Joplin dodges new storms as cleanup continues... The tornado that struck the community Sunday killed at least 125 people

Residents of tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri, again found themselves huddling in shelters as another round of powerful storms roared across the Plains early Wednesday.

The tornado that struck the community Sunday killed at least 125 people, in what authorities said was the deadliest single U.S. tornado since modern record-keeping began 61 years ago.

Late Tuesday night, the city was briefly under a tornado warning before high winds whipped the area and lightning lit the night sky.

Turbulent spring weather has interrupted search efforts more than once in the three days since the powerful twister flattened a large section of the town of 50,000 people.

Rescue teams pulled two more people alive from the rubble, Joplin City Manager Mark Rohr said Tuesday. An estimated 750 people have been treated at area hospitals.

Many of those involved in the search have also suffered loss, like Joplin Police Detective Chris Carriger, whose own home was severely damaged in the storm. He kept himself from being sucked out of the house by keeping a tight grip on a bathtub faucet.

"My feet were being actually pulled in the air," he told CNN's Anderson Cooper.

The cleanup continued as forecasters raised their assessment of Sunday's storm, ranking it at the top of the scale used to rate the intensity of tornadoes.

The National Weather Service has determined the twister packed top winds of more than 200 mph, making it a 5 on the enhanced Fujita scale, said Bill Davis, the meteorologist who reviewed the damage.

Davis said the tornado left "about six miles of total destruction" in its wake. Examinations of some of the buildings destroyed or damaged convinced forecasters to raise the designation, he said.

Roughly 8,000 structures within the city of Joplin were damaged, Rohr said, citing a Federal Emergency Management Agency report.

"It's obviously a huge tragedy for the people of Joplin," said Nate Fairbank in a CNN iReport from the scene. "There will be a good deal of mourning for lost loved ones, and even people who escaped with their lives were often left with little else."

The vastness of the destruction stunned many.

"The damage has been so extensive, completely devastating the city of Joplin," said iReporter Brandon White. "I've personally witnessed the wrath of many hurricanes. This tornado trumps them all."

"It just looks like a war zone," said resident Eddie Atwood.

"I was walking down Main Street. Everything was so razed over, it was disorienting because some of the streets -- you couldn't even tell where you were at," he said. "After living in Joplin all my life, it was like living in the twilight zone."

The city has imposed an overnight curfew to prevent looting, Joplin Police Chief Lane Roberts said.

"The sole function is to reduce the opportunity for people to loot and steal, and we're hoping the folks who live in that area will cooperate with us," he said.

President Barack Obama announced he will visit the region on Sunday.

"We are going to do absolutely everything we can to make sure they recover," he said during a visit to London.

Obama has issued a disaster declaration -- expediting the distribution of federal resources to the area.

About 1,500 people remain unaccounted for. But "when we open up the area and start letting them come back in ... that number of unaccounted for will start to dwindle," Joplin Emergency Management Director Keith Stammer said.

Authorities have encouraged people to use the website safeandwell.org, operated by the Red Cross, for updates on loved ones.

The tornado that carved through the city is the deadliest to hit American soil since the National Weather Service began keeping records six decades ago. The National Weather Service notes seven deadlier twisters, but says those took place "before the years of comprehensive damage surveys," so they may have been the result of multiple tornadoes.

But the Weather Service does say that the Great Tri-State Tornado of 1925, which tore across southeast Missouri, southern Illinois and southwest Indiana, killed 695 people -- "a record for a single tornado."

A 1953 twister in Flint, Michigan, killed 116 people, according to the Weather Service.

Last month, two fatal twisters struck Alabama. One hit Hackleburg and the town of Phil Campbell, killing 78 people, and another struck Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, killing 61.

With crews still sifting through rubble, the death toll could continue to climb.

Carriger, the Joplin police detective, said that while the mood across the community was somber, residents didn't let their hope waver.

"The American spirit's there -- it's strong," he said. "We're going to get through this. We just have to bond together."

Will repeat Osama-type raid if needed: Obama

Obama said he would approve an Abbottabad-like operation which killed Osama bin Laden if another militant leader was found in Pakistan.

Urging Pakistan to give up its mistaken notion of India as a security threat, US President Barack Obama has said he would order another raid like the one which killed Osama bin Laden if Islamabad did not act on threats developing in the country towards the US or its allies.

"Our job is to secure the United States. We are very respectful of the sovereignty of Pakistan. But we cannot allow someone who is actively planning to kill our people or our allies' people. We can't allow those kind of active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action," Obama told BBC in an interview broadcast this weekend, hours before he embarked on a tour of Ireland, Britain, France and Poland.

The US President's warning came in the face of a resolution approved by Pakistani MPs earlier this month which said the country would "no longer tolerate such actions and a repeat of unilateral measures could have dire consequences for peace and security in the region and the world."

But Obama, unmindful of Islamabad's stand, said Washington had always been clear about its willingness to act if Pakistan did not, and his administration was not the first to say this.

"Our hope is and our expectation is that we can achieve that in a way that is fully respectful of Pakistan's sovereignty. But I had made no secret. I had said this when I was running for the presidency, that if I had a clear shot at Bin Laden," Obama said when asked if he would order another raid if a high-value target was detected.

BBC: You'd take it.

Obama: That we'd take it.

In the same context, Obama linked Pakistan's behavior to its insecurity vis-a-vis India, a diagnosis he said he and British Prime Minister David Cameron shared.

"I think what Prime Minister Cameron understands, as I understand, is that Pakistan has been very obsessed with India. They see that as their existential threat. I think that's a mistake," Obama said, reiterating opinion he has expressed before.

In remarks that were clearly addressed to Pakistan and its India-obsessed military, Obama said "Peace between India and Pakistan would serve Pakistan very well" as it would free up resources and capacity for Pakistan to engage in trade and commerce, and "make enormous strides that you're seeing India make."

"But that's their (Pakistani) orientation. It's been that orientation for a long time," he added regretfully. "And so they look at issues like Afghanistan. Or the border region in the Fata (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) through the lens of what does this mean for our contest with India."

The US President said Washington has been trying to talk to the Pakistanis about how they can reorient their strategy so that they understand that the biggest threat to Pakistan and its stability is homegrown, but he did not indicate any progress, much less success, in the matter.

"If we don't go after these networks that are willing to blow up police stations, blow up crowds of people, assassinate Pakistani elected officials with impunity — if they don't get a handle on that then they're gonna see a significant destabilisation of the country," Obama said.

Reflecting on the raid which Obama and his aides followed in real time at the White House, he said, "That was as long a 40 minutes as I care to experience during my presidency." He also indicated that the killing of bin Laden could be a "wake-up call where we start seeing a more effective cooperative relationship" with Pakistan.

Obama will discuss a range of issues with European leaders during his weeklong visit, including the upheavals in Arab countries, the war in Afghanistan, and the international economic crisis, which has forced Europe to adopt austerity measures.

Militants attack Pakistan navy base, four killed

Flames and smokes belches out from a Pakistani base after an attack by militants in Karachi on May 22, 2011.

Militants attacked a Pakistani naval aviation base on Sunday, killing at least four people, officials said, the latest attack on a heavily guarded military installation in Pakistan. 

Senior police official Tahir Naveed said attackers were inside the Mehran base in Karachi fighting with base personnel.

Witnesses said they could hear sounds of gunshots and see smoke rising from the base. Officials said between 15 and 20 attackers were inside the base, and had attacked three hangars housing aircraft. Eight explosions were reported from the base.

"Three hangers were hit. There is some damage to aircraft or helicopters," an intelligence official said.

A least a dozen ambulances were parked outside the base, waiting to take wounded to hospital. Pakistani military and paramilitary reinforcements were pouring in, with four vehicles carrying about 10 troops each moving into the base.

Taliban militants, who have vowed to avenge the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden by US special forces, have carried out several attacks since his death on May 2.

An intelligence official said four people had been killed and five wounded in the Karachi raid.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the "terrorist" attack at the naval base.

"Such a cowardly act of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism," Gilani said in statement.

Pakistan television reported that a P-3 Orion maritime surveillance plane was attacked in the assault.

The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan's army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well-guarded institutions in the country remain vulnerable to militants.

Pakistan has faced a wave of bombings and gun assaults over the last few years, some of them claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.

Others have been blamed on al-Qaida-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military which have since slipped out of control.

ABBOTTABAD

A US special forces raid on May 2 which found and killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani town of Abbottabad has also revived suspicions that militants may be receiving help from some people within the security establishment.

Pakistan and the United States say the senior leadership in the country did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.

On April 28, suspected militants detonated a roadside bomb in Karachi, killing four members of the navy, the third attack on the navy in a week.

The attack came two days after two bombs hit buses carrying navy personnel, killing four people and wounding 56. Taliban insurgents took responsibility for the twin attacks.

Egyptian Saif al-Adel appointed acting leader of al Qaeda

An Egyptian who was once a Special Forces officer has been appointed "caretaker" leader of al Qaeda in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death, according to a source with detailed knowledge of the group's inner workings.

Al Qaeda's interim leader is Saif al-Adel, who has long played a prominent role in the group, according to Noman Benotman. Benotman has known the al Qaeda leadership for more than two decades. He was once a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a militant organization that used to be aligned with al Qaeda, but in recent years renounced al Qaeda's ideology.

Benotman told CNN that based on his personal communications with militants and discussions on jihadist forums, al-Adel had been appointed interim chief of al Qaeda because the global jihadist community had grown restive in recent days about the lack of a formal announcement appointing a successor to bin Laden.

However, he said, the choice of an Egyptian may not sit well with some Saudi and Yemeni members of al Qaeda, who believe bin Laden's successor should come from the Arabian Peninsula, a region that is holy to all Muslims. Bin Laden was from a wealthy Saudi family.

The presumed successor to bin Laden is his long-time deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is also Egyptian. Benotman, who has long been a reliable source of information about al Qaeda, said the temporary appointment of al-Adel may be a way for the leadership to gauge reaction to the appointment of someone from beyond the Arabian Peninsula as the group's leader.

Al-Adel fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980s. After the fall of the Taliban in the winner of 2001 he fled to Iran. According to senior Saudi counterterrorism officials, from there al-Adel authorized al Qaeda's branch in Saudi Arabia to begin a campaign of terrorist attacks in the Saudi kingdom that began in Riyadh in May 2003, a campaign that killed scores.

Some reports in the past year have suggested that al-Adel had left Iran for Pakistan.

One of the key issues that al-Adel has to reckon with now is the fallout from the large quantities of sensitive information that was recovered by U.S. forces at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was shot on May 2. That information is likely to prove damaging to al Qaeda operations.

The appointment of an interim leader allows al Qaeda to begin the process of collecting allegiance, or baya, from al-Qaeda affiliates such as the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the North Africa-based al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Baya was a religious oath of allegiance to bin Laden rather than to the organization itself, in the same way that Nazi Party members swore an oath of fealty to Hitler rather than to Nazism. That baya must now be transferred to whomever the new leader of al Qaeda is going to be, which is likely to be al-Zawahiri, given his long role as bin Laden's deputy.

However, there is scant evidence that al-Zawahiri has the charisma of bin Laden, nor that he commands the respect bordering on love that was accorded to bin Laden by members of al Qaeda.

Now that bin Laden is dead there is a real opportunity for the Taliban to disassociate itself from al Qaeda, as it was bin Laden who, sometime before the 9/11 attacks, swore an oath of allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar as the Amir al-Mu'minin, the Commander of the Faithful, a rarely invoked religious title that dates from around the time of the Prophet Mohammed.

Mullah Omar could now take the position that the new leader of al Qaeda does not need to swear an oath of allegiance to Omar as Commander of the Faithful.

Such a move would satisfy a key condition for peace talks with the U.S. and Afghan governments: that the Taliban reject al Qaeda, something that they have so far not done.

Schwarzenegger acknowledges having child with staffer

Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a child more than 10 years ago outside of his marriage to Maria Shriver, a source close to the former California governor confirmed to CNN on Tuesday.

Shriver, who described her husband as an "A-plus human being" when he was accused of sexual misconduct in 2003, called it "a painful and heartbreaking time" in a written statement to CNN on Tuesday.

"As a mother, my concern is for the children," Shriver said. "I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal. I will have no further comment."

The revelation, published first by the Los Angeles Times, came about a week after Schwarzenegger and his wife of 25 years announced that they were "amicably separating."

"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger said in a statement obtained by CNN. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry."

Schwarzenegger fathered the child with a household staffer, the Times article said. He has provided support for the child since birth, the source told CNN.

The staffer told the newspaper that the child was fathered by her then-husband. She declined to comment after learning of Schwarzenegger's statement, the newspaper reported.

A  newspaper quoted her as saying she recently retired "on good terms" with the couple after working for them for 20 years.

A  newspaper said it was not publishing the former staffer's name or that of her child to protect their privacy.

The May 9 announcement that Schwarzenegger and Shriver were separating did not mention a reason for the split, but said the decision was a mutual one.

"This has been a time of great personal and professional transition for each of us," they said. "After a great deal of thought, reflection, discussion, and prayer, we came to this decision together."

The couple have four children together between the ages of 14 and 21.

A spokeswoman for Shriver said she would have no comment, the Times reported.

After Schwarzenegger and Shriver married in 1986, they became one of America's most famous couples.

He was one of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, and she was a network news anchor and a member of the Kennedy family, America's storied Democratic political dynasty.

Shortly before the 2003 gubernatorial election that catapulted the former actor to political office, however, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of articles in which 16 women accused him of sexually harassing and humiliating them over a 30-year period in incidents on movie sets, at gymnasiums and elsewhere.

One of the women said that when she worked with Schwarzenegger on a movie, he pulled up her shirt to expose her breasts and took a picture, and groped her on two other occasions.

Rhonda Miller filed a lawsuit, saying Schwarzenegger and his campaign staff tried to discredit her by spreading false information about her.

Schwarzenegger said he knew nothing about Miller's allegations and said the timing of the complaints of the 16 women was "rather odd," given that no one had filed a complaint against him in the 35 years that he had lived in the United States.

Schwarzenegger issued a general apology for "behaving badly sometimes" but said many of the allegations were not true "because that's not my behavior."

Shriver took to the campaign trail to defend her husband a day after the allegations surfaced and just four days before the 2003 recall election.

"You can listen to all the negativity, and you can listen to people who have never met Arnold, or who met him for five seconds 30 years ago. Or you can listen to me," she said in a speech to a Republican women's group in Orange County.

"I wouldn't be standing here if this man weren't an A-plus human being. I wouldn't be taking my time, I wouldn't have left my job that I love, I wouldn't be doing any of this if I didn't believe in this man."

Speaking to reporters after the speech, Shriver described her husband as "an extraordinary man" and took issue with the characterization that he behaves boorishly toward women.

"He's honest, he's sensitive, he's sincere. And he is gracious with every bone in his body," she said. "I have met thousands and thousands of women who have come up to me and said they have worked with him, they have worked for him, alongside (him) and he has been an extraordinary gentleman."

She also said she thinks it took "tremendous courage to stand up and say, 'I'm sorry if I offended anybody. I apologize. That was not my intention.' "

Shriver said then that she was not personally hurt by the allegations.

"Nothing hurts, because I know the man that I'm married to," she said. "Has he said and done everything absolutely (right) 100 percent of the time? No. But I don't know anybody on the planet, male or female, who's led a perfect life."

"I think it's really important to understand who Arnold is today, and I think it's taken great courage on his part to get into this race."

Schwarzenegger, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Austria who gained fame as the youngest winner of the Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest, was governor until January. He has been busy in recent months reviving his acting career and signing movie deals -- including a project to do another installment of his "Terminator" series.

Bin Ladens son newest US threat

Pakistan's parliament condemns U.S. raid, threatens sanctions

Islamabad, Pakistan -- Pakistan's parliament threatened Saturday to cut off access to a facility used by NATO forces to ferry troops into Afghanistan, signaling a growing rift that began when U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden during a raid on a Pakistani compound.

A resolution adopted during a joint session of parliament condemned the U.S. action. It also called for a review of its working agreement with the U.S., demanded an independent investigation and ordered the immediate end of drone attacks along its border region.

Failure to end unilateral U.S. raids and drone attacks will force Pakistan to "to consider taking necessary steps, including withdrawal of (the) transit facility" used by the NATO's International Security Assistance Force, according to the resolution.

U.S. lawmakers have questioned how the world's most wanted terrorist managed to live in plain sight for years in Pakistan -- near the country's elite military academy -- without being detected.

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officials have said there is no evidence that any active members of Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment knew about or actively protected the al Qaeda leader.

Publicly, leaders in both countries have downplayed a rift.

During a stop in Afghanistan Saturday, U.S. Sen. John Kerry stressed that Americans want Pakistan to be "a real ally" in combating terror. Still, he added, the United States is "not trying to find a way to break the relationship apart."

"We're trying to find a way to build it and to improve it and we need to work at that and that's part of what I'll be doing over the course of the next couple of days," said Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also planned to visit Pakistan.

The unanimous resolution made clear there was a growing dissatisfaction among Pakistani lawmakers.

The resolution also ordered a review of its counter-terrorism cooperation agreement with the United States.

The government is deeply "distress(ed) on the campaign to malign Pakistan, launched by certain quarters in other countries without appreciating Pakistan's determined efforts and immense sacrifices in combating terror," the resolution said.

It also said more than 30,000 Pakistani civilians and more than 5,000 military personnel had been killed in its fight against terror "and the blowback emanating from actions of the NATO/ISAF forces in Afghanistan."

Anger over U.S. drone strikes has mounted during the past year after it stepped up efforts along the Pakistani-Afghan border.

On Friday, a suspected U.S. drone strike killed four suspected Islamic militants in the Datta Khel region of North Waziristan, according to two Pakistani intelligence officials. They said an unmanned aircraft fired four missiles at a militant's vehicle on the border area.

The demands by the Pakistani civilian government come as new details emerge about the raid on bin Laden's Abbottabad compound.

Members of the U.S. Navy SEAL team that attacked the compound were wearing helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission, a U.S. military official told CNN on Friday.

The official described the digital recording as hazy, fast-moving and subject to poor lighting in the rooms. The source also said it is hard to get clear images from the footage.

"This is not movie-quality stuff," the official said.

An official familiar with the material seized from the compound said Friday that Navy SEALs recovered a stash of pornography. The official would not discuss exactly where it was found, what it was or whether it is believed to belong to the al Qaeda leader or to someone else living at the site, such as bin Laden's couriers or his son.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Bin Laden's compound is also undergoing intense analysis, and U.S. officials say he apparently enjoyed a support network in Pakistan that allowed him to stay in one location for the past several years. He had no escape plan or means to destroy his reams and gigabytes of documents in the event of an enemy assault, according to the U.S. sources.

Two U.S. lawmakers joined a public chorus for the release of photos of bin Laden's body after seeing the images themselves.

"These are very graphic, gruesome pictures," said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican from Colorado. But seeing them "gave me a sense of finality and closure."

A conservative legal watchdog group has filed the first lawsuit seeking the public release of the video and photographs of the raid and its aftermath.

Judicial Watch is asking the Department of Defense to comply with a Freedom of Information request for the material, especially photos of bin Laden's body. The legal complaint to force compliance was made in federal court in Washington on Friday.