Video: Syria's youngest talk about life in war zone

The impact of war on Syria's youngest residents is depicted in a striking video released Wednesday by Global Post. A correspondent, identified only as " Maya," spoke with kids in a Syrian children's shelter about their experiences growing up in a war zone.

The sound of explosions can be heard in the background as the footage opens to a room filled with young people.

"When the shelling starts we don't hear the explosions as much, so we feel safer," says 14-year-old Mariam. "But when the shelling is heavy we feel only God can protect us."

Between images of the children playing--with hula hoops, computer games and, in one case, a bullet--the young subjects give their personal accounts of war. They speak candidly, and without tears, about witnessing brutal massacres, the deaths of classmates and dreaming about bombs.

Turkieh, an 8-year-old with bouncy curls and a bright pink sweater, is calm as she recounts the loss of her mother.

"My mum went to buy bread and was coming back when the sniper shot her," she says.

The United Nations say more than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict started.

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Dorner Hid Just Steps From Command Center

Christopher Dorner, the fugitive ex-cop whom authorities believe died in a fiery standoff with police Tuesday night, was apparently holed up in a snow-covered cabin in the California mountains just steps from where police had set up a command post and held press conferences during a five-day manhunt.

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

Police are working to officially identify the body, but "have reason to believe that it is him," said San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cynthia Bachman.

The manhunt for Dorner, 33, one of the biggest in recent memory, led police to follow clues across the West and into Mexico, but it ended just miles from where Dorner's trail went cold last week.

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

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

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

Carjacking Victim Says Christopher Dorner Was Dressed for Damage Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Manhunt: Inside the Shootout Watch Video

Chris Dorner Manhunt: Fugitive Ex-Cop in Shootout With Police Watch Video

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

It was at the cabin Tuesday morning where two women arrived to find a man matching Dorner's description inside. He took the women hostage, tying them up and stealing their car. At 12:20 p.m. PT, one of the woman broke free and called police.

Dorner crashed that car and hijacked a pickup truck as officials from the state Fish and Game Department pursued him.

"I saw some movement in the trees and it was Christopher Dorner and he came out onto the road, out of the snow, and he was dressed in all camouflage and had a big assault, sniper-type rifle and he had a vest on, like a ballistics vest. He was dressed up to do some damage it looked like. He said, 'I don't want to hurt you. Just get out and start walking up the road and take your dog with you,' Rick Heltebrake, the pickup's driver, told ABC News.

Dorner then took off into the woods on foot, where sheriff's deputies pursued him to a rental cabin in which he barricaded himself and began firing.

Two deputies were wounded in the firefight and airlifted to a nearby hospital, where one died, police said. The second deputy received non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Some local television stations broadcast police scanner traffic of the firefight, punctuated by the sound of automatic gunfire.

"It was horrifying to listen to that firefight and to hear those words. 'Officer down' is the most gut-wrenching experience that you can have as a police officer," said LAPD spokesman Lt. Andrew Neiman.

Over the course of the next five hours, heavily armed SWAT teams with tank-like vehicles surrounded the cabin, even firing tear gas inside, but never entered the building.

Cops said they heard a single gunshot go off from inside the cabin just as they began to see smoke and fire. Later they heard the sound of more gunshots, the sound of ammunition being ignited by the heat of the blaze, law enforcement officials said.

Dorner is accused of killing four people, including the deputy shot on Tuesday. Last Thursday he allegedly gunned down Riverside police officer Michael Crain, who was laid to rest today.

Crain's shooting and the discovery of an online manifesto pledging to kill dozens of cops launched the dragnet.

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Fears of 'catastrophic' violence in tense Mali

GAO, Mali: Mali risks descending into "catastrophic" violence, the UN rights chief warned on Tuesday, as tensions swept the country after a string of attacks by Islamist rebels on French-led forces.

After four days of suicide bombings and guerrilla fighting in the northern city of Gao, fears of fresh attacks were high following a call from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) - which US officials have labelled Al-Qaeda's most dangerous franchise - for a holy war in Mali.

UN rights chief Navi Pillay warned a second kind of violence also threatened the country - reprisal attacks by the army and black majority on light-skinned Tuaregs and Arabs accused of supporting the rebel groups that have plunged Mali into crisis.

"As the situation evolves, attacks and reprisals risk driving Mali into a catastrophic spiral of violence," Pillay told the UN Security Council.

"Protection of human rights is key to stabilising the situation."

Pillay said human rights investigators from her department had started arriving in the Malian capital last week, and called on all sides in the conflict to refrain from revenge attacks.

Rights groups have accused the Malian army of killing suspected rebel supporters and dumping their bodies in wells.

Tuaregs and Arabs have also come under attack from their black neighbours in northern towns such as Timbuktu, where looting broke out after French-led forces reclaimed the city and a mob tried to lynch an alleged Islamist supporter.

A grave containing several Arabs' bodies was recently discovered in Timbuktu.

With fears of reprisal attacks high, many Arabs and Tuaregs have fled.

In all, the crisis has caused some 377,000 people to flee their homes, including 150,000 who have sought refuge across Mali's borders, according to the UN.

Mali imploded after a March 22 coup by soldiers who blamed the government for the army's humiliation at the hands of north African Tuareg rebels, who have long complained of being marginalised by Bamako.

With the capital in disarray, Al-Qaeda-linked fighters hijacked the Tuareg rebellion and took control of the north.

Analysts say the crisis has been fuelled by a complex interplay of internal tensions and international factors, including Al-Qaeda's call to jihad.

Those concerns were underlined Tuesday when AQAP, Al-Qaeda's Yemen-based branch, condemned France's month-old intervention as a "crusader campaign against Islam" and called all Muslims to join a holy war against it.

"Supporting the Muslims in Mali is a duty for every capable Muslim with life and money, everyone according to their ability," AQAP's Sharia Committee said in a statement reported by the SITE Intelligence agency.

Around 90 percent of Malians are Muslim, but the Islamists' hardline ideology is not broadly accepted.

AQAP said jihad is "more obligatory on the people who are closer" to the fight and that "helping the disbelievers against Muslims in any form is apostasy", said US-based SITE, which monitors extremist Internet forums.

The statements were an apparent reference to north African countries, notably Algeria, where Islamist gunmen attacked a gas field after the government agreed to let French warplanes use Algerian airspace, unleashing a hostage crisis that left 37 foreigners dead.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al-Qaeda's north African branch, is one of the groups that seized control of northern Mali for 10 months in the wake of a March coup, along with the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and and Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith).

France launched its operation in Mali on January 11, after the interim government called for help fending off Islamist insurgents who were advancing into southern territory.

But after pushing the rebels from the towns under their control, France is eager to wind down the operation in its former colony and hand over to United Nations peacekeepers.

The European Union said on Tuesday it would resume aid to impoverished Mali worth up to 250 million euros that was suspended after the coup.

Britain also announced aid of 5 million pounds ($7.8 million, 5.8 million euros) to buy food, medical supplies and clean water for civilians caught up in the conflict.

- AFP/de

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Bergen: New story of bin Laden's death

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Esquire published interview with ex-Navy SEAL who says he shot bin Laden


• Peter Bergen: His account differs from another SEAL who wrote bestseller "No Easy Day"


• He says "the Shooter" gave an account that matches physical evidence on the scene


• Shooter left military before he became eligible for pension, health benefits

Editor's note: Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, the author of "Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden -- From 9/11 to Abbottabad," and a director at the New America Foundation.

(CNN) -- On Monday Esquire magazine published a massive profile of the Navy SEAL who says he shot Osama bin Laden.

Weighing in at some 15,000 words, the story does not identify the killer of al Qaeda's leader by his real name and refers to him only as "the Shooter."

Clearly the Shooter wanted to maintain something of the code of silence that is pervasive among the covert warriors of SEAL Team 6, the unit that mounted the bin Laden operation.

Peter Bergen

What do we learn from the Shooter's story? Most critically that the Shooter says he killed bin Laden with two shots at close range as he stood in his third floor bedroom in the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he had been hiding for more than five years.

This account differs in a crucial respect from the book "No Easy Day" by Mark Owen, a SEAL who also was on the bin Laden raid. (Mark Owen is a pseudonym; he was quickly revealed to be Matt Bissonnette.)

In "No Easy Day," a runaway bestseller that has stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for the past 22 weeks, Bissonnette writes that the SEALs were 15 minutes into the Abbottabad mission when the point man spotted a male poking his head out of a third floor bedroom.

He wrote that the point man shot at the mysterious male, and when the SEALs went inside the third floor bedroom they found him lying on the floor in his death throes. Bissonnette and another SEAL quickly finished him off with several more rounds.

The dead man was bin Laden.

'Nightmare' at home for SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden

It's a much less heroic story than that of the Shooter, who says he encountered bin Laden face-to-face in the bedroom. The Shooter says he saw that bin Laden's gun was within easy reach, and it was only then that he fired the shots that killed him.

The Shooter's version of bin Laden's death matches closely the accounts by reporters who have written most authoritatively about it.

It also matches what I saw when I was the only outside observer allowed inside the Abbottabad compound before it was demolished in late February 2012.

Accompanied by Pakistani military officers, I examined the bedroom where bin Laden died. The officers showed me a large patch of dark, congealed blood on the low ceiling.

It is consistent with the Shooter's account of firing two rounds at the head of a "surprisingly tall terrorist" while he was standing up. This evidence tends to undercut Bissonnette's version of bin Laden's death.

That said, it is worth noting that the night of bin Laden's death was a very confusing one.

As soon as the operation in Abbottabad had started one of the two Black Hawk helicopters crashed. There was a brief but intense firefight with Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, bin Laden's courier. The SEALs also shot and killed the courier's brother, sister-in-law and bin Laden's son Khalid.

All this took place in less than 15 minutes on a night when there was no moon and the electricity in the compound and surrounding neighborhood had been turned off. The SEALs were wearing night vision goggles that bathed the compound in a murky, pixilated glow.

It was a confusing situation, and that helps explain why Bissonnette's account differs from that of the Shooter.

In fact, Bissonnette's account virtually eliminates what the Esquire profile asserts is the Shooter's "central role in bin Laden's death."

Navy Seals: A battle for the conscience

"I don't know why he'd do that," the Shooter told Esquire.

We keep learning more about the hunt for and the death of Osama bin Laden, but it is a complex story, and, in common with many important historical events, the full facts will take many years to emerge.

The Shooter's account in Esquire is important to help us understand what happened that night, as is Bissonnette's account.

A good deal of the Esquire piece concerns the Shooter's worries about his future now that he has left the military.

"When he leaves after sixteen years in the Navy, his body filled with scar tissue, arthritis, tendonitis, eye damage, and blown disks, here is what he gets from his employer and a grateful nation: Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family."

In fact, pretty much any veteran who leaves before 20 years of service is not going to be eligible for a pension.

So should the Shooter be treated any differently? Indeed, should other members of key Special Operations units like SEAL Team 6 or the Army's Delta Force who have been at war almost continuously since the 9/11 attacks be given greater benefits given the inordinate amount of combat they have seen?

It's an idea that may be worth exploring for those who have seen extensive combat, but the fact is that once you start making such exceptions, the floodgates will open. After more than a decade of war, many veterans in conventional military units would also qualify for such preferential treatment.

In a time of budget crisis and large cuts at the Pentagon it is hard to make such a case. After all, what about the thousands of Marines who have also been fighting for many years in tough places like Anbar in western Iraq and Helmand in southern Afghanistan? Should they get a cushy early retirement deal, too?

If the Shooter had wanted to get the full benefits that follow 20 years of service he had a choice: Stay in for another four years to qualify for the pension he clearly deserves.

It's a choice he didn't make.

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Prosecutor: Fugitive ex-cop still looking for revenge

LOS ANGELES A prosecutor who filed a murder charge against a fugitive former Los Angeles police officer that could result in the death penalty said he believes the man hasn't finished carrying out his vendetta.

"Just read his manifesto and look at his actions," Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach said. "He's trying to send a message, and it would be my belief that his message is not completed yet."

Zellerbach filed charges Monday against Christopher Dorner for the murder of Riverside police Officer Michael Crain and the attempted murder of three other officers.

The manhunt for Dorner, 33, began last Wednesday when he was named the suspect in the Orange County killings of a former Los Angeles police captain's daughter and her fiance the previous weekend. Hours after police announced they were looking for him, Dorner allegedly fired at two LAPD officers then ambushed the Riverside officers.

"By both his words and conduct, he has made very clear to us that every law enforcement officer in Southern California is in danger of being shot and killed," Zellerbach said at a news conference guarded by four officers armed with rifles.

21 Photos

Manhunt for suspected LAPD cop killer

Play Video

Fugitive officer goes from hunter to hunted

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Miller on Dorner manhunt: "They got a lot of tips"

Police said Dorner wrote a lengthy manifesto that was posted to Facebook after the double killing. The manifesto vowed deadly revenge on those in the LAPD responsible for his firing years earlier, and their families. Police now are providing protection for some 50 families thought to be targets.

The search for Dorner remained focused in the mountains near Big Bear Lake about 80 miles east of Los Angeles after his burned-out truck was found there last Thursday. Authorities are searching more than 30 square miles day and night in the ski resort area and checking on roughly 600 cabins.

Police urged area residents with security cameras to review images to see if Dorner was recorded.

Police and other officials believe a $1 million reward, raised from public and private sources, will encourage residents to stay vigilant. More than 1,000 tips had come in since the reward was announced, Lt. Andrew Neiman, an LAPD spokesman, said Tuesday. CBS Los Angeles affiliate KCAL reports that the city council is considering raising the reward by $100,000.

"Now it's like the game show `Who Wants to be a Millionaire,"' said Anthony Burke, supervisory inspector for the U.S. Marshals regional fugitive taskforce. "Instead of one contestant, we've got 100,000, and there's only one question you have to answer. All they have to answer is where he's at, and we can take it from there."

Neiman also said investigators obtained new security video from a Sport Chalet sporting goods store in suburban Torrance but had not determined whether it shows Dorner. The video posted earlier on TMZ.com recorded a man resembling Dorner arrive with two small scuba tanks then leave with both those tanks and a larger one.

The wide-ranging search has created unusually heavy traffic backups at California border crossings into Mexico, as agents more closely inspect each car. State police in Mexico's Baja California were given photographs of Dorner and warned to consider him armed and extremely dangerous.

A U.S. Marshals Service affidavit used to obtain a federal arrest warrant on Feb. 7 cited probable cause to believe Dorner went to Mexico, but Neiman said Tuesday that it "in no way indicates one way or the other" whether Dorner is in that country.

Authorities have obtained a no-bail arrest warrant, which allows Dorner to be apprehended anywhere, Zellerbach said.

Dorner was fired from the LAPD five years ago, when a department board determined that he falsely claimed another officer had kicked a suspect. Randal Quan represented him during the proceeding.

Quan's daughter, Monica, and her fiance, Keith Lawrence, were found shot dead Feb. 3 in a car in the parking structure of their Irvine condominium. Last Wednesday, after discovery of the manifesto, Irvine police announced they were searching for Dorner.

Early Thursday in the Riverside County city of Corona, Dorner shot at two LAPD officers who had been dispatched to protect a possible target of Dorner, police said. One officer's head was grazed by a bullet; the other was unharmed.

Minutes later, Dorner used a rifle to ambush two Riverside officers, killing one and seriously wounding another, authorities said. The slain officer was identified as the 34-year-old Crain. The other officer's identity was not released to protect his family.

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Fort Hood Hero Says President 'Betrayed' Victims

Three years after the White House arranged a hero's welcome at the State of the Union address for the Fort Hood police sergeant and her partner who stopped the deadly shooting there, Kimberly Munley says President Obama broke the promise he made to her that the victims would be well taken care of.

"Betrayed is a good word," former Sgt. Munley told ABC News in a tearful interview to be broadcast tonight on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline."

"Not to the least little bit have the victims been taken care of," she said. "In fact they've been neglected."

There was no immediate comment from the White House about Munley's allegations.

Thirteen people were killed, including a pregnant soldier, and 32 others shot in the November 2009 rampage by the accused shooter, Major Nidal Hasan, who now awaits a military trial on charges of premeditated murder and attempted murder.

Tonight's broadcast report also includes dramatic new video, obtained by ABC News, taken in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, capturing the chaos and terror of the day.

WATCH Exclusive Video of Fort Hood's Aftermath

Munley, since laid off from her job with the base's civilian police force, was shot three times as she and her partner, Sgt. Mark Todd, confronted Hasan, who witnesses said had shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire on soldiers being processed for deployment to Afghanistan.

As Munley lay wounded, Todd fired the five bullets credited with bringing Hasan down.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

Despite extensive evidence that Hasan was in communication with al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack, the military has denied the victims a Purple Heart and is treating the incident as "workplace violence" instead of "combat related" or terrorism.

READ a Federal Report on the FBI's Probe of Hasan's Ties to al-Awlaki

Al-Awlaki has since been killed in a U.S. drone attack in Yemen, in what was termed a major victory in the U.S. efforts against al Qaeda.

Munley and dozens of other victims have now filed a lawsuit against the military alleging the "workplace violence" designation means the Fort Hood victims are receiving lower priority access to medical care as veterans, and a loss of financial benefits available to those who injuries are classified as "combat related."

READ the Fort Hood Victims' Lawsuit

Some of the victims "had to find civilian doctors to get proper medical treatment" and the military has not assigned liaison officers to help them coordinate their recovery, said the group's lawyer, Reed Rubinstein.

"There's a substantial number of very serious, crippling cases of post-traumatic stress disorder exacerbated, frankly, by what the Army and the Defense Department did in this case," said Rubinstein. "We have a couple of cases in which the soldiers' command accused the soldiers of malingering, and would say things to them that Fort Hood really wasn't so bad, it wasn't combat."

A spokesperson for the Army said its policy is not to comment on pending litigation, but that it is "not true" any of the military victims have been neglected and that it has no control over the guidelines of the Veterans Administration.

Secretary of the Army John McHugh told ABC News he was unaware of any specific complaints from the Fort Hood victims, even though he is a named defendant in the lawsuit filed last November which specifically details the plight of many of them.

"If a soldier feels ignored, then we need to know about it on a case by case basis," McHugh told ABC News. "It is not our intent to have two levels of care for people who are wounded by whatever means in uniform."

Some of the victims in the lawsuit believe the Army Secretary and others are purposely ignoring their cases out of political correctness.

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What beats Grammy? Immortality

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

Legends beyond their own time

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Bob Greene: Grammy nominated acts should remember the real prize comes later in life


• He says at a hotel he ran into a group of singing stars from an earlier era, in town for a show


• He says the world of post-fame touring less glamorous for acts, but meaningful


• Greene: Acts grow old, but their hits never will and to fans, the songs are time-machine

Editor's note: CNN Contributor Bob Greene is a best-selling author whose 25 books include "When We Get to Surf City: A Journey Through America in Pursuit of Rock and Roll, Friendship, and Dreams"; "Late Edition: A Love Story"; and "Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen."

(CNN) -- Memo to Carly Rae Jepsen, Frank Ocean, Hunter Hayes, Mumford & Sons, Miguel, the Alabama Shakes and all the other young singers and bands who are nominated for Sunday night's Grammy Awards:

Your real prize -- the most valuable and sustaining award of all -- may not become evident to you until 30 or so years have passed.

You will be much older.

But -- if you are lucky -- you will still get to be out on the road making music.

Bob Greene

Many of Sunday's Grammy nominees are enjoying the first wave of big success. It is understandable if they take for granted the packed concert venues and eye-popping paychecks.

Those may go away -- the newness of fame, the sold-out houses, the big money.

But the joy of being allowed to do what they do will go on.

I've been doing some work while staying at a small hotel off a highway in southwestern Florida. One winter day I was reading out on the pool deck, and there were some other people sitting around talking.

They weren't young, by anyone's definition. They did not seem like conventional businessmen or businesswomen on the road, or like retirees. There was a sense of nascent energy and contented anticipation in their bearing, of something good waiting for them straight ahead. A look completely devoid of grimness or fretfulness, an afternoon look that said the best part of the day was still to come.

I would almost have bet what line of work they were in. I'd seen that look before, many times.

I could hear them talking.

Yep.

The Tokens ("The Lion Sleeps Tonight," a No. 1 hit in 1961).

Little Peggy March ("I Will Follow Him," a No. 1 hit in 1963).

Little Anthony and the Imperials ("Tears on My Pillow," a top 10 hit in 1958).

Major singing stars from an earlier era of popular music, in town for a multi-act show that evening.

It is the one sales job worth yearning for -- carrying that battered sample case of memorable music around the country, to unpack in front of a different appreciative audience every night.

It's quite a world. I was fortunate enough to learn its ins and outs during the 15 deliriously unlikely years I spent touring the United States singing backup with Jan and Dean ("Surf City," a No. 1 hit in 1963) and all the other great performers with whom we shared stages and dressing rooms and backstage buffets:

Chuck Berry, Martha and the Vandellas, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, James Brown, Lesley Gore, Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon, the Kingsmen, the Drifters, Fabian, the Coasters, Little Eva, the Ventures, Sam the Sham. ...

Jukebox names whose fame was once as fresh and electric as that now being savored by Sunday's young Grammy nominees.

Decades after that fame is new, the road may not be quite as glamorous, the crowds may not be quite as large. The hours of killing time before riding over to the hall, the putrid vending-machine meals on the run, the way-too-early-in-the-morning vans to the airport -- the dreary parts all become more than worth it when, for an hour or so, the singers can once again personally deliver a bit of happiness to the audiences who still adore their music.

Greene: Super Bowl ad revives iconic voice

As the years go by, the whole thing may grow complicated -- band members come and go, they fight and feud, some quit, some die. There are times when it seems you can't tell the players without a scorecard -- the Tokens at the highway hotel were, technically and contractually, Jay Siegel's Tokens (you don't want to know the details). One of their singers (not Jay Siegel -- Jay Traynor) was once Jay of Jay and the Americans, a group that itself is still out on the road in a different configuration with a different Jay (you don't want to know).

But overriding all of this is a splendid truism:

Sometimes, if you have one big hit, it can take care of you for the rest of your life. It can be your life.

Sunday's young Grammy nominees may not imagine, 30 years down the line, still being on tour. But they -- the fortunate ones -- will come to learn something:

They will grow old, but their hits never will -- once people first fall in love with those songs, the songs will mean something powerful and evocative to them for the rest of their lives.

And as long as there are fairground grandstands on summer nights, as long as there are small-town ballparks with stages where the pitcher's mound should be, the singers will get to keep delivering the goods.

That is the hopeful news waiting, off in the distance, for those who will win Grammys Sunday, and for those who won't be chosen.

On the morning after that pool-deck encounter in Florida I headed out for a walk, and in the parking lot of the hotel I saw one of the Tokens loading his stage clothes into his car.

His license plate read:

SHE CRYD

I said to him:

"You sing lead on 'She Cried,' right?"

"Every night," he said, and drove off toward the next show.

The next show.

That's the prize.

That's the trophy, right there.

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Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Bob Greene.

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NKorea withdraws from nuclear test site: report

SEOUL: North Korea has pulled manpower and equipment out of its nuclear test site, a report said Monday, which cited the move as a possible sign of an imminent blast.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency said that Seoul has been keeping close watch on the underground Punggye-ri nuclear test site, as no movement of manpower and equipment has been observed there since Friday.

The agency quoted an unnamed source as saying the apparent withdrawal could point to a nuclear test being carried out soon.

North Korea has warned of a third atomic test since last month, but has not specified a date.

"When manpower and equipment are withdrawn, it can be an indication that a nuclear test is imminent," the source told Yonhap, requesting anonymity.

"We're watching the developments closely to know whether a nuclear test is imminent or it's another deceptive tactic," the source added.

Another Seoul government source told Yonhap that the withdrawal of manpower and equipment could be linked to the Lunar New Year's holiday, which is celebrated for three days in North Korea, having started on Sunday.

Yonhap said it was unclear whether the withdrawal was temporary.

Seoul has predicted Pyongyang may carry out its third nuclear test between the end of the holiday and the late leader Kim Jong-il's birthday on February 16, Yonhap said.

The withdrawal from the northeastern nuclear site comes after North Korea accused the United States and South Korea of "fussing over speculation" in Japan-based pro-North weekly magazine Tongil Sinbo, funded by Pyongyang.

"They are fussing over speculation without having a clue about what important state measures will be taken, including whether it will be a nuclear test or something worse than that," said the editorial, dated Friday and posted on the North's official website, Uriminzokkiri.

The North's top body, the National Defence Commission, announced on January 24 it would carry out a "high-level nuclear test" and further rocket launches, in a defiant response to tightened UN sanctions after its successful long-range rocket launch in December.

The isolated communist state insists the rocket launch was a scientific mission aimed at putting a satellite into an orbit.

But the US and many other countries viewed it as a disguised ballistic missile test, banned under UN resolutions which were triggered by Pyongyang's previous nuclear and missile tests in 2006 and 2009.

Experts and Seoul officials, citing recent satellite imagery, say the impoverished but nuclear-armed state has completed preparations for another atomic test at the northeastern nuclear site.

- AFP/jc

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Pope Benedict calls it quits

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: Pope Benedict XVI had been thinking of resigning for some time, a family friend says


• Benedict surprises the world with his decision to step down


• He says his strength in the past few months "has deteriorated"


• A new pope should be chosen by Easter, a spokesman says

What do you think of the pope's decision?

Rome (CNN) -- The spiritual leader of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI, surprised the world Monday by saying he will resign at the end of the month "because of advanced age."

It's the first time a pope has stepped down in nearly 600 years.

"Strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me," said Benedict, 85, according to the Vatican.

The news startled and shocked the Catholic world and led to frenzied speculation about who would replace him.

Pope Benedict XVI

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Analysts and experts immediately began debating the merits of naming a pontiff from the developing world, where the church continues to grow, versus one from Europe, where it has deep historical roots.

Cardinals will meet to choose Benedict's successor sometime after his official resignation on February 28, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, said at a news conference.

"Before Easter, we will have the new pope," he said.

Benedict won't be involved in the decision, Lombardi said. But his influence will undoubtedly be felt. Benedict appointed 67 of the 118 cardinals who will make the decision.

CNN Senior Vatican Analyst John Allen said that means the next pope, no matter where he is from, will probably continue in Benedict's conservative tradition, which has seen the church take a firm line on issues such as abortion, birth control and divorce.

The pope, born Joseph Ratzinger, is likely to retire to a monastery and devote himself to a life of reflection and prayer, Lombardi said. He won't be involved in managing the church after his resignation.

In a sign of just how rare an event this is, church officials aren't sure what the pope will be called after he leaves the office.

One possibility, Allen said, is "bishop emeritus of Rome."

Read the full text of Pope Benedict XVI's declaration

Resignation

Benedict will become the first pope to resign since Gregory XII in 1415. In that case, Gregory quit to end a civil war within the church in which more than one man claimed to be pope.

In this case, it wasn't external forces but the ravages of time that forced Benedict's hand. After months of consideration, he concluded he just wasn't up to the job anymore, Lombardi said.

"It's not a decision he has just improvised," Lombardi said. "It's a decision he has pondered over."

Benedict had been thinking about resigning for some time because of his age, a family friend in Regensburg, Germany, told CNN on Monday. He has discussed the resignation with his older brother, the Rev. Georg Ratzinger, according to the friend, who asked not to be named because he does not speak for Georg Ratzinger.

Several years ago, Benedict had suggested he would be open to resigning should his health fail, Allen said. But no one expected him to do so this soon, he said.

According to Lombardi, Benedict will step down as pope at 8 p.m. on February 28 in Rome, then head for the pope's summer residence. He will probably move to a monastery in the Vatican after that, Lombardi said.

After the resignation takes effect, cardinals will gather in Rome to select a successor. It takes at least two-thirds plus one of the 118 voting cardinals to elect a new leader for the church.

Benedict announced his resignation just before the start of the church's Lenten season, which begins with Ash Wednesday.

"We must trust in the mighty power of God's mercy. We are all sinners, but His grace transforms us and makes us new," Benedict said Sunday on Twitter, which the pope's office joined only in December.

Talk Back: Why is atheism on the rise in America?

Benedict's legacy

Benedict took over as pope in 2005 as the church was facing a number of issues, including declining popularity in parts of the world and a growing crisis over the church's role in handling molestation accusations against priests around the world.

Given his age at the time -- 78 -- he was widely seen as a caretaker pope, a bridge to the next generation following the long reign of John Paul II, a popular, globe-trotting pontiff whose early youth and vigor gave way to such frailty in later years that he required assistance walking and was often hard to hear during public addresses.

As an aide to John Paul, Benedict served as a strict enforcer of his conservative social doctrine. To no one's surprise, he continued to espouse a conservative doctrine after taking the office himself. He frequently warned of a "dictatorship of relativism."

"In a world which he considered relativist and secular and so on, his main thrust was to re-establish a sense of Catholic identity for Catholics themselves," said Delia Gallagher, contributing editor for Inside the Vatican magazine.

Where John Paul wowed crowds around the world with his mastery of numerous languages, Benedict took his training as a college professor to the Vatican and will be seen at his most influential in years to come with his writings, Gallagher said.

Allen called Benedict a "great teaching pope."

Benedict also worked to advance religious freedom and reduce friction among adherents of various faiths, said Bill Donohue of the U.S. Catholic League.

"The pope made it clear that religious freedom was not only a God-given right, it was 'the path to peace,' " Donohue said.

But Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, said Benedict's legacy will be mixed.

"His Papacy will be sadly remembered from the Muslim world by his distortion and attack on Islam as he came to the Papacy," Shafiq said in a statement. "This sadly meant the hard work of his predecessor Pope John Paul II was tarnished and required extensive work to rebuild ties between Christianity and Islam. That is something he has tried to do over the past eight years and we do wish it could have started better than it did."

Sex abuse scandal

Benedict became pope at the height of the molestation scandal involving Catholic priests, with complaints of sexual abuse and lawsuits over the issue tearing at the church.

Abusive priests had "disfigured their ministry" and brought "profound shame and regret" on the church, Benedict said in 2010, the same year he issued new rules aimed at stopping abuse.

The rules included allowing church prosecution of suspected molesters for 20 years after the incidents occurred, up from 10 years previously. The rules also made it a church crime to download child pornography and allowed the pope to remove a priest without a formal Vatican trial.

"No one did more to successfully address the problem of priestly sexual abuse than Joseph Ratzinger," Donohue said.

But Barbara Blaine, president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Benedict has not had any significant impact on the issue.

"I would hate for him to be remembered as someone who did the right thing because from our perspective, Pope Benedict's record has been abysmal," she said.

In 2010, The New York Times reported that church officials, including Ratzinger, had failed to act in the case of a Wisconsin priest accused of molesting up to 200 boys. The Times reported that church officials stopped proceedings against the priest after he wrote Ratzinger, who was at the time the cardinal in charge of the group that oversees Catholic Church doctrine.

Ratzinger never answered the letter, according to the Times, and church officials have said he had no knowledge of the situation. But a lawyer who obtained internal church paperwork said at the time that it "shows a direct line from the victims through the bishops and directly to the man who is now pope."

Also in 2010, the Times reported that the future pope -- while serving as the archbishop in Munich -- had been copied on a memo informing him that a priest accused of molesting children was being returned to pastoral work. At the time, a spokesman for the archdiocese said Ratzinger received hundreds of memos a year and it was highly unlikely that he had read it.

In a statement issued Monday, Blaine said the church should choose a new pope dedicated to preventing sexual abuse by priests.

"For the Church to truly embody the spiritual teachings of Jesus Christ, it must be led by a pontiff who demands transparency, exposes child-molesting clerics, punishes wrongdoers and enablers, cooperates with law enforcement, and makes true amends to those who were hurt so greatly by Catholic priests, employees and volunteers," Blaine wrote.

Victims' groups are pressing the International Criminal Court to prosecute Benedict in the sex abuse scandal, and say the resignation won't change that, according to Pam Spees, of the public policy law firm Center for Constitutional Rights, which is helping SNAP pursue the case.

World reaction

Benedict's decision surprised world leaders and everyday Catholics.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, said the decision "shocked and surprised everyone."

"Yet, on reflection, I am sure that many will recognise it to be a decision of great courage and characteristic clarity of mind and action," he said in a written statement.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Bishops, said he was startled, and sad, to see Benedict resign.

"The Holy Father brought the tender heart of a pastor, the incisive mind of a scholar and the confidence of a soul united with His God in all he did," he said in a written statement. "His resignation is but another sign of his great care for the Church."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Benedict "will be missed as a spiritual leader to millions." Cameron's Irish counterpart, Enda Kenny, praised Benedict for decades of leadership and service, as well as his decision to resign.

"It reflects his profound sense of duty to the Church, and also his deep appreciation of the unique pressures of spiritual leadership in the modern world," Kenny said in a prepared statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama said he and his wife "warmly remember" their 2009 meeting with Benedict, and wished cardinals well as they prepared to choose a successor.

Life before the papacy

Benedict was born Joseph Ratzinger on April 16, 1927, in Marktl Am Inn, Bavaria, a heavily Catholic region of Germany.

He spent his adolescent years in Traunstein, near the Austrian border, during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler.

Ratzinger wrote in his memoirs that school officials enrolled him in the Hitler Youth movement against his will in 1941, when he was 14.

He said he was allowed to leave the organization because he was studying for the priesthood, but was drafted into the army in 1943. He served with an anti-aircraft unit until he deserted in the waning days of WW II.

After the war, he resumed his theological studies and was ordained in 1951. He received his doctorate in theology two years later and taught dogma and theology at German universities for several years.

In 1962, he served as a consultant during the pivotal Vatican II council to Cardinal Frings, a reformer who was the archbishop of Cologne, Germany.

As a young priest, Ratzinger was on the progressive side of theological debates, but began to shift right after the student revolutions of 1968, CNN Vatican analyst Allen said.

In his book "Cardinal Ratzinger: The Vatican's Enforcer of the Faith," Allen says Ratzinger is a shy and gentle person whose former students spoke of him as a well-prepared and caring professor.

Pope Paul VI named him archbishop of Munich in 1977 and promoted him to cardinal the next month. Ratzinger served as archbishop of Munich until 1981, when he was nominated by John Paul II to be the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, a position he held until his election as pope.

He became dean of the College of Cardinals in November 2002 and in that role called the cardinals to Rome for the conclave that elected him the 265th pope.

In his initial appearance as pope, he told the crowd in St. Peter's Square that he would serve as "a simple and humble worker in the vineyards of the Lord."

He was the sixth German to serve as pope, but the first since the 11th century.

What do you think of Pope's decision? Share your views with CNN

Hada Messia reported from Rome; Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Nic Robertson, Stephanie Halasz, Deborah Feyerick, Chelsea J. Carter, Richard Allen Greene and Holly Yan also contributed to this report.

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"Gunfight" in Delaware courthouse kills 3

Updated 2:04 p.m. ET

WILMINGTON, Del.

Three people died Monday morning in a shooting at a courthouse in Delaware, including the shooter, authorities said.

Delaware State Police Sgt. Paul Shavack confirmed three people died in the shooting at the New Castle County Courthouse in Wilmington. He said the suspected gunman and two women are dead. The city's mayor said one of the women killed was the shooter's estranged wife, but Shavack said police had not confirmed that was the case.

Shavak said in a noon briefing that the motive was still to be determined but that it was not a random shooting. He cautioned against information coming from any other source.

Wilmington Mayor Dennis Williams said in a telephone interview that he was told the man shot and killed his wife.

Shavack said two police officers suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

He said officers exchanged gunfire with the shooter in courthouse's lobby before he passed metal detectors. Shavack did not say whether the shooter killed the two women or whether they were killed in the gunfire. Shavack also did not say how the shooter died.

According to CBS affiliate KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Mayor Williams said the suspect's estranged wife and a second unidentified female were shot and killed by the gunman. Williams says the suspected gunman was then killed by police. Earlier, the situation had been described as a "gunfight."

Dozens of police cars and emergency vehicles were on the streets surrounding the courthouse in the hours after the shooting, and police were searching the courthouse room by room as a precaution.

Jose Beltran, 53, a court employee who works in the building, was entering the lobby Monday morning when he heard two shots. He said he turned around and ran.

"It happened so fast," he said, adding he heard three or more shots as he ran.

Dick Lawyer works part time across the street at the law office of Casarino, Christman, Shalk, Ransom & Doss and said his office building had been on lockdown since about 8:15 a.m. The shooting occurred about five minutes earlier. He said he and colleagues were shaken at first but calmer hours later. "We have a couple of people whose relatives work at the courthouse," said Lawyer, who works as a document management specialist for the firm.

He said the building was still on lockdown at 12:40 p.m.

Robert Vess, 68, dropped off his wife, Dorothy, 69, for jury duty at the courthouse Monday morning. He said it wasn't until after 10:30 a.m. that she was able to call him and let him know she was safe. Vess said his wife, who works as a baker at a grocery store, was crying when she called, but he thought she would be all right.

"She had said, `If I had my way, I'd do jury duty every day,' but I don't think so after this," Vess said.

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