Viewers of China Central Television got an unusual glimpse last month of that nation’s offensive cyber-capabilities: A video clip showed a military computer program on which an unseen user selects a “target” — in this case, a Falun Gong Web site based in Alabama — and hits a button labeled “attack.” The video amounted to just six seconds in a state media documentary called “The Cyber Storm Has Arrived!” But it offered an uncommonly candid depiction of cyber-weaponry developed by a country that is routinely accused of mounting attacks and just as routinely issues fervent denials. Read full article > >

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State-media video candidly depicts China’s developing cyber-weaponry

The Tennessee Valley Authority has approved construction on a nuclear plant in northeastern Alabama — the first U.S. agency to do so since the Japan nuclear disaster this year.

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Alabama nuclear plant gets go-ahead

An group of church leaders have formally denounced Alabama’s new immigration law, calling it mean-spirited and un-Christian and have vowed not to obey it.

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Alabama Law Criminalizes Samaritans, Bishops Say

In Cordova, Ala., residents are divided over whether two blacks were turned away from a church just before a tornado on April 27.

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Cordova Journal: Around Tornado Deaths, a Nagging Tale of Shelter Denied

Following powerful tornadoes that devastated Alabama and the southern U.S. last month, killing over 300 people, a new series of tornadoes ripped through the Midwest on Sunday, killing at least one person in Minneapolis, and an unknown number of people…

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Dozens Dead in Midwest Tornadoes

As a follow-up to the 2009 movie “ Natalee Holloway ” — which chronicled the disappearance of the Alabama teen in 2005 during a class trip to Aruba — Lifetime airs original movie ”Justice for Natalee Holloway” (at 8 p.m.), in which Tracy Pollan reprises her role as Natalee’s mother, Beth. The two-hour drama picks up after Natalee went missing, depicting how the suspected killer tormented Natalee’s mother with various false information. After the movie, docu-series “Vanished” (Lifetime at 10) debuts, as the real-life Beth Holloway talks to families around the country who have gone through unsolved disappearances of loved ones. Read full article > >

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TV Highlights: ‘Justice for Natalee Holloway’ movie; ‘American Experience’

Storm-displaced dogs in Alabama wait for their owners to find them, stranded pilot whales struggle to survive in the Florida Keys and more. Read full article > >

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A baby spider monkey, ring-tailed lemurs, baby storks and more in animal views

In an Alabama town of 1,576, counting the missing and dead from last week’s tornadoes has proved daunting.

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Week After Storm, Town Still Accounts for Missing

Three members of President Barack Obama’s administration and the heads of two federal agencies that deal with disasters and small business development are scheduled on Sunday to tour parts of Alabama and Mississippi decimated last week by one of the deadliest tornado outbreaks in American history.

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Feds promise aid in ‘tough recovery’

Auburn quarterback Cam Newton was the first pick of the 2011 NFL draft, going to the Carolina Panthers. Denver used the second pick on Texas A&M linebacker Von Miller; Buffalo chose Alabama DT Marcell Dareus third. (April 28)

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Cam Newton goes first to Panthers in NFL Draft

“When people come to New Orleans,” says Donald Link, a chef who owns two of the most popular restaurants in the city that lives to eat, “they want something from here . No one says, ‘I want to get some good Chinese.’ ” And so it was last month that I spent three days dining (and drinking!) solely in places with local roots — and wishing there were more than three meals a day to do the scene justice. Some tales from four favorites: Link grew up in Lake Charles, where he had the good fortune to live a quarter-mile from both sets of grandparents. Those who were Cajun fed him gumbo, jambalaya and smothered pork; the others, from Alabama, set out plates of rabbit and dumplings, okra, cornbread and ham hocks. When the chef and co-owner of the well-regarded Herbsaint opened Cochon with Stephen Stryjewski in 2006 shortly after Hurricane Katrina, it was with the hope of sharing all those fond childhood memories with a larger audience. Read full article > >

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Postcard from Tom: Eating well in New Orleans

A punishing storm system that began Thursday evening continued to pummel parts of the Deep South into the early hours of Saturday morning.

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Storm Kills 7 Overnight in Alabama

A powerful storm that ripped through Arkansas and Oklahoma late Thursday, killing nine people, reached Mississippi and Alabama Friday. The violent winds and tornadoes have toppled trees, dislodged power lines, blown off roofs, and tossed cars onto…

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Storm Barrels Across Southeast

A deadly shooting rampage at an Alabama college Wednesday left one person dead and three more injured, police said. The suspect, Thomas Franklin May III, 34, drove off in a white Jeep liberty after the shooting at Southern Union Community College in…

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1 Killed, 3 Injured in Alabama Shooting

After beloved trees at Auburn University were poisoned, a truce has emerged between Auburn and Alabama’s usually divided supporters.

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Poisoned Trees Bring Truce to a Civil War in Alabama Football