August 24th, 2010
09:32 PM ET
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3 Colombian teens on Facebook list killed in 10 days

Three teens who were on a 69-name hit list posted on Facebook have been killed in the past 10 days in a southwestern Colombian town, officials say.

Police say they do not know who posted the list or why the names are on it.

"It is still not clear," Colombian national police spokesman Wilson Baquero told CNN. "This is part of the investigation."

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Filed under: Colombia • Crime • Facebook
August 17th, 2010
02:51 PM ET
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Colombia survivors: A normal flight, then a crash on runway

Aires Airlines Flight 8250 was seconds away from landing at San Andres airport on a small island off the coast of Colombia. The pilot had turned on the seat belt sign and told passengers to stay in their seats. Passengers could see rain and lightning outside their small cabin windows, but nothing was amiss. Everything seemed calm. Normal. Routine.

Then a hard, violent crash as the Boeing 737-700 smacked into the runway. The plane started to break apart, and sparks flew as metal ground against concrete. Seats came loose from their moorings and tumbled about the cabin. Passengers could see the runway and the rainy predawn sky through the gaping holes left in the sheared fuselage. Some of them fell to the ground, still strapped into their seats.

Survivors of Monday's plane crash that left one person dead and more than 120 injured describe nearly two hours of normalcy followed by minutes of sheer terror.

"Everything was going well," Heriberto Rua told Radio Caracol. "When I felt something, it was the crash."

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Filed under: Air travel • Colombia
August 11th, 2010
04:09 PM ET
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Report: 8% of U.S. newborns have undocumented parents

One of about every 12 babies born in the United States in 2008 was the offspring of unauthorized immigrants, a Pew Hispanic Center study released Wednesday concluded.

According to the study, an estimated 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in this country that year had parents who were in the United States without legal documentation.

The 14th Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that those children automatically become U.S. citizens, but some members of Congress are pushing to change that provision. That effort - rooted in the debate over illegal immigration, particularly of people from Mexico - has created some controversy.

"This has got a lot of attention in the past weeks," said Jeffrey S. Passel, the study's author. "The idea was just to put a number on it."

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Filed under: Immigration • U.S.