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The day's most popular stories
The five most popular stories on CNN.com in the past 24 hours, according to NewsPulse:
School hostage suspect dies: A 15-year-old sophomore who held his classmates and a teacher hostage for about five hours Monday at his northeast Wisconsin high school, and then turned one of his guns on himself as police approached, died on Tuesday, police said.
November ends on low note after strong start
A look at the day's business news headlines:
Stocks end November with a whimper
Stocks started November with a bang but ended it with a whimper, as all three major indexes closed the day and month lower on Tuesday.
A stronger-than-expected report on consumer confidence muffled some losses, but the market couldn't fully recover from a weak housing report and concerns about Europe's economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average lost 46 points, or 0.4 percent, but remained barely above the 11,000 mark at 11,006.02. The S&P 500 fell 7 points, or 0.6 percent, to close at 1,180.55, and the Nasdaq dropped 27 points, or 1.1 percent, to end at 2,498.83.
Illinois House approves civil unions for gay couples
The Illinois House Of Representatives has narrowly approved civil unions for gay couples by a vote of 61-52, press secretary Steve Brown tells CNN.
WikiLeaks: What we've learned so far
[Updated at 9:12 p.m.] After posting thousands of secret government documents, WikiLeaks came under an electronic attack designed to make it unavailable to users, the website said Tuesday.
It was the second attack since the site began publishing the first of what it says are 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables from U.S. embassies around the world, documents that the website said represented the largest-ever disclosure of confidential information. Those documents give the world "an unprecedented insight into the U.S. government's foreign activities," the site said.
WikiLeaks drew widespread condemnation for publishing the confidential cables that, in some instances, detailed with unusual frankness Washington's diplomatic interactions with other countries. Former President George Bush called the leaks "damaging," saying WikiLeaks will hurt U.S. relations with the rest of the world.
So far, the leaks have provided us with a look at tensions between China and North Korea - a topic of discussion these days given concern over clashes between North and South Korea. Apparently, cables reveal China was weary of North Korea behaving like a "spoiled child."
We've also learned a little bit more about China's role in other global affairs - including Iran - and how China has been talking to the United States about containing Iran's nuclear program. But the cables also reveal the role of Chinese enterprises in Iran's strategy to obtain materials for its missile programs and the U.S. State Department's efforts to counter that strategy.
And with widespread concern about nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea, it makes sense that WikiLeaks documents show there was a focus on the health of leaders in both countries.
WikiLeaks founder Assange suspected of sex crimes
Interpol has issued an international warrant at the request of a Swedish court for the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in connection with alleged sex crimes.
The Stockholm Criminal Court last week issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on probable cause, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force. Sweden asked Interpol to post a "Red Notice" after a judge approved a motion to bring him into custody.
The arrest warrant stems from allegations made against Assange, who is Australian, in August. In a November, Assange's lawyer said the sex-crime charges stem from consensual sexual relationships his client had with two women.
Report: Co-pilot moved seat, sent jetliner plummeting
The co-pilot of an Air India Express 737 sent the jetliner into a terrifying 7,000-foot plunge in May when he accidentally hit the control column while adjusting his seat, investigators report.
According to the report from India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the co-pilot panicked and was unable to execute the proper procedures as the jetliner dropped from 37,000 feet at a 26-degree angle. The plane and its 113 passengers were saved when the pilot, who’d gone on a bathroom break, used an emergency code to get into the locked cockpit, jumped back into his seat and grabbed the controls to bring the plummeting plane out of its dive.
The aircraft would have broken apart if the descent had continued, the aviation agency report said. The aircraft was not damaged and no one was injured, the report said.
After the pilot, 39, regained control of the plane, he told passengers, who were in the middle of a meal when the jet plunged, that the plane had “went through an air pocket and that is why there was a rapid descent,” according to the report.
The aviation agency report concluded that the 25-year-old co-pilot had not been trained in the specific scenario the jet encountered and “probably had no clue to tackle this kind of emergency.”
Neither the pilot nor co-pilot were named in the report.
The Air India Express flight was en route from Dubai to Pune, India, on May 25 when the incident occurred.
DHS: Passengers now screened before boarding passes
All passengers flying within or to the United States are now being screened against government watch lists before they get their boarding passes, the Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday.
The Transportation Security Administration achieved the target a month ahead of schedule, DHS said in a statement.
Screening all passengers was a key recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, the department said.'
Obama tells Republicans he should have worked more with them
A political summit between President Barack Obama and congressional leaders Tuesday yielded further talks on whether to extend Bush-era tax breaks scheduled to expire at the end of the year, as well as an acknowledgement from Obama that he needs to reach out more to Republicans.
The meeting, dubbed by some the "Slurpee summit" in reference to a campaign dig by Obama at congressional Republicans, involved the president and leaders of both parties from the House and Senate.
Pentagon: Letting openly gay troops serve won't hurt military
Letting openly gay or lesbian troops serve in the military would have little lasting impact on the U.S. armed forces, a major Pentagon review has found, several sources familiar with the results told CNN Tuesday.
Putting an end to "don't ask, don't tell," would have "some limited and isolated disruption to unit cohesion and retention," the year-long study found, but the effects would not be long-lasting or widespread.
Police dog disappears during search
Bane is a 4-year-old German shepherd.
A Michigan State Police dog searching for a missing dementia patient has become the subject of a search himself.
Bane, a 4-year-old German shepherd, disappeared November 13, according to a website set up by his handler, Michigan State Trooper Jamie Bullis.
The two were part of a group looking for the missing man in a swamp near Alpena in northern lower Michigan when the dog's lead got tangled in brush, Bullis wrote.
"I dropped the lead to untangle him. About the time I got him free, a deer that had been bedded and was less than five yards from me jumped up and ran directly in front of Bane. Bane gave chase," Bullis wrote. "He was out of sight in about a second and I have not seen him since."
Searchers found human remains the following day; police believe it was the missing man but are awaiting positive identification, the Detroit Free Press reported.
A "Find Bane" Facebook page set up by Bullis has garnered the maximum 5,000 friends, and a video on YouTube chronicles Bane's training.
Volunteers continue to look for Bane, but Bullis is not encouraging them to venture into the woods, because Michigan's firearm deer season continues until 30 minutes after sunset Tuesday.
Accused Smart kidnapper's trial halted after he collapses
The federal trial of Brian David Mitchell, charged in connection with the 2002 kidnapping of Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart, was halted Tuesday after Mitchell suffered a medical problem in court, according to CNN affiliate KSTU.
The station posted a picture on its website of Mitchell with an oxygen mask on, sitting on a stretcher as he was being loaded into an ambulance.
Mitchell, as usual, began singing when he was led into the courtroom Tuesday - "O Holy Night," KSTU reported. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball began the proceedings by raising an issue in a note sent from jurors.
As Kimball asked for jurors to be brought in, Mitchell began to wail and dropped to the floor, KSTU said.
WikiLeaks reports another electronic disruption
After posting thousands of secret government documents, WikiLeaks came under an electronic attack designed to make it unavailable to users, the whistle-blower website said Tuesday.
The site also experienced a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack on Sunday, just as it was publishing the first of what it says are 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables. Such attacks normally are done by flooding a website with requests for data.
"DDOS attack now exceeding 10 Gigabits a second," WikiLeaks said on Twitter.
The effects of Tuesday's electronic disruption were unclear.
U.S. general: No threat to troops, civilians in tense Korea
Lt. Gen. John D. Johnson, commander of the Seoul-based 8th Army, said he believes people should continue their normal activities.
North Korea said Tuesday that U.S. military exercises with South Korea could lead to "all-out war any time." But for the thousands of U.S. military dependents on the Korean Peninsula, it’s largely business as usual, the newspaper Stars & Stripes reports.
Any move to evacuate the U.S. citizens is “not even close,” Stripes quotes a U.S. Forces Korea spokesman as saying.
“We don’t feel that there’s a threat here, and we feel that the situation is normal and we keep on monitoring the situation,” Lt. Col. Jeff Buczkowski, an 8th Army spokesman, told Stripes.
“As of now, we don’t see any threat to 8th Army soldiers or families on mainland Korea. I encourage you to continue your normal, daily activities,” Lt. Gen. John D. Johnson, commander of the Seoul-based 8th Army, wrote on the unit’s website.
Senate approves long-delayed food safety bill
The Senate passed a food safety bill Tuesday to give more power to the Food and Drug Administration, more than a year after the House of Representatives passed a similar measure.
The bill, designed to bolster the safety of the nation's food supply, passed 73 to 25.
A version of the bill was passed by the House of Representatives in July of 2009 but had languished in the Senate, a fact that has angered some food safety advocates.
Tuesday's intriguing people
Mike Modano
The veteran Detroit Red Wings center suffered a career-threatening injury over the weekend when an opposing player's skate severed a tendon in his right wrist.
"Once the skate hit me, the pain was really sharp, and I knew something was wrong," Modano said in a telephone interview with the Detroit Free Press. "When I looked in the glove and saw the type of bleeding there was, I knew something was really wrong. I knew it wasn't going to be good news."
Modano, 40, underwent surgery to repair the tendon and nerve damage. His right arm is immobilized, but surgeons attached elastic bands to his fingertips to help him flex his fingers and prevent scar tissue from forming, he told the Free Press.
With 1,367 points, the Westland, Michigan, native is the highest-scoring American-born player in National Hockey League history, according to NHL.com. He spent 20 years with the Stars franchise in Minnesota and Texas before the Red Wings signed him last summer.
"I'd be devastated if my career ends like this," he told the Free Press. "Hopefully I can come back and play. But this has been a real bummer."
Steven Posner
The real-estate billionaire and another man were killed Monday in a high-speed boat collision in Florida's Biscayne Bay, the Miami Herald reported.
Posner, 67, and a friend were drag racing in high-performance catamarans, capable of going more than 100 mph, when Posner's boat struck the other, according to the paper.
Both boats had three people aboard, officials told CNN affiliate WPLG. Posner's cousin, Stuart Posner, suffered critical injuries and was taken to a hospital by helicopter, WPLG reported. The other dead man's name was not released.
Posner was the son of corporate raider Victor Posner. Both men were involved in the Drexel Burnham Lambert securities fraud case in the 1980s headlined by Michael Milken.
The Posner family remained in the news for years during a drawn-out dispute over how to divide the family fortune.
Andrew Robathan
Britain's defense personnel minister has decided not to change the United Kingdom's policy of keeping female personnel off the front lines of combat, the BBC is reporting.
"Women are fundamental to the operational effectiveness of Britain's armed forces, bringing talent and skills across the board," the BBC quoted Robathan as saying. "Their capability is not in doubt; they win the highest decorations for valour and demonstrate independence and initiative."
Nevertheless, a military review concluded that their presence in infantry and tactical combat teams would have no tangible positive effect.
The same review determined that women on the front lines could make an unforeseen impact on team cohesion and could have "far-reaching and grave consequences," leading Robathan to maintain the status quo, according to the BBC.
Gotta Watch: Day Lennon died, Google Street View, Tupac
On the scene the day Lennon died - One of the police officers who arrested Mark David Chapman after the fatal shooting of the legendary John Lennon says Chapman apologized for ruining their night. "You just ruined your whole life," the officer replied. It's part of the story some of the New York City cops who were first on the scene that day 30 years ago are telling CNN. Watch the video for a preview of "Losing Lennon," a CNN documentary airing next week.
Bosnian rape victims call Angelina Jolie 'ignorant'
Angelina Jolie may be the goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but she’s getting no goodwill from an organization of Bosnian rape victims over her new movie.
The yet-to-be-titled film, Jolie’s directorial debut, is “a love story between a Muslim woman and a Serb man set against the background of Bosnia's 1992-1995 inter-ethnic war,” Agence-France Presse reported.
Local Bosnian media, however, said the movie would include the rape of a Bosnian woman by a Serb and a romance between the two, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times in October.
On Monday, a victims group from the war sent a letter to the UNHCR saying Jolie has an “ignorant attitude towards victims” for not meeting with them and explaining what the film is about, according to the AFP report. Women Victims of War says it has documented 25,000 rapes from the conflict.
Jolie has said the film does not contain any rape-love scenario and offered to meet with representatives from the group, Women Victims of War, in Hungary where she is filming most of the movie.
The group has rejected that offer.
Source: Poll finds most troops OK with repeal of 'don't ask'
A majority of U.S. service members surveyed do not care if the law banning openly gay and lesbian troops from serving is repealed, according to a source knowledgeable with the results of the Pentagon study.
Members of Congress are to get an advance look at the study Tuesday.
Tuesday's live video events
9:30 am ET - Liza Minnelli on Wall Street - Entertainer Liza Minnelli, actor Cheyenne Jackson and fashion designer Kenneth Cole ring the opening bell on Wall Street on behalf of The Foundation for AIDS Research and to raise awareness for World AIDS Day.
10:30 am ET - Pentagon briefing on Afghanistan - U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Robert Harward briefs reporters on detention operations in Afghanistan.
World update: Latest leaks include royal outburst
An update from the CNN newsdesk in London on the stories we're following on Tuesday:
WikiLeaks leak - Latest revelations from WikiLeaks describe an astonishing outburst from Britain’s Prince Andrew at a lunch in Kyrgyzstan, and reveal information that shows that China is losing patience with North Korea and is not averse to the notion of a reunified Korea.
UK student protests - UK students are set to take to the streets in London again today to protest against university fee increases.
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