Disabled Cruise Ship Reaches Port in Mobile, Ala.

The ordeal of the disabled Carnival Triumph cruise ship carrying 4,000 passengers and crew appears to be almost over, with relatives waving at passengers on board as the ship reached port in Mobile, Ala.

After the ship arrived around 9:30 p.m. local time (10:30 p.m. ET), Carnival president and CEO Gerry Cahill thanked the ship's crew for coping with the situation and told reporters that he was headed on board to apologize directly to its passengers.

The Carnival Triumph departed Galveston, Texas, Thursday and lost power Sunday after a fire in the engine room disabled the vessel's propulsion system and knocked out most of its power.

After power went out, passengers texted ABC News that sewage was seeping down the walls from burst plumbing pipes, carpets were wet with urine, and food was in short supply. Reports surfaced of elderly passengers running out of critical heart medicine and others on board the ship squabbling over scarce food.

"I know the conditions on board were very poor," Cahill said. "I know it was very difficult, and I want to apologize again for subjecting our guests for that. ... Clearly, we failed in this particular case."

Once the ship is secured, passengers were expected to be able to begin disembarking within 15 to 30 minutes, said Terry Thornton, Carnival's senior vice president of marketing.

It could take up to five more hours to get everybody off the huge ship.

"Inside the terminal, there's also warm food available," Thornton said. "There are blankets, there are cell phones and refreshments available for the guests that need that or want that assistance.

Passengers will have the options of boarding buses to Houston or Galveston, Texas, about seven hours away, or New Orleans, about two hours away, officials said.

"We have gotten our guests back to land," Cahill said. "Now, we need to get them home. ... The full resources of Carnival are working from here to get them home as quickly as we possibly can."

Stranded Carnival Cruise Ship On Its Way to Port Watch Video

Carnival Cancels All Scheduled Voyages Aboard the Triumph Watch Video

Carnival Cruise Ship Making Its Way to Port Watch Video

At an earlier news conference this afternoon, Thornton said that anyone with special needs and children will be the first to get off the boat. He said the company's number one priority is to make the process as "quick, efficient and comfortable" for guests as possible.

"There are some limitations. We know that up front," Thornton said. "The ship still does not have power. We only have one functioning elevator aboard."

Click here for photos of the stranded ship at sea.

The passengers were achingly close to port about noon today as the ship began to enter the channel and proceed to the cruise terminal. At 1 p.m., the lead tow boat had a tow gear break, so a spare tug boat that was on standby had to be sent in to replace it.

But once the second tug was in position and the lines were re-set, the towing resumed only briefly before the tow line snapped.

"We had to replace that tow line so the ship did not begin progressing back into the cruise terminal until 2 p.m.," Thornton said

Passengers desperate to get off the vessel waved at media helicopters that flew out to film the ship and passenger Rob Mowlam told ABCNews.com by phone today that most of the passengers on board were "really upbeat and positive."

Nevertheless, when he gets off Mowlam said, "I will probably flush the toilet 10 times just because I can."

Mowlam, 37, got married on board the Triumph Friday and said he and his wife, Stephanie Stevenson, 27, haven't yet thought of redoing the honeymoon other than to say, "It won't be a cruise."

Alabama State Port Authority Director Jimmy Lyons said that with powerless "dead ships" like the Triumph, it is usually safer to bring them in during daylight hours, but, "Once they make the initial effort to come into the channel, there's no turning back."

"There are issues regarding coming into the ship channel and docking at night because the ship has no power and there's safety issues there," Richard Tillman of the Mobile Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau told ABCNews.com.

When asked if the ship could be disembarked in the dark of night, Tillman said, "It is not advised. It would be very unusual."

Thornton denied the rumors that there was a fatality on the ship. He said that there was one illness early on, a dialysis patient, but that passenger was removed from the vessel and transferred to a medical facility.

The U.S. Coast Guard was assisting and there were multiple generators on board. Customs officials were to board the ship while it was being piloted to port to accelerate the embarkation, officials said.

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Water wars loom as the US runs dry

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Chavez in 'tough' alternative treatment: Maduro

CARACAS: Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is undergoing "tough and complex" alternative medical treatment in Cuba, his handpicked successor Nicolas Maduro said Wednesday.

"Our comandante is undergoing additional treatments," Maduro told state-owned VTV television after returning from a previously unannounced visit to Cuba to check up on the ailing president.

"The treatments are extremely tough and complex."

Declining to provide details about the therapy, the vice president insisted that Chavez was facing his medical travails with a "fighting spirit" despite more than two months of absence from the public eye.

Maduro said Chavez's brother Adan accompanied him on his trip to Havana, and that he met there with other relatives of the president, as well as his medical team.

National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello was due to visit Chavez in Cuba in the coming days, according to Maduro.

Chavez, 58, has not been seen or heard from since his last cancer operation on December 11 in Havana, and any news about his health is closely monitored by the Venezuelans. Chavez is said to be still recovering at a hospital in Cuba's capital.

The fiery Venezuelan leader was too sick to attend his own inauguration to a third term on January 10, prompting the government to delay the swearing-in indefinitely under an interpretation of the constitution that was heavily criticized by the opposition.

Throughout his illness, first detected in June 2011, Chavez has refused to relinquish the powers of the presidency.

- AFP/ck

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Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn Google internship trailer debuts

Scene from "The Internship" movie trailer.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Dara Kerr/CNET)

To their shock and horror, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn realize that by landing an internship at Google they are actually "looking at some sort of mental 'Hunger Games' against a bunch of genius kids for just a handful of jobs."

This scene is shown in the newly out trailer (see below) for the upcoming movie titled "The Internship." The film features the two "Wedding Crashers" stars as they try to make it in the world of Google's high-tech interns. The only catch is that they're "so old" and aren't exactly tech savvy.

The trailer shows the two friends as they try to make sense of a Rubik's cube contest, a see-through dry-erase wall, and how to "debug the code" on Google's famous campus.

According to The Sun, Google has been very supportive about the use of its campus and facilities for the film. "We're excited that Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson chose the Google campus as a backdrop for their first film together since Wedding Crashers," Google told The Sun. "We're sure they'll have a humorous take on life in Silicon Valley and look forward to seeing the result."

"The Internship" is one of many tech world-focused movies to grace the silver screen in the last couple of years. Aaron Sorkin's "The Social Network" showed the inside world of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, and two movies on Steve Jobs are in the works. One called "Jobs" is starring Ashton Kutcher and the other directed by Aaron Sorkin is based on the bestselling book by Walter Isaacson called "Steve Jobs."

"The Internship" is set to premiere this June. Here's the trailer:

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Are Honeybees Losing Their Way?

A single honeybee visits hundreds, sometimes thousands, of flowers a day in search of nectar and pollen. Then it must find its way back to the hive, navigating distances up to five miles (eight kilometers), and perform a "waggle dance" to tell the other bees where the flowers are.

A new study shows that long-term exposure to a combination of certain pesticides might impair the bee's ability to carry out its pollen mission.

"Any impairment in their ability to do this could have a strong effect on their survival," said Geraldine Wright, a neuroscientist at Newcastle University in England and co-author of a new study posted online February 7, 2013, in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Wright's study adds to the growing body of research that shows that the honeybee's ability to thrive is being threatened. Scientists are still researching how pesticides may be contributing to colony collapse disorder (CCD), a rapid die-off seen in millions of honeybees throughout the world since 2006.

"Pesticides are very likely to be involved in CCD and also in the loss of other types of pollinators," Wright said. (See the diversity of pollinating creatures in a photo gallery from National Geographic magazine.)

Bees depend on what's called "scent memory" to find flowers teeming with nectar and pollen. Their ability to rapidly learn, remember, and communicate with each other has made them highly efficient foragers, using the waggle dance to educate others about the site of the food source.

Watch as National Geographic explains the waggle dance.

Their pollination of plants is responsible for the existence of nearly a third of the food we eat and has a similar impact on wildlife food supplies.

Previous studies have shown certain types of pesticides affect a bee's learning and memory. Wright's team wanted to investigate if the combination of different pesticides had an even greater effect on the learning and memory of honeybees.

"Honeybees learn to associate floral colors and scents with the quality of food rewards," Wright explained. "The pesticides affect the neurons involved in these behaviors. These [affected] bees are likely to have difficulty communicating with other members of the colony."

The experiment used a classic procedure with a daunting name: olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension reflex. In layman's terms, the bee sticks out its tongue in response to odor and food rewards.

For the experiment, bees were collected from the colony entrance, placed in glass vials, and then transferred into plastic sandwich boxes. For three days the bees were fed a sucrose solution laced with sublethal doses of pesticides. The team measured short-term and long-term memory at 10-minute and 24-hour intervals respectively. (Watch of a video of a similar type of bee experiment.)

This study is the first to show that when pesticides are combined, the impact on bees is far worse than exposure to just one pesticide. "This is particularly important because one of the pesticides we used, coumaphos, is a 'medicine' used to treat Varroa mites [pests that have been implicated in CCD] in honeybee colonies throughout the world," Wright said.

The pesticide, in addition to killing the mites, might also be making honeybees more vulnerable to poisoning and effects from other pesticides.

Stephen Buchmann of the Pollinator Partnership, who was not part of Wright's study, underscored how critical pollinators are for the world. "The main threat to pollinators is habitat destruction and alteration. We're rapidly losing pollinator habitats, natural areas, and food—producing agricultural lands that are essential for our survival and well being. Along with habitat destruction, insecticides weaken pollinators and other beneficial insects."

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Dorner Not IDed, But Manhunt Considered Over

Though they have not yet identified burned remains found at the scene of Tuesday's fiery, armed standoff, San Bernardino, Calif., officials consider the manhunt over for Christopher Dorner, the fugitive ex-cop accused of going on a killing spree.

"The events that occurred yesterday in the Big Bear area brought to close an extensive manhunt," San Bernardino County Sheriff John McMahon told reporters this evening.

"I cannot absolutely, positively confirm it was him," he added.

However, he noted the physical description of the suspect authorities pursued to a cabin at the standoff scene, as well as the suspect's behavior during the chase and standoff, matched Dorner, 33.

The charred remains of the body believed to be Dorner were removed from the cabin high in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear, Calif., the apparent site of Dorner's last stand. Cornered inside the mountain cabin Tuesday, the suspect shot at cops, killing one deputy and wounding another, before the building was consumed by flames.

"We did not intentionally burn down that cabin to get Mr. Dorner out," McMahon said tonight, though he noted pyrotechnic canisters known as "burners" were fired into the cabin during a tear gas assault in an effort to flush out Dorner. The canisters generate high temperatures, he added.

The deputies wounded in the firefight were airlifted to a nearby hospital, where one died, police said.

Christopher Dorner Believed Dead After Shootout with Police Watch Video

Carjacking Victim Says Christopher Dorner Was Dressed for Damage Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Inside the Shootout Watch Video

The deceased deputy was identified tonight as Det. Jeremiah MacKay, 35, a 15-year veteran and the father of two children -- a daughter, 7, and son, 4 months old.

"Our department is grieving from this event," McMahon said. "It is a terrible deal for all of us."

The Associated Press quoted MacKay on the Dorner dragnet Tuesday, noting that he had been on patrol since 5 a.m. Saturday.

"This one you just never know if the guy's going to pop out, or where he's going to pop out," MacKay said. "We're hoping this comes to a close without more casualties. The best thing would be for him to give up."

The wounded deputy, identified as Alex Collins, was undergoing multiple surgeries for his wounds at a hospital, McMahon said, but was expected to make a full recovery.

Before the final standoff, Dorner was apparently holed up in a snow-covered cabin in the California mountains just steps from where police had set up a command post and held press conferences during a five-day manhunt.

The manhunt for Dorner, one of the biggest in recent memory, led police to follow clues across the West and into Mexico, but it ended just miles from where Dorner's trail went cold last week.

Residents of the area were relieved today that after a week of heightened police presence and fear that Dorner was likely dead.

"I'm glad no one else can get hurt and they caught him. I'm happy they caught the bad guy," said Ashley King, a waitress in the nearby town of Angelus Oaks, Calif.

Hundreds of cops scoured the mountains near Big Bear, a resort area in Southern California, since last Thursday using bloodhounds and thermal-imaging technology mounted to helicopters, in the search for Dorner. The former police officer and Navy marksman was suspected to be the person who killed a cop and cop's daughter and issued a "manifesto" declaring he was bent on revenge and pledging to kill dozens of LAPD cops and their family members.

But it now appears that Dorner never left the area, and may have hid out in an unoccupied cabin just steps from where cops had set up a command center.

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Obama keeps faith in science and warns of cyber threats

Peter Aldhous, San Francisco bureau chief

"IT IS our unfinished task to restore the basic bargain that built this country - the idea that if you work hard and meet your responsibilities, you can get ahead."

In adopting the phrase "unfinished task" as a signature motif for his 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama signalled a return to familiar themes. For those who care about in investment in science, that was a reassuring message. 

The fight against global warming and the importance of technology to protect national security also got high billing. On the latter, Obama signaled that hacking skills, rather than kilotons, are increasingly a crucial currency, promising a new focus on combating cyberattacks - paralleled by negotiated cuts to the US nuclear arsenal. 

In a combative speech designed to counter Republican opponents who want to cut the budget deficit by curbing spending on Obama's priorities - including education and research - the President made the case for continued investment in innovation.

"Every dollar we invested to map the human genome returned $140 to our economy. Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer's; developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs; devising new material to make batteries ten times more powerful. Now is not the time to gut these job-creating investments in science and innovation. Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race."

The estimate of a 140:1 return on investment in genomics comes from a 2011 study by the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. While the precise numbers from that analysis have been questioned, the importance of continued innovation to America's future economic competitiveness has been stressed in multiple reports, notably from the US National Academies. 

"Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air traffic control systems. We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy."

Obama called on Congress to pass new legislation to counter threats from hackers backed by hostile governments. That won't be easy: last year, a bill that would have demanded that companies meet minimum standards for cybersecurity, and report if they are attacked, foundered amid complaints that it would impose large costs on US businesses. 

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Train services between Marina Bay & Toa Payoh resume

SINGAPORE: SMRT said full train services between Marina Bay and Toa Payoh stations resumed at 11:20am.

In a tweet by SMRT at 11:30am, it said free buses to continue until further notice.

This comes after a cable caught fire in the tunnel at Newton MRT station, causing train services on the North South Line to be disrupted on Wednesday morning.

In a statement, SMRT said the fire has been put out and also added that its technicians have verified the track is safe for operations.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said they were informed of the incident at 9:04am and despatched two red rhinos, two fire engines, two fire bikes, two support vehicles and an ambulance.

SCDF also added that the fire involved electrical wiring about five metres away from the platform of the station.

The fire was extinguished using fire extinguishers and a small quantity of foam.

It added that no injuries have been reported so far.

SMRT said it is conducting investigations into the cause of the small fire that was localised at a segment of the traction power cable at the northbound track near Newton station.

SMRT said passengers who could not continue with their journey because of the disruption, or had to exit an SMRT train station without taking a trip but had their fares deducted can get a refund at the Passenger Service Centre in any of SMRT's 83 stations within the next 14 days.

- CNA/ck

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Obama signs long-awaited cybersecurity order

President Obama says during his State of the Union address that "our enemies are»»»seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, and our air traffic control systems."

(Credit:
CBS News)

President Obama invoked the pageantry of his State of the Union address this evening to announce a long-anticipated executive order on cybersecurity, a move that caps months of discussions with technology companies and could reduce pressure on Congress to move forward with controversial new legislation.

The order will "strengthen our cyber defenses by increasing information sharing, and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy," Obama said.

Obama's executive order doesn't propose new and potentially onerous regulations targeting private businesses, which Democrats had proposed in their unsuccessful legislation last year. It also doesn't appear to rewrite privacy laws by allowing companies to share confidential information with intelligence agencies without oversight, which Republicans had suggested in their own bill, also unsuccessful, called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA.

Because it's an executive order rather than a new law, it's restricted to directing the activities of federal agencies and is much less likely to be controversial. Some of the components include: expanding "real time sharing of cyber threat information" to companies that operate critical infrastructure, asking NIST to devise cybersecurity standards, and proposing a "review of existing cybersecurity regulation."

Some Internet companies had been concerned about being swept in by overly broad definitions of "critical infrastructure." But their lobbyists did their jobs: the executive order says Homeland Security "shall not identify any commercial information technology products or consumer information technology services" as especially critical infrastructure (translated: Facebook and Pinterest are not really that important). DHS will "confidentially notify owners and operators of critical infrastructure" that are considered sufficiently important.

The executive order -- and a related "Presidential Policy Directive" updating Bush-era policies from 2003 -- drew quick praise from civil liberties groups.

The ACLU said it's "encouraged" by it, and in a not-so-subtle swipe at CISPA, added that the order shows "there are smart ways to bolster cybersecurity while protecting privacy."

Leslie Harris, president of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said in a statement that: "Rather than having the government monitor private networks, it is better for security and privacy to have private entities protect their own systems and networks. Better sharing of what the government knows will enhance that effort."

While the executive order and related directive may sap some of the enthusiasm for new laws, the partisan wrangling on Capitol Hill is hardly over.

House Intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, said today that he'll reintroduce CISPA tomorrow to concede with an event that will be held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

"We need to provide American companies the information they need to better protect their networks from these dangerous cyber threats," Rogers said. "Congress urgently needs to pass our cyber threat information sharing bill to protect our national security, our economy, and U.S. jobs."

While CISPA initially wasn't an especially partisan bill -- it cleared the House Intelligence Committee by a vote of 17 to 1 over a year ago December -- it gradually moved in that direction. The final floor vote last April had 206 Republicans voting for it, and 28 opposed.

Of the Democrats, 42 voted for CISPA and 140 were opposed, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi saying that CISPA "didn't strike the right balance" and Republicans "didn't allow amendments to strengthen privacy protections." CISPA died in the Senate, where Democrats preferred a competing bill backed by then-Sen. Joseph Lieberman.

Despite broad industry support, CISPA alarmed privacy groups because it would would permit -- but not require -- Internet companies to hand over confidential customer records and communications to the U.S. National Security Agency and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

One section says "notwithstanding any other provision of law," companies may share information "with any other entity, including the federal government." By including the word "notwithstanding," CISPA's drafters intended to make their legislation trump all existing federal and state civil and criminal laws.

During a town hall meeting that CNET hosted at our headquarters in San Francisco, Jamil Jaffer, senior counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, said the protests ignored the fact that the bill was approved by a bipartisan committee majority back in December.

Industry groups appear poised to back CISPA once again. The Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of General Electric, Verizon, Wells Fargo, and Boeing on its board, said after this evening's announcement that it "strongly supports the reintroduction" of CISPA over the Democrats' bill that takes a "traditional, top-down regulatory approach."

Meanwhile, Democrats haven't been idle. Late last month, a group of Democratic senators including Tom Carper, incoming chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a joint statement calling on their colleagues to embrace the Cybersecurity and American Cyber Competitiveness Act (S.21). Obama appeared to endorse that approach, saying this evening that "now Congress must act as well by passing legislation to give our government a greater capacity to secure our networks and deter attacks."

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Your Shot: Blizzard Photos From Our Readers

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  Boston Seals

  Photograph by Sarah Burke, My Shot

  Last weekend’s blizzard left parts of the Northeast covered in 3 feet (0.9 meter) of snow. As people dug out, many answered our call to submit photos from the storm.

  There’s still time to submit your photos to National Geographic’s Your Shot; editors review all entries for possible publication in National Geographic magazine. Your photograph may also be included in our editors' pick of the Daily Dozen.

  Sarah Burke sent in this photo from Boston. She ventured out after the storm and captured these seals in a tank surrounded by snow.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Sledding in the Park

  Photograph by Elena Solomon, Your Shot

  In New York City Elena Soloman snapped a bright spot in snow-blanketed Central Park: a young girl on her sled.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Up on a Rooftop

  Photograph by Kelly Pourde, Your Shot

  The blizzard, dubbed "Nemo" by The Weather Channel, left snow piled high on the roof of Kelly Plourde’s Connecticut condo. She wrote that the wind-carved snow reminded her of "waves against the bright blue sky."

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Shaking It Off

  Photograph by Ashley Thompson, Your Shot

  Ashley Thompson’s dog, Zeppelin, shakes off snow after the blizzard visited New Jersey.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Change of Plans

  Photograph by Scotland Willis, Your Shot

  Photographer Scotland Willis caught this snowboarder on a makeshift mogul behind a shopping center in Boston. The man’s planned ski trip had been canceled due to the storm.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Central Park Snow

  Photograph by Casey Gomez, Your Shot

  In New York’s Central Park Casey Gomez captured a peaceful moment by the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Snowball Fight!

  Photograph by Dan Squire, Your Shot

  Dan Squire caught this post-storm action in Somerville, Massachusetts. "Residents celebrated the aftermath of Nemo with laughter, hot chocolate, snow sculptures, and of course," he wrote, "a huge snowball fight."

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  











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  Snow Day

  Photograph by Kelly Pourde, My Shot

  A snow pile makes the perfect slope for a bundled-up sledder. Kelly Plourde snapped this photo in Connecticut.

  Published February 12, 2013

  
  

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Great Energy Challenge Blog

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