Ship Stranded: Love Boat to Horror Honeymoon

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


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


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


That is the honeymoon setting for Mowlam and Stevenson.


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


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


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


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


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






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











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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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






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Peru archeologists find ancient temple

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LIMA: Peruvian archaeologists have discovered a temple believed to be about 5,000 years old at the ancient archaeological site of El Paraiso in a valley just north of Lima, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday.

If the date is confirmed, it would be among the oldest sites in the world, comparable to the ancient city of Caral, a coastal city some 200 kilometres (125 miles) to the north.

The discovery, dubbed the Temple of Fire, was found in one of the wings of El Paraiso's main pyramid. It includes a hearth that experts believe was used to burn ceremonial offerings.

"The smoke allowed the priests to connect with the gods," said Marco Guillen, who led the team of researchers who made the find.

Archaeologists found the hearth in mid-January as they were carrying out conservation work at a set of 4,000-year-old ruins known as El Paraiso, located some 40 kilometers northeast of Lima in the Chillon River Valley.

The discovery shows "that the Lima region was a focus of civilizations in the Andean territory," Deputy Culture Minister Rafael Varon told reporters.

Archaeologists believe the ancient coastal civilisations raised crops including cotton, which they traded with coastal fishermen for food.

El Paraiso, spread across 50 hectares (125 acres), has 10 buildings and is one of the largest ancient sites in central Peru.

-AFP/gn



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Haryana Roadways staff stir may hit 3500 govt buses too

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CHANDIGARH: The call for the roadways employees' strike may hit the government transport services in Haryana on Wednesday.

All Haryana Roadways Workers Joint Action Committee, an umbrella body of two trade unions, has given the call for the strike to press the workers' demand of regularization of contractual staff and stop the process of giving 3519 permits to private bus operators in Haryana.

A senior leader of the committee, Dalbir Kirmara told the TOI that the committee has appealed to roadways employees, including drivers and conductors of 3500 government buses to remain off the road on Wednesday.

However, the state government has urged the employees not to resort to strike claiming that government has already accepted most of their demands and the remaining were being examined.

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Your Shot: Blizzard Photos From Our Readers

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Officer Dies After Dorner Shootout; Cabin on Fire

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The remote California mountain cabin in which fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner has barricaded himself in tense standoff with police is on fire, following a shootout with police in which one officer was killed and another wounded.


Once the fire started, a single shot was heard from inside the cabin and then flames and a large column of black smoke were seen rising above the snow-covered trees near Big Bear, Calif., ABC station KABC-TV in Los Angeles reported.


Dorner is a former Navy marksman and Los Angeles Police Department officer charged with murdering a police officer and suspected in the deaths of two other people, including the daughter of a former LAPD captain, earlier this month.


Dozens of local, state and federal authorities are at the scene in the San Bernardino Mountains, and have the the cabin surrounded. Dorner has sworn to kill police and their family members in a manifesto discovered online last week.


FULL COVERAGE: Christopher Dorner Manhunt


The search for Dorner, one of the largest manhunts in recent memory, took a turn this afternoon when police received a call that a suspect resembling Dorner had broken into a home in the Big Bear area, taken hostages and stolen a car.


Police said the former cop, believed to be heavily armed and extremely dangerous, took two women hostage before stealing a car just around 12:20 p.m. PT, police said.








Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Police Exchange Fire With Possible Suspect Watch Video











Fugitive Ex-Cop Believed Barricaded in Cabin, California Cops Say Watch Video





The two hostages, who were tied up by Dorner but later escaped, were evaluated by paramedics and were determined to be uninjured.


Officials say Dorner crashed the stolen vehicle and fled on foot to the cabin where he barricaded himself and exchanged fire with deputies from the San Bernardino Sheriff's Office and state Fish and Game officers.


Two deputies were wounded in the firefight and airlifted to a nearby hospital, where one died, police said. The second deputy was in surgery and was expected to survive, police said.



PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings


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


Four Big Bear area schools were briefly placed on lockdown.


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


Authorities say they believe Dorner may be watching reports of the standoff and have asked media not to broadcast images of police surrounding the cabin.


"If he's watching this, the message ... is: Enough is enough. It's time to turn yourself in. It's time to stop the bloodshed. It's time to let this event and let this incident be over," said Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Andy Smith, told reporters at a press conference.


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


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


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





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Furloughs likely would exceed 1 million; feds feel ‘undervalued, unappreciated’

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On the day President Obama delivers his annual address to Congress, the state of the federal workforce is precarious.


It is precarious because employees are worried about their paychecks when Uncle Sam is in danger of not fully making his payroll.


They are worried that budget cuts could diminish their ability to serve citizens and fulfill agency missions.

They are worried about being disregarded and disrespected.

The latest source of worry came Friday when the White House again warned that across-the-board budget cuts known as the sequester would cause “hundreds of thousands” of furloughs. That repeated a similar warning in a Jan. 14 memo from Jeffrey Zients, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).

Yet, with the Pentagon saying that 800,000 employees in the Defense Department alone could be furloughed, expect the government-wide total to well exceed 1 million.

On March 1, federal agencies will begin implementing cuts over seven months amounting to 13 percent of the Defense budget and 9 percent of other programs, unless Congress stops the automatic reductions.

“[I]f we go past this date, there’s certainly — there’s no way to implement the sequester without significant furloughs of hundreds of thousands of federal employees,” Danny Werfel, OMB’s controller, told a press briefing Friday.

Furloughs are unpaid leave days. The number of days could vary among agencies. Whatever the number, it means less pay for federal workers who already have had their basic pay rates frozen for more than two years.

News like this leaves federal employees feeling “undervalued and unappreciated,” said William A. Brown, president of the African American Federal Executive Association. He’d like Obama to discuss “the value of federal employees” in his State of the Union address.

Obama has proposed a 1 percent raise for 2014. A 0.5 percent increase is scheduled to take effect at the end of March. The House, however, plans to vote this week on Republican-sponsored legislation that would extend the pay freeze through the end of this year.

The sequester requires the government to cut spending by $85 billion by the end of the fiscal year in September.

“These are large and arbitrary cuts, and will have severe impacts across government,” Werfel said. “Across the government we’ll see assistance programs slashed; we’ll see contracts cut; we’ll see employees out of work. And we’ll have no choice. The blunt, irresponsible and severe nature of sequestration means that we can’t plan our way out of these consequences or take steps to soften the blow.”

Even essential federal employees would be hit.

The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, would not be able to move funding from custodial work to avoid furloughing air traffic controllers. “It’s not possible to do that because the law is written with such stricture that the cuts have to be taken at such a granular level,” Werfel explained.

Exactly how the cuts play out could differ among agencies.

“In some cases, you’ll see immediate impacts,” Werfel said. “And in some cases, agencies will work out those changes to their programs and their structures over time. So there’s no easy answer to say what the world is going to look like on March 2. We just know that these impacts — while not all of them immediate — if we don’t take action, they will take place.”

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American Express card users can shop at Twitter

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SAN FRANCISCO: American Express began letting users of its payment cards make purchases with messages fired off at Twitter as the popular social network dabbles with making money from e-commerce.

American Express announced that members who synchronize their cards with Twitter can take advantage of offers "tweeted" by the financial services company.

American Express will promote products in messages fired off at Twitter. Card holders buy items by tweeting indicated hashtags, with their accounts being charged accordingly.

Depending on the offers, products will be shipped to buyers or picked up in shops.

"We're leveraging our unique technology and closed-loop network to introduce a seamless solution that redefines what's possible in the world of social commerce," said American Express senior vice president Leslie Berland.

"We know there is significant power in combining our assets with Twitter's platform."

American Express said cardholders will be able to buy Sony, Amazon.com, Xbox 360 or Urban Zen products in tweets by using special hashtags, or words preceded by the "#" symbol.

Twitter and American Express have worked together in the past with alliances that let cardholders take advantage of discounts offered in coupons tweeted by merchants.

- AFP/ck



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Kumbh stampede: Minister refutes callousness charge

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NEW DELHI: The railways were caught off guard on Sunday after the Allahabad administration diverted a deluge of pilgrims towards the station complex which ultimately caused the stampede, sources said.

This happened all of a sudden as thousands of pilgrims poured in through the Civil Lines between 5pm and 6pm. It wasn't part of the plan shared with them and the railway authorities were stumped. In no time, the station complex was overflowing, platforms were packed, the foot overbridge and circulation area were teeming with jostling pilgrims.

A day after the stampede, a blame game began between the railways and the state government. The railways insisted they were kept in the dark on crowd management plans, but the administration blamed it on a lathicharge at the station. Railway minister Pawan Bansal, in Allahabad on Monday, strongly defended his department saying the stampede happened because of the rush and that all arrangements were in place. He denied a lathicharge triggered the panic.

Despite the railway effort to shift blame, one thing seems clear: It failed to estimate the likely crowd at the station. Not enough security men were at the station. Unlike CRPF, BSF and RAF, trained in crowd control, the Government Railway Police isn't . Allahabad can handle a maximum of 40,000 commuters at a time and it's now being asked why railway authorities allowed nearly 3lakh people to descend on its premises at a go. "Piligrims could have been diverted to smaller halts and informed about train movements over the public address system," Shiv Gopal Mishra, general secretary of the All India Railwaymen Federation said. Mishra was in Allahabad on Sunday.

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Kumbh Mela: Pictures From the Hindu Holy Festival

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Who's Next? A Look at Likely Successors to Benedict

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With 1 billion Catholics worldwide, the face of the church is changing.



It's something the cardinal electors may keep in mind when the conclave to elect a new pontiff begins in late March, said Matthew Bunson, general editor of the Catholic Almanac and author of "We Have a Pope! Benedict XVI."



RELATED: Pope Benedict XVI Resigns: The Statement



The 117 cardinals who are eligible to vote for the new pontiff hail from approximately 50 different countries, and they almost always elect one of their own.



Joseph Ratzinger, an intellectual and respected cardinal from Germany, was the frontrunner for the papacy in 2005, Bunson said. When elected, he became Pope Benedict XVI.



This year, there are no strong favorites.



"The door, in a way, is very much open," Bunson said.



FULL COVERAGE: Pope Benedict XVI Resignation



Here's a quick look at some of the possible picks for pope:




Angelo Cardinal Scola, 71, Italy


Scola was named the Archbishop of Milan in 2011, a prominent post in the Roman Catholic church.


"If we had to pick a frontrunner, it's him," Bunson said. "He first is a brilliant theologian and has the intellectual heft to be pope, which is crucial. He has the clear favor of Pope Benedict.


Milan and Venice together have produced five popes in the past century.


Scola is also committed to promoting an understanding across faiths.


He started the Oasis Foundation in 2004, which helps bridge a dialogue between Christians and Muslims.


Helen Alvaré, a professor of law at George Mason University and an advisor to Pope Benedict XVI's Pontifical Council for the Laity, agreed that Scola will be considered papabili -- an Italian word for someone highly qualified for the papacy.


"It would not be surprise me if a Scola, or another great European mind also was determined to be what was needed for the times," she said.

Marc Cardinal Ouellet, 68, Canada


The former Archbishop of Quebec, who now heads the Congregation of Bishops, has a deep knowledge of the global workings of the church, Bunson said.


"He has had a major role in the appointment of the church's leaders around the world," Bunson said.


And he points out that at 68 years old, Ouellet has age on his side.


Ouellet is someone who could have "worldwide reach," Alvaré said.


"The man who is chosen for the position he has is someone who is understood to have the presence and the future of the church in mind," she said.

Peter Cardinal Turkson, 64, Ghana


Turkson, who hails from Ghana, may be in the running.


He is currently the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, a post he was appointed to by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009.


The job has sent Turkson, who speaks six languages, around the world to handle mediations.


"The fact that an African cardinal is a candidate to be elected pope is the statement to the diversity of the church and the remarkable growth around the world," Bunson said.


Turkson discussed the possible of a black pope at a press conference in 2009, following the U.S. presidential election.


"And if by divine providence -- because the church belongs to God -- if God would wish to see a black man also as Pope, thanks be to God," he said.


Francis Cardinal Arinze, from Nigeria, has also been discussed as a potential pope.

Leonardo Cardinal Sandri, 69, Argentina


With a large center of Catholic faithful in Latin America, Sandri could become the first pope from the region.


The 69-year-old, who was born in Argentina to Italian parents, served as a chief of staff in the Vatican, often reading public message when Pope John Paul II was in declining health.


It was Sandri who announced the passing of the pontiff in St. Peter's Square on April 2, 2005.


"He's well-liked around the world," Bunson said.


He currently serves on the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, acting as a liason with Eastern European Catholic churches.


Sandri is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French.

Angelo Cardinal Bagnasco, 70, Italy


The Archbishop of Genoa has a "reputation for intellectual heft," Bunson said.


Bagnasco, two-time president of the Italian Bishops Conference, has a history of taking a strong stance on church doctrine.


In 2007, he was the subject of death threats after he led a campaign against proposed Italian legislation to grant some legal rights to unmarried couples, including people in same-sex relationships.


Italians form the largest voting block in the College of Cardinals, with 25 percent of the seats, and could help propel Bagnasco into the papacy.

Tarsicio Cardinal Bertone, 78, Italy


The current Cardinal Secretary of State is a strong candidate if the Holy Spirit wants another great European mind at the helm of the church, Alvaré said.


Bertone runs the day-to-day business of the Roman Curia, the Vatican's government.


He has reportedly been criticized by Vatican officials for his handling of issues ranging from sexual abuse in the church to Vatican finances.


In an open letter last year, Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the in-fighting and pledged his support for his secretary of state.


"I've noted with regret the unjust criticism directed at your person," the pope wrote. "I intend to reaffirm my pledge of personal faith in you."


Although he's held in high regard by the pope, Bunson believes Bertone's age will keep him from the papacy.


"His age is against him," he said, pointing out that Bertone is the same age as his boss when he was elected.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan, 63, New York


While the thought of an American pope has long seemed impossible, Cardinal Dolan should not be ruled out, Alvaré said.


"History is changing," she said. "We've been at this a while here in the states, [although] not anywhere as long as Europe."


Dolan, an affable cardinal well-known by Catholics in the U.S. and abroad, "has been grappling with some of the leading questions that face the church for the future," Alvaré said.


In September 2012, along with comedian Stephen Colbert, he co-led a discussion on faith and humor at Fordham University.


"If I am elected pope, which is probably the greatest gag all evening, I'll be Stephen III," he told the crowd of students.


Despite Dolan's good standing, Bunson said he has some doubts.


"It strikes me as unlikely, simply because we are the world's last superpower," he said of the U.S. "So I think that might factor in."


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