Fate of two Malaysians unknown in Algerian crisis

KUALA LUMPUR: The fate of two Malaysians believed to have been caught up in the ongoing hostage crisis at a gas complex in the Algerian desert remains unknown, the foreign ministry said Saturday.

It said that three other Malaysians who were working at the gas plant were safe. The embassy in Algeria "is still determining the fate" of the other two, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Al-Qaeda-linked gunmen stormed the gas plant in eastern Algeria on Wednesday. They have demanded an end to the French intervention in neighboring Mali, according to Mauritania's ANI news agency.

The number of foreigners held at the plant is unclear.

The kidnappers have said they are still holding seven at the site deep in the Sahara desert near the border with Libya. An Algerian security official put their number at 10.

An Algerian security official said a dramatic military assault during the week to rescue those held had left dead 12 hostages and 18 kidnappers dead.

- AFP/ck

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'Well folks, I'm about to get shot'

By Brittany Brady, CNN

updated 7:41 PM EST, Fri January 18, 2013

Police say Eric Ramsey rammed a trooper's car and two other vehicles, and stole a sanitation truck.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• "It's been real, bro, wish I could have hung with you once last time," Eric Ramsey allegedly writes


• Ramsey led police on a chase after abducting and assaulting a university student, officials say


• Suspect was shot dead

(CNN) -- A man suspected of abducting and sexually assaulting a Central Michigan University student posted a final goodbye a few hours later on his Facebook page shortly before an officer fatally shot him, authorities said Friday.

"Well folks, I'm about to get shot. Peace," was 30-year-old Eric Ramsey's last post to his Facebook wall around 3:15 a.m. Thursday, Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski told CNN in a telephone interview.

Ramsey had abducted the student from CMU's campus about 2.5 hours northwest of Detroit on Wednesday evening, then drove her to a home where he bound and sexually assaulted her, the sheriff's department said in a news release.

After the attack, Ramsey put the woman back in the car, grabbed two cans of gasoline and began driving again, it said. When he told the woman he was going to kill her, she jumped from the car and ran to a nearby residence, where she knocked on the door and yelled for help, the release said.

A 14-year-old boy let her in and, after hearing her story, locked the woman, his younger sister and himself in the bathroom, Mioduszewski said.

As the woman was calling police, Ramsey poured gasoline on the house and set it afire before fleeing, the sheriff said.

Shortly thereafter, the children's father returned home and doused the fire, which caused no serious damage, Mioduszewski said.

Police soon caught up with Ramsey, who led them on a chase through two counties, during which he rammed a state police trooper's car, stole a sanitation truck and rammed two more vehicles, police said.

"It's been real, bro, wish I could have hung with you once last time. Love you, brother," Ramsey allegedly posted to a friend's Facebook page around 1 a.m. Thursday, as the chase was continuing.

A couple of hours later, after hitting a deputy's car head-on, Ramsey posted his final words, the sheriff said. Soon after, he was fatally shot by a deputy.

"We owe it to the public to find out what was the cause of this," Mioduszewski said Friday. Police are meeting with friends and family to determine what was going on in Ramsey's life, he said.

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Why U.S. needs tougher child labor rules

Cristina Traina says in his second term, Obama must address weaknesses in child farm labor standards

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Cristina Traina: Obama should strengthen child farm labor standards


• She says Labor Dept. rules allow kids to work long hours for little pay on commercial farms


• She says Obama administration scrapped Labor Dept. chief's proposal for tightening rules


• She says Labor Dept. must fix lax standards for kid labor on farmers; OSHA must enforce them

Editor's note: Cristina L.H. Traina is a Public Voices Op Ed fellow and professor at Northwestern University, where she is a scholar of social ethics.

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama should use the breathing space provided by the fiscal-cliff compromise to address some of the issues that he shelved during his last term. One of the most urgent is child farm labor. Perhaps the least protected, underpaid work force in American labor, children are often the go-to workers for farms looking to cut costs.

It's easy to see why. The Department of Labor permits farms to pay employees under 20 as little as $4.25 per hour. (By comparison, the federal minimum wage is $7.25.) And unlike their counterparts in retail and service, child farm laborers can legally work unlimited hours at any hour of day or night.

The numbers are hard to estimate, but between direct hiring, hiring through labor contractors, and off-the-books work beside parents or for cash, perhaps 400,000 children, some as young as 6, weed and harvest for commercial farms. A Human Rights Watch 2010 study shows that children laboring for hire on farms routinely work more than 10 hours per day.

As if this were not bad enough, few labor safety regulations apply. Children 14 and older can work long hours at all but the most dangerous farm jobs without their parents' consent, if they do not miss school. Children 12 and older can too, as long as their parents agree. Unlike teen retail and service workers, agricultural laborers 16 and older are permitted to operate hazardous machinery and to work even during school hours.

In addition, Human Rights Watch reports that child farm laborers are exposed to dangerous pesticides; have inadequate access to water and bathrooms; fall ill from heat stroke; suffer sexual harassment; experience repetitive-motion injuries; rarely receive protective equipment like gloves and boots; and usually earn less than the minimum wage. Sometimes they earn nothing.

Little is being done to guarantee their safety. In 2011 Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis proposed more stringent agricultural labor rules for children under 16, but Obama scrapped them just eight months later.

Adoption of the new rules would be no guarantee of enforcement, however. According to the 2010 Human Rights Watch report, the Department of Labor employees were spread so thin that, despite widespread reports of infractions they found only 36 child labor violations and two child hazardous order violations in agriculture nationwide.

This lack of oversight has dire, sometimes fatal, consequences. Last July, for instance, 15-year-old Curvin Kropf, an employee at a small family farm near Deer Grove, Illinois, died when he fell off the piece of heavy farm equipment he was operating, and it crushed him. According to the Bureau County Republican, he was the fifth child in fewer than two years to die at work on Sauk Valley farms.

If this year follows trends, Curvin will be only one of at least 100 children below the age of 18 killed on American farms, not to mention the 23,000 who will be injured badly enough to require hospital admission. According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, agriculture is one of the most dangerous industries. It is the most dangerous for children, accounting for about half of child worker deaths annually.

The United States has a long tradition of training children in the craft of farming on family farms. At least 500,000 children help to work their families' farms today.

Farm parents, their children, and the American Farm Bureau objected strenuously to the proposed new rules. Although children working on their parents' farms would specifically have been exempted from them, it was partly in response to worries about government interference in families and loss of opportunities for children to learn agricultural skills that the Obama administration shelved them.

Whatever you think of family farms, however, many child agricultural workers don't work for their parents or acquaintances. Despite exposure to all the hazards, these children never learn the craft of farming, nor do most of them have the legal right to the minimum wage. And until the economy stabilizes, the savings farms realize by hiring children makes it likely that even more of them will be subject to the dangers of farm work.

We have a responsibility for their safety. As one of the first acts of his new term, Obama should reopen the child agricultural labor proposal he shelved in spring of 2012. Surely, farm labor standards for children can be strengthened without killing off 4-H or Future Farmers of America.

Second, the Department of Labor must institute age, wage, hour and safety regulations that meet the standards set by retail and service industry rules. Children in agriculture should not be exposed to more risks, longer hours, and lower wages at younger ages than children in other jobs.

Finally, the Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration must allocate the funds necessary for meaningful enforcement of child labor violations. Unenforced rules won't protect the nearly million other children who work on farms.

Agriculture is a great American tradition. Let's make sure it's not one our children have to die for.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Cristina Traina.

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Three dead in S. Korean fishing boat fire: Japan coastguard

TOKYO: Three people were dead and five missing Friday in a fishing boat fire in waters near islands at the centre of a dispute between Tokyo and Beijing, Japan's coastguard said.

"We have been informed by South Korean officials that three people died and five are missing from a South Korean fisheries ship that caught fire in waters near Uotsuri island," a spokesman said, referring to an island in the East China Sea.

A coastguard patrol plane "discovered part of a boat that is believed to be the South Korean vessel at 8:24 am (2324 GMT)," the Japanese coastguard said in a statement, adding it was continuing the search for the missing crew members.

The incident was first discovered by a South Korean vessel in waters some 100 nautical miles north of Uotsuri, the largest island in the Tokyo-controlled Senkaku chain, claimed by Beijing as the Diaoyus.

The coastguard said the ship had nine crew members aboard, comprising seven South Korean nationals and two Chinese nationals, it said.

The other South Korean vessel had recovered four of the nine crew members, of whom three were already dead, it said.

The Japanese coastguard, after receiving the initial report from South Korea's coastguard, sent a patrol plane and two patrol boats to the area.

"We don't know yet the nationality of the dead and missing," the spokesman said.

-AFP/fl

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Dreamliner fix: 'It's not easy'

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Grounding of aircraft model by regulators very rare, experts say


• The FAA grounded the DC-10 in 1979 for 37 days


• The time line for restoring service is uncertain, former airline mechanic says

(CNN) -- Whatever the reason for its recent spate of problems, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner won't fly again until regulators are satisfied the plane is airworthy.

Reports of fire and smoke have put the focus on the plane's cutting-edge lithium ion battery systems and grounded the fleet worldwide.

Only 50 Dreamliners are in service so far, but the airlines that bought these multimillion dollar aircraft are losing money while they sit on the ground. Big questions remain: How long will it take to get the Dreamliner back in the air? Will travelers feel safe enough to board them?

It's going to be "a big mess, cost Boeing a lot of money" and embarrass carriers that fly the 787, said aviation historian David T. Courtwright, a professor at the University of North Florida.

The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday ordered an emergency inspection of all U.S. 787s. United Airlines is the only U.S. carrier flying the aircraft, with six in its fleet. The airworthiness inspection will address the potential risk of battery fires. An in-flight fire aboard any aircraft is among the most dangerous aviation scenarios.

Grounding a plane is rare

It's very rare for the FAA to order an entire model of airliner out of service, even for a short time. Industry observers remember that the agency grounded the entire U.S. fleet of DC-10s for 37 days in 1979. That was after American Airlines Flight 191 crashed at Chicago's O'Hare airport, killing all 271 people aboard and two others on the ground. An NTSB investigation blamed design vulnerabilities and an engine pylon maintanance procedure.

"I was just starting my career flying at Delta and had just flown out of that airport a few days before,' said Kevin Hiatt, head of the Flight Safety Foundation and a former commercial pilot. "It was a big, beautiful DC-10. It was very, very distressing,"

Several DC-10s were involved in crashes caused by maintenance, design and other issues in the 1970s and 1980s, spurring doubt about the plane's safety. The last DC-10 to carry paying passengers flew in 2007.

The Dreamliner, of course, hasn't crashed in its 15 months of service and is making its debut during a period of unprecedented U.S. aviation safety.

Nonetheless, every day that Dreamliners are grounded ratchets up the pressure on Boeing, United and other airlines that have made commitments to buy the 787s.

A time frame for flying again

So now, Boeing looks for answers. A time frame for getting back in the air is anyone's guess, but the Dreamliner could be "grounded another two weeks or two months," said John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board and ex-airline mechanic.

Experts will "figure out what's wrong, design a fix and build a part to fix it," said Goglia. "It's not easy."

Even if Boeing engineers get lucky and find the answer to the problem now, it might still take at least a couple weeks "to get up and running," he said.

With reports of problems continuing to plague the Dreamliner, Hiatt said the FAA didn't need to take any chances.

"They're acting with an abundance of caution," he said. "They're going to go ahead and be proactive and not have the same situation" as the DC-10.

Growing pains aren't unusual

Other aircraft, including the Airbus A380, have had problems during rollout, said University of Dayton professor Raul Ordonez, an aircraft electrical and computer engineer who spent time observing Dreamliner development at Boeing's Seattle headquarters. It's what often happens when a new aircraft is put into service.

"I know Boeing spent a lot of time testing things extensively," said Ordonez. "These are very complex systems ... and there may be problems they didn't anticipate. It's one of the most complex commercial aircraft ever."

With problems appearing in a forward electrical compartment on Wednesday's All Nippon Airlines (ANA) 787 emergency landing, aviation historian Courtwright, author of "Sky as Frontier: Adventure, Aviation, and Empire," worried the situation is more serious than simply problems confined to the aft electrical bay.

"It raises the specter of something more systemic and perhaps a defective lithium ion battery, he said.

The Dreamliner relies on electricity to power more functions than previous Boeing airliners, and that takes a lot of battery power. Lithium ion batteries replaced the traditional nickel cadmium batteries in the new aircraft. Lithium ion batteries keep a charge longer than nickel cadmium and weigh less, so the plane can save fuel.

But there are questions about using lithium ion batteries because they've never been used on an airliner to the extent that the Dreamliner uses them.

All this regulatory turbulence is part of a painful but necessary process of airline development.

"That's aviation," says airline pilot Patrick Smith of the aviation blog Askthepilot.com. "There's a certain statistical aspect that you're working with in that nothing is going to happen but the best thing is to take the plane out of service and take a time out."

CNN's Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.

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Manti Te'o kept girlfriend myth alive after revelation

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Not once but twice after he supposedly discovered his online girlfriend of three years never even existed, Notre Dame All-American linebacker Manti Te'o perpetuated the heartbreaking story about her death.

13 Photos

Manti Te'o

An Associated Press review of news coverage found that the Heisman Trophy runner-up talked about his doomed love in a Web interview on Dec. 8 and again in a newspaper interview published Dec. 11. He and the university said Wednesday that he learned on Dec. 6 that it was all a hoax, that not only wasn't she dead, she wasn't real.

On Thursday, a day after Te'o's inspiring, playing-through-heartache story was exposed as a bizarre lie, Te'o and Notre Dame faced questions from sports writers and fans about whether he really was duped, as he claimed, or whether he and the university were complicit in the hoax and misled the public, perhaps to improve his chances of winning the Heisman.

Yahoo sports columnist Dan Wetzel said the case has "left everyone wondering whether this was really the case of a naJive football player done wrong by friends or a fabrication that has yet to play to its conclusion."

Gregg Doyel, national columnist for CBSSports.com, was more direct.

"Nothing about this story has been comprehensible, or logical, and that extends to what happens next," he wrote. "I cannot comprehend Manti Te'o saying anything that could make me believe he was a victim."

On Wednesday, Te'o and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the player was drawn into a virtual romance with a woman who used the phony name Lennay Kekua, and was fooled into believing she died of leukemia in September. They said his only contact with the woman was via the Internet and telephone.

Te'o also lost his grandmother — for real — the same day his girlfriend supposedly died, and his role in leading Notre Dame to its best season in decades endeared him to fans and put him at the center of college football's biggest feel-good story of the year.

Relying on information provided by Te'o's family members, the South Bend Tribune reported in October that Te'o and Kekua first met, in person, in 2009, and that the two had also gotten together in Hawaii, where Te'o grew up.

Te'o never mentioned a face-to-face meeting with Kekua in public comments reviewed by the AP. And an AP review of media reports about Te'o since Sept. 13 turned up no instance in which he directly confirmed or denied those stories — until Wednesday.

Among the outstanding questions Thursday: Why didn't Te'o ever clarify the nature of his relationship as the story took on a life of its own?

Te'o's agent, Tom Condon, said the athlete had no plans to make any public statements Thursday in Bradenton, Fla., where he has been training with other NFL hopefuls at the IMG Academy.

Notre Dame said Te'o found out that Kekau was not a real person through a phone call he received at an awards ceremony in Orlando, Fla., on Dec. 6. He told Notre Dame coaches about the situation on Dec. 26.

Play Video

Manti Te'o's girlfriend hoax: How did it happen?

The AP's media review turned up two instances during that gap when the football star mentioned Kekua in public.

Te'o was in New York for the Heisman presentation on Dec. 8 and, during an interview before the ceremony that ran on the WSBT.com, the website for a South Bend TV station, Te'o said: "I mean, I don't like cancer at all. I lost both my grandparents and my girlfriend to cancer. So I've really tried to go to children's hospitals and see, you know, children."

In a story that ran in the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., on Dec. 11, Te'o recounted why he played a few days after he found out Kekau died in September, and the day she was supposedly buried.

"She made me promise, when it happened, that I would stay and play," he said.

On Wednesday, Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not go public with its findings sooner because it expected the Te'o family to come forward first. But Deadspin.com broke the story Wednesday.

Reporters were turned away Thursday at the main gate of IMG's sprawling, secure complex. Te'o remained on the grounds, said a person familiar with situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because neither Te'o nor IMG authorized the release of the information.

"This whole thing is so nutsy that I believe it only could have happened at Notre Dame, where mythology trumps common sense on a daily basis. ... Given the choice between reality and fiction, Notre Dame always will choose fiction," sports writer Rick Telander said in the Chicago Sun-Times.

"Which brings me to what I believe is the real reason Te'o and apparently his father, at least went along with this scheme: the Heisman Trophy.

Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass blasted both Te'o and Notre Dame.

"When your girlfriend dying of leukemia after suffering a car crash tells you she loves you, even if it might help you win the Heisman Trophy, you check it out," he said.

He said the university's failure to call a news conference and go public sooner means "Notre Dame is complicit in the lie."

"The school fell in love with the Te'o girlfriend myth," he wrote.

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Lance Armstrong Confesses to Doping

Lance Armstrong, formerly cycling's most decorated champion and considered one of America's greatest athletes, confessed to cheating for at least a decade, admitting on Thursday that he owed all seven of his Tour de France titles and the millions of dollars in endorsements that followed to his use of illicit performance-enhancing drugs.

After years of denying that he had taken banned drugs and received oxygen-boosting blood transfusions, and attacking his teammates and competitors who attempted to expose him, Armstrong came clean with Oprah Winfrey in an exclusive interview, confessing to using banned substances for years.

"I view this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times," he said. "I know the truth. The truth isn't what was out there. The truth isn't what I said.

"I'm a flawed character, as I well know," Armstrong added. "All the fault and all the blame here falls on me."

In October, the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a report in which 11 former Armstrong teammates exposed the system with which they and Armstrong received drugs with the knowledge of their coaches and help of team physicians.

George Burns/Courtesy of Harpo Studios, Inc./AP Photo

Lance Armstrong's Oprah Confession: The Consequences Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Many Denials Caught on Tape Watch Video

Lance Armstrong's Winfrey Confession: The Fallout Watch Video

The U.S. Postal Service Cycling Team "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," USADA said in its report.

As a result of USADA's findings, Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles. Soon, longtime sponsors including Nike began to abandon him, too.

READ MORE: Did Doping Cause Armstrong's Cancer?

Armstrong said he was driven to cheat by a "ruthless desire to win."

He told Winfrey that his competition "cocktail" consisted of EPO, blood transfusions and testosterone, and that he had previously used cortisone. He would not, however, give Winfrey the details of when, where and with whom he doped during seven winning Tours de France between 1999 and 2005.

He said he stopped doping following his 2005 Tour de France victory and did not use banned substances when he placed third in 2009 and entered the tour again in 2010.

"It was a mythic perfect story and it wasn't true," Armstrong said of his fairytale story of overcoming testicular cancer to become the most celebrated cyclist in history.

READ MORE: 10 Scandalous Public Confessions

PHOTOS: Olympic Doping Scandals: Past and Present

PHOTOS: Tour de France 2012

Armstrong would not name other members of his team who doped, but admitted that as the team's captain he set an example. He admitted he was "a bully" but said there "there was a never a directive" from him that his teammates had to use banned substances.

"At the time it did not feel wrong?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong said. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" she asked again.

"No," he said.

Armstrong said he thought taking the drugs was similar to filling his tires with air and bottle with water. He never thought of his actions as cheating, but "leveling the playing field" in a sport rife with doping.

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NRA's paranoid fantasy undemocratic

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Paul Waldman: Obama announced gun curbs; gun advocates said it'll be tyranny


• NRA ad calling Obama "elitist" because his kids get protection is not sane view, he says


• He says some gun advocates urge resistance to duly authorized law enforcement


• Waldman: Freedom is guaranteed by law, not gun owners

Editor's note: Paul Waldman is a contributing editor at the American Prospect and the author of "Being Right Is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success." Follow him on his blog and on Twitter.

(CNN) -- When President Obama announced on Wednesday his proposals to curb gun violence, no surprise: Gun advocates condemned it as the first step in a rapid slide toward tyranny.

The night before, the National Rifle Association released an ad calling Obama an "elitist hypocrite," because, the ad says, he's "skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school." (Obama had said in an interview last month that he was "skeptical" that the "only answer" was putting more guns in schools.) Republicans and Democrats alike condemned the NRA for using the president's children in a political attack ad, but the ad was actually quite revealing.

Paul Waldman

A sane person might argue that the president and his family require special protection because they face threats the rest of us don't. But the NRA and many of its most fervent supporters don't see it that way. As far as they're concerned, all of us are just as threatened as the person in the Oval Office. The fact that you're an ordinary person and not the leader of the most powerful nation on Earth doesn't mean you haven't already been targeted by an al Qaeda death squad or a murderous drug gang, so you'd better be prepared, not just with a gun but with an entire arsenal of military-style weaponry.

But the real threat in the fantasy world some gun owners have spun inside their heads isn't terrorists. You know the people I'm talking about: the "doomsday preppers," the angry tea partiers talking about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants," the folks who can't talk about guns for 30 seconds without bringing up Hitler (who, for what it's worth, didn't actually disarm the German people, as so many gun advocates believe). What's important isn't just that these folks are paranoid, it's who they're paranoid about: the United States government.

Opinion: Real hypocrites are at NRA

Take, for one vivid example, James Yeager, the CEO of a Tennessee company called Tactical Response. In response to the prospect of stricter gun laws, he posted a YouTube video saying, "If that happens, it's gonna spark a civil war, and I'll be glad to fire the first shot. ... I'm not letting my country be ruled by a dictator. I'm not letting anybody take my guns. If it goes one inch further, I'm gonna start killing people."

And who is it, exactly, whom he'd be killing in this fantasy of his? His neighbors? No, he'd be killing the duly constituted authorities of the United States. He's talking about -- maybe dreaming about -- the day when police officers or members of the U.S. military come to his door, so he can kill them. (Yeager later apologized after Tennessee officials suspended his concealed carry permit.)

OK, so this guy is an extremist. But there are thousands, maybe millions, of gun owners out there whose sentiments are only a notch or two more restrained. These people talk a lot about liberty and freedom and love to call themselves patriots, but they seem to have a real problem with democracy. In a democracy, if people are proposing a law you don't like, you criticize it, you argue against it, you campaign against it, you vote against the politicians who support it. But if you believe in democracy, you don't threaten to start killing people if it passes. You don't say that if you don't like a new law, you'll start an insurrection to overthrow the government.

Yet that's exactly what some people are saying, and it isn't just some lonely nut with a webcam and a YouTube account. People like him are spurred on by a conservative media that encourages them to believe that every Obama administration effort they disagree with isn't just something objectionable, it's the very definition of dictatorship.

If you're a regular listener to conservative talk radio, you've heard Barack Obama compared to Hitler and Stalin innumerable times, over every issue from health care to taxes (after Obama's press conference, one Fox News Radio host tweeted, "Freedom ends. Tyranny begins."). Since his election in 2008, supposedly respectable politicians have talked about simply refusing to obey laws they don't like, and some even proposed seceding from the union.

To be clear, most gun owners aren't stockpiling canned goods and assault rifles in preparation for some kind of societal breakdown that will give them permission to act out the violent fantasies they've been nurturing for years. But many would say that their "right" to own any and every kind of firearm they please is the only thing that guarantees that tyranny won't come to the United States.

Well, guess what: They're wrong. In today's world, most tyrants aren't overthrown by an armed populace. Nonviolent revolutions can result in a quick transition to democracy, while violent insurrections often result in long and bloody civil wars.

And here in America, it isn't 1776, and it won't ever be again. The founders may have thought citizens should be able to keep a musket if they wanted, but they also wrote into the Constitution that the government had the obligation to "suppress insurrections." They hoped that our freedom would be guaranteed by our laws and institutions, not by a guy down the block with an AR-15 and a chip on his shoulder.

They certainly didn't set up our democracy in the hope that every time any group of people didn't like a law that democracy produced, they'd abandon any pretense of support for our system of government and start killing the cops and soldiers who protect us. There's a word for people who dream about doing that, and it isn't "patriot."

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Paul Waldman.

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NUS prof Tey questions CPIB officer in "trial within a trial"

SINGAPORE: The law professor on trial for corruption in a sex-for-grades case is cross-examining an anti-graft officer on the admissibility of one of six statements -- in what is called a "trial within a trial".

Tey Tsun Hang is questioning Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) Chief Special Investigator Bay Chun How to prove his case that the statement given to CPIB was made under duress.

If he can prove this, Tey will be able to argue that the evidence cannot be admitted in court. This would weaken the prosecution's case.

Five other statements of Tey's are being disputed. Two were recorded by CPIB officer Wilson Khoo and three by Deputy Director Teng Khee Fatt.

They are expected to take the stand in the "trial within a trial".

Tey, 41, faces six allegations of obtaining gratification in the form of gifts and sex from his former student, Ms Darinne Ko, between May and July 2010, in exchange for lifting her grades.

-CNA/ac

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Notre Dame star's story goes from inspirational to bizarre

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

Notre Dame star Manti Te'o

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Te'o's father had said his son, girlfriend met in Hawaii


• Manti Te'o is a hoax victim, Notre Dame says; university hired an investigative firm


• Sports website Deadspin raises questions about the existence of his girlfriend


• In September, Te'o talked about losing his grandmother, girlfriend in the same week

(CNN) -- Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o said Wednesday he was the victim of a "sick joke" that had him and legions of fans believing in a "girlfriend" who may never have existed.

Te'o was the subject of an inspirational story that had him overcoming the deaths of his real-life grandmother and his girlfriend as his team marched toward the BCS National Championship Game.

Te'o, the Heisman Trophy runner-up, released a statement and Notre Dame held a news conference Wednesday night after the sports website Deadspin published an article that called the girlfriend story a hoax.

Last September and October, Te'o told interviewers the losses of the women, who reportedly died within hours of each other, inspired him to honor them with sterling play on the field.

"I miss 'em, but I know that I'll see them again one day," he told ESPN.

That and other media reports led to a gripping human interest story of determination. The girlfriend was identified as Lennay Kekua, who had supposedly died of leukemia.

Jack Swarbrick, director of athletics at Notre Dame, told reporters that Te'o was the victim of an elaborate hoax. "And he will carry that with him for a while," Swarbrick said. Investigators don't know how many people may have participated in the hoax, he said.

Notre Dame said the relationship between Te'o and the supposed girlfriend involved online and lengthy telephone communication.

As part of the hoax, several meetings were set up, including in Hawaii, but Kekua never showed, Swarbrick said. The linebacker grew up in Hawaii.

Te'o's father, Brian, told the South Bend (Indiana) Tribune last fall that his son did have the opportunity to meet Kekua.

"They started out as just friends," Brian Te'o said, according to the newspaper. "Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there. But within the last year, they became a couple."

Media reports indicate the parents never met Kekua.

According to Swarbrick, Te'o in early December received a call from a woman claiming to be his girlfriend and telling him she was not dead. Those calls continued but Te'o did not answer, Swarbrick said.

Te'o's grandmother did in fact die in September, according to Deadspin, but there is no Social Security Administration record of the death of the athlete's supposed girlfriend, described as a Stanford University student.

Stanford University's registrar's office told CNN that it has never had a student registered by Kekua's name or an alternative spelling.

"Outside of a few Twitter and Instagram accounts, there's no online evidence that Lennay Kekua ever existed," Deadspin contends. "There was no Lennay Kekua."

According to the website, Kekua, 22, had reportedly been in a serious auto accident in California and was later diagnosed with leukemia.

Photographs showing a young woman identified as Kekua in online tributes and news reports actually are photos from social media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua and does not have leukemia, according to Deadspin. The woman never met Te'o, it said.

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After Notre Dame upset No. 10 Michigan State on September 15, Te'o told ABC about his late grandmother and girlfriend.

"They were with me. I couldn't do it without them," Te'o said. "I couldn't do it without the support of my family and my girlfriend's family."

"I'm so happy that I had a chance to honor my grandma and my family and my girlfriend," Te'o said. "That's what it's all about, family."

Timothy Burke, co-author of the Deadspin article, told Miami sports radio host Dan Le Batard, "We got an e-mail last week saying something isn't right" with the girlfriend story.

Te'o said Wednesday he "developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

In his statement reported by ESPN, the star said, "To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life."

Manti Te'o previously told reporters he and his girlfriend would spend hours speaking on the phone.

Notre Dame said it hired an independent investigative firm to look into the situation.

Swarbrick said the independent investigation found that the perpetrators were involved in "online chatter" indicating that it was a hoax, and Te'o was a victim.

"I will refer you to the documentary 'Catfish,'" the athletic director said.

"Catfish" is no longer simply a river dweller, but rather a verb defined as "to pretend to be someone you're not online by posting false information, such as someone else's pictures, on social media sites usually with the intention of getting someone to fall in love with you," according to an MTV show of the same name.

Swarbrick said he met with Te'o's family two days before Notre Dame played in the January 7 championship game and lost to Alabama. The linebacker is expected to be a first-round pick in the NFL draft this spring.

CNN's Amanda Watts contributed to this report.

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