We start tonight with fighting words from Sen. Hillary Clinton and perhaps a new endgame. Today she told the Associated Press she'll take her campaign all the way to the convention. She's now talking about a floor fight to seat delegates from Florida and Michigan if she loses a party ruling late next week.
Down in Eldorado, Texas, child welfare workers were turned away from Warren Jeffs' Yearning for Zion ranch. They were trying to investigate reports that children remain inside the polygamist compound but sect members said the agency didn't have a search warrant. David Mattingly was allowed in through and he's keeping them honest. You can read about what's going on in court in this dispatch.
Forty dead young men across the country. Smart, popular, promising students found drowned and at place where they fell into the water a smiley face. Is it coincidence or the sign of a team of serial killers? Randi Kaye investigates. Check out her blog for a sneak peek.
And be sure to check out our live web camera from the 360° studio. The shot features Anderson and Erica behind the scenes on the set. We'll turn the camera on at 945p ET and turn it off at 11p ET. LINK TO THE BLOG CAMERA
We'll start posting comments to this blog at 10p ET and stop at 11p ET.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/05/21/art.smileyface.jpg caption="Smiley face painted near one of the crime scenes"]
Randi Kaye
360° Correspondent
As a reporter, I’ve moved around a lot. Little Rock, Arkansas. Dallas, Texas. New York, New York. Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Some stories stick with you along the way, some actually haunt you, like the story I am reporting on tonight on Anderson Cooper 360°.
While I lived and worked in the Midwest for seven years, I reported on at least half a dozen college-age men who had simply vanished.
These men would disappear after a night of drinking with friends, and their bodies would turn up in the Mississippi River or some other body of water weeks or perhaps months later. Local police always wrote them off as drunk college kids losing their way and accidentally drowning.
But what was strange was that college-age women didn't disappear, and it only happened during the winter months, never during the summers when college guys, no doubt, were also out partying.
Erica Hill
360° CorrespondentI can’t believe we are days away from the unofficial start to summer: Memorial Day. I know, it’s not the solstice, but who needs one when there’s a sale everywhere you look? And we’ll need them. Chances are, this Memorial Day weekend will be different from years past. Maybe you’ve decided to skip the road trip this year (AAA says you’re not alone) thanks to the ever-increasing cost of gas. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but sticking around the home front may not be much of a bargain, either.
Everything from beer to buns to briquettes will likely cost you more than they did last year. Paper plates are almost 14 percent more than last year. Lettuce is up 9 percent. And those hamburger buns? Up almost 17 percent. This is the highest food inflation we’ve seen in nearly two decades – which is also a major factor in the food crisis. The worst part? These prices aren’t coming down.
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And neither are airline prices, especially if you’re flying American.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/05/21/art.mansonranch.jpg caption= "Investigators and scientists search for evidence at the Barker Ranch in Death Valley"]
Ted Rowlands
CNN correspondent
We’re up in the remote Barker Ranch in Death Valley for day two of the search for human remains. This is a big day on a lot of people.
For Charles Manson fanatics it may be the day that rumors of murder at the Barker ranch will be verified.
For forensic scientists from the national lab in Oak Rridge, Tennessee, it may be a confirmation of the soil data compiled that prompted them to recommend a dig.
For Sgt. Paul Dostie, the local police detective who along with his dog Buster found the five dig sites a year ago, today may be the day that he feels vindicated for pushing authorities to dig or as he puts, he may end up “feeling like a fool”.
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Editor's Note: The following is a dispatch from CNN's Senior producer Tracy Sabo inside the FLDS courtroom hearings
Courtroom B, Case #1
Mother: Louanna Jessop
Father: Leroy J. Jessop (not present)
Note: This mother/father have 7 children.
Highlights
Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Chief Medical Correspondent
Somewhere deep inside the brain of Sen. Edward Kennedy, the neurons in his left parietal lobe were becoming angry. This is an area of the brain at about eye level just behind the ear. Something had invaded their space, a foreign mass of some type, and they were about to react in a way that would frighten the senator and those around him.
It was this past Saturday when the brain had a sudden burst of electrical activity and caused a seizure, also known as a convulsion. Certain parts of his body would first become rigid, and then start to shake. He would lose consciousness.
In most people, including the senator, there was really no way he could’ve known it was about to happen. Warning signs in the past may have been a vague headache, possibly some numbness in his right arm, maybe even the loss of a word when he was speaking. Any of those things may have been quickly forgotten or dismissed. A seizure, on the other hand, is a stern warning that the brain has reached a break point.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor, The Nation
Jim Webb can make the Four Seasons feel like a diner in Owensboro, Kentucky. It's that kind of blue-collar street cred that may be just what it takes to propel the first-term senator from Virginia onto the Democratic ticket as vice president.
On Monday night, at a party for his latest book, "A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America," the first term Senator from Virginia filled the dining citadel of elitism with a spirited mix of active duty and retired Marines and New York's media glitterati. After he said a few words, Webb remained at the made-for-the-occasion podium–as if he were campaigning–and took questions.
Ronald Reagan's former Secretary of the Navy has refocused the warrior ambition that made him the most highly decorated Vietnam-era Marine from his Naval Academy into a passionate, progressive and patriotic populism. When asked, by The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg, what he thought of those who opposed the Vietnam war, Webb said "I never had a problem with those who properly opposed the war. I had a problem with the way vets were treated when they got home."
FULL POST
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