Northeast Digs Out After Blizzard

A fierce winter storm brought blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds as the anticipated snowstorm descended across much of the Northeast overnight.

By early Saturday morning, 650,000 homes and businesses were without power and at least five deaths were being blamed on the storm, three in Canada, one in New York and one in Connecticut, The Associated Press reported.

The storm stretched from New Jersey to Maine, affecting more than 25 million people, with more than two feet of snow falling in areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire.

FULL COVERAGE: Blizzard of 2013

In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy declared a state of emergency and closed all roads in the state. Overnight, snow fell at a rate of up to five to six inches per hour in parts of Connecticut.

In Milford, Conn. more than 38 inches of snow had fallen by Saturday morning.

"If you're not an emergency personnel that's required to be somewhere. Stay home," said Malloy.

In Fairfield, Conn. firefighters and police officers on the day shift were unable to make it to work, so the overnight shift remained on duty.

PHOTOS: Blizzard Hits Northeast

The wind and snow started affecting the region during the Friday night commute.

In Cumberland, Maine, the conditions led to a 19-car pile-up and in New York, hundreds of commuters were stranded on the snowy Long Island Expressway. Police were still working to free motorists early Saturday morning.

Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Blizzard Shuts Down Parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts Watch Video

Blizzard 2013: Power Outages for Hundreds of Thousands of People Watch Video

Blizzard 2013: Northeast Transportation Network Shut Down Watch Video

"The biggest problem that we're having is that people are not staying on the main portion or the middle section of the roadway and veering to the shoulders, which are not plowed," said Lieutenant Daniel Meyer from the Suffolk County Police Highway Patrol."The snow, I'm being told is already over two feet deep."

In New York, authorities are digging out hundreds of cars that got stuck overnight on the Long Island Expressway.

Bob Griffith of Syosset, N.Y. tried leave early to escape the storm, but instead ended up stuck in the snow by the side of the road.

"I tried to play it smart in that I started early in the day, when it was raining," said Griffith. "But the weather beat us to the punch."

Suffok County Executive Steven Bellone said the snow had wreaked havoc on the roadways.

"I saw state plows stuck on the side of the road. I've never seen anything like this before," Bellone said.

However, some New York residents, who survived the wrath of Hurricane Sandy, were rattled by having to face another large and potentially dangerous storm system with hurricane force winds and flooding.

"How many storms of the century can you have in six months?" said Larry Racioppo, a resident of the hard hit Rockaway neighborhood in Queens, New York.

READ: Weather NYC: Blizzard Threatens Rockaways, Ravaged by Sandy

Snowfall Totals

In Boston, over two feet of snow had fallen by Saturday morning and the National Weather Service anticipated up to three feet of snow could fall by the end of the storm. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick enacted the first statewide driving ban since the 1978 blizzard, which left 27 inches of snow and killed dozens. The archdiocese told parishioners that according to church law the responsibility to attend mass "does not apply where there is grave difficulty in fulfilling obligation."

In New York, a little more than 11 inches fell in the city.

By Saturday morning, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said nearly all of the primary roads had been plowed and the department of sanitation anticipated that all roads would be plowed by the end of the day.

"It looks like we dodged a bullet, but keep in mind winter is not over," said Bloomberg.

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How Obama can end Congo conflict

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

Conflict in Congo

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• President Obama can help end the Congo conflict for good, says Vava Tampa


• Obama has asked Rwanda to end all support to armed groups in the Congo


• FDLR militia gang is a threat to stability and must leave Congo


• Obama must push for change in Congolese government, argues Tampa

Editor's note: Vava Tampa is the founder of Save the Congo, a London-based campaign to tackle "the impunity, insecurity, institutional failure and the international trade of minerals funding the wars in Democratic Republic of the Congo." Follow Vava Tampa on twitter: @VavaTampa

(CNN) -- Now that President Obama has taken a public stand on the warlords and militia gangs tyrannizing DR Congo, there is a sense that the next chapter in the human tragedy that has been raging there over the past decade and half is about to be written -- or so we can hope.

In the DRC -- Africa's largest sub-Saharan country -- invasions, proxy wars and humanitarian crises have senselessly shut down millions of lives, displaced millions more from their homes and left countless women and young girls brutally raped with the world barely raising an eyebrow.

The latest murderous attempt by the M23 militia gang to besiege Goma, the strategic regional capital of Congo's eastern province of North Kivu, seems to have backfired.

Vava Tampa

The United Nations says Rwanda has helped to create and militarily supported M23. Although Rwandan President Paul Kagame denies backing M23, the accusation has taken off some of the international gloss he had long enjoyed in the West, and precipitated cuts and suspension of aid money that goes directly to the Kagame regime by the Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Britain and the European Union.

The United States, which gives no money directly to the Rwandan government, suspended its military aid. In a baffling expression of a refinement of the U.S. position, President Obama made a rare telephone call to Kagame to emphasize "the importance of permanently ending all support to armed groups in the DRC." That set a firm red line on the situation in that region, the first one by President Obama since becoming president in 2008.

Watch video: Kagame on Congo

This was certainly right and good. Kagame is no fool; the diplomatic but emphatic content of that telephone call, monitored by White House's National Security staff and published thereafter for public consumption, speaks volumes. He clearly understood the implicit threat. But it was not good enough.

Left unsaid is that withholding aid money that goes directly to the Kagame regime has not changed many realities on the ground -- a painful reminder of the limits of what previous half-hearted, ambivalent international attempts to halt the crisis in that country had achieved.

However, the situation is not hopeless. President Obama can help to halt the wars engulfing the Congo. It is both economically and politically affordable.

Here is my suggestion -- a three-point road map, if you like, for President Obama, should he chose to put the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Congolese and engage much more robustly to help end the world's bloodiest war and human tragedy.

Read more: Why the world is ignoring Congo war

1. Changes in Kinshasa

If we are to be blunt with ourselves, Congo's major problem today, the chief reason that country remains on its knees, is its president Joseph Kabila. Paul Kagame is just a symptom, at least in theory.

The crisis of leadership in the capital Kinshasa, the disastrous blend of lack of political legitimacy and moral authority, mixed with poor governance and vision deficiency, then compounded with dilapidated state institutions, has become the common denominator to the ills and wrongs that continues to overwhelm the Congo.

In other words, peace will never be secured in Congo if the moribund status quo is still strutting around Kinshasa.

Obama's minimum objective in regard to ending the wars and human tragedy engulfing the Congo should be to push for changes in Kinshasa. He must make this one of the "10 Commandments" of the Obama Doctrine.

Circumstances demand it to re-energize Congo's chance of success, and to enable the renaissance of a "New Africa." And given the effects of Congo's mounting death toll and the speed at which HIV/AIDS is spreading because of the use of rape as a weapon of war, the sooner the better.

2. Keep Kagame in the naughty corner

The wars and human tragedy engulfing the Congo have many fathers and many layers. Rwanda, and to some extent Uganda -- run by Africa's two dearest autocratic but staunchly pro-American regimes -- are, as they have been many times in the past, despite their denials, continuing to provide support to warlords and militia gangs terrorizing the Congolese people.

This is not an apocryphal claim, it's an open secret in Kinshasa, Kampala and Kigali as much as it is in Washington or White Hall, and as real as Charles Taylor's role in Sierra Leone or Iran's support to Hezbollah.

If President Obama is remotely serious about saving lives in Congo, then fracturing Rwanda's ability to directly or indirectly harbor warlords ... is critical.
Vava Tampa, Save the Congo

Indeed, reporters across Congo and across the region would testify to this. Kigali has been, one can safely argue, the sole shareholder in the M23 militia gang, and its elder sisters CNDP and RCD-Goma.

It cannot wash its hands in Pontius Pilate fashion of either the ICC-wanted M23 warlord Bosco Ntaganda, also known as The Terminator, or Laurent Nkunda, who is wanted by the Congolese government for war crimes and is under house arrest in Kigali.

Read more: Prosecutor seeks new Congo war crimes warrants

If President Obama is remotely serious about saving lives in Congo, then fracturing Rwanda's ability to directly or indirectly harbor warlords, support militia gangs, militarize or ethnicize the wars in Congo for control of Congo's easily appropriable but highly valuable natural resources, is critical -- however politically disgruntling it may be to some in the State Department.

It would reduce the scale, scope and intensity of the killing, raping and uprooting of the Congolese, it would crush Kinshasa's ability to use external support to warlords and militia gangs as an alibi for a lack of progress and, above all, decrease the growing unease of the Congolese towards Rwanda over the crimes of FDLR and the role played by their government in Congo.

3. FDLR

The continued existence in Congo of FDLR, a Rwandan militia gang made up largely of Hutus -- whose leadership took part in the 1994 genocide of Tutsi -- remains one of the most persistent and serious threats to stability in Congo, and the region.

Addressing this crisis is of significant importance from both a political and humanitarian viewpoint.

Though there are no definitive statistics on the exact numbers of FDLR fighters, the good news is that experts tell us that the vast majority of its rank and file are in their 20s and early 30s, which means they were too young to have taken part in the genocide in 1994.

The United States, together with the U.N., the EU and African Union, should appoint a special envoy for the African Great Lakes region to midwife a conducive political arrangement in Kigali that could see them returning home -- and see their leaders and fundraisers in Europe arrested.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Vava Tampa.

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Clashes in Egypt as anti-Morsi camp demands change

CAIRO: Thousands of protesters clashed with police in several provinces in rallies calling on Islamist President Mohamed Morsi to fulfil the goals of the revolt that brought him to power.

More than 120 people were injured in the unrest across the country on Friday, the health ministry said.

In Cairo, protesters lobbed petrol bombs and set off fireworks, as security vans charged towards demonstrators who fled down the large avenue flanking the presidential palace.

Clashes also erupted in several cities and towns in the Nile Delta province of Gharbiya, where the health ministry said 28 people had been injured, mainly from tear gas inhalation.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, 20 people were hurt in sporadic clashes between police and protesters, said the ministry.

The confrontations came after thousands took to the streets across Egypt answering a call by opposition groups for "Friday of dignity" rallies.

Prime Minister Hisham Qandil condemned the violence as "unjustifiable" in comments cited by the official MENA news agency.

Those responsible were "damaging the stability of the country and obstructing the interests of citizens", he said.

In recent months, Egypt has witnessed regular, often bloody, protests against Morsi.

His opponents say he has betrayed the revolution that toppled Hosni Mubarak, accusing him of using his power to promote the interests of his Muslim Brotherhood, long banned under his predecessor.

The country has been deeply divided between Morsi's mainly Islamist supporters and an opposition of liberals, leftists, Christians but also deeply religious Muslims calling for rights and the separation of religion and state.

Shortly after Muslim noon prayers, marchers set off from several locations in Cairo to Tahrir Square and the presidential palace, banging on drums, waving flags and clapping in unison.

In Tahrir, several thousand protesters carried a huge Egyptian flag as they listened to speeches and music from the stage.

Several hundred protesters also gathered outside the presidential palace chanting "Freedom, where are you? Brotherhood rule stands between us," a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood movement from which Morsi hails.

Protests against the Islamist president also took place after the weekly Friday Muslim main prayers in several of Egypt's 27 provinces.

In the Nile Delta city of Kafr el-Sheikh, police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd outside a government building, as protesters hurled stones at the security forces, MENA reported.

In the city of Tanta, police clashed with protesters who tried to break into the municipal council building, MENA added.

Thirty-eight opposition parties and movements issued the joint call for the rallies. They want a new unity government, amendments to the Islamist-drafted constitution and guarantees for the independence of the judiciary.

The protests come after several incidents of police violence that have provoked public outrage and angry demonstrations.

Earlier this week, the death of a pro-democracy activist following days in police custody sparked fury and reignited calls for police reform -- a key demand of the uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011.

The protester's death came just days after footage aired live on television of a man stripped naked and beaten by riot police during demonstrations near the presidential palace.

Both incidents confronted Morsi with uncomfortable parallels with the old regime.

And only a few days ago, clerics issued fatwas to justify killing opposition leaders.

Radical cleric Mahmud Shaaban, a professor at Sunni Islam's main seat of learning Al-Azhar, gave the green light to kill opposition leaders including former UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei and ex-presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahi, during a talk show on a satellite channel.

Another hardline cleric, Wagdi Ghoneim, called on Muslims to "kill the thugs, criminals, and thieves who burn the country", state media reported.

Security was stepped up outside the homes of ElBaradei and Sabbahi ahead of the protests, following orders from the interior minister, witnesses told AFP.

The presidency condemned the fatwas as "terrorism".

"Some are promoting and inciting political violence while others who claim to speak in the name of religion are permitting 'killing' based on political differences and this is terrorism," the presidency said.

- AFP/xq

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The making of a No. 1 song

Singer/songwriter Benny Blanco has produced some major hits by stars like Maroon 5, Rihanna and Ke$sha.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• A hit song could be a catchy earworm or a heartfelt ballad


• Top producer Benny Blanco says every song needs a hook


• Billboard expert says while albums aren't selling big, music is everywhere

(CNN) -- Don't ask music super-producer Benny Blanco to whip up a No. 1 song for an artist because it ain't gonna happen.

Sure, the man knows how to make hits: His work on Rihanna's "Diamonds" and Ke$ha's "Die Young" landed both at the top of the Billboard charts. But he's the first to tell you that trying to compose a chart topper is almost always guaranteed to fail.

"When you're like, 'Yo, we gotta write a hit song, we need a hit song right now," that never works," Blanco told CNN. "Every time that happens, I never write a hit song. I write a s****y song that sounds like someone trying to make a hit song."

Blanco knows of what he speaks. Two of the songs he helped produce are up for Grammys this year: Maroon 5's "Payphone," nominated for best pop duo or group performance, and Trey Songz's "Heart Attack," which is competing for best R&B song.

Blanco said in an era where singles rule (seriously, when was the last time you bought an entire album?) the pressure is on labels, artists and producers more than ever to produce a song that will head straight to the top of the charts.

But what does that song look and sound like? Is it an earworm such as Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe"? An intensely personal tale such as Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain" or a breezy "I can relate to that" poppy tune such as Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."

The answer is yes.

"Everything needs to be a hook," said Blanco, who snagged the Songwriter of the Year Award at the BMI Pop Awards in 2012 along with Ester Dean and Pitbull.

"Everything needs to be catchy because a listener is either going to stay with the song or lose interest in the first five seconds. But people also like those songs they can relate to and say, 'Yeah, I went through that.' "

Chris Mooney, senior director of artist promotions at TuneCore, said artists looking for a No. 1 song have to prepare their fans for a release by using every social media tool available: YouTube videos, tweets, Facebook postings, etc.

TuneCore distributes music for artists through partners such as iTunes and Spotify for a nominal fee. The company does not, he said, take a percentage of the revenue of the music distributed, and that business model has attracted such well-known acts as Nine Inch Nails, Ziggy Marley and the Civil Wars to use the service.

But if an artist wants to have a true No. 1 smash across the country, he or she will have to resort to some old-fashioned methods, Mooney said.

"You really need radio play, and that's not something everyone can do," he said. "But I still think that's key to having a No. 1 song."

That type of marketing to get airplay can be a pricey proposition. Just ask Sarah Stennett, an A&R executive and manager who works with singers Ellie Goulding and Jessie J. There are plenty of songs that are good tunes, Stennett said, but "when you've got a record that works, you need a record label that will then work that record."

But for a label to justify the expense of promoting an artist, the singer and song have to gel in a way that will connect with the audience, she said.

"There are certain songs that just encapsulate all you need to know about an artist," Stennett said. "They are like personality records. For instance, 'Get the Party Started' by Pink. It was a hit, but it also told you a great deal about who Pink was as an artist."

Stennett said the machine involved in promotion has to remain enthusiastic about the project.

"Everyone has to be about the message," she said. "It's about spreading the message. Have you heard this song by ...?"

Silvio Pietroluongo, director of charts for Billboard, said the conundrum the music industry faces is that while albums aren't selling nearly as well as before, the music is bigger than ever.

"I think music is more popular and accessible today than it's ever been," he said. "It's a major component of advertising campaigns, sporting events and anything multimedia."

That means the industry now has varying degrees of success, he said, from an artist such as Adele, whom he calls "lightning in the bottle" able to sell both singles and albums, to some such as Jepsen, who has sold millions of singles but not as many albums.

Pietroluongo said any artist is one hit away from that big break or even a comeback. But today's hit can easily come from performers such as Flo Rida, who, Pietroluongo said, is one of the all-time, top-selling digital download artists despite a lack of recognition as a hitmaker.

"They are catchy tracks," Pietroluongo said of the rapper's music. "I think the challenge with Flo Rida has been to put a face with the hits. I'm not sure if you locked 10 people in a room that half of them would realize that all the songs they love are Flo Rida."

Producer Blanco is also not easily recognizable, though he may increasingly be responsible for some of the most played music out these days. The process of putting it all together is as much fun as work, he said.

It often starts with a roomful of friends and lots of food. He likes to write with friends, he said, since as soon as he writes anything he usually shares it with them anyway. And a hit could occur while he's chilling in a hot tub or taking a walk: anything as long as the ideas keep flowing.

"I let the song come to me," he said. "Then that thing comes to you, and you just know what that thing is. Music isn't like a 9-to-5 job. You never know. It's just the most unpredictable thing."

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Ohio Amish beard-cutting ringleader gets 15 years

Samuel Mullet Sr.

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WKBN/U.S. Attorney

(AP) CLEVELAND - Samuel Mullet Sr., the ringleader in hair- and beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio, was sentenced Friday to 15 years in prison.

Pictures:  Amish members convicted in beard-cutting attacks

Before his sentencing, Mullet told Judge Dan Aaron Polster in Cleveland that he had been blamed for running a cult and was ready to take the punishment. Polster was also sentenced 15 years while other Amish got prison terms ranging from one to seven years.

Mullet, his ankles in chains and a white beard down to mid-chest, said if his community is seen as a cult, "Then I'm going to take the punishment for everybody."

With relatives of victims and his family sitting on opposite sides of the public gallery, Mullet said he has lived his life trying to help others.

"That's been my goal all my life," Mullet, 67, said to a hushed courtroom, with his fellow defendants and their attorneys sitting at four defense tables and filling the jury box.

"I'm not going to be here much longer," said Mullet, who didn't elaborate on any health issues.

Mullet and his family deny his community is a cult. The government asked for a life sentence for Mullet. The defense asked for two years or less.

The 10 men and six women were convicted last year in five attacks in Amish communities in 2011. The government said the attacks were retaliation against Amish who had defied or denounced Mullet's authoritarian style.

Amish believe the Bible instructs women to let their hair grow long and men to grow beards once they marry. Cutting it would be offensive to Amish.

The defendants were charged with a hate crime because prosecutors believe religious differences brought about the attacks.

Nine of 10 men who were convicted have been locked up awaiting sentencing. The six women, who all have children, have been free on bond.

In a rare interview last week in Bergholz at the sprawling Mullet farm amid rolling hills in eastern Ohio, Mullet's unmarried 19-year-old grandson, Edward Mast, discussed the family's attitude.

He said they are steadfast in the belief that the attacks didn't rise to the level of a hate crime.

"The beard, what it stands for me, what I know about it, once you're married, you just grow a beard. That's just the way the Amish is," Mast said.

As for the victims, he added, "They got their beard back again, so what's the big deal about it?"

Arlene Miller, 48, of Carrollton, whose husband, an Amish bishop, was among the victims, thinks Mullet deserves a tough sentence and the others should get less time if they get cult deprogramming counseling.

"It's a cult," she said. "Their minds were programmed in the wrong way by Sam Mullet, so we feel like these people are very deceived and they are actually victims of Sam Mullet."

She said there were no winners in the ordeal.

"There's no happy ending to this," she said.

Complete coverage of the Amish beard-cutting attacks on Crimesider

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Rescued Ethan Spends Birthday With SWAT Heroes

As a beaming 6-year-old Ethan said "cheese" for photos and played with toy cars at his birthday party, there were no immediate signs of the turmoil the young boy had endured just days earlier.

The boy, identified only as Ethan, was held hostage in a nearly week-long standoff in Alabama. He was physically unharmed after Jimmy Lee Dykes kidnapped him from a school bus and held him hostage in a booby-trapped underground bunker.

Ethan was rescued by the FBI Monday after they rushed the bunker where Dykes, 65, was holding him. Dykes was killed in the raid.

On Wednesday, Ethan celebrated his sixth birthday at a local church with abundant hugs from his family and friends as well as from the SWAT team, FBI agents and hostage negotiators who had rescued him.

Click here for photo's from the Alabama hostage situation.

"Welcome home Ethan" signs hung on the walls of the church for the homecoming celebration.

Ala. Hostage Standoff Over: Kidnapper Dead, Child Safe Watch Video

In his first interview, Ethan's adult brother Camren Kirkland described to ABC News the text messages the family would get from the hostage negotiators.

"We did know when, at times, he was asleep and that was normally around nine o'clock at night," Kirkland said.

He said the messages kept the family going throughout the ordeal.

"That was actually a lot of comfort," he said. "I could actually go lay my head down."

Kirkland said he never left his mother's side and the whole family was present when they got the call that Ethan had been rescued.

"The said, 'We have Ethan,'" Kirkland said, recalling the moment they found out Ethan had been saved.

Click here for a psychological look at what's next for Ethan.

The FBI special agent whose call it was to send the team into the bunker revealed to ABC News that Dykes left behind writings and that while in the bunker with Ethan, he'd become agitated and brag about his plan.

"At the end of the day, the responsibility is mine," he said. "I thought the child was going to die."

Dykes shot and killed a school bus driver, Albert Poland Jr., 66, last Tuesday and threatened to kill all the children on the bus before taking the boy, one of the students on the bus said Monday.

Dykes had been holed up in his underground bunker near Midland City, Ala., with the abducted boy for a week as police tried to negotiate with him through the PVC pipe. Police were careful not to anger Dykes, who was believed to be watching news reports from inside the bunker, and even thanked him at one point.

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Facts? Shmacts. It's only a movie

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Gene Seymour: "Lincoln" error on emancipation vote shines light on how films tell history


• He says Oscar chances for "Argo," "Zero Dark Thirty" may be hurt after facts questioned


• He says films have long gotten history wrong but are useful in showing society's perceptions


• Seymour: It's art, not history, sometimes a vision, something we wish had been or could be

Editor's note: Gene Seymour is a film critic who has written about music, movies and culture for The New York Times, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly and The Washington Post.

(CNN) -- Everyone's a critic; I get that. But does everyone have to be a historian, too?

What audiences perceive as their inalienable right to challenge the accuracy and authenticity of movies seems to get much more exercised before the Academy Awards than at any other time of the year.

The latest challenge came Tuesday from Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, who said Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" misrepresented the way his predecessors in the 1865 House of Representatives voted on the 13th Amendment banning slavery. Courtney looked it up online and found in his research that all four Connecticut representatives voted for the amendment -- the movie shows two voting against. So in a letter to Spielberg's DreamWorks production office in Los Angeles, he asked DreamWorks for some form of correction. (DreamWorks hasn't been heard from yet.)

Gene Seymour

The film, considered a favorite for a best picture Oscar, places the back-and-forth struggle over the amendment in the forefront of its depiction of the 16th president, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. Courtney, unlike most others who have complained about big-time Oscar contenders, isn't out to ruin anybody's chances. He says he likes everything else about the movie. He merely wants props restored to his home state. And he seems to have a good case.

But you can bet your annual subscription to US Weekly magazine that the chatterboxes who gossip about and/or handicap the Academy Awards are going to try using his complaint as further indication of "Lincoln's" slipping stature as a best picture shoo-in. Some of these pundits claim "Argo" is charging hard from behind since its unexpected wins at both the Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild Awards.

And yet "Argo" has truthiness issues of its own. Director-star Ben Affleck even admitted before the movie's release last fall that his movie about the 1979 CIA rescue of State Department employees from Iran stretched certain details for dramatic effect. (Spoiler alert!) There was, for instance, no last-minute car chase on a Tehran tarmac as Americans tried to escape on a plane, and their check-in at the terminal wasn't in real life nearly the white-knuckle sequence of events you see in the film.

Others have said the movie misrepresents the Iranian people as completely unified in their support of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy. "Thirty-three million Iranians ... did not commit acts of murder and terrorism," Iranian commentator Kambiz Atabai wrote on The Daily Beast. "Thirty-three million Iranians did not chant 'Death to America!' or take Americans hostage."

But neither "Lincoln" nor "Argo" has reaped the whirlwind of criticism of Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" for its depiction of events leading up to the 2011 killing of Osama bin Laden. Even before its limited release in December, the movie couldn't be discussed without referring to those accusing the movie of glorifying waterboarding of suspected terrorists or, at best, misleading audiences into believing that such so-called "enhanced interrogation" played a key role in guiding the United States to bin Laden.

Whatever critics or defenders say, the dispute alone is enough to make academy voters skittish about rewarding something that causes so much trouble.

You have to wonder: What is the big deal?

None of these films are documentaries and thus do not have the same obligations to fact. Yet one could argue that taking too many liberties with real life (whatever that means) could distort for generations the true story; that, indeed, what is enhanced for dramatic purposes becomes what everyone believes is what actually happened.

It's not so cut and dried. Consider D.W. Griffith's 1915 "The Birth of a Nation," regarded as the first great American film epic, whose glorification of the Ku Klux Klan makes contemporary audiences uneasy at best, infuriated at worst. Despite protests by the NAACP and other civil rights organizations, audiences generally agreed with President Woodrow Wilson's purported assessment of the movie: "It's like history written with lightning."

But society can change perception of art over time to the point of neutralizing, even transfiguring its original intent. No one now mistakes Griffith's movie as anything close to historic fact, but it could still be seen as a representation of a racist viewpoint that once held sway over much of America

Then there is John Ford, the great American director of such classic westerns as "Stagecoach" (1939), "The Searchers" (1956) and "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (1962). It was in the latter movie that Ford's aesthetic credo was put forth by a minor character, a journalist who discovers that the career-making triumph of a U.S. senator over an outlaw didn't happen as originally believed. The journalist chooses to keep things status quo. "This is the West, sir," he explains. "When legend becomes fact, print the legend." He might have added: "Because it makes a better story."

Or consider "My Darling Clementine," Ford's 1946 version of the Wyatt Earp saga. As the movie opens, the Earp brothers are herding cattle to Tombstone, Arizona, in 1882 when the youngest brother James is shot dead (in the back, of course) by the rustling Clanton family.

Three things, right off the bat are wrong: James was the eldest of the Earps, not the youngest, the Earp brothers never had any cattle either heading toward or ensconced within Tombstone's city limits and, though James' death is depicted as the spark that eventually led to the Earps' confrontation with the Clantons at the OK Corral, that famous gunfight actually occurred in 1881 -- if you're scoring, that's one year earlier. And the inaccuracies only begin there.

And yet the movie endures as one of Ford's best even after four movies about the same legend have been made, each claiming to be more faithful to historic fact than "Clementine." But "My Darling Clementine," a dream about a past that didn't exist, endures in collective memory. It may not be factual, but it's true to something; a vision, a state of mind, an aspiration to something we wish had been, or could be.

The most recent film about the legend, Lawrence Kasdan's "Wyatt Earp" (1994), is so faithful that you can barely remember anything about it.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gene Seymour.

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Near impact: asteroid to narrowly miss Earth

WASHINGTON: Hold on to your hats: an asteroid will zoom within spitting distance of Earth next week, in what NASA said is the closest flyby ever predicted for an object this large.

The 2012 DA 14, discovered by chance by astronomers after passing nearby last February, will be just around 17,200 miles (27,700 kilometres) above Earth's surface when it speeds by, the US Space Agency said.

That's outside the Earth's atmosphere, but closer than the orbit of most weather and communications satellites.

However, despite the close shave, NASA said there was nothing to fear.

"This asteroid's orbit is so well known that we can say with confidence that even considering it's orbital uncertainties, it can pass no closer than 17,100 miles from the Earth's surface. So no Earth impact is possible," said Donald Yeomans of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"At the same time, it will pass 5,000 miles inside the ring" of satellites, Yeomans told reporters, saying the asteroid's path puts it right in the "sweet spot" to avoid having any damaging impact.

The asteroid is predicted to come closest to Earth on February 15, at around 1924 GMT, plus or minus a minute or two, and will pass over the Indian Ocean off Sumatra.

It will be visible, with a little help from a telescope, in eastern Europe, Australia and Asia, astronomers said.

"What you would see through a small telescope would be something like a star, a small point of light... that moved against a background of stars," said Tim Spahr, of the Harvard-Smithsonian's Minor Planet Center.

The asteroid measures about 150 feet (45 metres) in diameter. That makes it relatively small by celestial standards.

"The object that ... took out the dinosaurs was about 10 kilometres," said Yeomans.

Nevertheless, if it were to hit the Earth, the impact would be roughly equivalent to a 2.4 megaton bomb -- enough to flatten a large area but not globally catastrophic, he explained.

NASA estimates an smallish asteroid like 2012 DA 14 flies close to the Earth every 40 years, on average, but only hits the Earth once every 1,200 years.

Statistically-speaking, that means we're probably safe for quite a while, since a similar asteroid hit just over 100 years ago.

"With an estimated size of the order of 50 metrer, (2012 DA 14) is comparable in dimensions to the object that destroyed over 2,000 square kilometres of forest in Tunguska, Siberia, on 30th June 1908," Mark Bailey, director of the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, told AFP.

Astronomers have detected some 9,500 celestial bodies of various sizes that pass near Earth, but they estimate that's only a tenth of what's out there.

Even 2012 DA 14 was almost missed last year, because of how quickly it passed through the observable sky, said Jaime Nomen, one of the astronomers who spotted it from the La Sagra observatory in southern Spain.

"It was an elusive target, and it could have been undetected," he told AFP.

But NASA, in its teleconference Thursday, emphasized that it was keeping a careful watch on the skies, including telescopes that make nightly sweeps, with ever improving technology.

"We've found about 95 percent of those larger asteroids that come close to the Earth," said Lindley Johnson, a top official in the space agency's Near-Earth Object Observations Program.

Smaller objects, like 2012 DA 14, are more numerous and harder to spot, he said, but NASA has found "lots" of them.

And based on the agency's observations and analysis, this is the nearest brush for a serious asteroid impact for the foreseeable future.

-AFP/fl

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'This is a necessary evil,' suspected cop killer writes

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• NEW: LAPD board found Dorner was facing a bad review


• Chris Dorner filed a complaint against his training officer in 2007


• The LAPD cleared the officer and recommended that Dorner be dismissed


• "The attacks will stop when the department states the truth about my innocence," he wrote

(CNN) -- What authorities are calling Chris Dorner's campaign of guerrilla warfare against his former comrades in the Los Angeles Police Department has its roots in a hotel lobby in San Pedro, the city's port district.

In July 2007, the former Navy officer was an LAPD probationary officer, riding patrol with a veteran of the force, when they were dispatched to check out a report of a disturbance at the DoubleTree Hotel. A man had refused to leave the premises and was sitting on the bench outside the lobby when they arrived.

Christopher Gettler had "a glazed look in his eyes," court documents later recounted, and he refused to get up and speak with police. Dorner and his training officer, Teresa Evans, started to take him into custody, but he refused to comply and took a swing at them.

Gettler's family later told investigators he had a history of mental illness. Dorner wrestled with him, and the two tumbled into a planter in front of the DoubleTree. Evans readied a Taser and warned the man to stop. He submitted only after she shocked him with the electronic device.

That's where the stories start to differ. And those differences led to an investigation by the LAPD's internal affairs unit, Dorner's eventual dismissal from the force and a long court battle to clear his name -- a battle he was losing in California courts.

The LAPD now says Dorner is the subject of a massive manhunt. It accuses him of killing one police officer and wounding two others, as well as killing the daughter of his police union representative and her fiance on Sunday.

In a letter addressed to "America" and provided to CNN by an LAPD source, Dorner threatens to retaliate against officers involved in his case and their families.

"The attacks will stop when the department states the truth about my innocence," he wrote.

Two weeks after that encounter in San Pedro, Dorner went to a sergeant to report that Evans had kicked Gettler after he had given up. The LAPD investigated his complaint and ruled it "unfounded," based on accounts by three hotel employees, in May 2008.

Then the investigators' report turns to Dorner.

"The delay in reporting the alleged misconduct coupled with the witness' statements irreparably destroy Dorner's credibility, and bring into question his suitability for continued employment as a police officer," it states. The report found Dorner had made false statements to a superior while reporting the allegation that Evans had kicked the suspect and to internal affairs investigators looking into the claim.

The report recommended his dismissal, a process that was finalized after a hearing of the department's Board of Rights in January 2009. He sued to have the decision reversed, calling the process a "witch hunt," but lost at the trial court and in a state appellate court.

Dorner argued that the board had ignored evidence from both Gettler and his father, who recounted that his son said at the time that he'd been kicked.

But Gettler's father's statements conflicted with his son's, and Gettler's mental illness "affected his ability to give an accurate account of the incident," as the Court of Appeals of California put it in October 2011. Meanwhile, the board found that Dorner may have had a motive to make a bogus complaint: Evans testified that Dorner "was going to receive an unsatisfactory probationary rating if he did not improve his performance," and the kicks were reported the day after Dorner received an evaluation.

In his letter, Dorner lashes out against the LAPD's history of scandal, writing that things haven't changed "changed since the Rampart and Rodney King days. It has gotten worse."

"I know I will be villified by the LAPD and the media," he wrote. "Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil that I do not enjoy but must partake and complete for substantial change to occur within the LAPD and reclaim my name."

But LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told reporters Thursday afternoon that no apology and exoneration would be forthcoming: "It is not going to happen."

Dorner grew up in southern California and went to high school in the Los Angeles suburb of La Palma, where his mother still lives. A police officer told reporters gathered outside the tan stucco home Thursday afternoon that Dorner's mother had requested they stop knocking on her door.

Next-door neighbor Crystal Lancaster called him "a nice, friendly guy, easy to approach."

"It's a big shock when we heard it," she said. "We all couldn't believe it. We didn't know him that well, but he seemed like a really nice guy."

While in high school, he played football and was part of the police explorer program, said another neighbor, City Councilman Gerard Goedhart.

He went to college at Southern Utah University, where he was a running back on the school's football team and graduated with a degree in political science in 2001, Southern Utah athletic department spokesman Neil Gardner said.

"Chris Dorner is the last person I would ever think would do such," Gardner said Thursday. "He was a great kid."

College classmate James Usera said Dorner called him "out of the blue" four years ago, after not having spoken for several years after graduation. He complained about problems with the LAPD during the call, but Usera didn't recall the details.

"He did seem to be bothered by it or upset by it a bit, but certainly nothing that he said to me struck me as being a concern other than for concern for his employment," Usera told CNN.

He described Dorner as "a perfectly rational human being," "smart and insightful."

"Never anything that I experienced in a million years would lead me to conclude that this horrendous activity that he engaged in at this point was ever imminent or would ever be any type of concern," he added.

Dorner joined the Navy after college, receiving a commission as an ensign in July 2002. He trained in river-warfare units and and served a 2006-2007 stint in Iraq guarding oil platforms, according to Pentagon records. He held a commission as a lieutenant until February 1 and was rated as a rifle marksman and pistol expert, according to the records.

He enrolled in the LAPD Academy in February 2005 and spent four months on the streets as a trainee before being recalled to active duty for his stint in Iraq, police records state. In the end, the LAPD cost him not only his police job but his career in the Navy, he wrote.

"This is my last resort," he wrote. "The LAPD has suppressed the truth, and it has now led to deadly consequences."

CNN's Alan Duke, Mallory Simon and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

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Blizzard warning for NYC as Northeast braces

Updated 4:30 p.m. Eastern

BOSTON Halfway through a merciful winter across the Northeast, a blizzard threatened to strike with a vengeance starting Friday, with up to 2 feet of snow forecast for much of New England. The National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for New York City, southern Westchester County and coastal portions of northeast New Jersey.

From New Jersey to Maine, people stocked up on food and other storm supplies, and road crews readied salt and sand ahead of what forecasters warned could be a weather history-maker. Boston and Providence, R.I., called off school on Friday, and airlines canceled more than 500 flights and counting, with the disruptions certain to ripple across the U.S.

In Taunton, Mass., National Weather Service meteorologist Alan Dunham said southern New England has seen less than half its normal snowfall this season, but "we're going to catch up in a heck of a hurry," with 1 1/2 to 2 feet forecast.

"Everybody's going to get plastered with snow," he said.

The snow is expected to start Friday morning, with the heaviest amounts falling at night and into Saturday. Wind gusts could top 60 mph. Widespread power failures were feared, along with flooding in coastal areas still recovering from Superstorm Sandy in October.

New York City was expecting around 5 to 10 inches of snow. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said plows and 250,000 tons of salt were being put on standby.

"We hope forecasts are exaggerating the amount of snow, but you never can tell," he said.

Two powerful storm systems heading toward the New York City area are expected to collide and dump snow, rain and slush over the region Friday.

"We're waiting for a converging system," said CBS 2 meteorologist John Elliott. "You've got a storm to the south and one coming in from the north."

A blizzard watch was posted for parts of New York's Long Island and portions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, including Hartford, Conn., Providence and Boston.

In New England, it could prove to be among the top 10 snowstorms in history, and perhaps even break Boston's record of 27.6 inches, set in 2003, forecasters said. The storm is arriving just after the 35th anniversary of the blizzard of 1978, which paralyzed New England with more than 2 feet of snow and hurricane-force winds from Feb. 5-7.

The last major snowfall in southern New England was well over a year ago — the Halloween storm of 2011.

Diane Lopes was among the shoppers who packed a supermarket Thursday in the coastal fishing city of Gloucester, Mass. She said she went to different grocery earlier in the day and it was too crowded to venture inside. Lopes said she has strep throat and normally wouldn't leave the house but had to stock up on basic foods — "and lots of wine."

She chuckled at the excitement the storm was creating in a place where snow is routine.

"Why are us New Englanders so crazy, right?" she said.

In New Hampshire, Dartmouth College student Evan Diamond and other members of the ski team were getting ready for races at the Ivy League school's winter carnival.

"We're pretty excited about it because this has been an unusual winter for us," he said. "We've been going back and forth between having really solid cold snaps and then the rain washing everything away."

But he said the snow might be too much of a good thing this weekend: "For skiing, we like to have a nice hard surface, so it will be kind of tough to get the hill ready."

Terrance Rodriguez, a doorman at a luxury apartment complex in Boston, took the forecast in stride.

"It's just another day in Boston. It's to be expected. We're in a town where it's going to snow," he said. "It's like doomsday prep. It doesn't need to be. People just take it to the extreme."

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