Tactical Center

SYDNEY (AFP) –
An Australian man was in hospital Sunday after surviving a shark attack while diving off the country's northeast coast, officials said.

The 19-year-old was diving at Lamont Reef, off central Queensland's Herron Island, when he was bitten on the arm, the Royal Flying Doctor Service said after taking him to the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

"He was in a stable condition when our doctor left him at the hospital there," a spokesman for the Royal Flying Doctor Service told AFP.

"Any kind of shark bite is serious. But I believe his condition is stable, it's not life-threatening."

Sharks are a common feature of Australian waters but fatal attacks are rare.

In December 2008, a snorkeller died after being attacked by a large shark off the Western Australian coast.

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
A computer hacker briefly hijacked Twitter.com on Thursday, redirecting users to a website and claiming to represent a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army.

Twitter, which in June became a key communication channel for Iranian protesters disputing the country's election results, said it was disrupted for a little more than an hour.

Twitter's home page was replaced with one whose headline read "This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army" and an anti-American message.

"The motive for this attack appears to have been focused on defacing our site, not aimed at users," Twitter said on its blog. "We don't believe any accounts were compromised."

Security experts said it was the first time attackers have succeeded in hijacking a major social-networking website.

It was unlikely that the Iranian government was involved, despite its dislike of social networking sites and years of discord with the United States over its nuclear program, experts said.

A screen shot posted in a number of websites, including TechCrunch, shows the message written in red, set above a green flag. An e-mail sent to the address on the redirected Web page was returned.

The hacker or hackers got credentials to redirect Twitter's traffic to a bogus site, according to Dyn Inc, a company based in New Hampshire that directs that traffic for Twitter.

The attackers did not hijack accounts of the company's other customers, Dyn Vice President Kyle York said. "This was an isolated incident," he said.

Twitter, which allows people to broadcast 140-character messages to cell phones and on the Web, got caught up in Iranian politics earlier this year.

The U.S. State Department urged Twitter to delay maintenance that would have interrupted the site's service during the peak of the demonstrations.

As for Thursday's attack, a source close to the Department of Homeland Security said the Iranian government was likely not involved because of the unsophisticated nature of the work.

James Lewis, a cybersecurity effort with the think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the attack might have come from a group that supports Tehran.

"This is ham-handed so it's probably not the Iranian government. It could be sympathizers," said Lewis.

The Iranian government would have been more likely to hack Twitter during protests or other upheaval when the site was being used by dissidents, he said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Diane Bartz in Washington. Additional reporting by A.Ananthalakshmi in Bangalore. Writing by Paul Thomasch; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Gary Hill and Robert MacMillan)

PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid will be with the team through 2013 after signing a three-year contact extension.
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie announced the extension Wednesday and the team scheduled a news conference for 11:30 a.m. EST. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Reid is the winningest coach in team history, leading the Eagles to the playoffs five times and one Super Bowl in 10 seasons.
Since joining the team in 1999, Reid has won 115 games and compiled a .611 winning percentage, both best in Eagles history.
Reid took over a team that was 3-13 a season earlier and drafted quarterback Donovan McNabb in the first round of the 1999 draft. The Eagles improved to 5-11 in their first season under Reid then went 11-5 a year later and made the playoffs.
Despite his success, Reid has drawn criticism from fans for the team's failure to win a Super Bowl. The closest the Eagles got was a 24-21 loss to the New England Patriots following the 2004 season.
The Eagles have reached the NFC championship game four other times, including three straight losses before their Super Bowl appearance. The Eagles also reached the NFC title game last season, losing to 32-25 to the Arizona Cardinals.
Reid took a leave of absence during the offseason in 2007 after two of his sons were arrested on drug charges.
One son is out of prison after completing a drug treatment program and the other is serving a two-year sentence after pleading guilty to smuggling prescription pills into a county jail.

TRENTON, N.J. – "The Boss" is backing gay marriage in the Garden State.
Bruce Springsteen posted a statement on his Web site urging support of the gay marriage bill that's up for a vote in New Jersey's Senate on Thursday.
Springsteen wrote that he's long believed in and has "always spoken out for the rights of same-sex couples."
The native son says he agrees with Gov. Jon Corzine that marriage equality is a civil rights issue.
Gov.-elect Chris Christie is a big Springsteen fan. The Republican has said he would veto the bill.
A state Senate committee approved the bill by one vote on Monday.
Democrats concede the measure may fall short of the 21 votes needed to pass the Senate.
__
On The Net:
http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/index.html

ORLANDO, Fla. – A German tourist has been arrested on charges of making a false bomb threat while visiting Walt Disney World.
A report from the Orange County Sheriff's Office says 37-year-old Jochen Naumann of Leipzig, Germany, was going through the security checkpoint at the entrance of the Magic Kingdom Sunday when he told a Disney employee he had two bombs in his back pack.
The report says the Disney employee questioned Naumann and he repeated the threat.
A sheriff's deputy had a bomb-sniffing dog check Naumann's bag and no explosive devices were found.
The report says Naumann claimed he was only joking. He was arrested on a charge of making a false report of a bomb and taken to the Orange County Jail.
Jail records show bond was set at $10,000. They do not list an attorney.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Zacarias Moussaoui was a clown who could not keep his mouth shut, according to his old al-Qaida boss, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But Moussaoui was surprisingly tame when tried for the 9/11 attacks — never turning the courtroom into the circus of anti-U.S. tirades that some fear Mohammed will create at his trial in New York.
And that wasn't the only surprise during Moussaoui's six-week 2006 sentencing trial here — a proceeding that might foreshadow how the upcoming 9/11 trial in New York will go.
Skeptics who feared prosecutors would be hamstrung by how much evidence was secret were stunned at the enormous amount of classified data that was scrubbed, under pressure from the judge, into a public version acceptable to both sides.
Prosecutors were surprised when they failed to get the death penalty — by the vote of one juror.
No one was more surprised than Moussaoui himself: At the end he concluded an al-Qaida member like him could get a fair trial in a U.S. court.
"I had thought that I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," Moussaoui said in an appeal deposition taken after he was sentenced to life in prison. "(B)ut after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial."
All that suggests the dire predictions of critics and confident assertions of proponents should be viewed skeptically as prosecutors prepare to put Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four of his alleged henchmen on trial in a civilian federal court.
The five had been headed for a military tribunal at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week he would charge them in civilian court and expects to seek the death penalty.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over Moussaoui's trial — the first in this country over 9/11 — believes it proved federal courts can handle terror cases: "I've reached the conclusion that the system does work," she said in 2008.
The first lesson from Moussaoui's case: Don't expect a speedy trial.
Moussaoui was charged in December 2001 with conspiracy for his role. The case churned through years of pretrial hearings and appeals as judges sought to balance national security with Moussaoui's constitutional rights, often over what evidence could be used.
Documents later introduced at trial showed Moussaoui and Mohammed were well acquainted and Mohammed told interrogators he planned to use Moussaoui as a pilot for a second wave of hijacked jetliner attacks — plans that were eventually aborted. But Mohammed considered Moussaoui a problematic operative, who took instructions poorly and recklessly ignored directions to minimize communications.
Eventually, in 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Under the complex rules for federal death penalty cases, a separate sentencing trial was held in 2006 to determine whether Moussaoui would lose his life or spend the rest of it in prison. In the first phase, jurors concluded Moussaoui's actions were eligible for the death penalty, but in the second phase they spared his life — thanks to a lone holdout juror.
During the long run-up to trial, Moussaoui's abusive tirades in handwritten motions and outbursts in hearings created concerns the jury trial would devolve into chaos. Brinkema threatened to lock him in a separate room watching by video if he tried that.
Mindful of that threat, Moussaoui sat quietly at his separate table flanked by deputy marshals. On the few occasions he was called upon to speak, Brinkema kept him tightly on topic.
His theatrics were confined to one-liners — like "Victory for Moussaoui! God curse you all!" — that he tossed off to spectators as he left the courtroom after the jury departed for lunch or the day.
In military tribunal hearings at Guantanamo, Mohammed also showed a propensity for grandstanding. In one letter released by that tribunal, he referred to the attacks as a "noble victory" and urged U.S. authorities to "pass your sentence on me and give me no respite."
One of Moussaoui's lawyers, Edward MacMahon, isn't worried about Mohammed's behavior in court. "Federal judges deal all the time with defendants who try to disrupt cases," he said.

MacMahon, himself the target of some of Moussaoui's epithets, said he thought the trial "was a very dignified process."

Lead prosecutor Rob Spencer, now with Lockheed Martin Corp., said the Moussaoui trial allowed the public to see that Moussaoui took pride in the terror created by the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"A valuable part of the Moussaoui trial was that we got an unvarnished, public view of this guy ... of what we're up against" in dealing with al-Qaida terrorists, Spencer said.

Sorting through classified evidence should be easier in the upcoming case, experts said. First, the Moussaoui case generated detailed appellate rulings to guide lower courts. Second, much that was highly sensitive in 2003 may be far less so now.

On the other hand, there was no allegation Moussaoui was tortured into confessing, but coerced confessions or statements might be significant at Mohammed's trial. U.S. civilian courts bar evidence obtained under coercion, which could exclude what Mohammed told investigators after, as the Justice Department has acknowledged, he was waterboarded 183 times.

But there are also statements Mohammed made much later bragging about his role, and statements by others subjected to less harsh interrogation methods that fewer people consider to be torture, so there's grist for much legal argument.

Paul McNulty, U.S. attorney here when Moussaoui was prosecuted, said there is a crucial difference in the two cases: Moussaoui pleaded guilty, so the sentencing trial focused only on his punishment and there was no chance he'd go free. No one knows whether any New York defendants will contest their guilt.

McNulty wondered whether the public is willing to accept the chance of an acquittal.

McNulty expects New York judges to be as tough as Brinkema on issues like ensuring defendants access to witnesses. "It could get complicated very quickly," he said.

"It's not supposed to be easy," defense counsel MacMahon said. "The law makes it very difficult to obtain a death sentence. The government basically has to pitch a perfect game to win a death penalty."

___

Barakat and Sniffen, who reported from Washington, covered Moussaoui's trial.

TUESDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Children who are fearless at
3 years of age might just be poised for a life of crime.

According to a new study, poor fear conditioning at the tender age of
3 can predispose that person to break the law as an adult. Yet other
factors, such as education of the parents, large family size, nutrition,
physical activity, configuration of the household and other elements also
play a role, the researchers concluded.

"There's no 100 percent correspondence between conditioning deficits
and crime: Not all poor conditioners will become criminals and not all
criminals have the early fear conditioning deficits," explained study
author Yu Gao, a research associate in the department of criminology at
the University of Pennsylvania. His findings are published in the Nov. 16
online issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Specifically, what Gao and his associates set out to determine is
whether dysfunction of the amygdala, an almond-shaped mass that resides
deep in the human brain and is linked to fear conditioning as well as
emotions and mental state, leads to an inherent intrepidness and disregard
for the law.

Twenty years ago, the research team tested almost 1,800 children who
were 3 years old from Mauritius, an Indian Ocean island off the coast of
southeastern Africa, by exposing them to two sets of sounds, one with a
short shrill noise, and the other deeper in pitch and with a pleasant
tone, and then measuring the children's physical responses through an
electrode attached to their index and middle fingers. Sweating upon
hearing the loud noise indicated a sense of fear, while no sweat meant the
child lacked fear -- that is, had poor fear conditioning.

Two decades later, using court records, Gao and his team tracked down
137 study participants -- 131 males and six females -- who had committed
serious crimes involving property, drugs, violence and driving. These
individuals had shown an absence of fear during testing at age 3, whereas
274 study participants who had grown to adulthood without a criminal
record had displayed typical fear responses.

Experts agreed that the findings don't constitute a cause-and-effect
situation, but hailed the study for its longevity and what the work adds
to what is known about how childhood factors influence adult behavior.

"Any time you have a 20-year study, that's significant," said Dr.
Elissa P. Benedek, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based psychiatrist who has worked
in private practice with children and adults for more than 40 years and is
a past president of the American Psychiatric Association.

"It's good for putting another link in the chain in terms of what is
early brain dysfunction, and what increases the risk for such behaviors as
attention-deficit disorder and criminal activity. It's another link back
to whatever we all ready know about early brain dysfunction that may cause
problems later in life," Benedek added.

So what do the results mean for individuals with fear conditioning
deficits and their loved ones, and for society at large? It's a wake-up
call about potential problems, said Gao and other experts in the field. To
enhance the proper working of the amygdala, which is believed to reduce
criminal behavior in later life, enrichment programs are essential.

In fact, according to Gao, some at-risk children between the ages of 3
and 5 who have benefited from those programs, which include sound
nutrition, adequate physical exercise and cognitive brain stimulation, had
shown an improvement in brain functioning by age 11 that reduced the
chances of criminal behavior by 35 percent 20 years later.

Addressing parental concerns, Benedek added: "Don't be discouraged if
your child has early brain dysfunction. It doesn't mean that he or she is
going to grow up and be a criminal. The brain can change and grow."

More information

For more on the causes of violent behavior among children, go to the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

ROME – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe used the U.N. summit on world hunger Tuesday to lash out at the West and defend land reforms blamed for plunging his people into starvation.
Addressing the summit hosted by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, Mugabe said the policy under which thousands of white-owned commercial farms were seized in 2000 was a quest for "equity and justice."
He blamed the subsequent meltdown of Zimbabwe's economy on "hostile interventions" by "neocolonialist enemies" that have imposed sanctions on his regime.
Western countries have slapped travel bans and asset freezes on Mugabe and his top aides. The ban does not apply to United Nations summits and Mugabe has attended several Food and Agriculture Organization meetings in the last years, always using the podium to attack Western countries that accuse him of undermining democracy.
Mugabe has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980. He was forced into a power-sharing agreement with longtime opposition leader Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai after elections last year that were inconclusive and marred by violence blamed on Mugabe supporters.
Although the coalition government has brought some stability and economic recovery to Zimbabwe, the opposition continues to denounce violence by Mugabe's allies, while the president's ZANU-PF party has accused Tsvangirai's forces of not doing enough to persuade Western nations to lift the sanctions.
Mugabe's speech at Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters, his take on why 1 billion people worldwide are hungry, was peppered with his habitual rhetoric.
"We face very hostile interventions by these states which have imposed unilateral sanctions on us," he said. "This has had a negative impact on our farmers, who, according to our neocolonialist enemies, must fail so as to damn the land reforms we have undertaken."
Mugabe ended his speech with a demand that Western countries "remove their illegal and inhuman sanctions on my country and its people."

As Hollywood closed specialty divisions that aimed for quality and personal stories, as studios focus more and more on superhero sagas and action blockbusters, cinema fans have rightly wondered, who's left to make great American movies?
For one, the makers of "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' by Sapphire," who assembled some of the unlikeliest ingredients — Mariah Carey, Mo'Nique, and a lead actress plucked from an anonymous casting call — to create a wondrous work of art.
The film isn't easy to watch and will test your tolerance for despicable behavior as a long history of physical abuse and incest unfolds involving an illiterate, obese Harlem schoolgirl.
Yet "Precious" — both the film and its grandly resilient title character — will steal your heart. Lee Daniels, in just his second film as director, crafts a story that rises from the depths of despair to a place of genuine hope.
This isn't a fairy tale. "Precious" doesn't strain to present some happy-ever-after transformation that simply never could happen considering the harsh reality in which it's set.
Rather, the film reflects an inner spirit everyone can recognize, that role-playing game we indulge in to get us through our big and small hard times, imagining our lives are different, better. That we are different and better.
Claireece "Precious" Jones literally wills it to be so, and as played in a phenomenal screen debut by Gabourey Sidibe, she makes an utterly believable and electrifying rise from an urban abyss of ignorance and neglect.
Adapted from the novel "Push" by Sapphire — who taught reading and writing for eight years in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx, to students like Precious and her peers — the film is simultaneously tender and savage as Precious learns to apply that simple verb: Push yourself, push your boundaries, if others try to stop you, push them out of the way.
(The film debuted as "Push" at January's Sundance Film Festival, where it won both the top jury prize and the award as the audience's favorite film; the title was changed to avoid confusion with Dakota Fanning's sci-fi adventure "Push," released last February.)
When we first encounter her, Precious is pregnant with her second child by her own father, who raped her repeatedly while her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), looked the other way and later heaped abuse on her daughter out of jealousy and spite.
To call Mary a viper would disrespect the other human reptiles that walk among us. She is the lowest of the low, a woman in need of new and nastier adjectives than loathsome and contemptible to do her justice.
Mo'Nique, best known for raunchy, low-brow comedy (and who coincidentally played a character named Precious in Daniel's directing debut, "Shadowboxer"), embodies Mary perfectly, not as a villain but a woman too ignorant, too unaware to fathom what a horrible person she is. When Mo'Nique's Mary says she did her best for Precious, you believe that she believes it. Mo'Nique should win an Oscar for this performance.
The reverse of Mary is Blu Rain (the radiant Paula Patton), a teacher at an alternative school where Precious finally begins to learn after years of getting good grades while remaining unable to read and write at public school.
Blu is chief among the guardian angels that come into Precious' life. Her benefactors also including Lenny Kravitz as a maternity-ward nurse, Sherri Shepherd as a worker at her new school and a room full of vibrant young women who become more like sisters than classmates to Precious.
Carey delivers warmly and honestly in a small role as a social worker, a surprising turnaround from her laughable musical bomb "Glitter."
While veteran performers reveal previously unsuspected depth, Sidibe is an out-of-nowhere revelation. She was in college in the Bronx, where she had appeared in some campus theater, when she turned up for open auditions on "Precious."
Sidibe's Precious is scary, funny, fragile, willful, exasperating, ferocious, sweet, indignant, joyful — while at heart remaining a little girl in desperate need of just one hand to hold, one finger to point her the way. She and Mo'Nique both could be going home with Oscars.
Geoffrey Fletcher's screenplay mirrors Sapphire's first-person novel, allowing Precious to blossom in her own words as her confidence builds as a writer.

Daniels seamlessly blends the stark awfulness of Precious' life with fantasy sequences in which she's a star, interviewed at red-carpet premieres, performing at the Apollo, then ultimately and lovingly coaxes his heroine into a better reality somewhere in between.

Since its Sundance premiere, the film has gained its own guardian angels. Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry were so charmed by the film, they signed on as executive producers, while Mary J. Blige wrote a song to add to the soundtrack.

You could call "Precious" one of those little miracles of independent film, but you'd be wrong. "Precious" and all its disparate ingredients constitute one very big miracle — and a glimpse of what American cinema still can be, whether or not Hollywood cares about making good films.

"Precious," a Lionsgate release, is rated R for child abuse including sexual assault, and pervasive language. Running time: 109 minutes. Four stars out of four.

___

Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G — General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.

MILAN (AFP) –
England international David Beckham re-signed on loan with Italian giants AC Milan on Monday as widely expected, the Serie A side announced.

The 34-year-old had already spent time on loan with AC Milan from his American club LA Galaxy from January this year to June and is desperate to make the England squad for next year's World Cup finals in South Africa.

"I need to give myself the best chance possible to make the World Cup squad and playing for Milan on loan will help me to do that," Beckham said in a statement on the Galaxy website.

"I genuinely enjoyed my time at Milan and I look forward to meeting the players and staff again.

"I'm thankful to Tim Leiweke and Bruce Arena for allowing me this opportunity. I'm committed to LA Galaxy and MLS in the long term and remain as passionate as ever about growing the game of soccer in America.

"I'm completely focused on ending this season on a high note with my club by winning the MLS Cup."

A statement on the Milan website said that Beckham would once again stay at the San Siro from January to June.

"We are very happy to see David Beckham back in the red and black shirt after the splendid experience we had with him last season," said Milan chief executive Adriano Galliani.

"We're sure that this spell in Europe will help him to take part in the next World Cup and then continue his career at Los Angeles Galaxy, whom we thank for their help."

Beckham's initial move to Milan in January this year was tinged with controversy, after the right-sided midfielder opted to extend his three-month loan deal into the summer rather than return to California.

Booed to begin with upon his return, he has since repaired his reputation with the club's fans by leading the Galaxy into the play-offs.

Beckham has mainly been used as a substitute by England coach Fabio Capello, who nonetheless seems likely to offer him a place in England's 23-man World Cup squad.

Milan made a poor start to the season but a recent run of good form has seen them rise to fourth in the Serie A table, while they are well placed to qualify for the knockout phase of the Champions League after a 3-2 victory at Real Madrid in their last match in the competition.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) –
The Philadelphia Phillies beat the New York Yankees 8-6 on Monday to force a sixth game in the best-of-seven World Series.

The victory by last year's winners of the Fall Classic cut the Yankees' lead to 3-2 and sent the series back to New York for Game Six on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Larry Fine, Editing by Alastair Himmer)

NEWARK, N.J. – An airport security guard who was overheard saying he had "cut a hole in a fence to be able to shoot" Barack Obama pleaded not guilty Thursday to making terroristic threats against the president.
John Brek appeared via video feed from the Essex County Jail, where he has been held since his arrest Tuesday night. Clad in an orange prison jumpsuit, the 55-year-old Brek didn't speak during the hearing but had his plea entered by his attorney, Moses Rambarran.
Municipal Judge Amilkar Velez-Lopez rejected the state's request to raise Brek's bail to $500,000, and instead raised it from $100,000 to $200,000.
Brek also pleaded not guilty to possession of hollow point bullets, which is prohibited in New Jersey, and to receiving stolen property for allegedly having a stolen gun among the more than 40 firearms recovered from his residence Tuesday. The bail on those charges remained at $20,000.
"We really have to take these matters seriously," Velez-Lopez said. "He had a very real possibility of carrying out those threats. He would have been in close proximity to the president."
Rambarran said his client "knows he has some serious challenges against him and knows he must go through legal channels to get himself vindicated."
He said Brek's arrest raises constitutional issues.
"In the United States of America, we are allowed to make offensive, distasteful, repugnant statements," he said. "These are not prosecutable as a crime."
An airline worker standing at a coffee cart at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday afternoon heard Brek saying he "cut a hole in a fence to be able to shoot" Obama, according to the arrest warrant.
Obama arrived in Newark late Wednesday afternoon to appear at a campaign rally for Gov. Jon S. Corzine.
Brek is employed by a private security firm.
Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow said no weapons were found in the area where he worked. She did not comment on whether investigators found the hole in the fence that Brek referenced, but said Brek's comments were overheard "in the vicinity" of an area where the presidential entourage was to pass through the next day.

WASHINGTON – Federal investigators are scrambling to determine what happened aboard a Northwest Airlines jetliner whose crew flew 150 miles past its destination while air traffic controllers, other pilots and even a flight attendant back in the cabin tried to get their attention.
Investigators don't know whether the pilots may have fallen asleep, but National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said Friday that fatigue and cockpit distraction will be looked into.
The plane's flight recorders were brought to Washington Friday, but the cockpit voice recorder is an older model that contains only the last 30 minutes of conversation. That makes the investigation more difficult since that time would be taken up by the flight back to Minneapolis — the intended destination — and the landing there Wednesday night.
Flight 188's recorders were delivered to the NTSB's Washington office. The pilots, both temporarily suspended, are to be interviewed by investigators next week. The airline, acquired last year by Delta Air Lines, is also investigating.
The crew told authorities they were distracted during a heated discussion over airline policy, the NTSB said.
Wednesday night, the airliner with more than 140 passengers aboard zoomed past Minneapolis at 37,000 feet at what was supposed to be the end of a flight from San Diego. Worried about who was actually at the controls, officials asked the crew to prove who they were by executing turns after they finally were contacted.
On the ground, police and FBI agents prepared for the worst, and the Air National Guard put fighter jets on alert at two locations as the drama unfolded.
Pilots from two other planes in the vicinity were finally able to reach the pilots using a different radio frequency, a controllers union spokesman said. A flight attendant in the cabin also was able to contact them by intercom, said a source close to the investigation who wasn't authorized to talk publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
By that time, the Airbus A320 was over Eau Claire, Wis., and the pilots had been out of communication with air traffic controllers for over an hour. They turned back and landed safely in Minneapolis, the plane's scheduled destination.
The plane passed over Minneapolis at 37,000 feet just before 8 p.m. local time. Contact with controllers wasn't established until 14 minutes later, NTSB said.
Air traffic controllers in Denver had been in contact with the pilots as they flew over the Rockies, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said. But as the plane got closer to Minneapolis, she said, "the Denver center tried to contact the flight but couldn't get anyone."
Denver controllers notified their counterparts in Minneapolis, who also tried to reach the crew without success, Brown said.
Officials suspect Flight 188's radio might still have been tuned to a frequency used by Denver controllers even though the plane had flown beyond their reach, said Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Union. Controllers worked throughout the incident with the pilots of other planes, asking them to try to raise Flight 188 using the Denver frequency, he said
That was unsuccessful until two pilots working with Minneapolis controllers finally got through just before the plane turned around, Church said. Minneapolis controllers don't have the capability of using the Denver frequency, but pilots do, he said.
After re-establishing contact with the plane, controllers asked the pilot in charge to execute a series of turns to show he was in control of the aircraft, Church said.
"Controllers have a heightened sense of vigilance when we're not able to talk to an aircraft. That's the reality post-9/11," he said.
Passenger Lonnie Heidtke said he didn't notice anything unusual before the landing except that the plane was late.
The flight attendants "did say there was a delay and we'd have to orbit or something to that effect before we got back. They really didn't say we overflew Minneapolis. ... They implied it was just a business-as-usual delay," said Heidtke, a consultant with a supercomputer consulting company based in Bloomington, Minn.

Once on the ground, the plane was met by police and FBI agents. Passengers retrieving their luggage from overhead bins were asked by flight attendants sit down, Heidtke said. An airport police officer and a couple other people came on board and stood at the cockpit door, talking to the pilots, he said.

"I did jokingly call my wife and say, 'This is the first time I've seen the police meet the plane. Maybe they're going to arrest the pilots for being so late.' Maybe I was right," Heidtke said.

The pilots' explanation that they were distracted by shop talk "just doesn't make any sense," said Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation in Alexandria, Va. "The pilots are saying they were involved in a heated conversation. Well, that was a very long conversation."

The FAA is updating rules governing how many hours commercial pilots may fly and remain on duty. The NTSB also cautioned government agencies this week about the risks of sleep apnea contributing to transportation accidents.

In January 2008, two pilots for go! airlines fell asleep for at least 18 minutes during a midmorning flight from Honolulu to Hilo, Hawaii. The plane passed its destination and was heading out over open ocean before controllers raised the pilots. The captain was later diagnosed with sleep apnea.

___

AP Airlines Writer Joshua Freed and AP Writers Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Dave Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

FlightAware.com tracking of Northwest Flight 188: http://bit.ly/2QV9hX

National Transportation Safety Board http://www.ntsb.gov

CHICAGO – No punches were thrown. And neither bit off the other's ear.
Mutual praise and admiration dominated during a face-to-face meeting Friday between former world champion boxers Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield on a live episode of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
On June 28, 1997, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Tyson was disqualified after biting off part of Holyfield's right ear during their WBA heavyweight title fight.
A respectful Tyson shook hands with his former rival several times during their encounter Friday — which he said was his first chance to speak at length with Holyfield since the ear chomp that made worldwide headlines.
Tyson told Winfrey earlier that an initial apology after the incident was insincere. But when she asked what he wanted to say to Holyfield, Tyson stopped short of apologizing again. He instead poured on the praise.
"This is a beautiful guy," he said, holding Holyfield's arm affectionately for several seconds. "I just want you to know it's just been a pleasure ... being acquainted with you."
Asked by Winfrey if he was still missing part of his ear, Holyfield pointed to it and said, "Just a little bit."
Holyfield also had a confession of sorts to make: He himself has bitten others, during childhood roughhousing with his siblings as a way to get out of headlocks.
"You talk about biting," he said. "I'm the person that bit every brother in my family."
Holyfield said one reason he wanted to appear with Tyson on television was to demonstrate to youth caught up in violence that reconciliation is always possible.
"We can come together," he said. "We know you can come together."

PARIS – Over the years, the chief sommelier had forgotten they were there. And when the four bottles of 1875 Armagnac Vieux were finally unearthed from the labyrinthine wine cellar this week, they were covered in a black fungus that looked like matted cat fur.
The landmark Tour d'Argent restaurant, which dates back to 1582, is cleaning out its 450,000-bottle wine cellar, considered one of the best and biggest in the world. It is putting 18,000 bottles up for auction in December, an event that has captured the imagination of French wine lovers.
The restaurant is selling mostly wine but also some very old spirits, like three bottles of a Clos du Griffier cognac from 1788, the year before the French Revolution, as well as the ancient Armagnac, valued at euro400-500 ($595-$743) a bottle. The fuzzy fungus is nothing to worry about — it thrives on the fumes of such spirits and is easily wiped away.
The restaurant wants to cut down on wines it has in multiple to vary and modernize its selection.
"You'll probably see, we've got too many bottles," jokes chief sommelier David Ridgway.
Unlocking a padlocked iron gate, the tuxedo-clad sommelier ushered visitors into the restaurant's underworld, where bottles are stacked floor to ceiling in a succession of caverns. Though everything is registered in a computer, there are occasional surprises, like the 1875 Armagnac, which Ridgway came across while looking for something else.
The wine cellar of the Left Bank restaurant, known for pressed duck and spectacular views of Notre Dame, is a part of its history. A sign marks the spot where a brick wall was built in 1940 to hide the best bottles during the Nazi occupation in World War II.
Visitors are offered sheepskin blankets for the chill: 14 degrees Celsius (57.2 Fahrenheit) this week, but dipping to 12 degrees Celsius (53.6 Fahrenheit) in winter.
"I like the wine to live a little bit of the seasons, even though it's temperature-controlled," said Ridgway, a Briton who has overseen the restaurant's wine menu since the early 1980s.
Times have changed since then, Ridgway says. Expensive jewelry or clothes no longer indicate what diners will pay for wine, and it's not taboo now for people to say what they want to spend. Still, he has to tread carefully: Propose a wine too inexpensive and some "people feel we have looked down on them, almost."
Estimated prices at the Dec. 7-8 sale by French auctioneer Piasa start at euro10 ($15) a bottle and go up to euro2,500-euro3,000 ($3,716-$4,459) for each 1788 Cognac, one of which will go to charity.
Among wines on sale are Chateau Lafite Rothschild (1970, 1982, 1997), Cheval Blanc (1928, 1949, 1966) and Chateau Margaux (1970, 1990). The total sale is expected to bring in around euro1 million ($1.5 million).
Buyers can rest assured the bottles aren't counterfeit — a major problem in the industry — because the restaurant bought them directly from vintners. As for the restaurant, the timing of the auction is right even as Europe struggles amid a global economic crisis.
"I'm sure there are some amazing treasures in that cellar, and it's a good time to sell because the wine auction market has really come storming back" after tanking during the early months of the financial crisis, said Michael Steinberger, Slate's wine columnist and author of "Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France."
The restaurant, a family business, was once the summit of French gastronomy, attracting royalty, politicians and film stars. Each duck served comes with a certificate: U.S. President John F. Kennedy ate duck No. 245,200, while Mick Jagger feasted on No. 531,147 and Princess Grace of Monaco savored No. 496,516.
But recent years have brought setbacks. Longtime owner Claude Terrail died in 2006, and his 29-year-old son Andre now runs it. The restaurant, where a prix fixe lunch menu costs euro65 ($97) and a tasting menu at dinner goes for euro160 ($238), long held three Michelin stars but is now down to one.
The economic crisis has affected the restaurant's finances only "a bit," Terrail said, in part because of its name and diverse international clientele. While the kitchen was recently updated, the wine sale may fund more extensive renovations down the line.
The restaurant's name means "The Silver Tower" in French, and all the bottles for sale are stamped with the restaurant's insignia, a tiny tower.

On the Web:

http://www.piasa.auction.fr/UK/