1. Parents: FAMU hazing was retaliation
(CBS News)
The band had many subgroups in its hazing culture. Champion was hazed aboard the marching band's Bus C - a bus with its own culture, and, his parents believe, its own hazing ritual.
There's been a new twist in the Florida A&M hazing investigation, as the parents of a student who was beaten to death in November tell CBS News something previously unknown about him: Robert Champion Jr. was gay.
CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann met the parents, Robert and Pam Champion, in Orlando, Fla., where they made their first visit to the hotel parking lot where their son died after a hazing ritual.
Champion Jr. was a 26 year old drum major in A&M's famed marching band, and he was allegedly pummeled by his band mates.
"There's no way around it. It was wrong," Pam Champion tells CBS News.
FAMU student autopsy reveals extensive bleeding
Video: 30 people under investigation in Fla. A&M hazing
Fla A&M pres to keep job during investigation
Video: 30 people under investigation in Fla. A&M hazing
Fla A&M pres to keep job during investigation
On Nov. 19, Champion was found unresponsive aboard a band bus after the school's biggest game of the year. Police ruled the death a homicide from hazing.
About 30 students were on the bus at the time, but no one has been charged, and the Champions have started their own investigation into how their son died.
"The truth will come out as to what happened," says the young man's mother. "I will find out how my son got there, because I know that he would not have willingly, knowingly just walked into that."
Champion family attorney Chris Chestnut says he has now spoken to "a lot" of the people who were there on the day, more than 10 potential witnesses.
Some of the students tell Chestnut they were also hazed that night, but none as severely as Champion. They say he was singled out, possibly because he was both a vocal opponent of hazing and a band disciplinarian, and gay.
"It may or may not have been" his sexual orientation which saw him singled out, says Chestnut, allowing only that it is a "possibility."
Champion's mother says her son "wasn't defined by his sexual orientation. He was just defined as being a child going to school, trying to get an education."
Florida A&M students and classmates of hazing victim Robert Champion, Jr., pose outside their travel bus.
(Credit: CBS)
Chestnut says his interviews suggest band members aboard Bus C may have been subjected to hazing violence as they were made to run from the back of the bus to the front, and left to "pray to God they make it off."
The Champions have said they'll sue Florida A&M, and next week they also intend to sue the band's charter bus company.
"We are sorry the young man died," the president of Fabulous Coach Lines told CBS News in a written statement. "Ultimately we did not have anything to do with the student dying. Our responsibility lies with transport."
But Robert Champion's parents say stopping hazing is the responsibility of everyone involved, and they're not done fighting for that cause yet.
"I'm waiting on a solution," says Pam Champion. "Our goal is not to shut down any school. Our goal is not to stop the music. Our goal is to stop the hazing."
2. Alaska town gets help digging out of snowy prison
(CBS News)
The town of Cordova, Alaska is quite simply buried. CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reports a record 18 feet of snow has already fallen this winter - six feet in just the past few days.
Buildings have collapsed, avalanches are rolling down from the mountains and boats are sinking in the harbor.
As one weary resident tells CBS News, "there is getting to be more snow in Cordova than people and shovels to deal with it."
It's reached crisis level, and on Sunday, Cordova's mayor declared a state of emergency and called in the National Guard.
Dozens of guardsmen and women are helping to shift mountains of snow, which can weigh as much as 100 pounds per square foot. They will also help clear the one road to the airport. Besides boat, air is the only way in or out of this isolated coastal fishing town.
The frigid cold is creating dangerous conditions elsewhere, too. Some 700 miles to the northwest of Cordova, residents of iced-in Nome, Alaska worry that a Russian tanker carrying much-needed heating oil and fuel might not be able to reach them before they face severe shortages.
For Tracy's full report on the winter blast in Alaska, click on the video player above.
3. U.S. ship rescues Iranians at sea - again
An Iranian mariner greets a U.S. Coast Guardsmen assigned to the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Monomoy (WPB-1326). Monomoy rendered assistance to six Iranian mariners who had to abandon their dhow, Ya-Hussayn, after its engine room flooded. Monomoy is assigned to Commander, Task Force 55, supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility. (U.S. Coast Guard photo)
(AP)
WASHINGTON - A U.S. Coast Guard cutter rescued six Iranian mariners from a vessel in distress in the Gulf, the second time in less than a week that the American military has come to the aid of Iranians at sea, an official said Tuesday.
Pentagon press secretary George Little said the Iranians aboard a cargo dhow about 50 miles southeast of the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr used flares and flashlights to hail the cutter Monomoy at 3 a.m. local time Tuesday. The vessel's master indicated that his engine room was flooding and "deemed not seaworthy," Little said.
Little said one Iranian suffered burn injuries apparently as a result of the engine problem and was receiving medical assistance aboard the Monomoy.
He said it was not immediately clear how the Coast Guard would arrange for the Iranians' return.
The Monomoy is assigned to a naval task force of the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Navy rescued 13 Iranian fishermen who had been held captive by pirates in the northern Arabian Sea for more than 40 days.
A port beam view photograph of the Iran-flagged dhow, Ya-Hussayn, taken from the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Monomoy (WPB-1326). The cutter rendered assistance to six Iranian mariners who had to abandon the Ya-Hussayn after its engine room flooded. Monomoy is assigned to Commander, Task Force (CTF) 55, supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility
(Credit: U.S. Coast Guard photo)
That rescue came just days after Tehran warned the United States to keep its warships out of the Gulf. The fishermen were sent on their way, and the 15 pirates were taken aboard the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.
SOURCE:http://www.cbsnews.com/
Top 3 T.V News Stories
1)Republican Presidential primary taking place in New Hampshire tonight. The expected results are that Romney will walk away as the front runner ans second place is a guess. Reporters were heavily stationed out side the polls trying to get an idea of how the primary will turn out. Second place could go to Ron Paul or the former mayor of Utah, Huntsman. Huntsman has all of a sudden surged into the polls, and seems to be gaining ground daily. Ultimately the sad truth is that 32% of those Republican's polled today, said they are either undecided or wish there were another choice.
3) The U.S. Navy rescues Iranian sailors for a second time. Today the U.S Navy again received distress calls from a Iranian ship whose boiler room was taking on water. When the sailors were rescued they said they would have died if the navy would not have came to their rescue.
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