Joplin missing

In Joplin, a push to find missing; reconnect families

A large metal cross soars above the ruin of the Catholic church, a beacon in a Joplin, Missouri, neighborhood made unrecognizable by Sunday's powerful tornado.

"If we didn't have faith right now, I don't know how we would get through this," said Sharyn Dawson, while her husband, Jerry, continued the search for his mother, Patricia Dawson, 74, who lived across the street from the church.

As the Dawsons dug through the debris Wednesday afternoon, 25 volunteers from Texas stopped by, helping to move steel trusses from St. Mary's Church that landed in the front yard of the housing unit.
Patricia Dawson has been missing since Sunday, when the twister hit the two-story quadplex in which she was living, her daughter-in-law told CNN. A neighbor was killed, Sharyn Dawson said.

The storm killed at least 125 people, and an estimated 750 people were treated at area hospitals.

The city said Wednesday it had no official tally for the missing.

An undetermined number of people remained unaccounted for Wednesday, after the tornado ravaged phone service, destroyed homes and cars, and gutted the regional hospital.
Gov. Jay Nixon told CNN he ordered 20 more state troopers to Joplin to help speed up the process of identifying remains and assisting people looking for missing loved ones.

Nixon said he acted after he became aware of complaints that the process was moving too slowly and that many families felt they were getting conflicting and confusing information. Such additional resources will help agencies dealing with the magnitude of the disaster, he said.

Nixon told CNN's Anderson Cooper officials were working overnight Wednesday on synthesizing information they can release to families.

About 100 volunteers are cross-referencing lists and cell phone numbers in a bid to reconnect families and determine who is truly missing, Lynn Onstot, Joplin public information officer, said earlier Wednesday.

"We feel like we are getting a better handle on it," Onstot said.

Earlier in the week, Keith Stammer, emergency management director for the city and surrounding Jasper County, told CNN that 1,500 people were unaccounted for.

But "when we open up the area and start letting them come back in ... that number of unaccounted for will start to dwindle," Stammer said.

Joplin officials caution that the 1,500 number doesn't equate to missing.
"This does NOT mean they are injured or deceased, just that loved ones are not aware of their whereabouts," the city said on its Facebook page. "Some people may have been out of area when the storm hit or have since left."

Nixon said he expects the 1,500 number to be much smaller Thursday.

The city is encouraging residents to use its Facebook page, a Red Cross website or call 417-659-5464.

Sharyn Dawson has been impressed by the effort, which has included several agencies.
"They've been amazing, given the colossal task," said Dawson, of Springfield, Missouri.

Since Sunday, some 1,500 people in Joplin have registered at safeandwell.org to let loved ones and acquaintances know their status, said Attie Poirier, media relations associate for the American Red Cross, which operates the site.

Site users have conducted 73,000 searches. They must have a name and a predisaster address or telephone number in order to search, Poirier said.

The effort to locate the missing or unaccounted for has gone viral, with Facebook pages allowing users to exchange information.

One, "Joplin, MO - Missing Persons & Survivors Page," includes photos of those who have not been located. Occasionally, someone posts that a relative or friend has been found.

The "Help Find Will Norton" Facebook page asked volunteers to distribute to local hospitals flyers showing the 18-year-old man, who was ripped from his vehicle during the tornado.

Michael Hare continued his search for son, Lantz, 16, who was last seen before the tornado. "I've got to keep pushing," he told CNN Wednesday evening. "You've got to have hope."

Hare said he can't wait for word from officials and will check other cities to see if his son is hospitalized there.

A heart-lifting reunion between a "John Doe" and his family took place Wednesday at Freeman West Hospital in Joplin.

Hundreds of patients arrived Sunday night at the hospital, among them a critically injured man whose face was swollen and was unable to speak, said Allen Overturf, director of critical care.

The patient had no identity and the staff was going to have state police fingerprint him.

The family of Mark Lindquist had heard of a "John Doe" at the hospital and called, informing them that Lindquist has a distinctive brown spot in the eye.

The match was made.

Later Wednesday, Lindquist's 11-year-old son and sister came to the hospital, where their loved one remained in critical condition.
Source:articles.cnn.com

Peace effort worse off than before?

Obama jolt unlikely to spark Mideast peace talks

Peace effort worse off than before.President Barack Obama is trying to shock the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process to life, but there is little chance the patient can be resuscitated anytime soon.

The two sides are more dug in, further apart and less trustful of each other than at any point since Obama brought Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas together at the White House last September with the goal of reaching a framework deal within a year.

That deadline can't be met now. The architect of the diplomacy that was to make it happen, former Sen. George Mitchell, resigned last week. And Obama has now angered and alienated Israel by endorsing a key Palestinian demand, while at the same time deriding Palestinian attempts to win U.N. recognition for an independent state before a negotiated settlement.

In addition, in his speech Thursday and his comments alongside Netanyahu on Friday, Obama offered no specific ideas on how to relaunch the stalled peace talks, and he ignored many of the most divisive issues separating the two sides. Those include the status of Jerusalem that both claim as a capital and the fate of Palestinian refugees. He also offered no prescription for dealing with a power-sharing agreement between Abbas and the militant group Hamas. Israel has said it will not negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas.

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Obama and Netanyahu kept it positive in public remarks after their meeting Friday, repeating that the U.S.-Israeli alliance is unbreakable and that America remains steadfast in support of Israel's defense.
Story: 'We can't go back': Israeli PM rejects 1967 border proposal

Yet there was no disguising the fundamental issues that divide them and have driven their relationship since almost the moment they both took office in 2009. Aside from presenting a united front in expressing platitudes about the ultimate goal of peace, there was little common ground on how to get there.

"Obviously there are some differences between us in the precise formulations and language," Obama said.

Netanyahu, meanwhile, politely trashed elements of Obama's stand as unrealistic. "A peace based on illusions will crash eventually on the rocks of Middle Eastern reality," he said, and declared that "the only peace that will endure is one that is based on reality, on unshakeable facts."
Video: Obama tries to ease tensions with Israel PM (on this page)

Palestinian President Abbas, meanwhile, has not given his official response to parameters for the Mideast peace deal that Obama laid out in his speech on Thursday.

Since then, Abbas has been consulting by phone with Arab leaders. He was planning to meet with Jordan's King Abdullah II on Saturday and then convene the leaders of the PLO and his Fatah movement later in the week before giving a response, Abbas aide Saeb Erekat said.

Erekat said late Friday that Netanyahu's statements make it clear the Israeli leader is not a partner for peace, suggesting there is no point in returning to negotiations.

"I don't think we can talk about a peace process with a man who says the 1967 lines are an illusion, that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel, undivided, and he does not want a single (Palestinian) refugee to go back," Erekat said. "What is left to negotiate about?"

Tensions over settlements
Tensions between the two have been most evident over Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the administration opposes but Netanyahu refuses to halt. An announcement of new settlement construction last year while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Jerusalem plunged ties to what was then a new low.

Since then, attempts to repair relations have faltered, with Mitchell, the special envoy, unable to secure a settlement freeze from the Israelis or a commitment from the Palestinians to resume negotiations without one. A frustrated Mitchell quit last week.

Obama's declaration Thursday that the borders of a future Palestinian state should be based on 1967 borders — the lines that existed before that year's Six Day War in which Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem — stunned Netanyahu, who insists that the starting point for eventual borders must be negotiated.

Even though Obama made clear that the solution would have to involve territorial swaps agreed to by both sides, his statement removed the subtlety from what had been a vague U.S. position in support of the Palestinians' "goal" on borders and gave it his imprimatur.
Video: Obama, Netanyahu reach 'bottom of disagreement' (on this page)

Netanyahu, informed shortly before Obama's speech of its contents by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, sought in vain to keep border language out, U.S. officials said. Netanyahu was incensed, they said.

Public Israeli outrage was swift.

Netanyahu called the 1967 borders "indefensible" and said he expected Obama to reaffirm support for commitments made by President George W. Bush that demographic realities — meaning the growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank — would not allow a return to the 1967 borders. An aide told reporters accompanying Netanyahu to Washington that Obama did not appear to understand the situation in the Middle East.

The administration's relationship with the Palestinians has also been awkward.

While Obama did endorse the Palestinians' position on borders, he has been frustrated by their refusal to resume talks, irritated by their intense lobbying for the United Nations to recognize a state and concerned by Hamas, which the U.S. and Israel regard as a terrorist group.

In fact, U.S. officials said his endorsement of the 1967 borders was intended to blunt the Palestinian drive at the U.N.
Interactive: Israel's border (on this page)

Yet, his comments rejecting the U.N. bid as essentially a waste of time and stressing the need for the Palestinians to address serious Israeli opposition to Hamas may have given the Palestinians new reasons for intransigence and could embolden them to take harder line positions.

A senior Palestinian official said Saturday that Palestinians will seek recognition as a United Nations member-state in September given the deadlock in U.S.-brokered peacemaking with Israel.

Nabil Shaath urged President Barack Obama to join other countries in endorsing a Palestinian state taking in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Another Palestinian official, Nabil Abu Rdainah, said the drive to win statehood status unilaterally could be forestalled should Israel accept the demand to extend a freeze on its settlement of the West Bank so that negotiations can resume.
Source:www.msnbc.msn.com

'Macho Man' Savage dies

'Macho Man' Savage dies in car wreck

Former pro wrestling star "Macho Man" Randy Savage died at age 58 Friday of injuries suffered in a car accident in Tampa, Fla., TMZ reported.

The Florida Highway Patrol told TMZ that Savage was driving his 2009 Jeep Wrangler when he veered across the center median and struck a tree. He did not hit any oncoming vehicles.

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Savage's brother, Lanny Poffo, told TMZ the wrestling legend suffered a heart attack while behind the wheel.

Savage died of his injuries at Largo Medical Center, TMZ reported.
Savage's wife, Lynn, was a passenger in the vehicle and suffered minor injuries, authorities said. She was treated at a separate hospital.

According to the report, both Savage and his wife were wearing seatbelts, and police say alcohol was not a factor in the crash.

Lanny Poffo, also a former pro wrestler, posted on his website, "In Loving Memory. Randy Mario Poffo November 15, 1952 – May 20, 2011."

Savage, whose real name was Randy Poffo, was one of wrestling's biggest stars through the mid-1980s and 1990s. He retired in 2005.

A native of Sarasota, Fla., Savage signed with World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly known as the WWF) in 1985 and quickly became a fan favorite. He squared off over the next decade with fellow wrestling legends like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Ultimate Warrior and Ric Flair.

Hogan expressed his sadness Friday on Twitter, saying he and Savage had just begun to rekindle their friendship after a decade.

"I'm completely devastated, after over 10 years of not talking with Randy, we've finally started to talk and communicate," Hogan wrote. "He had so much life in his eyes & in his spirit, I just pray that he's happy and in a better place and we miss him. I feel horrible about the ten years of having no communication. This was a tough one."

Using his signature finishing move, the flying elbow drop, the Macho Man won the WWF title for the first time at WrestleMania IV in 1988. Savage moved to World Championship Wrestling in 1994 for a five-year stint. He last wrestled for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2004 and 2005.

Savage married the late Elizabeth Hulette in 1984, and she would later go on to WWF fame as his ring escort, Miss Elizabeth. The couple divorced in 1992 and Savage remarried last May.
Source: msn.foxsports.com

Queen makes historic visit

British queen makes historic peace trip to Ireland

Undeterred by real or fake bombs, Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday began the first visit by a British monarch to the Republic of Ireland, a four-day trip to highlight strong Anglo-Irish relations and the success of Northern Ireland peacemaking.

Resplendent in a cloak of emerald green and a dress of St. Patrick's blue, the 85-year-old queen stepped out from a bombproof, bulletproof Range Rover outside the official residence of Irish President Mary McAleese. Irish Army artillery units fired a 21-gun salute as a military brass band played "God Save the Queen."

The painstakingly choreographed visit has been designed to highlight today's exceptionally strong Anglo-Irish relations and the slow blooming of peace in neighboring Northern Ireland following a three-decade conflict that left 3,700 dead.

The queen arrived 100 years after her grandfather George V visited Dublin and an Ireland that was still part of the British Empire.

Beaming smiles by the queen and McAleese — a Belfast-born Catholic who has spent 14 years lobbying for Elizabeth II to visit — demonstrated genuine warmth between the two women, who have met several times before.

McAleese said Britain and Ireland were "determined to make the future a much, much better place." The queen didn't comment ahead of her planned speech Wednesday night at Dublin Castle, the former seat of British rule of Ireland.

Four fixed-wing propeller aircraft from Ireland's minuscule Air Corps flew overhead in tight formation as a white-gloved, gun-toting honor guard stood to attention.

Inside the president's residence, McAleese introduced the queen and husband Prince Philip to Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny. Outside, the queen introduced the president to British Foreign Minister William Hague. The two leaders then planted a tree as two children rang the residence's Peace Bell.

A 33-motorcycle police escort led the queen to McAleese's residence in Dublin's vast Phoenix Park through the unusually empty streets of Dublin — cleared to ensure no anti-British extremist could launch an attack. Nearby Dublin Zoo was closed as a security precaution and no civilian aircraft were permitted over Dublin for the day.

Irish Republican Army dissidents opposed to reconciliation with Britain still tried to undermine the visit with real and hoax bombs, but they caused no significant disruption.

Irish Army experts overnight defused one pipe bomb on a Dublin-bound bus that was detected in Maynooth, 15 miles (25 kilometers) west of the capital. Police said the bomb was properly constructed but not primed to detonate.

A second device abandoned near a light-rail station in west Dublin was deemed a hoax Tuesday morning. Later, police responded to at least two more reports of suspicious packages in working-class districts of north Dublin, but no further bombs were confirmed.

Police said IRA dissidents using a recognized codeword warned about the bus bomb, which was left in overhead luggage.

Several small IRA splinter groups concentrated along the Irish border continue to plot gun and bomb attacks in Northern Ireland in hopes of undermining the success of its 1998 peace accord, particularly its stable Catholic-Protestant government.

But Irish and British officials were keen to stress that the queen's visit to Dublin, Kildare, Tipperary and Cork would proceed as planned — accompanied by the biggest security operation in the Republic of Ireland's history.

"This is the start of an entirely new beginning for Ireland and Britain," Kenny said. "I really do hope that the welcome she gets will be genuine and memorable for her."

On her first day in Dublin, the queen was also visiting Trinity College — founded in 1592 by her royal namesake, Queen Elizabeth I — and laying a wreath at the Garden of Remembrance, a central Dublin memorial that honors two centuries of Ireland's rebel dead.

The latter gesture has been designed to symbolize Britain's reconciliation with Ireland 90 years after a brutal guerrilla war led to independence for the Catholic south of the island.

More than 8,000 police, two-thirds of the entire country's police force, shut down key roads in central Dublin and erected pedestrian barricades for several miles (kilometers). About 1,000 Irish troops were kept in reserve.

Police made it extremely difficult for protesters to get within sight of any of the queen's engagements. Onlookers were given few vantage points to see the queen unless they had been included in carefully vetted guest lists.

A few dozen supporters of an anti-British pressure group Eirigi — Gaelic for "rise" — scuffled with police on Dublin's major thoroughfare several hundred yards (meters) from the Garden of Remembrance. No serious injuries were reported as police successfully moved the protesters to a fenced-off area.

Britain and Ireland spent decades in frosty opposition following Ireland's 1919-21 war of independence and the creation in 1922 of the Irish Free State. Northern Ireland, created in 1921, remained in the United Kingdom.

Ireland stayed neutral in World War II and offered condolences to Germany over Adolf Hitler's death. It broke all symbolic ties with Britain by declaring itself a republic in 1949 and offered sympathy and a relatively safe haven when the modern IRA in 1970 began shooting and bombing in Northern Ireland.

But after Britain and Ireland joined the European Union in 1973, and as the bloodshed in Northern Ireland spilled over into the Catholic south, the governments in London and Dublin gradually found common cause.

Their cooperation provided the essential bedrock for Belfast's Good Friday peace accord in 1998. IRA disarmament and a coalition government of Northern Ireland's British Protestant majority and its Irish Catholic minority eventually followed.

While the Irish remain proud of their independence, many concede that they are closely linked culturally and economically to their much bigger neighbor.

Today's Ireland is home to 4.5 million residents who watch British television and read newspapers daily, and shop in the British chain stores that dominate Irish retail life.

Many follow English and Scottish soccer with passion while the English, in turn, have made the Emerald Isle a favored tourist destination.

Ireland's struggle to prevent a national bankruptcy — the Irish have spent three years raising taxes and cutting spending, and six months ago received a euro67.5 billion ($95 billion) credit line from international lenders — has found its greatest champion in Britain, its No. 1 trading partner.

Prime Minister David Cameron's government offered Ireland a particularly low-interest loan and is pressing other European Union members to give the Irish a cheaper deal, too.

 Source:news.yahoo.com

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