comments later.

"I purchased what I thought was a top-of-the-line product only to be terribly disappointed," one user wrote Tuesday. "This is my first iPhone and may well be my last."

Battery life was a frequent complaint about the iPhone 3GS, but concerns about the phone's short battery life seemed to have been addressed on the next-generation iPhone 4.

According to Apple's official specs, the iPhone 4S should have enough juice in the battery for up to eight hours of talk time, six hours of Internet surfing, 10 hours of video viewing and 200 hours on standby. (All activities on a 3G connection -- 2G and wireless have different figures).

All of those numbers are within an hour or so of the iPhone 4, except for one. The older phone's specifications promise 300 hours of standby power: a full 50% more than the 4S.

Users complaining on the Apple forum and elsewhere say that their phones aren't lasting anywhere near even that reduced length of time. Various independent tests of the new phone have suggested that some phones have problems with poor battery life, while others don't.

The general consensus among tech-inclined owners is that the problem may not lie with the battery itself, but with the way the phone utilizes Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 5.

Specifically, the theory goes, its location-based services are a power drain. If the phone is constantly trying to pinpoint where it is, it will suck power even when the user isn't actively doing something with the phone. (For a comparison, think about how quickly your battery drains when you forget to turn off Wi-Fi searches while you're driving.)

The new phone also has a more powerful processor -- the same one that's in the iPad 2. That could cut battery life, even though Apple CEO Tim Cook specifically said that it wouldn't during the iPhone 4S unveiling event last month.

Apparently, reading from the well-worn Apple playbook, the company has not commented publicly about the battery complaints. Messages and e-mails to Apple seeking comment on these complaints were not returned.

It's unclear whether the company acknowledges there's a battery problem (although there have been reports that Apple is contacting iPhone 4S users to try to get to the bottom of it).

And while it's too early for direct comparisons, the extended silence looks remarkably like the public-relations two-step that was Apple's handling of the iPhone 4's antenna issues. (As you may recall, Consumer Reports and others said the iPhone 4 had antenna problems that caused it to drop calls. People dubbed the situation "Antennagate.")

First, the company refused to publicly acknowledge the issue. Then, there was a software patch apparently aimed at fixing it (although Apple never explicitly said so).

There would eventually be a news conference in which then-CEO Steve Jobs spent most of the time denying there was any real problem, then announcing that the company would give away free bumpers -- minimalist iPhone cases -- to prevent dropped calls.

But before that, there were the private e-mails and public statements saying, in essence, that users were holding their phones wrong.

Then, weeks after the free-bumper news conference, Jobs and others doubled back, saying that there was never really much of a problem and discontinuing the freebie program.

As Apple's silence persists (the company has said in the past that it spends time researching potential problems before addressing them publicly), users and observers are complaining and speculating in the vacuum. And that's not always pretty.

"It hits you when you least expect it. It slips away under a mask of dormant inactivity. And it can ruin your entire day," TechCrunch's Jordan Crook wrote Tuesday. "It's your iPhone 4S battery life, and it sucks."

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TSA questioned over cargo screening

Washington (CNN) -- Several House lawmakers want to know if the Transportation Security Administration is backtracking on plans to screen 100% of cargo placed on international passenger flights to the United States.

In a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole, the representatives said a 2007 law requires screening of all U.S.-bound air cargo, but recent TSA statements to the media raise questions about the agency's intentions to fully implement the law.

In statements to the media confirming that it would miss a December 31 deadline to comply with the law, the TSA said it was working on agreements with other governments on a "risk-based" approach to screening.

Lawmakers said they are "troubled" by the wording. "TSA's statement implies that only (high-risk cargo) will be screened," the lawmakers wrote. "This approach would be contrary to the intent of (the 2007 law) and would pose significant security vulnerabilities for our country."

The letter is signed by Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Mississippi, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.

The lawmakers noted that one year ago, an al Qaeda affiliate attempted to explode "printer bombs" in cargo planes destined for the United States. "Fortunately, the plot was foiled. Nevertheless, the exposure of this major terrorist plot is a reminder that our adversaries are well aware of the security vulnerabilities in our air cargo system and are determined to exploit them," wrote the members.

Several weeks ago, the TSA notified the airline and cargo industries it will not proceed with the December 31 deadline requiring inspection of all air cargo on international passenger flights destined for the U.S., shipping industry officials said. No new deadline was announced.

Asked by CNN on Tuesday whether it would eventually require 100 percent physical inspection of the cargo, the TSA declined to answer, saying it would respond to the congressional letter.

In a statement, TSA spokesman Greg Soule said air cargo is "more secure than it has ever been with 100 percent of cargo on flights departing U.S. airports and 100 percent of identified high-risk international inbound cargo undergoing screening."

"TSA is working with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the air cargo industry on a pilot program to receive and process pre-departure, international advance air cargo information about shippers in order to focus more intensive screening resources on cargo we know least about. In coordination with stakeholders TSA will continue to take steps -- including ongoing efforts to test, evaluate and qualify air cargo screening technologies -- to strengthen our security posture."

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Key people in WikiLeaks saga are divided on Assange extradition

(CNN) -- A court ruled Wednesday that WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange will be extradited to Sweden to face questioning over accusations of sex crimes made by two women, despite his legal battle to stay in Britain. Some key players in the WikiLeaks saga are split on how they feel about Assange, but they all agree the website's future could be dire.

Assange said in October that he was temporarily suspending WikiLeaks publishing due to lack of funds, and it's unclear whether the possibility of Assange going to jail will mean the death knell for its operations. (The case is unrelated to WikiLeaks.)

"Do I get personal satisfaction from Julian's extradition? Well, I think Julian took Bradley for everything he was worth and hung him out to dry," Adrian Lamo said Wednesday. Lamo is the California ex-hacker who claimed in the summer of 2010 that U.S. soldier Bradley Manning confessed to him in online chats that Manning had leaked classified wartime documents to WikiLeaks.

Lamo told his story to CNN.com shortly after a trove of secret Afghanistan war documents were published online on WikiLeaks and in three other mainstream media publications. Manning remains behind bars in Kansas; he has been held for more than a year and a half.

"(Assange's) ego was so strong he thought he could bend light and get people to do whatever he wanted. He cannot," Lamo said regarding Assange's loss Wednesday in court.

Assange has refused to comment about whether Manning was WikiLeaks' source for its Iraq or Afghanistan war logs or other diplomatic cables it has published in the past year. Manning has not commented about his alleged involvement in WikiLeaks.

"I hope WikiLeaks is more than just one man, and that despite the extradition and the enormous pressure, WikiLeaks will continue," said Jeff Paterson, who is involved with the Bradley Manning Support Network, which raises money for Manning's defense. Paterson founded the group Courage to Resist, which according to a document on its website, has raised nearly $400,000. The majority of that money pays for Manning's private legal counsel, Paterson said, and the rest pays for numerous protests the group has staged in support of the soldier. WikiLeaks contributed $15,100 in January.

"I hope Julian Assange gets a fair hearing (in Sweden)," Paterson said. "No matter what happens I feel confident people will continue to stay focused on Manning's case."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a First Amendment advocacy group, said the extradition order will likely discourage free speech on the Web and send a chill through journalists.

"The real danger to Internet and press freedom is if Sweden now decides to extradite Assange to the U.S. for charges unrelated to what he's facing in Sweden," said spokesperson Trevor Timm.

Daniel Ellsberg has been a prominent defender of Manning. The 80-year-old who famously leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971 purposely got arrested in front of the White House in March while trying to call attention to what he said was Manning's unjust treatment.

"This is not the end of the story here," said Ellsberg, noting that another hearing later this month will be held if Assange can appeal the extradition order.

He doesn't think Wednesday's news about Assange will deflate support for WikiLeaks, Assange, Manning or the effort to leak documents online in any forum.

"I certainly feel that Assange has done, on balance, a very great service to our country and the world with these disclosures he has published," Ellsberg said. "That doesn't mean that I agree with every decision that he has made, or that he's made no mistakes."

Ellsberg called Assange a "hero" of his.

"I would like to see him continue to operate," he said.

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Feces in San Antonio Restaurants

Several restaurants in San Antonio, Texas, have received bad scores for poor sanitation. Those businesses include La Foccacia Italian Grill, Jack in the Box, and Tutti Frutti Yogurt. The problems include animal feces found in the storage area and food preparation equipment, temperature violations, unsanitary handling of food, flies, and lack of soap or towels in sinks.
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Lindsay Lohan returns to court's hot seat

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Lindsay Lohan will sit in a familiar seat in front of a Los Angeles County judge who is considering sending her to jail for violating probation Wednesday.

The actress is once again facing a probation violation hearing that could end with Lohan in handcuffs for the ride with deputies to jail.

Lohan's probation on a necklace theft conviction was revoked last month after Judge Stephanie Sautner ruled the actress failed to comply with the community service sentence she imposed in May.

She was allowed to post a $100,000 bond and remain free until this week's probation revocation hearing, with the provision that she work at least two days a week at the county morgue.

Lohan, 25, entered a guilty plea in May to stealing a necklace from a Venice, California jewelry story. She was already on probation for two drunken driving convictions from 2007.

Although Sautner sentenced Lohan to 120 days in jail, along with the community service, it translated into just 35 days of home confinement that ended on June 29. Jail overcrowding and state rules that give credit for good behavior for prisoners allowed for the shortened term.

But the judge, who showed anger at Lohan's repeated probation violations, could order her to serve a longer portion of her time in jail.

Lohan was supposed to be performing community service at a downtown Los Angeles women's center, but the judge said she posted nine excused absences at the center since her last court hearing on July 21 -- and performed, at most, only two hours of service.

Lohan's attempt to perform community service at a nearby Red Cross facility was voided because the judge said she didn't authorize that change.

"I am revoking her probation," the judge said, adding "Ms. Lohan's decision made it deliberately impossible to perform" her community service.

At one point during the hearing, Los Angeles city attorneys Lisa Houle and Melanie Chavira asked the court to revoke Lohan's probation and impose jail time because of Lohan's failure to do the community service. One of the city attorneys charged in court that Lohan "is in violation for getting herself kicked out of the women's center, which she was ordered to do."

But Lohan attorney Shawn Holley told the court that Lohan received "a glowing" probation report, which said that "Ms. Lohan has reached a turning point" in her behavior and maturity.

The judge raised several questions about the reliability of that report, however.

Sautner remarked how the probation report showed Lohan had excused absences from community service between September 9 and October 5 so that Lohan could travel to New York, Milan, and Paris for work.

But Lohan's psychologist's report stated that Lohan had perfect attendance every week, the judge observed.

"The psychologist said she appeared in person for her counseling every Tuesday," the judge said. "I don't know how she did that."

"Did she go to Milan for five days and come back in time or go to Paris for five days and come back in time?" the judge asked the defense attorney.

"If she was gone from September 9 to October 5, did she get beamed across the pond? I don't know how that happened," the judge said.

Lohan publicist Steven Honig later released a statement: "Lindsay is hoping this matter will be resolved on November 2 and the court will reinstate probation and allow her to continue fulfilling her community service."

Her legal woes, which began four years ago with two drunk driving arrests, have been compounded by her failure to attend counseling classes, and alcohol and drug test failures.

Her probation is scheduled to end within a year unless Lohan breaks any laws before then. It has been extended several times because of probation violations, including the failed alcohol and drug tests.

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Greek cabinet backs bailout referendum

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has called for a referendum on the EU bailout deal and a vote of confidence on his government.

ATHENS (CNN) -- Greece's cabinet voted Wednesday to support Prime Minister George Papandreou's call to hold a referendum as soon as possible about the latest bailout plan, ministers coming out of the meeting told a CNN affiliate.

The vote was unanimous, though some of the ministers expressed criticism prior to casting their votes, CNN affiliate Mega Channel reported.

The cabinet vote came hours before German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and senior figures from the International Monetary Fund and European Union were to meet Wednesday with Greek officials at an emergency meeting in Cannes, France, ahead of the G20 summit.

Their meeting comes a day after U.S. and European stock markets tumbled after Papandreou's call for the referendum on international aid for his country.

A "no" vote could theoretically force Greece to crash out of the euro and send shock waves through the global financial system.

Papandreou is seeking public backing from the Greek people for last week's bailout deal, which took months to reach.

But the move created turmoil in domestic politics, with Papandreou forced to hold an emergency Cabinet meeting late Tuesday, and angered his European counterparts.

Sarkozy and Merkel issued a terse statement on Tuesday saying they were "determined to ensure the full implementation, without delay, of decisions adopted by the summit, which are necessary now more than ever."

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Greek surprise sends shock waves through markets

Athens, Greece (CNN) -- Stock markets in the United States and Europe dropped dramatically Tuesday after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou stunned the world by calling a national referendum on international aid for his country.

The referendum could theoretically force Greece to crash out of the euro and send shock waves through the global financial system.

Papandreou is seeking public backing for the bail-out deal, which took months to hammer out. The deal would see the country's sky-high debts cut in half, but it comes with strings attached which have led to angry demonstrations in the streets of Greece.

International lenders are demanding that Athens raise taxes, sell off state-owned companies, and slash government spending -- which means firing tens of thousands of state workers.

German and French markets were down more than 4% in afternoon trading Tuesday, and the Dow Jones plunged more than 250 points at the opening before recovering very slightly.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will discuss Europe's debt crisis with German Chancellor Angela Merkel by phone Tuesday, his office announced.

The announcement of the referendum rattled Papandreou's hold on power Tuesday, as a lawmaker defected from his party, leaving him with a majority of only two in Parliament.

Milena Apostolaki announced her resignation from the PASOK party, saying the call for a referendum was "a deeply divisive procedure."

The European debt crisis claimed its first American victim shortly before Papandreou announced the referendum on Monday, as MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection, leaving top Wall Street creditors holding more than $2 billion in debt.

The commodities and derivatives broker was run by ex-Sen. Jon Corzine, a former head of Goldman Sachs.

Greece's opposition leader Antonis Samaras called for snap elections Tuesday, but it is unlikely he has the votes to force one.

Papandreou has called for a vote of confidence later this week, separate from his call for a referendum on the international bail-out.

One expert called the surprise plan for a referendum "a political gamble which adds further uncertainty to the European debt crisis."

"The prime minister will be hoping for a vote in favor to strengthen his mandate, but if the Greek population votes against, it will leave the IMF and Greece's European partners in a very difficult situation," said Gary Jenkins of Evolution Securities.

The planned referendum casts a shadow on a hard-fought deal that would allow Greece to write off much as 50% of its debts to banks.

The agreement for private lenders to scrap half of Greece's debt is worth 100 billion euros to Athens, and comes along with a promise of 30 billion euros from the public sector to help pay off some of the remaining debts, making the whole deal worth 130 billion euros ($178 billion).

No date has been set on the vote, although local press reports say the referendum could come in January. A "no" vote threatens to unravel the deal, which was greeted with fanfare last week as way to keep debt woes in Greece and other European nations from spilling across other borders, threatening the 17 nations united under the euro currency.

A weekend survey in Greece found nearly 60% opposed the debt deal reached in Brussels last week.

But other surveys have shown a more complicated picture.

A survey by Kappa Research for the newspaper To Vima last week showed a majority of Greeks wanted a referendum on the international rescue plan, and that more would oppose it than accept it.

But in the same survey, 70% of Greeks wanted to stay in the euro, according to RBS European Economics -- a result that may not be possible if they vote no on the referendum.

"Clearly opens a can of worms because the referendum vote could go one of two ways," said Frederic Neumann, a senior economist for HSBC.

"If approved, a vote of confidence in government's handling of the situation ... if calmer heads prevail and it can rationally be explained to the public, I wouldn't discount the measure being approved.

"The problems for the markets, until the referendum is passed, there is added uncertainty. That's just an added headache."

Besides the Greek debt reduction plan, last week's EU deal pledged to quadruple the EU's bailout fund to about $1.38 trillion and raise the capital required to help cushion the region's banks from financial shocks.

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Northeast recovers from October storm

Boston (CNN) -- Widespread power outages and transit delays marked the start of a challenging week for millions of residents of the Northeastern United States, where a freak October snowstorm dropped more than 2 feet of snow in some places.

Close to 1.7 million customers in five states remained without power Monday evening, and officials warned it could be Friday before power is back on everywhere.

Utilities throughout the region reported significant progress in restoring power, but the cold, snowy conditions and house-by-house nature of the damage was slowing work, officials said.

At least 13 deaths have been blamed on the weekend storm, which prompted emergency declarations from the governors of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, and also put Halloween trick-or-treating plans in jeopardy.

President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Connecticut on Monday, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts.

About a dozen Massachusetts cities have postponed Halloween celebrations, according to CNN affiliate WGGB.

At least 20 Connecticut cities and towns, including the capital city of Hartford, canceled events or asked parents to wait until later to take their kids trick-or-treating, according to CNN affiliate WFSB-TV. Even Gov. Dannel Malloy and his wife, Cathy, said they will be leaving the lights off.

"No amount of candy is worth a potentially serious or even fatal accident," the governor said in a statement.

In Worcester, Massachusetts, officials asked residents to postpone celebrations until Thursday, when temperatures are expected to climb to 60 degrees. Trick-or-treating, the city said, would "put families and our youth in harm's way as they negotiate piles of snow and downed limbs."

In Springfield, Massachusetts, school officials announced classes would be canceled for the week.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick said some roads in the state are expected to ice up again after dark, and he warned that downed power lines continue to pose a threat.

"It was a particular challenge not just because it comes unseasonably soon, but because there are leaves on many of the trees, which caused a number of limbs to come down on power lines," he said.

Some of the heaviest snow fell in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, but snowfall amounts of at least a foot were recorded from West Virginia to Maine. The Berkshire County community of Peru, Massachusetts, received 32 inches of snow during the storm.

"I never have seen this, and I've lived here all my life, and that's more than 90 years," 92-year-old Genevieve Murphy of Westfield, Massachusetts, said in an interview with CNN affiliate WWLP-TV.

Aaron Kershaw in Mahopac, New York, about 50 miles north of Manhattan, told CNN he was using a 4,000-watt generator to provide power for his family of five.

The wet, heavy snow brought down a number of trees while coating the area in a thick blanket of white.

"Thank God no homes, cars, people, etc. were harmed," he said. "But Mother Nature left us beautiful scenery."

About 1,300 people were staying in Massachusetts shelters, state officials said. In Connecticut, 50 shelters were open, Malloy said.

With no electricity and no heat at home, Jessica Taylor took her six children and spent the night in a shelter in the Hartford area.

"We've been eating meals here," she told CNN affiliate WTIC-TV. "They've been serving us, taking good care of us."

Connecticut power officials said Monday that about 748,000 people were still without power, down from a peak of more than 900,000.

"It's all hands on deck," said Mitch Gross, a spokesman Connecticut Light and Power, the state's largest utility. "We have a lot of work to do."

Power crews from across the country are converging on the state to help restore power, according to Gross, who said every town that Connecticut Light and Power serves was adversely affected in some way by the storm.

In Massachusetts, state officials said utility crews had come from as far as Louisiana and Texas to help. Patrick said utility crews had made a 23% dent in the number of buildings without power as of Monday morning.

"A 23% reduction overnight is pretty great, but we have a whole lot more to do and a few days yet before power will be restored to everyone," Patrick said.

About 478,000 people remained without power Monday evening, according to officials.

Elsewhere, about 202,000 customers were without power in Pennsylvania; 116,000 in New Jersey and 127,000 in New York, according to figures from emergency managers and power companies in those states. Thousands also lost power in New Hampshire, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

Kimberly Lindner of Chappaqua, New York, said the family whiled away the hours by building a "jack-snow-lantern."

"It's October, and there are 12 inches of snow on the ground," she said in a submission to CNN's iReport. "But the kids think it's great. They've been playing outside all day and really don't care that there is no power. Why not make the best of things and have some family time in the snow? A snowman without a head, a jack-o'-lantern without a body ... enough said."

For others, however, the unexpected storm brought unexpected misery. Airline passengers left stranded by the storm spent a restless weekend night on cots or airport floors.

"Whatever kind of system they had, it completely and utterly broke down," said passenger Fatimah Dahandari, who spent a night in Hartford, Connecticut's, Bradley International Airport while trying to get to New York. "It looks like a refugee camp in here."

Passengers stuck on jet for hours

As of Monday, authorities reported at least 13 deaths attributed to the storm.

Three people died in Massachusetts, Patrick said, including a Lunenberg resident who died in a fire and a resident of Hatfield who succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, apparently from an improperly vented generator.

The third death happened in Springfield when a man in his 20s ignored police barricades surrounding downed power lines and touched a metal guardrail, which was charged, city fire department spokesman Dennis Legere said.

At least four people died in Pennsylvania -- two of them in a crash Sunday on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia, CNN affiliate KYW-TV reported. A third death happened in Temple, when an 84-year-old man was resting in his recliner Saturday and part of a large, snow-filled tree fell into his house and killed him, according to a state police report. The fourth death was blamed on carbon monoxide poisoning, after the victim in Lehigh County used a charcoal grill to heat a home, said Ruth Miller, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

Four people also died in New Jersey because of the storm, police said. Two were killed in motor vehicle accidents, one in Bergen County and one in Passaic County, while two others died after trees fell on their cars.

In Connecticut, two people died, including a motorist involved in a traffic accident in Hebron.

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Trichet retires after rough 8 years

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Monday marks the last day on the job for European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet, after a bumpy eight-year ride characterized by the Great Recession and Europe's ongoing debt crisis.

In an interview with CNNi's Richard Quest airing Monday, Trichet reflects on the tough decisions he faced in the uncharted territory of both crises.

"It's been very physically demanding and very demanding intellectually of course, but for all of us," Trichet told Quest.

During his eight years in the top post, the Frenchman became known for his stubborn focus on taming inflation. The euro zone's inflation rate fluctuated wildly amid the Great Recession, but over the rest of his term, Trichet was largely able to keep the rate near an average of 2%, the ECB's target.

"We are faithful to our mandate and our mandate has been delivered," Trichet said, referencing the central bank's mandate to maintain price stability.

While no central bank was quick enough to prevent the housing bubble and bust, the ECB started to see cracks in the system in 2007 and was the first to start pumping additional funds into financial markets starting in August of that year.

At the time, Trichet was heavily criticized for the move, but as other central banks including the Federal Reserve started to follow suit in the days that followed, it quickly became apparent that the housing market was headed for a meltdown, and the ECB's fears were justified.

"We could not imagine Lehman Brothers," Trichet said. "We could not imagine what would come, but we knew that it was big. It was a big thing which was starting, and our diagnosis was because it was a big thing, we had to take commensurate decisions."

As the crisis ensued, Trichet was much more hesitant to ease monetary policy than his counterparts abroad and he garnered backlash for cutting interest rates at a slower pace than both the Fed and the Bank of England.

Later amid Europe's escalating debt crisis, he once again was questioned as the bank shifted into an unprecedented mode of buying up bonds from some of the region's most indebted countries.

"The main lesson we can draw from the present crisis, is that we should never let the financial system -- and by way of consequence, the real economy -- to be that fragile," he told Quest. "It is that fragility of the system which made the collapse of one institution capable of triggering the house of cards to fall down."

The euro zone consisted of 12 countries when Trichet started his ECB term in 2003, but has since grown to include an additional five. Trichet previously served as the head of France's central bank and an alternate governor to the International Monetary Fund.

He now passes the baton to Italy's central bank governor Mario Draghi, who will preside over his first policymaking meeting as ECB president on Thursday.

For the full interview, please tune into Quest Means Business on CNNi at 3:30 p.m. ET and 11:30 p.m. ET Monday.

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Why it's so hard to keep weight off

(Health.com) -- Losing weight is hard, but keeping the pounds off can be even harder.

By some estimates, as many as 80% of overweight people who manage to slim down noticeably after a diet gain some or all of the weight back within one year.

A shortage of willpower may not be the only reason for this rebound weight gain. According to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine, hunger-related hormones disrupted by dieting and weight loss can remain at altered levels for at least a year, fueling a heartier-than-normal appetite and thwarting the best intentions of dieters.

"Maintaining weight loss may be more difficult than losing weight," says lead researcher Joseph Proietto, Ph.D., a professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne's Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, in Victoria, Australia. "This may be due to biological changes rather than [a] voluntary return to old habits."

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Scientists have known for years that hormones found in the gut, pancreas, and fatty tissue strongly influence body weight and processes such as hunger and calorie burning. And the reverse is also true: A drop in body fat percentage, for instance, causes a decrease in the levels of certain hormones (such as leptin, which signals to your brain when you're full) and an increase in others (such as ghrelin, which stimulates hunger).

What wasn't so well known, until now, was whether these changes in hormone levels persist after an individual loses weight. To find out, Proietto and his colleagues put 50 overweight or obese men and women on a very low-calorie diet for 10 weeks, then tracked their hormone levels for one year.

The average weight loss during the initial diet period was about 30 pounds, which for most of the participants represented at least 10% of their starting body weight. (Seven people who did not meet this target were dismissed from the study.) Blood tests showed that average levels of several hormones (including leptin, ghrelin, and insulin) had changed as a result of the weight loss. As expected, the participants also reported being hungrier -- both before and after breakfast -- than they had been at the study's start.

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At the 10-week mark the participants were allowed to resume a normal diet, but they continued to receive periodic advice from a dietitian and were also encouraged to get 30 minutes of exercise most days of the week. One year later, they'd regained about 12 pounds, on average, and follow-up tests showed that their hormone levels had only partially stabilized. Their hunger levels remained elevated as well.

The results aren't surprising, says Charles Burant, M.D., the director of the University of Michigan Nutrition Obesity Research Center, in Ann Arbor, who was not involved in the research. In fact, he says, the hormone changes seen in the study are a well-known evolutionary survival tactic.

"Multiple mechanisms have been developed, over eons of evolution, to get you to regain weight once you lose it...to tell your brain you're hungry and to ensure that you don't stop eating," he says. "If you don't have those drives, you wouldn't be alive."

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But now that we live in a world where calories are so easily consumed and physical exercise -- the best way to burn off those calories -- is largely unnecessary for day-to-day survival, these biological drives are backfiring and contributing to obesity, Burant says.

That's not to say that weight regain is inevitable, or that these drives can't be overcome through willpower. Although the hormone changes noted in the study are very real physical effects, Proietto says, personality and psychological factors may play a role in an individual's ability to manage chronic hunger.

"This may explain why some people maintain weight loss for longer than others," he says. "Maintenance of weight loss requires continued vigilance and conscious effort to resist hunger."

Promising research is being done to discover ways to restore hormone levels in people who lose weight, Burant says. Preliminary studies from Columbia University, for example, have found that when dieters are injected with replacement leptin hormones, it's easier for them to maintain or continue weight loss.

"When diabetics don't have enough insulin in their bodies, we give them back insulin in order to maintain their blood glucose," Burant says. Researchers should be finding a way to do the same for people who have lost weight, he adds, "whether it's with a drug, a dietary supplement, or certain nutrients something that will stimulate the release of these hormones."

Proietto agrees that finding an appetite suppressant of this sort is the next logical step in hormone and obesity research. Until then, he says, weight-loss surgery is a possible option for some severely obese people who have not been able to keep weight off by other methods.

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Don't call our satellite 'space junk'

New Haven, Connecticut (CNN) -- Last weekend, another large piece of "space junk" tumbled to Earth, perhaps in Southeast Asia. Many people -- if they noted the event at all -- probably worried about being hit on the head, even though the odds are overwhelmingly against such a catastrophe (trillions to one).

But for thousands of astrophysicists around the world, the German Roentgen satellite ("ROSAT") was no mere rubbish; it was an old and important friend. Launched in 1990, a few months after the better known Hubble Space Telescope, ROSAT provided images of the sky in X-rays (very short wavelength light), as opposed to the red-green-blue light visible with Hubble, meaning it could see the most energetic phenomena in the Universe. Plus ROSAT had better image quality than any X-ray satellite had before, an improvement comparable to the superiority of Hubble imaging compared to ground-based telescopes.

A few thousand astronomers worldwide used ROSAT to study the universe, discovering where black holes are growing, when massive clusters of galaxies formed, and how neutron stars and black holes in our Milky Way Galaxy behave.

I used ROSAT to study the wildly varying emission from "jets" of energetic particles emanating from the central black holes in distant galaxies. These particles are far more energetic than those produced in man-made terrestrial accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider.

Others made exquisite images of the remnants of stellar explosions ("supernova remnants" like IC443) or mapped the hot gases held by gravity in the space between dense clusters of galaxies or indeed to image the entire sky.

One totally unexpected discovery was that comets -- cold balls of ice heated by the Sun as they whiz past -- are strong X-ray emitters, thanks to the interaction of energetic particles from the Sun with the gaseous material around the comet. The same physics explains X-ray light seen from the dark side of the moon, which otherwise shadows the bright all sky X-ray glow from growing black holes.

Dr. Guenther Hasinger, the recently appointed Director of the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii, began his career working on the ROSAT project. His planning kept the satellite working long after two gyros failed early in the mission, and he developed as a scientist using ROSAT to make very deep pictures of the X-ray sky, so he found the satellite's demise an especially poignant moment. "We recently moved to Hawaii from Germany," he said, "and while unpacking the family's shipping container" he found his miniature ROSAT model. It now sits on his desk at the Institute, next to a piece of the spare detector housing. "I definitely felt an emotional attachment to this project," he admitted.

Astrophysicists in the U.S. and beyond made excellent use of ROSAT's capabilities, finding some 110,000 new X-ray sources (galaxies, stars, comets, etc.) and making X-ray observations an integral part of every astronomer's toolkit.

The project had spinoff value as well: techniques used to manufacture ROSAT's mirror surfaces were later applied to making ordinary optical lenses. Your bifocals might have been made using ROSAT technology. It may be "space junk" to some, but its benefits are riding on a lot of noses.

Twenty years ago, experts in Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom collaborated to build and launch the ROSAT satellite. These days, international collaboration in X-ray astronomy has become the norm, with the Japanese and European space agencies as major partners with NASA. Transcending political boundaries, decisions about what a satellite observes are based on scientific merit, not national origin.

NASA scientist Dr. Rob Petre (no relation to the Dick van Dyke character) helped decide the annual program of ROSAT observations. Each year, scientists would submit hundreds of proposals outlining their plans for the telescope, which were then ranked competitively. Only a small fraction were approved. For every scientist granted precious ROSAT observing time, the re-entry last weekend had to sting.

Dr. Petre was definitely chagrined to hear ROSAT referred to as "space junk" in news stories. "That was really depressing," he said, "when it was such a huge scientific success."

But he wasn't worried about falling debris landing on inhabited places, even though, like the UARS satellite a few weeks earlier, big pieces of ROSAT (the glass mirrors) were expected to hit the ground before burning up completely. Most of the Earth's surface is covered by oceans and most of Earth's land masses are unoccupied, so the odds of falling space debris causing damage are miniscule -- which is why space agencies do not go to the expense of planning controlled re-entries. Dr. Hasinger estimates that space debris as large as ROSAT falls to Earth every few weeks, almost all of it unreported and unnoticed.

Last weekend, somewhere on Earth, the ROSAT re-entry must have made beautiful "shooting stars" streaking across the sky. But the fact that there are no eyewitness reports underscores the fact that most of the planet -- especially our oceans -- is uninhabited.

So the ROSAT fall from the heavens may not have been witnessed, but the satellite certainly is remembered.

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'Occupy' demonstrators battle wind and cold as storm moves in

New York (CNN) -- Demonstrators encamped in a Lower Manhattan park faced New York's first snow storm of the season Saturday without the benefit of propane tanks and generators that they had been using to cook food and keep warm.

"It's pretty dirty, and we're all freezing cold," said Alec Courtney, who says he runs a shoe-shine stand at the city's Zuccotti Park to make money. "We just try to huddle together."

Courtney, a resident of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, says he's been camping at the park for the past 20 days and plans to stay there -- despite the inclement weather -- to support "the cause."

The group has rallied against what it describes as corporate greed while asserting that the nation's wealthiest 1% hold inordinate sway over the remaining 99% of the population.

A day earlier, up to 40 firefighters removed the group's propane tanks and six generators, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. That left the demonstrators to battle the cold weather seeping through their tents, blankets and sleeping bags.

"These are fire hazards (and) against the law," Bloomberg said during his weekly WOR-AM radio show Friday. "Our first concern is safety."

Demonstrators described the removal as an attempt to restrict Internet use and make their lives more difficult as a cold front moved into the region.

Early cold blast hits Northeast

The early season snowstorm was the result of unseasonably cold air mixing with a storm system on the East Coast. Forecasters predicted power outages and downed trees in some areas.

Zuccotti Park -- the Occupy Wall Street movement's original home base in the city's financial district -- appeared soaked and windswept by late Saturday afternoon, as protesters battled the elements and huddled inside tents to keep warm and dry.

Despite such challenges and recent crackdowns against demonstrators nationwide, the loosely defined "Occupy" movement does not appear to be losing steam.

Police fired pepper spray and used pepper-ball guns against demonstrators in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday.

Protesters there tried to occupy the Colorado Capitol, which is not allowed, and officers pushed them back, police spokesman Matt Murray said.

At that point, officers moved toward an encampment to remove tents that had been set up illegally, he said. One officer was knocked off his motorcycle and injured, while two others were kicked in the head during the ensuing melee, according to Murray. Seven people were arrested.

Murray said police are telling protesters they can stay, but their tents have to go.

"All we're trying to do is have a peaceful protest and they (the police) are attacking us," protester Sean Drigger told CNN affiliate KUSA.

In Seattle, protesters marched through the city and set up camp at Seattle Central Community College, what they described as their new base.

In Nashville, Tennessee, authorities arrested more than two dozen protesters overnight Saturday, after they again defied a curfew imposed by the state's governor.

Twenty-six people received citations for trespassing, while two others were cited for public intoxication, according to Tennessee public safety spokeswoman Dalya Qualls.

One other person was handed a citation for criminal impersonation of a law enforcement officer, she said.

On Thursday, Oakland, California, Mayor Jean Quan apologized for authorities' confrontations with demonstrators, who were tear-gassed. The clashes led to the hospitalization of an Iraq war veteran.

Marine veteran Scott Olsen suffered a skull fracture Tuesday night after allegedly being struck by a tear gas canister in Oakland, according to witnesses.

Olsen has become an icon of the "Occupy" movement, which remains active from coast to coast.

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'Occupy' demonstrators battle wind and cold as storm moves in

New York (CNN) -- Demonstrators encamped in a Lower Manhattan park faced New York's first snow storm of the season Saturday without the benefit of propane tanks and generators that they had been using to cook food and keep warm.

"It's pretty dirty, and we're all freezing cold," said Alec Courtney, who says he runs a shoe-shine stand at the city's Zuccotti Park to make money. "We just try to huddle together."

Courtney, a resident of the New York City borough of Brooklyn, says he's been camping at the park for the past 20 days and plans to stay there -- despite the inclement weather -- to support "the cause."

The group has rallied against what it describes as corporate greed while asserting that the nation's wealthiest 1% hold inordinate sway over the remaining 99% of the population.

A day earlier, up to 40 firefighters removed the group's propane tanks and six generators, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. That left the demonstrators to battle the cold weather seeping through their tents, blankets and sleeping bags.

"These are fire hazards (and) against the law," Bloomberg said during his weekly WOR-AM radio show Friday. "Our first concern is safety."

Demonstrators described the removal as an attempt to restrict Internet use and make their lives more difficult as a cold front moved into the region.

Early cold blast hits Northeast

The early season snowstorm was the result of unseasonably cold air mixing with a storm system on the East Coast. Forecasters predicted power outages and downed trees in some areas.

Zuccotti Park -- the Occupy Wall Street movement's original home base in the city's financial district -- appeared soaked and windswept by late Saturday afternoon, as protesters battled the elements and huddled inside tents to keep warm and dry.

Despite such challenges and recent crackdowns against demonstrators nationwide, the loosely defined "Occupy" movement does not appear to be losing steam.

Police fired pepper spray and used pepper-ball guns against demonstrators in Denver, Colorado, on Saturday.

Protesters there tried to occupy the Colorado Capitol, which is not allowed, and officers pushed them back, police spokesman Matt Murray said.

At that point, officers moved toward an encampment to remove tents that had been set up illegally, he said. One officer was knocked off his motorcycle and injured, while two others were kicked in the head during the ensuing melee, according to Murray. Seven people were arrested.

Murray said police are telling protesters they can stay, but their tents have to go.

"All we're trying to do is have a peaceful protest and they (the police) are attacking us," protester Sean Drigger told CNN affiliate KUSA.

In Seattle, protesters marched through the city and set up camp at Seattle Central Community College, what they described as their new base.

In Nashville, Tennessee, authorities arrested more than two dozen protesters overnight Saturday, after they again defied a curfew imposed by the state's governor.

Twenty-six people received citations for trespassing, while two others were cited for public intoxication, according to Tennessee public safety spokeswoman Dalya Qualls.

One other person was handed a citation for criminal impersonation of a law enforcement officer, she said.

On Thursday, Oakland, California, Mayor Jean Quan apologized for authorities' confrontations with demonstrators, who were tear-gassed. The clashes led to the hospitalization of an Iraq war veteran.

Marine veteran Scott Olsen suffered a skull fracture Tuesday night after allegedly being struck by a tear gas canister in Oakland, according to witnesses.

Olsen has become an icon of the "Occupy" movement, which remains active from coast to coast.

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U.S. Army officer to be tried for alleged Afghan sport killings

Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington (CNN) -- It didn't take long for Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs to make an impression on his soldiers.

Gibbs, the new leader of 3rd Platoon, part of the Army's 5th Stryker Brigade, had served a previous tour in Iraq and another in Afghanistan, and at 6 feet 4 inches and 220 pounds, towered over most of the platoon members.

Gibbs took over the platoon, stationed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in November, 2009. It was a low point for the group: A massive roadside bomb had injured their previous leader and left the team rattled. Gibbs wasn't rattled though.

And, as several of his fellow soldiers would later testify, Gibbs promised his men they would have a chance to exact revenge on the "savages," referring to the Afghan civilian population they were meant to protect.

Nearly two years later, Gibbs, 26, faces a military court martial on Friday for numerous charges, including the murder of three Afghan civilians.

He is the highest ranking soldier charged in what prosecutors say was a rogue "kill squad" that allegedly targeted Afghan civilians and made the deaths look like casualties of Taliban counterattacks.

He has also been charged with removing body parts from his alleged victims, such as teeth and fingers, to keep as souvenirs; planting "drop weapons" to fake attacks on soldiers; and intimidating several of his own unit members from speaking out against the unit's alleged murder plots and rampant drug use.

After his May 2010 arrest in Afghanistan, Gibbs showed investigators a tattoo on his lower left leg depicting crossed pistols and five skulls. He told investigators the skulls were a way to keep track of his kills in both Iraq and Afghanistan, according to investigative interview notes shown to CNN.

Gibbs has pleaded not guilty. His attorney Phillip Stackhouse did not respond to CNN's requests for comment. Stackhouse said in a preliminary hearing this summer that Gibbs acted lawfully and that other soldiers who have testified against him were unreliable witnesses.

Gibbs, a Billings, Montana, native who is married with a young son, faces life in a military prison. His trial is expected to last a week.

Twelve soldiers from the Army's 5th Stryker Brigade have been charged in the case, including five with murder. Three of the soldiers charged with murder -- Spc. Adam Winfield, Pvt. Jeremy Morlock, and Pfc. Andrew Holmes -- have pleaded guilty in exchange for their testimony. Spc. Michael Wagnon has pleaded not guilty to a single charge of murder, and awaits court martial.

Several of the soldiers charged in the case documented the alleged murders through unsanctioned photographs of the bodies. In one of the photos, soldiers hold up a dead man's head and pose alongside the corpse, like a hunting trophy.

In March, these photos were obtained and published by German publication Der Spiegel and Rolling Stone magazine, generating comparisons to the Abu Ghraib scandal, and causing the Army to issue an apology.

Prosecutors have portrayed Gibbs as the kill squad's alleged ringleader. But according to testimony in the court martials of other soldiers, he didn't have to push many of the soldiers very hard to take part in the killings which he referred to as "scenarios."

"It wasn't a completely new conversation," Pvt. Jeremy Morlock testified during a July hearing. "It wasn't far-fetched. Rolling around our minds I guess."

Getting away with murder

Gibbs openly discussed how easy it would be to kill Afghan civilians and then make them appear as if they were insurgents, other soldiers have testified. They said they thought Gibbs was joking.

Morlock said the alleged "kill squad" soldiers carried out the executions spur of the moment.

"There was never anything planned," he testified. "Like this date or this time. We found an opportunity."

Video: Morlock details killing to investigator

The first "opportunity," Morlock testified, came in January 2010 during a patrol of a village called La Mohammad Kalay. Morlock told investigators that he and another soldier, Pfc. Andrew Holmes, spotted a teenage farmer named Gul Mudin alone in a field. They beckoned him closer.

"I could see his hands were empty," Holmes testified. "He didn't have a weapon."

Morlock testified he then threw a grenade and ordered Holmes to open fire. The blast ripped the man apart. Morlock testified that the grenade was "off the books" -- one that couldn't be traced back to him. It was, he said, given to him by Sgt. Gibbs.

As Mudin lay dying, Morlock and Holmes later testified, they told fellow soldiers the Afghan farmer had tried to attack them with the grenade. Against military regulations, the men posed for photographs with their "kill."

Both Morlock and Holmes pleaded guilty as part of separate plea deals with prosecutors. Morlock is serving a 24-year sentence for killing Mudin, and two other unarmed Afghan men, and Holmes was sentenced to seven years in military prison.

Holmes' mother: Where was the Army?

Morlock testified that he boasted about the shooting. Soon, word spread about the alleged "kill squad" among their fellow soldiers on base and even among some family members back home.

"People in my platoon ... can get away with murder," Spc. Adam Winfield wrote his father on Facebook on February 14, 2010. "Everyone pretty much knows it was staged."

Chris Winfield was stunned when he read his son's message. He tried to report his son's account and even, he said, called Joint Base Lewis-McChord where the division is based.

He said his warnings were not heeded.

Adam Winfield testified that he later told his father that he was afraid for his own life and not to seek any more scrutiny for the unit's alleged activities.

'They were not posing any threat to us'

In February 2010, the squad went on a mission to a village called Kari Kheyl. There, Gibbs, Morlock and Spc. Michael Wagnon entered the hut of man a named Marach Agha. They ordered Agha outside and then, according to Morlock, Gibbs turned to the other two soldiers.

"'Were we okay to go ahead and shoot this guy?'" Gibbs asked the soldiers, according to Morlock's testimony. "We said 'yeah.'"

Gibbs first fired a contraband AK-47 into a wall, Morlock said, to simulate enemy fire. Then with his M4 rifle, Gibbs shot Agha, Morlock testified. Morlock said he and Wagnon also fired rounds to make it appear as if the soldiers had been attacked first.

Wagnon is charged with Agha's killing and has pleaded not guilty.

In March 2010, while on patrol, Gibbs spotted two Afghan men who he said were carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. But what the men held was actually a shovel, Staff Sgt. Robert G. Stevens, a medic who was also on the patrol, later testified.

"They were not posing any threat to us," Stevens said. Gibbs ordered the soldiers to shoot them, according to Stevens. The medic told the court he intentionally shot 75 yards away from the Afghans, who fled.

"Sgt. Gibbs said we needed to work on our accuracy," Stevens testified, "Because it did not appear that we hit anyone."

As part of a plea deal, Stevens was sentenced to nine months in prison for that incident and for faking an insurgent attack on a nighttime Army vehicle convoy with a grenade.

After he threw the grenade, Stevens testified, soldiers in the convoy fired at nearby Afghan huts. Stevens said he did not believe any Afghans were hit. None of the soldiers in the convoy were injured by explosion.

Combat decorations awarded to the soldiers were later rescinded after investigators discovered Stevens had thrown the grenade.

Stevens testified that Sgt. Gibbs gave him the grenade hidden in a sock. Also in the sock, Stevens testified, was a human finger.

In May 2010, Gibbs, Morlock and Winfield were among soldiers on a patrol in a village called Qualaday. In the three months since writing his father on Facebook, Winfield had shifted from wanting to expose Gibbs to trying to get into the sergeant's good graces.

Winfield was afraid of his sergeant, he would later testify, and his easy talk of covering up murders in a war zone.

In Qualaday, Winfield testified, the three men singled out a man named Mullah Allah Dad, the local cleric, and led him away from the compound where he lived with his wife and children. Winfield said Gibbs ordered the man to kneel in a ditch.

"I had an idea that Sgt. Gibbs was looking for a kill," Winfield told the court. Then, with Winfield and Morlock shielded behind a low wall, Winfield said Gibbs threw a grenade at Allah Dad. The explosion, he said, ripped the cleric apart.

Morlock and Winfield next opened fire to simulate a firefight and then the soldiers planted a grenade near the man, Winfield testified.

Depressed over his role in the incident, Winfield said he grew afraid that Gibbs might want to silence him. While walking across base to talk with a chaplain, Winfield said Gibbs suddenly intercepted him.

"Sgt. Gibbs reminded me I shouldn't be talking about things I shouldn't be talking about," Winfield testified.

Winfield said Gibbs warned him that he could kill Winfield and make it look like an accident.

Meanwhile Gibbs' behavior was becoming more outlandish, other soldiers said. According to the soldiers who testified at preliminary hearings in Gibbs' case, he showed off fingers and teeth he had removed from corpses and discussed throwing candy onto roads.

The sweets would draw children who they could then run over, he allegedly theorized.

'Kill squad' unravels

The unraveling of the alleged "kill squad" came about not from targeting Afghans but after prosecutors said Gibbs organized an attack on a fellow soldier.

Three days after prosecutors say Gibbs killed Mullah Allah Dad, he and six other soldiers confronted Pfc. Justin Stoner. The soldiers were furious at Stoner for ratting them out for abusing drugs.

According to prosecutors, several of the soldiers used Stoner's room to smoke hashish they bought from Afghan translators. Stoner, according to prosecutors, was afraid he would shoulder all the blame for the drug abuse and complained to superiors

The soldiers began to beat Stoner, prosecutors charged. After the alleged stomp down, according to prosecutors, Gibbs showed Stoner fingers he allegedly cut off the corpses of dead Afghan men

The alleged threat backfired though and Stoner soon was talking about the drug abuse, the beating and killings of civilians to investigators.

Gibbs was arrested in May 2010 in Afghanistan and on Friday, he faces those charges in a military courtroom some 7,000 miles away from the Afghan villages he is accused of terrorizing.

Even though none of the soldiers' officers have been charged for participating in or knowing about the alleged kill squad, they bear some responsibility for the unit's actions, Stjepan Mestrovic, a sociology professor at Texas A&M University told CNN in an interview..

"There was a focus on body counts and aggression throughout the brigade," said Mestrovic who testified for Morlock's defense and was permitted to review documents in the case including a sealed report on what the brigade leadership knew.

Mestrovic described a "dysfunctional command climate" where officers disregarded the military's declared counterinsurgency mission of engaging and winning support with the local population.

"In this climate there was a 'kill board,'" Mestrovic said, describing the way in which units were ranked for how many Taliban they had killed. "They had a brigade commander who wanted a high body count, who was constantly preaching to search out and kill the enemy rather than what they mockingly called 'go and have tea with the village elders.' "

But prior to Gibbs' arrival, the unit hadn't had any kills, Mestrovic said, and was being pushed to be more aggressive with an enemy that preferred to ambush rather than directly engage them.

The soldiers' frustration and boredom became a toxic mix, Jeremy Morlock testified. "We lost fellow soldiers to IEDs and lived in fear of being killed by them on a daily basis. ... I just wanted to survive and come home in one piece," Morlock told the court. "I realize now I wasn't fully prepared for the reality of war as it was being fought in Afghanistan."

"Soldiers were basically left on their own," Mestrovic said. "The distinction between an enemy and a civilian broke down. They saw everyone out there as an enemy."

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