The Menendez Brothers

Lyle and Erik Menendez seemingly had it all, intelligence, good looks and a beautiful home in Beverly Hills, California. But one night they shot their parents to death in cold blood and initially tried to make it look like intruders committed the crime.

Now legendary producer Dick Wolf is focusing the first episode of NBC’s upcoming Law & Order: True Crime on the Menendez brothers. In the video below, HLN’s Nancy Grace takes a closer look at the case, including the brothers’  chilling 911 call and their shocking courtroom testimony.

BTK: The Killer Next Door

Dennis Rader was the local dog catcher and compliance officer in Wichita, Kansas, but he led a twisted and evil double life as a serial killer who bound, tied and killed his victims. Known as BTK, Rader murdered ten people in Wichita from 1974 to 1991 until he was finally captured and convicted. Here is his story on HLN.

Special needs children hit the waves

Surf instructor Elliot Zuckerman and his not-for-profit Surf2Live team provide a fun surfing experience for special needs children.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice sets the bar high

New York synagogue restores Torah that survived confiscation by Nazis

Americans speak out about the Confederate flag

What’s the word on the street about the Iran nuclear deal?

People on the street share their thoughts on President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.

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Australian Rules Football Comes to New York

Houses of pain: 17 infamous crime scenes

Look inside the gruesome crimes — and where they happened – that had an ever-lasting impact on the American psyche.

Click here for gallery

Chemo-related hair loss treatment works one follicle at a time

Psychologist Caryn Stark, a long-time Nancy Grace show contributor, is speaking out about breast cancer and how a process called cold-cap therapy helps women like her keep their hair, even as they go through chemotherapy to battle the disease.

 

 

Eagle Academy takes a road to success

The Eagle Academy is a group of six all-male secondary schools that the New York City Department of Education operates in the city’s five boroughs and Newark, New Jersey. The schools aim to empower at-risk inner city students and guide them along a road to academic achievement to college and beyond. HLN’s Joey Jackson recently spoke with Eagle students and David Banks, author of “Soar: How Boys Learn, Succeed and Develop Character” and founder of the not-for-profit Eagle Academy Foundation.

Feast at Katz’s famous delicatessen

Katz’s Delicatessen made movie history as the “I’ll have what she’s having” Meg Ryan scene in When Harry Met Sally. But Katz’s lore begins many generations before and lives on today in this thriving – and hectic – New York hot-spot.

 

 

Partially blind triathlete sues over requirement he wear blackout glasses

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN)— A legally blind athlete is suing three triathlon groups over a rule that makes him and other vision-impaired runners wear blackout glasses — leaving them temporarily sightless — in a controversial effort to “level the playing field.”
Click here for story

Triathlete Aaron Scheidies

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s a dog MEET dog world for owners

By Philip Rosenbaum, HLNTV.com

With the proliferation of Android phones, iPads, Nooks, Kindles, cheap and designer sunglasses, big Annie Hall hats and more trendy ways to say, “Don’t talk to me, stranger,” friendly encounters between dog owners can be a breath of fresh air, even if the questions they ask each other are not.

Click here for story

 

 

 

UFC Fighter Frankie Edgar: ‘I’m going to come out the winner’

By Philip Rosenbaum, CNN and Ryan P. Casey, Special to CNN

New York (CNN) — After he graduated from college, Frankie Edgar began working for his stepfather’s plumbing business. He woke up early each morning to dutifully trudge to job sites around New Jersey on the hottest and coldest of days. In the afternoon, Edgar coached wrestling. At night, he treated himself to training in his true passion: mixed martial arts. Soon Edgar told his family he wanted to quit plumbing and become a professional fighter.

Click here for full story and video

Police: Kids found in animal kennel

By Philip Rosenbaum, HLNTV.com
Authorities responding to an anonymous tip found four Nebraska children in squalid living conditions, with two of them allegedly sleeping in an animal kennel, according to police.

“All four children are in protective custody based on the overall conditions of the residence, the animal feces and urine throughout the residence, the trash and everything,’’ Lt. Rich Hoaglund of the North Platte Police Department told HLNTV.com.

Two boys, ages five and three, were discovered Monday around 11 p.m. as they slept in the metal kennel measuring about 42 inches tall and 30 inches wide, Hoaglund said.

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Pregnant mom arrested for allegedly shoplifting a sandwich

By Philip Rosenbaum, HLNTV.com
Have you ever been hungry and munched on something before getting to the supermarket check-out? Yeah, us too. Ever been arrested for forgetting to pay for it, then lose custody of your toddler daughter? Yeah, probably not. But that’s what a couple in Hawaii says happened to them.

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In Brooklyn, a Hasidic walking tour opens ultra-Orthodox Jewish life to outsiders

By Philip Rosenbaum, CNN, and Ryan P. Casey, Special to CNN
Since 1982, Rabbi Beryl Epstein has helped to bridge Crown Heights and the rest of the world by leading more than 200,000 New Yorkers, tourists, scholars and others on his walking tours of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish New York neighborhood.

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A man examines religious CDs in
the heart of Crown Heights

African-American village unearthed in Central Park

Beneath New York City’s best-known park, an overlooked chapter of U.S. history has been found. A forgotten village, two-thirds African-American, one-third European, mainly Irish. It was established before slavery was abolished in the States and it’s been buried under Central Park for more than one hundred fifty years. CNN Producer Phil Rosenbaum visited the dig.

 

Torah scribes doing God’s work on parchment

By Philip Rosenbaum

New York (CNN) – Help wanted: Someone who can sit in one place for hours on end, has the hand-eye coordination of a brain surgeon, a yogi’s power of concentration, a linguist’s knack for languages – especially ancient Hebrew – and a monk’s ability to work alone in contemplative silence, all while avoiding impure thoughts. The hypothetical job posting, which you’re not likely to see in the classifieds, is for a sofer, or Torah scribe.

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Rabbi Yochanan Salazar, a scribe, works on restoring a Torah

Blind man files discrimination suit over law school admission test

Angelo Binno, left, and his lawyer, Richard Bernstein

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN)– A blind Michigan man, rejected by three law schools after scoring poorly on the Law School Admission Test, is suing the American Bar Association, arguing that the group’s exam requirements discriminate against the visually impaired.In a suit filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Angelo Binno alleges the Chicago-based ABA prevents law schools from waiving the admission test, known as the LSAT, for blind applicants. The suit alleges that visually impaired students face considerable difficulties with visually-oriented parts of the exam.Binno, 28, is fluent in three languages, finished high school in three years, graduated from Wayne State University in Detroit and worked with a unit of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with a high-level security clearance handling applications and credentials of immigrants, according to the lawsuit.
Click here for full story

Body found in Utah desert is male, not missing mother

Susan Powell

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Human remains discovered in the Utah desert belong to a young male and are not a missing 28-year-old mother, authorities said, a grim discovery that fuels the mystery and opens a new case. The fate of Susan Powell, who disappeared in 2009, is still unknown.
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Prospective Casey Anthony jurors cite hardship

By Philip Rosenbaum, HLN, and Michael Christian, In Session

Casey Anthony

Clearwater, Florida (CNN) — After a second day of jury selection in the Casey Anthony murder trial, more prospective jurors facing weeks and possibly months away from home, family, work and school have been excused.

While a few were dismissed for expressing opinions about the defendant, most were let go after revealing compelling hardship issues during questioning by the judge and lawyers from both sides.

One woman in her 50s, who works at a hospice, said she cannot go weeks without an income. Her employer would not compensate her during the trial and she said she would not be able to pay her mortgage.
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Casey Anthony’s name now tied to ‘chloroform’ online

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — An Internet search of “how to make chloroform” — a key issue in the Casey Anthony murder trial – brings up more than 600 results from a variety of sources, some apparently serious, many sketchy and others totally irrelevant.
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The Triangle fire: A blaze that woke a nation

The tenth floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. after the deadly blaze that killed 146 factory workers

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Three stories of a ten-floor building at the corner of Greene Street and Washington Place were burned yesterday, and while the fire was going on 141 young men and women — at least 125 of them mere girls — were burned to death or killed by jumping to the pavement below.” — The New York Times, March 26, 1911

David Von Drehle, author of “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America,” an award-winning history widely considered the definitive text on the event, spoke to CNN’s Philip Rosenbaum about the fire’s profound impact and how its place in U.S. history grows by the year.
Click here for interview

Utah man accused of sexually abusing kids to be freed

Lonnie Johnson

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — A Utah judge has ordered a registered sex offender who faces nearly two dozen charges of child sex abuse released on the basis that he is mentally incompetent to stand trial.

At a hearing on Thursday, Fourth District Judge James Taylor, who previously ruled Lonnie Johnson incompetent to be tried on sex crime charges, said there were no legal grounds for holding him.

“We are at the end of the road…I can’t do anything but have him released from the state hospital,” Taylor said at Thursday’s hearing.

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Texas authorities apprehend fugitive, missing niece

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — A convicted sex offender who was on the run for nearly a week with his 14-year-old niece is now in the custody of Texas law enforcement, according to authorities. Matthew Mallory, 35, of Kingfisher County, Oklahoma, is being held in a San Antonio jail. Bexar County Sheriff’s Office deputies caught the fugitive Tuesday night outside the city limits, Deputy U.S. Marshall Tom Smith said on HLN’s Nancy Grace. Mallory’s niece, identified by the Kingfisher County Sheriff’s Office as Airel Daphane Ann Mallory, was “okay” but a little dehydrated, Smith said.

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Nancy Grace: Mass removed by surgery not malignant

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — HLN’s Nancy Grace announced on her program Monday night that she had surgery to remove a solid mass that doctors had feared could be cancer. The operation last Tuesday, which Grace said took “hours and hours,” revealed that the mass was not malignant, she said.

Speaking by phone to substitute host Jean Casarez of In Session, Grace said she is recovering at home with her husband, David, and their 3-year-old twins, John David and Lucy Elizabeth. A nurse administering an ultrasound test to Grace during a routine gynecologist visit discovered the growth, Grace said.

Grace had felt no symptoms and scheduled the appointment based on “a hunch,” she said. 

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The life of a woman priest

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) – It’s a busy Sunday morning in August for Gabriella Velardi Ward in her modest home in the New York City borough of Staten Island.

Velardi Ward lights candles, gingerly lays out prayer sheets and looks at herself in the mirror, mindfully putting on her white robe and vestments.

A short woman with a behemoth sense of spiritual self, Velardi Ward also attends to earthly matters.

While she makes sure the table is full of healthy vegetarian dips and finger foods, umbrella-carrying worshipers trickle through the door before the heavens unload. She hugs new arrivals who take seats in a rough circle in the humble but welcoming suburban living room.

To any stranger, this would be a scene to behold: a demonstration of belief, perhaps similar in passion to 1960s war protests whose organizers loved their country but felt deep pain over some of its most troublesome acts.

Velardi Ward leads this sing-a-long and prayer-filled sit-in of devotion and rebellion on behalf of God, his creatures great and small and her half of humankind.

She says this is a Catholic Mass.

She says she is the priest.

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Simple steps can help prevent home invasion

William Petit, with wife Jennifer and daughters Michael and Hayley, was the only survivor.

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — As the trial continues for one of two men accused in the gruesome home invasion and murder of a doctor’s wife and two daughters in Connecticut, shocking details make many wonder how to keep their homes safer from intruders.

“The first thing you should do is realize — be aware of your surroundings at all times,” Tom Shamshak, a private investigator, said Wednesday on HLN’s “Nancy Grace.”

Home invasion, when robbers force their way into an occupied house or apartment, is an especially frightening crime since we see our homes as our safe havens from the outside world.  Click here for full story

Celebrities misbehave. Why do we care?

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — Some Americans spent Friday night worrying about their next mortgage payment. Many prayed for loved ones serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Others continued to clean up spilled oil in the U.S. Gulf.

Paris Hilton, meanwhile, was tooling around the Las Vegas Strip with a male friend in a black Cadillac Escalade, until a traffic cop thought he smelled marijuana and pulled them over.

With all the problems the world faces — climate change, terrorism, economic malaise and more — why do we care so much about celebrities such as Hilton and others getting into trouble?
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Cold case: Girl, 6, was snatched at Little League game

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — In about the same time that it takes to light a match, tie a shoelace or hail a taxi, 6-year-old Morgan Nick vanished from her mother’s sight.

Morgan was catching fireflies with other children in a baseball field parking lot in Alma, Arkansas, as a Little League game was winding down on the evening of June 9, 1995.

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Spurred by the Sting of Discrimination

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — When asked what the Americans with Disabilities Act means to him on its 20th anniversary, Gary Talbot pauses and says it’s tough to put in words. Instead of directly answering the question, he begins to describe in vivid detail his journey from able-bodied man to able-bodied wheelchair user.
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Disabilities debate rages 20 years later
New York (CNN) — When President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990, he addressed concerns the sweeping civil rights law would be ”too vague or costly, or may lead endlessly to litigation.”
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Catch a ride on the ‘Nostalgia Train’

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — The Great Depression is in full swing. Gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years behind bars for tax evasion. Dick Tracy debuts in the comics. The George Washington Bridge opens. The year is 1931. And New Yorkers are stepping onto the brand new R-1 model subway car, built by the American Car & Foundry factory in Berwick, Pennsylvania.

Fast-forward 77 years New Yorkers and tourists are once again boarding these 84,000-pound, 60-foot-long behemoths constructed of riveted steel, with some featuring wicker seats, dangling emergency brake cords, incandescent light bulbs, big exposed overhead fans, and open windows.

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LAPD chief: thin blue line getting thinner

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck was sworn in for a five-year term in November, succeeding native New Yorker William Bratton, who retired to take a job in the private sector.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck, who was sworn in for a five-year term in November, sees tough and interesting times ahead for the LAPD.

Beck, who joined the LAPD in 1977, faces a large budget shortfall amid California’s fiscal crisis and the challenge to keep the city’s lower crime rates in place and build on the trend. He has said one way to do that is to take on the formidable task of cutting gang violence. As Beck settles into the job, he is sharing his philosophies and views on policing with CNN.

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‘Paquito,’ 7, separated from family crossing border

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — On December 7, 1993, at around midnight, a 7-year-old boy named Jose Fuentes slipped through a hole in a high metal fence, crossing from Northern Mexico into Southern California.

Jose Fuentes is shown as a child, and how he might look now, at age 23.

Jose, with his two teenage brothers, a sister and an aunt, had finally reached the United States border after a harrowing month-long journey of more than 2,000 miles from El Salvador.
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Cold case: Teen with bright future disappeared in L.A.

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — On a Tuesday afternoon, 17-year-old Byron Page drove the family Volvo around Los Angeles, California, with his mother. Byron, who was preparing for his driver’s test, was excited about this rite of passage and his other pursuits — writing, sports, his first real jobs and college.

Byron Page was 17 when he disappeared. At age 35, he might look like the age-progressed photo on the right.

But the next day, January 29, 1992, Byron was nowhere in sight when his mother, Jettie Page, came home from her job as a nurse. Page said she called a friend of Byron’s who said he had seen him that day at a nearby city bus stop.
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Fight over ‘clean coal’ gathers steam

CNN’s Jim Acosta reports on the environmental debate over so-called “clean” coal.
Produced by Philip Rosenbaum

Iowa paper boy vanished on route in 1982

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — When the Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register came off the presses on September 5, 1982, the front page headlines included: “USDA Focus Shifts Back to Farmers”; “Video Recorders Let Viewers ‘Beat the Clock,’ Spark TV Boom”; and “China Offers Accord with Soviet Union.”

Newspaper carrier Johnny Gosch disappeared on his route

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little did the newspaper’s editors realize that one of the biggest stories in Iowa’s history was about to unfold and that the central figure would be a 12-year old  Register paperboy.

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Watch, ring may help police identify ‘Jane Doe’

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Indiana farmer Maurice “Gene” Headley was driving his tractor to check out his corn and beans one day in September 1999 when he saw what he first thought was a deer carcass.

He stopped, got off the tractor and approached the remains, spotting a watch on the wrist of what he recognized as a human skeleton.

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Police seek tips in teacher’s 1992 slaying

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — As a child, Christy Ann Mirack played teacher while her brother and sister pretended to be her students. As it turned out, Mirack was rehearsing for adulthood.

“Her dream in life from early on was to be a schoolteacher,” recalled Vince Mirack, her brother. Soon after she reached her goal, ”it was taken away from her,” he said.
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Kidney donor from Craigslist

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — One morning a couple of months ago at Westchester Medical Center, Dawn Verdick gave Daniel Flood one of her kidneys. The patient and donor were brought together after Flood’s three daughters placed an ad on Craigslist, the online classifieds site that offers everything from autos to real estate and guitar lessons to massage.

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Teens’ bodies found 800 yards apart in ’94

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — As is the case with so many other “Jane Does” across the nation, 14-year-old Sarah Boehm’s unidentified remains were kept in a cooler at the coroner’s office in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. 

On the 15th anniversary of the teens' disappearance, the FBI sought the public's help on billboards in Pennsylvania and Ohio

They had been there for more than five years when a breakthrough in 2001 helped turn the case around.

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Cold case: ‘Precious’ girl disappeared in ’77

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — Eva Debruhl, 15, was last seen nearly 33 years ago, cutting the front lawn of her family’s home in Rock Hill, South Carolina, with a push mower.

Her sister describes Eva Debruhl, who vanished at age 15, as sweet and innocent.

“Eva loved to cut grass, as we both did,” said her older sister, Tami Settlemyer, 49. “There was just something about cutting grass that we both enjoyed.”

But Debruhl wasn’t at the door to greet her sister when she came home from her summer job at the local textile mill late in the afternoon of June 29, 1977. She had missed lunch with her grandmother, who lived in another house on the family’s 9-acre spread. And Debruhl’s best friend’s family had not seen her, either.
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Girl, 12, vanished during 1979 sleepover

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) – Before she was laid to rest in 1995 in a cemetery in Clinton, Kentucky, 77-year-old Anna Laura King bought a plot next to her own.

Kimberly King was 12 when she disappeared. She would be 43 now, and might look like the photo on the right.

The burial space, which remains empty, is reserved for her granddaughter, Kimberly King, who disappeared 30 years ago. She was 12.

“That’s all I can hope for that before I die I get to see her at least placed there,” said Kathie Lucas, one of Kimberly’s two sisters.

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Matzo factory ramps up for Passover

Streit’s has been making kosher matzo in a former New York tenement building since 1925. A tour of the 85-year-old factory just before Passover reveals the production process and the machinery remain true to tradition. Click here for video

Teen called ‘Squeak’ vanished in 1985

New York (CNN) — It was Friday the 13th and Joanne Briscoe, who is not by nature a superstitious woman, felt a sense of foreboding as she left for work.

Allen Briscoe disappeared on December 13, 1985. The photo on the right shows what he might look like today.

Every weekday, Briscoe would call home at 7:30 a.m. from her clerk’s job at a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, insurance company to make sure her 16-year-old son, Allen, and his 17-year-old sister, Latanya, were awake and getting ready to go to school.

But on December 13, 1985, the teens didn’t answer when their mother called. She called again at 3:30 p.m., about an hour after school let out. Still there was no answer.
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Texas landfill searched in baby Gabriel Johnson case

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Investigators searching for a missing 8-month-old boy began an intensive excavation and search effort Tuesday at a Texas landfill.

Gabriel Johnson was last seen in San Antonio, Texas, with his mother, Elizabeth Johnson.

“Let me say this, that we do remain hopeful that baby Gabriel is alive,” William McManus, chief of the San Antonio Police Department, said at a news conference at the landfill.

We are, however, conducting both a missing persons investigation as well as a homicide investigation,” he said, adding that aspects surrounding Gabriel Johnson’s disappearance involve elements of a possible homicide.

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Woman still seeks sister’s face in the crowd

By Philip Rosenbaum
New York (CNN) — For two decades, Ashyea Alford has literally been searching for a face in the crowd. Wherever she went, she would check out other women, hoping one of them might be her missing little sister.

Andrea Durham disappeared from her Fort Walton, Beach, Florida, home when she was 13.

“It used to be so hard to go to the mall,” Alford said. “You’d see somebody and you’d think ‘Oh, maybe that’s her.’ ”

When Alford was 15, Andrea Durham, her 13-year-old sister, vanished from the apartment they shared with their mother, Roseanne Sterling, in Fort Walton Beach, Florida.

Alford and her mom headed out for a meeting on the evening of February 1, 1990, leaving Andrea home to vacuum the apartment.

When they returned about two hours later, the vacuum was standing upright in the living room but there was no sign of Andrea.

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Police seek information on missing 8-month-old

By Philip Rosenbaum, HLN
(CNN) — An Arizona couple who wanted to adopt a woman’s baby know more than they’re saying about the 8-month-old boy’s disappearance, police say.

Gabriel Johnson is missing and his mother refuses to say where he is, police say.

Gabriel Johnson hasn’t been seen since December 26, police said, and his mother was arrested last week in Miami Beach, Florida, after not reporting for a December 28 child custody hearing in Arizona.

“We have some good indications at this point with our investigation that Tammi and Jack Smith do know more information than they have provided to us that could possibly lead us to Gabriel,” Sgt. Steve Carbajal, spokesman for the Tempe (Arizona) Police Department, told HLN’s Nancy Grace on Thursday.

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Steinway Keeps Traditions While Staying In Tune With Change

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) – Waging a tug of war with the laws of physics, six barrel-chested men bend and hammer a 600 pound wedge of laminated rock maple into the curvy shape of a Steinway piano. Working without power tools, the men known as “rim benders” struggle for 10 minutes as they pry the wood into a big vice that will mold it into the frame of a $60,000 concert grand.

Rim bending – developed and patented by Steinway & Sons more than a century ago – is one of thousands of steps taken before a piano rolls out of a factory in the New York City borough of Queens.

The 10-acre plant looks more like a huge, high school wood shop than a modern factory, with lathes and drills dotting the floor. Steinway’s craftsmen turn out about 2,500 pianos a year, compared with tens of thousands produced by competitors Baldwin and Yamaha.

Obscure Accounting Rule Change Giving Many Retirees Rude Awakening

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Financial Accounting Standard 106. The name might mean nothing to you, but if you’re a retiree or will be someday, this new accounting rule can pack a powerful punch.

Aimed at making investors more aware of company obligations to provide health benefits for future retirees, the rule has prompted many big corporations to trim or even kill retiree plans once considered untouchable.

The Artists: The Restless Spirit of Vali Myers

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
Associated Press Writer

Artist Vali Myers sets the floor with newspaper and serves melted cheese on pita bread, then throws a scrap to the mice behind the stove.

“It’ll be a holocaust,” Myers said of the extermination awaiting the mice a few days before she was scheduled to leave her room at The Chelsea Hotel.

Isn’t she afraid of the rodents? “Of course not,” she says. “It’s people you sometimes have to worry about.”

Myers says she likes people and loves meeting them.

“I know thousands of people. I always forget their names.”

Does she keep a list of their names?

“No. I’m bad with names.”

How does she remember their numbers?

“What numbers?”

As she talks, Myers breaks out the lipstick as often as a chainsmoker lights up.

White makeup coats her most visible canvas, her face. Fiery orange billows of hair frame the creation and above her lip rests a thin mustache-like design, which she tattooed.

Australian-born artist Vali Myers makes her home on the floor of New York's Chelsea Hotel

The hotel room – appearing more like the set for a piece of performance art than a place to live – is a trip inside her mind. Like a child playing “camp,” the 62-year-old Myers lives, eats and sleeps on the pillow-and-blanket-covered floor. On the front door, Italy’s Madonna del Arco is honored with a picture and strings of colored lights.

American Jews Wary Of Soviet Jews Migrating to Germany

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Jews who came to America to mend their shattered lives after the Holocaust now look on in dismay as thousands of their Soviet counterparts embrace Germany as a new promised land.

“For Jewish Holocaust survivors, settling again in Germany cannot but provoke the most profound negative, painful and emotional reaction,” Benjamin Meed, executive director of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, wrote in a letter to Edgar Bronfman, president of the World Jewish Congress.

Paint American – Nothing Else

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Some 80 years ago, Theresa Bernstein’s art school instructor stopped at her easel to examine a sketch she worked on for six weeks. He took one look at it, raised his charcoal pencil and drew a big X across the paper.
Then he threw it in the waste-basket.

The teacher’s reverse psychology worked; Bernstein rebelled and fought even harder to turn her artistic promise into great talent.

“Some of the kids would be so upset they’d go out in the hall to wipe their tears. I would say, ‘Damn him, I’m going to do it again,’ and I’d do it over,” she said.

“I wasn’t so easily pained. If you’re not tough you can’t succeed in any given profession.”

Beef Industry Looking For Comeback With Low-Fat Ground Beef

By Philip Rosenbaum
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – The beef industry – trying to appease increasingly health-conscious Americans while keeping a stronghold on their palates – is declaring a war on fat.

As chicken and other poultry wins American hearts and minds, the Beef Industry Council is fighting back with low-fat ground beef.

Fast-food outlets have started using various forms of the leaner meat and shoppers at about 8,500 supermarkets can find it in the meat case. The industry wants to get low-fat hamburger on more school-lunch menus.

McDonald’s began selling the McLean Deluxe burger in April, marking the major market debut for carrageenan, a seaweed-based carbohydrate that helps the meat retain moisture and flavor in place of fat. Hardee’s has also started selling a leaner burger.

For New Brokers, A Rocky Post-Crash Road

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
AP Businss Writer
NEW YORK (AP ) – Jeffrey Dudas began a stockbroker training program with Prudential-Bache Securities Inc. on Oct. 19, 1987, the day infamously recalled as Black Monday, when the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 508 points.

What’s worse, Dudas began practicing his new profession on Nov. 13, a Friday.

Cold case: Toddlers vanish from park

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — When Rosa Glover brought her 19-month-old son to a New York City playground in 1989, she had no idea tragedy was about to strike a second time in the same place.

Shane Walker vanished in 1989 in a New York park.

In May 1989, 2-year-old Christopher Dansby disappeared from his grandmother’s sight on that playground.
Not quite three months later, on a hot August day, Glover’s son, Shane Walker, vanished.

Click here for full story

Philip Rosenbaum on-air reel

Philip Rosenbaum on-air reel part II

Dollar Is Mixed, Gold Falls

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – The dollar fell overseas but ended higher in U.S. trading Friday despite news of falling interest rates in the United States.

Gold prices also eased abroad but rose slightly in U.S. trading.

“The market has been so bearish and so anticipatory of the dollar’s decline based on lower interest rates that when it happened it was sort of fait accompli,” said Robert Ryan, corporate foreign exchange manager at Bank of New York.

Waiting for a ‘good girl’ to come home

By Philip Rosenbaum, Nancy Grace producer
New York (CNN) — Kimberly Arrington was 16 when she disappeared more than a decade ago, and her father still waits for her to come home. So does a little girl she never met who carries her name.

Kimberly Arrington disappeared in 1998 in Montgomery, Alabama.

Walter Arrington remembers “a good girl” who enjoyed listening to music, dancing and learning computers at school, where she was well-behaved.

“I’ve been going through this for the last 12 years, and I feel like this might be my last chance of ever seeing my daughter or somebody recovering her,” he said, hoping a story would compel someone to come forward.

Click here for full story

Australian Rules Football in New York

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) – Australian rules football in America: Meet the New York Magpies, an amateur team that plays to win.

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Australian Rules football is described as "soccer with tackling."

Santa speaks

Real-life “Santa” Dick Shea describes his passion for the annual role that brings a smile to children and adults alike.

Produced by Philip Rosenbaum

Web pioneer recalls ”birth of the Internet”

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — It was 1969 and a busy year for making history: Woodstock, the Miracle Mets, men on the moon — and something less celebrated but arguably more significant, the birth of the Internet.

Leonard Kleinrock today, with the UCLA computer he used to send a message to a lab at Stanford University.

On October 29 of that year, for perhaps the first time, a message was sent over the network that would eventually become the Web. Leonard Kleinrock, a professor of computer science at the University of California-Los Angeles, connected the school’s host computer to one at Stanford Research Institute, a former arm of Stanford University.

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Surfing with Autism

By Philip Rosenbaum
LONG BEACH, N.Y. (CNN) – Elliot Zuckerman, owner of the N.Y. surfing school Surf2Live, takes time each summer to teach autistic children how to surf.

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Surfing teacher Eliot Zuckerman and student catch a wave.

Dumpster diving for free food

By Philip Rosenbaum
CNNmoney.com
NEW YORK — ‘Freegans’ promote a sustainable lifestyle beyond capitalism, foraging for food left outside New York City stores. Last winter, I followed a group of freegans around New York City to watch them gather food for themselves and the homeless.

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Finding food outside a New York supermarket

News anchor tells his own story of perserverance and triumph

NY1 News anchor Dominic Carter overcame a traumatic childhood of abuse at the hands of his own mother. He tells his story of survival and success.

Produced by Philip Rosenbaum

Mom says missing daughter had been excited about concert

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — The mother of a Virginia Tech junior who disappeared Saturday night during a Metallica concert says she helped her daughter choose an outfit for the show that same morning.

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Morgan Harrington, 20, disappeared at a rock concert.

Have it your way on the highway

By Philip Rosenbaum
CNNmoney.com
NEW YORK — With its gleaming chrome and steel body and fork stretched to the limit — like a racehorse striving to win the derby by a nose — the chopper has for decades given riders an open road sensation, a manifest destiny to get somewhere and be cool while doing it.

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Custom chopper shop caters to every rider's adventure.

Student’s body was found in Ohio River; car still missing

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Alana “Laney” Gwinner, a 23-year-old accounting student at the University of Cincinnati, had a lot to celebrate Tuesday, December 9, 1997. She had just aced an exam and received a promotion at work.
So, that night, Gwinner and friends met up about 10 p.m. at a bowling alley in nearby Fairfield, Ohio. After midnight, Gwinner left to drive to her boyfriend’s house, about 2 miles up the road.
She never made it.

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Interview with Hurricane Katrina survivor

By Philip Rosenbaum
In 2006, I visited Biloxi, Miss., to speak with survivors of Hurricane Katrina on the first anniversary of the devastating storm. I interviewed Robert Maxie, who lost both his parents during Katrina while he was in the house with them. He tells the tragic story in this video.

Blind attorney proves he’s made of iron

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — Richard Bernstein wins landmark lawsuits for the disabled. He teaches college. He runs marathons.

Richard Bernstein with running guides Hillary Benjamin, Julie Winslow and Joy Cantilo

But you really get the sense there’s no stopping him — now or ever — when you mix in the fact that Bernstein has been blind since birth.

“Once I appreciated why I was created and the way that I was created, it really just gave my life a true sense of meaning and that meaning really drove my energy and passion,” Bernstein says.

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A Walk Through the, Er, Different World of Public Access

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) – Willa Sands turns on her microphone and nervously glances left and right. Then, she smiles at the video camera and welcomes viewers to another “fabulous” black tie party, one of thousands she has attended as host of the always upbeat public access TV show “The Happy Hour.”

Public Access TV in Manhattan provides an outlet for hundreds of would-be stars.

This night, Sands meanders through a sea of cumberbunds and boas to interview people at the buffet table.

“Did you notice something was missing from the buffet?” she asks a young man as he presses roast beef into his mouth with his hands.

Daughter raises reward in hope of finding killer

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — Gail Parker was many things to many people. She was an environmentalist who wrote about Love Canal and gave speeches about America’s polluted waterways.

Gail Parker was 51 when someone killed her for her purse and jewelry and left her body in the desert.

She volunteered at the local hospital, helped the elderly and cancer patients. And she read to the blind. Her good deeds were followed by a harsh end. Parker, who would have turned 67 Sunday, was killed — most probably for her purse and jewelry — and her body was left in the Arizona desert.

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Boy went for bubble gum, met a killer

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — For Cathy Miller and her family, the night of Monday, February 17, 1986, was pretty much like any other in the quiet Georgia city of Warner Robins.
Then came a knock at the door, just around 8 p.m.

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Chuck Mauk, 13, was shot after a bike trip to the store to buy gum.

Third grader stepped off school bus, disappeared

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — With the weekend arriving and a long day finally over, 8-year-old Cherrie Mahan stepped off her yellow school bus on a chilly Friday around 4 p.m.

Cherrie Mahan’s third-grade school photo

The bus stop was about 100 yards from her home in rural Winfield Township in western Pennsylvania. But Cherrie did not make it to the hilltop trailer she lived in with her parents. She was never seen again.
Investigators say her disappearance after the four mile ride home from elementary school on February 22, 1985, remains a mystery.
“It’s like a black hole opened up and she fell in,” said Cherrie’s mother, Janice McKinney. She recalled that she and Cherrie’s stepfather, Leroy, could hear the bus pulling up that day. Soon after Cherrie did not arrive, he went to the stop to look for her.

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Grandmother of baby found hidden in box says her daughter needs help

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — The maternal grandmother of a 7-month-old Florida girl found hidden in a small cedar box under her baby sitter’s bed says her daughter, who was charged in the case, is troubled and needs help.

Baby found alive in box under bed after disappearing for days

Police think Chrystina Lynn Mercer gave Shannon Lee Dedrick to the sitter — who is the baby’s paternal aunt, Susan Baker — and 10 hours later reported the girl as mising.

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Prosecutors to Caylee’s mom: Show us the money

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — Prosecutors in the Casey Anthony murder case are having their own “show me the money” moment, demanding that Anthony show how she’s paying for an expensive team of lawyers and expert witnesses.
A court hearing is set for Wednesday morning to determine whether Anthony will have to say where she’s getting the money for her defense.
She’s charged with first-degree murder in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, and has an October trial date.

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Anthony’s lawyers allowed to keep funding source private

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — Attorneys for Casey Anthony, accused in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, will not be forced to say publicly who is funding her defense, a judge decided Wednesday.
Asked in a hearing who, if not his office, is paying the tab for experts, defense attorney Jose Baez asked Orange County Circuit Judge Stan Strickland if he could answer behind closed doors.
The question, Baez explained, “puts us in a level of confidentiality” in which he preferred to answer privately.

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Three teens disappear from same neighborhood

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — A 14-year-old girl disappears on her way home from school, another is last seen near her home and a 16-year-old vanishes after leaving her fast-food job for the day. All from the same neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, the girls disappeared within five blocks of each other over a four-year span, starting in 2003. Agents and detectives from the FBI and Cleveland Police are looking into hundreds of leads in the cases and whether they may be linked, according to FBI Special Agent Scott Wilson in the agency’s Cleveland bureau.

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State reverses itself, will seek death in Casey Anthony case

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — In a dramatic reversal, the Florida state attorney’s office announced Monday it will seek the death penalty against Casey Anthony, the 23-year-old woman charged in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.
The state had previously said it would not ask for the death sentence for Anthony.
The development could have a major impact on how the case plays out at trial, including whether defense attorney Jose Baez can stay on the case.

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Missing teen didn’t have mom’s OK for trip

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — The mother of a 17-year-old Rochester, New York, high school student who vanished over the weekend on spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, says she did not give her daughter permission to go on the trip.
In an appearance on HLN’s Nancy Grace, Dawn Drexel said her daughter, Brittanee Marie Drexel, has never run away.
Drexel said the high school junior stayed in touch with her by phone, and she last spoke with Brittanee on Saturday afternoon.

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Hotel surveillance video checked for clues to missing teen

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Police are examining grainy hotel surveillance video and following up on new leads, including a reported sighting, in the case of a 17-year-old girl who traveled to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for spring break last week and then disappeared.
The possible sighting of Brittanee Drexel was on a bus Wednesday morning in the Myrtle Beach area, according to police, who later showed photos of her to passengers.

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Mom identifies missing teen on surveillance video

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — The mother of a 17-year-old girl who disappeared while on spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, has identified her daughter on grainy hotel surveillance video. “When I saw her profile it was confirmed,” Dawn Drexel said Friday on “Nancy Grace.” Drexel’s daughter, Brittanee, was last seen on Saturday, several days after she traveled to Myrtle Beach against her mother’s wishes.

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Casey Anthony’s attorney wants trial moved to Miami

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Accusing local media in the Orlando, Florida, area of a “barrage” of coverage, Casey Anthony’s lead defense attorney asked Monday to have her death-penalty case moved from Orlando to Miami, Florida.
“The overwhelming majority of the media’s coverage of this case has been negative for the defendant,” says a defense motion filed in Orange County Circuit Court. Anthony, 23, is scheduled to go on trial on a first-degree murder charge in the death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

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Missing Missouri boy found safe

From Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — A 3-year-old boy who wandered away from his home in rural southeastern Missouri was found Wednesday after a two-day search for him. A volunteer combing through Mark Twain National Forest heard crying and found Joshua Childers nearly three miles from his home, authorities said.
“Now all he wants is milk and hot dogs,” Adam Childers, the boy’s father, told CNN affiliate KMOV.

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Slain woman’s family sues alleged killer

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — The mother and brother of a 31-year-old woman found strangled with her two young sons in the bedrooms of their home filed a wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday against the alleged killer — the husband and father of the victims.
Christopher Coleman has pleaded not guilty in the triple homicide police say took place early in the morning on May 5 in the family home in the small southwestern Illinois city of Columbia.
“To strip the culpable party of all financial holdings — all that he has now and all that he may ever have,” is the aim of the suit, said a statement accompanying the suit filed in Monroe County circuit court by Angela DeCicco and Mario Weiss, the mother and brother of Sheri Coleman.

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Chief: Suspect didn’t ask how wife, boys died

By Philip Rosenbaum
WATERLOO, Illinois (CNN) — A southwestern Illinois man accused of strangling his wife and two young sons did not ask how his family was killed or see their bodies after he learned of the deaths, a police official said at a preliminary hearing Wednesday.
Christopher Coleman, 32, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Garett, 11, Gavin, 9, and his wife, Sheri Coleman, 31. The victims were strangled in their beds last month.

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Missing Ohio girl found with mom, sex offender

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — A 4-year-old Ohio girl who vanished more than three weeks ago was found alive and in good condition, halfway across the country in southern California, authorities said.
Haylee Donathan, her mother Candace Watson and Robbie Potter were discovered hiding for the past week at The Morning Star Ranch, a retreat in Valley Center, near San Diego, said Peter Elliott, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Ohio.
Potter is a registered sex offender, officials said. He was being sought by the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
Late Tuesday Haylee was in the custody of a children’s protective services agency in the San Diego County area, Elliott said. She was doing well but may have chicken pox, he added.

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Grandmother says rescued girl won’t return to mother

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — A 4-year-old, whose mother took her cross-country with her sex-offender boyfriend, won’t be handed back to her mother, according to the girl’s maternal grandmother.
“There’s no way that I would do that,” Mary Watson said Wednesday on HLN’s “Nancy Grace.”
Watson said she plans to follow the decisions of social services agencies overseeing the well-publicized case of young Haylee Donathan and will not let Haylee see her mother, Candace Watson.
“If (she) is not allowed to see her, she is not allowed to see her,” Mary Watson said. “That’s the way it is going to be.”

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DNA twist to woman’s desert appearance

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — Off a desert highway, about 15 miles from her home in the southern tip of Nevada, the mystery of Maureen Fields’ disappearance began with the discovery of her abandoned car.
Investigators found the 41-year-old woman’s 2004 green Hyundai just across the California border on February 16, 2006. It was one day after her husband, Paul Fields, said he last saw her.
Investigators say they discovered Fields’ purse and wallet, the keys in the ignition and a fully reclined driver’s seat.
There were slippers and eyeglasses beneath the gas pedal, religious pamphlets, a knotted pair of pantyhose as well as three bottles of prescription tranquilizers and pain killers.

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Missing 5-year-old last seen in store parking lot, caretaker says

By Philip Rosenbaum
NEW YORK (CNN) — The foster father of a missing California boy with cerebral palsy says he left the child alone near his car before the child vanished five days ago from a shoe store parking lot.
Louis Ross told HLN’s Nancy Grace that he left 5-year-old Hasanni Campbell outside his BMW for two to five minutes Monday afternoon. Ross said he went to the front door of the store to ask his fiancee, Jennifer Campbell, who works there, to open the back door.

“By the time I got there, Jennifer is already out of the store, walking toward me, asking, ‘Where is Hasanni?’ And I say, ‘What do you mean, where is Hasanni?’ And I look around to the side, and he is no longer there.”

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Tribute to Eyewitness News Creator Al Primo

Produced and edited by Philip Rosenbaum
Presented at a Plaza Hotel fundraiser dinner for Children’s Press Line

Divorce final for missing girl’s dad, stepmother

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — A Florida court has approved the divorce of the father of Haleigh Cummings, a Florida girl who disappeared in February, and the girl’s stepmother, a key witness in the case.

Ronald Cummings, 25, cites irreconcilable differences in ending his short marriage to his 17-year-old wife, whom he married more than a month after Haleigh went missing from her father’s home in Satsuma, Florida, on February 9. Cummings has made several public pleas for information in her disappearance.

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Three Little Words

Ashley Courter-Rhodes speaks about the abuse she suffered as a foster childhood and the happy home life she eventually found.

“Blindsight”

Young blind Tibetans climb part of Mount Everest
Produced by Philip Rosenbaum

Even Inaugurations Need an Insurance Man

By Philip I. Rosenbaum
Associated Press Writer
Guests at George Bush’s inauguration will watch a parade-float replica of his World War II plane, marvel at a 10,000-gallon cowboy hat and salute a rippling 20-by 40-foot American flag.

President George Bush takes oath of office on Jan. 20, 1989

But A. LeConte Moore’s role won’t be apparent or appreciable to inaugural-goers, unless terrorists attack, the parade floats collapse, thieves steal the cowboy hat or the wind tears the flag off its staff.

As insurance man for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, Moore hopes none of these remote possibilities will ruin the event, protected with special policies arranged by his company, New York-based brokerage Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc.

Police say they’re close to solving triple homicide

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — Police say they believe they know who killed a 31-year-old Southern Illinois woman and her two young sons, but are waiting for prosecutors to build a strong forensic case against the suspect before disclosing his identity.
“We don’t have a warrant for his arrest at this time, so we don’t feel it would be prudent to give his name out until the state’s attorney determines whether or not there’s enough to charge him,” said Maj. Jeff Connor of the Major Case Squad.
Connor heads the squad that is part of the St. Louis, Missouri, homicide task force. He made the comments during an appearance on HLN’s Nancy Grace.

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Attorney: Haleigh Cummings’ father filing for divorce

By Philip Rosenbaum
(CNN) — The father of Haleigh Cummings, a Florida girl who disappeared in February, plans to file for divorce from the girl’s stepmother, a key witness in the case, his attorneys told HLN’s “Nancy Grace.”
The move follows weeks of reported tension between Ronald and Misty Cummings during the search for Haleigh, who was 5 when last seen.
In papers expected to be filed Tuesday, Ronald Cummings, 25, cites irreconcilable differences in ending his short marriage to his 17-year-old wife, said Terry Shoemaker, Ronald Cummings’ attorney.

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CBS News and Sports

Scripted and produced by Philip Rosenbaum

Success of ‘Satanic Verses’ Hasn’t Changed Publishing Criteria, Experts Say

By Philip I. Rosenbaum, Associated Press Writer
September 26, 1989
NEW YORK (AP) – The Satanic Verses” is one novel that shook the world, but one year and 1.1 million hardback copies after it was released, the factors publishers weigh when deciding what to put in print remain the same, experts say.

“The book was one of a kind – I mean it was a fictional fantasy that happened to affect large numbers of people and particularly people in positions of power, and I think that’s a very unlikely thing to be repeated right now,” said John Baker, editor-in-chief of Publisher’s Weekly, a major trade magazine.

Late Iranian spirtual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini fixed the world’s attention on “The Satanic Verses” on Feb. 14, when he put a $5.2 million bounty on the life of its author, Salman Rushdie. Khomeini also urged Muslims to kill his publishers at Viking Penguin Inc.

The book, which most Muslim nations banned and condemned, charging it blasphemes Islam, plunged Iran into a major confrontation with the West.