Can Johnny Cash amp up Nashville? City gets museum to music icon

He was rediscovered by alternative rockers in the last years of his life, became the subject of a blockbuster biopic, and now the late country music icon Johnny Cash will have his own museum in downtown Nashville.

The plans for the 18,000-square-foot, private museum were unveiled Tuesday by members of the Cash family and Bill Miller, a longtime friend, fan and champion of the Man in Black, according to a report in the Nashville Tennessean.

"My father and mother [the late singer June Carter Cash] had a way through honesty and truth of spirit," said son John Carter Cash. "It's not about the glamour or about making it for Nashville. This is about spreading their spirit."

That spirit will certainly be welcome among Nashville's civic leaders, who have been working diligently in recent years to revitalize a once-moribund downtown, in great part by focusing on Nashville's historic role as America's country music capital. The Ryman Auditorium, once used for Grand Ole Opry broadcasts, was renovated in 1994. Seven years later saw the opening of the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Like many a downtown revitalization tale, this one involves a group of more or less marginalized artists who blazed a trail and helped the business community recognize its rich trove of homegrown cultural capital. You can find a version of that argument at the website Savingcountrymusic.com, which credits punk-influenced, non-mainstream country musicians such as Joe Buck -- who typically looked backward to more rough-hewn country styles for inspiration -- for breathing life into the old haunts.

"The turnaround story for downtown Nashville doesn't involve acts of government," one of the blog's writers posted in September 2010. "Lower Broadway was revitalized by music, and specifically, the music that was the precursor to the music we listen to, and talk about on this site. Mainstream fans will sometimes put down this music as 'obscure' or irrelevant. Toby Keith and Tim McGraw didn't revitalize the most historic part of Nashville. It was a bunch of punk kids from all around the country, who moved to lower Broadway to walk the same streets Hank Williams walked."

Of course, if there is one country legend to bridge the gap between the wild-man-country-grungy and the conservative-country-slick, it is Cash, who continues to be revered by, and influential to, both camps.

His museum is set to open this summer, according to the Tennessean. Whether the punk kids will fork over the $13 admission remains to be seen.

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Credit: Late country music legend Johnny Cash is at his Hendersonville, Tenn., home in 1999. Credit: Mark Humphrey / Associated Press

2 Florida cruise ships riddled with norovirus. Anyone surprised?

Noroviruses like cruise ships. Current and recent passengers on two Princess Cruise Lines ships can now attest to this personally.

More than 200 people on the Ruby Princess and the Crown Princess, both bound for South Florida, were reporting gastrointestinal illnesses, company officials told Associated Press on Saturday. Those officials blamed a norovirus.

Noroviruses are no cause for hysteria, but they’re far from pleasant, causing vomiting, diarrhea and stomach cramps. They can also cause a low fever, headaches and muscle aches, but for folks cooped up in tiny cabins, aches are the least of their troubles.

The outbreaks are hardly the first for the cruise ship industry. And the passengers can’t say the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention didn’t try to warn them. 

“Facts About Noroviruses on Cruise Ships” lays it out: “Noroviruses are found in the stool or vomit of infected people and on infected surfaces that have been touched by ill people. Outbreaks occur more often where there are more people in a small area, such as nursing homes, restaurants, catered events, and cruise ships.”

But cruise ships. Why is it always cruise ships that make the news? The CDC explains that, for starters,  illnesses on cruise ships are actually tracked, allowing outbreaks to be identified and reported more quickly than they might be on land. As for the risk of illness, all that coming and going of passengers can increase exposure to others. And then, yes, there's the whole close-quarters factor.

The CDC even offers a “vessel sanitation program” to help the cruise ship industry prevent and control such illnesses.

Meanwhile, passengers waiting to embark on their own journey on the two ships were delayed by a few hours. Company officials apparently had some disinfecting to do.

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Photo: An electron micrograph of a norovirus, previously known as Norwalk-like virus. Credit: Public Health Image Library

Costa Concordia search for missing Minnesota couple halted

The search for missing passengers aboard the Costa Concordia -- the cruise ship that capsized more than two weeks ago near the western coast of Italy -- has been suspended. Among the passengers yet to be found: a retired Minnesota couple, Gerald and Barbara Heil.

Italian emergency officials announced the development Tuesday, saying they were halting the search because it had become too dangerous for rescue workers. The search of late had been taking workers into the deeper, submerged recesses of the ship.

A spokeswoman for the Civil Protection agency, Francesca Maffini, said a search for the missing would continue wherever possible, including on the part of the ship above water, in the waters surrounding the ship and along the nearby coastline, according to the Associated Press.

Photos: Costa Concordia wreck

The agency said in a statement that relatives of the missing, along with diplomatic officials representing their respective countries, have been informed of the decision, AP reported.

All but 32 of the 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew have been accounted for in the wake of the accident, which occurred Jan. 13 when the cruise ship strayed into shallow water. Rocks tore a gash as wide as a football field into the side of the ship. It began taking on water and quickly capsized. Seventeen bodies have been recovered, but other people remain missing, including the Heils.

Gerald Heil, 69, and Barbara, 70, were devoted parishioners at the Church of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, Minn. Congregants there, as well as the Heils' four children, had been holding out hope for days that rescuers would help provide answers, and some measure of closure.

There was no immediate reaction from either the church or the Heil children, who have created a family blog to keep everyone posted on developments.

Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise and Costa Concordia management have infuriated survivors by offering them the equivalent of about $14,460 each as compensation. Six passengers have filed lawsuits in U.S. federal court in Miami seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, according to AP. A crew member has also filed a lawsuit in Chicago federal court seeking class-action status and at least $100 million in damages, it reported.

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Photo: The Costa Concordia cruise ship is seen off the coast of Isola del Giglio. Credit: Luca Zennaro / EPA

Smoke in Florida pileup may have come from deliberately set fire

The smoke suspected of contributing to a fiery, multicar pileup on Interstate 75 in Florida early Sunday may have come from a deliberately set fire. The pileup killed 10 people, injured 18 and left a mile-long trail of wreckage.

The scene looked, one witness said, "like the end of the world."

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are joining the Florida Highway Patrol in efforts to pinpoint the cause of the chain-reaction wreck, which occurred near Gainesville at about 3:45 a.m. Sunday and spanned both the northbound and southbound lanes.

PHOTOS: Florida interstate pileup

Low visibility, possibly caused by a combination of fog and smoke from a nearby brush fire, appear to have played a role, forcing cars, trucks and motor homes to suddenly slow down and pull over -- and begin slamming into each other. Cars burst into flames. Trucks crushed smaller vehicles.

"In that area, the road, it kind of dips down, it's a low area, we had a mixture of fog and smoke that combined and kind of laid into that area, [and] made visibility a factor," Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Patrick Riordan said (see video above).

Authorities had shut down the stretch of road earlier in the evening due to a crash, but reopened it later. No doubt, questions will be raised about whether the roadway should have remained closed for public safety.

Eyewitness Steven R. Camps of Gainesville attempted to describe the accident to the Gainesville Sun: “It looked like someone was literally throwing cars,” he said. “I honestly sat there and thought I would never get out of that situation alive, even after I got out of the car.”

He told CBS News: "You could hear cars hitting each other. People were crying. People were screaming. It was crazy." He said he had been driving home with friends when he found himself staring down the carnage. "I would say it looked like the end of the world."

Before the investigation is over, it could turn into a criminal investigation, CBS said. State officials can find no natural cause, no natural explanation like a lightning strike, that could have started the brush fire. They say it may have been intentionally set.

The highway has since been reopened to traffic.

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Costa Concordia wreck: Hopes fading for Minnesota couple onboard

Costa Concordia -- that once-majestic cruise ship -- capsized two weeks ago after sailing into shallow waters near the western coast of Italy. All but 32 of the 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew were saved.

Sixteen bodies have been recovered. Among those still missing: retirees Gerald and Barbara Heil of Minnesota.

Photos: Dramatic images of Costa Concordia wreck

Gerald Heil, 69, and Barbara, 70, always dreamed of traveling but put it off while raising four kids and sending them to college, and then delighting in their 15 grandchildren, according to a friend at their church in White Bear Lake, Minn.

The couple selflessly and tirelessly served the congregation of about 1,500 families, including teaching faith classes to the church's younger parishioners. Barbara Heil could always be counted on for cooking and delivering food to the needy, Dr. Larry Erickson, director of operations at the Church of St. Pius X, told ABC News.

They were looking forward to a magical time during the 16-day European cruise. But on Jan. 13, the ship ran aground, ripping open the hull. The ship began taking on water, and later fell on its side.

In the days and hours after the capsizing, the Heil family and congregants at the Church of St. Pius X refused to give up hope, and have held close to their faith during this entire ordeal. There have been candlight vigils, services and endless prayers.

The family created a blog to keep friends, relatives, congregants and the media apprised of developments. And there has been a subtle shift in the language of the blog postings as the days have turned into weeks. An early posting talks about hopes for successful "search and rescue operations," but a more recent post suggests a heartbroken air of acceptance about the Heils' fate.

"As the days come and go we find this to be such an extreme test of our patience," says the most recent post headlined "The search continues..." "We so badly want Mom and Dad to be found so we can bring them home."

The posts were intended as news updates, but they also tell the world something critical about Gerald and Barbara Heil, and how they raised their children, and their deep, abiding faith.

Many of the passengers who survived are filing lawsuits, the captain of the ship is under investigation, and there are accusations of negligence. But for now there is no  anger or rancour visible on the Heil family blog.

Instead, nearly every post expresses heart-felt gratitude, awe and admiration for the rescue workers, hailing their heroic and tireless work to find the last remaining victims and asking for prayers to keep them safe. One example is this line in the most recent post:

"We continue to pray for the safety of those searching and express our sincere gratitude for all of their efforts."

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Photo: Church of St. Pius X directory photo. (Associated Press / Olan Mills Studios)

New York elbows past Los Angeles as America's rudest city

New Yorkers are the rudest people in America, but they glower with glamour, according to the latest survey of Travel & Leisure magazine readers, who ranked New York more boorish than Los Angeles -- last year's champ -- but who also praised New Yorkers as the country's most stylish jerks.

All that rude behavior clearly hasn't discouraged tourists from flocking to Gotham. The results of the annual survey coincided with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's announcement that the city ended 2011 having hosted a record 50.5 million visitors, an increase of 3.5% over the previous year.

Travel experts say there are several factors that make New York the country's biggest tourist destination: the weak dollar; an increase in budget hotels; its unrivaled energy. The not-so-sweet disposition of its residents apparently is not one of the city's draws. The roughly 40,000 people who responded to the Travel & Leisure online survey rated New York dead last of 35 metropolitan areas in friendliness.

As one might expect, New Yorkers asked about the survey by the local all-news channel, NY1, argued against the findings -- if they bothered to respond at all. "I think it's wrong," said one man, adding that he always helps people who need directions. "That's all I do is give directions," he griped. Others said visitors mistook New Yorkers' typically frenzied pace for unfriendliness.

The city also ranked last for affordability, cleanliness and noise levels, but the fashion center of the country was tops in style and diversity.

Los Angeles, meanwhile, which was rated the rudest last year, moved into a warmer spot at No. 32 in that category, proving itself also nicer than Miami and Washington, D.C. But its improved behavior apparently didn't do much for the city's fashion sense: It was ranked fifth in the style category.

And for travelers looking for a friendly place to visit, the survey ranked New Orleans at the top of that list, followed by San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Nashville.

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Photo: It's not as mean as it looks. New York was ranked the rudest city in America in an online survey. Credit: Justin Lane / European Pressphoto Agency

 

Some Amish find safety triangles too blingy

Reflective orange safety triangles are, by their nature, flashy.

The Amish, as a general rule, don't do flashy.

Hence the dilemma in western Kentucky, where members of an ultraconservative Amish branch called Swartzentruber are rejecting the state-mandated use of the safety triangles on their horse-drawn buggies.

In recent months, as the Associated Press has chronicled, a number of Swartzentruber men in the state have been jailed for refusing to pay fines levied against them when they were stopped for driving without the triangles.

The members of the Swartzentruber group eschew most modern conveniences, including electricity and plumbing. The safety triangles, they say, lend a little too much worldly razzle-dazzle to their rides, and thus violate their vow to adhere to a radically simple life.

They also believe that the triangles are unnecessary because traffic safety and its attendant vicissitudes are ultimately managed by God.

The Kentucky State Police -- without challenging the role of divine providence in matters of  transportation -- have argued that the triangles are a sensible way to allow motorists to see the dark, slow-going buggies. The AP's Dylan Lovan reports that 2011 saw "several" fatal collisions with Amish buggies around the country.

In Kentucky, a proposed workaround is being cooked up: Johnny Bell, a Democratic state representative, recently introduced a bill that would allow drivers of slow-moving vehicles to use reflective tape instead of the triangles, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Lawmakers heard testimony on the matter Tuesday.

One ACLU official told lawmakers that the Amish would accept the tape as a workable compromise.

The Kentucky Supreme Court, meanwhile, has agreed to hear the appeal of the jailed men.

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Photo: An Amish horse and buggy clippity-clops along through the snow-covered farmland of Middlefield, Ohio. The photo is from 1996, but some things are timeless.  Credit: Amy Sancetta/Associated Press

TSA apology? Two elderly women were screened improperly

The Transportation Security Administration has offered a mea culpa, of sorts, for the screening of two elderly women who said they were partially strip-searched at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport in November.

Yes, security screeners violated procedures when they asked the women, in separate incidents, to show them medical devices concealed beneath their clothing, said Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Betsy Markey in letters made public this week.

But Markey vehemently denied that the women were "strip-searched."

Lenore Zimmerman, 85, of Long Beach, N.Y., and 88-year-old Ruth Sherman, of Sunrise, Fla., became the focus of national media attention after they alleged in late November that they were partially strip-searched when traveling through Kennedy Airport.

Zimmerman, who weighs less than 110 pounds and is in a wheelchair, has said that -- after being escorted into a private room -- she had to raise her shirt and lower her pants for a female TSA agent. She also said she had to remove her back brace, which was put through an X-ray machine, according to the Associated Press.

“They took my pants down, and then they took my underwear down,” Zimmerman earlier told NBC affiliate WPTV in West Palm Beach, Fla. “It’s never happened in the 10 years of flying down to Florida.”

Sherman, who wears a colostomy bag and uses a wheelchair, said she was asked to lower her sweatpants so agents could inspect the device, according to the AP.

The TSA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, says that it interviewed the officers, reviewed video footage, interviewed the passengers themselves -- and determined that no strip searches took place.

In letters addressed to U.S. Senator Charles Schumer and New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris, author of that state's airline passengers' bill of rights law, Markey wrote of both cases: "At no point was the passenger asked to remove any items of clothing during screening."

Gianaris appeared somewhat dissatisfied with the results of the investigation, saying he wants the agencies to admit that the women were strip-searched and apologize.

"It’s obvious that something went wrong," Gianaris said in a phone interview Wednesday. "These two women that didn’t know each other before this happened had no reason to invent the same story."

Both women said they were asked to remove their clothing, but Markey said that each "voluntarily" began undressing.

In her letter, Markey said that running the brace through the X-ray machine and conducting a visual inspection of the colostomy bag are not "standard operating [procedures]."

She said the TSA agents involved will receive a refresher course on how to respectfully and safely screen passengers with disabilities or medical conditions and that TSA "sincerely regrets any discomfort or inconvenience the passengers at JFK experienced."

"The letter they sent to me apologized for the fact that procedures were not adhered to, but it didn’t go all the way. It denied that the strip search was done," Gianaris said.

"I think we’re arguing semantics at this point, but it’d be good if they didn’t view this as adversarial," he added.

Officials with Homeland Security and TSA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

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Martin Luther King Jr.: What he really said

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a gifted orator who remains one of the most oft-quoted men in modern history; his "I Have a Dream Speech," above, is a stirring call to action to this day. Such a legacy also means there's trouble when King is misquoted.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has given the National Park Service 30 days -- because "things only happen when you put a deadline on it" -- to fix a badly mangled quote etched in stone on the side of the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.

The offending line reads: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."

PHOTOS: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.

The quote is problematic on a number of fronts. First, King never said that. The line is a paraphrase, which in itself might be considered ironic. After all, King was responsible for many powerful utterances that have been captured, accurately, between quote marks.

Second, the line could be interpreted to have an arrogance and boastfulness that were uncharacteristic of the civil rights leader. It also seems to have a speaking-beyond-the-grave quality, as the Washington Post put it in a report on Salazar's deadline.

Poet and author Maya Angelou was among the first to take issue with the so-called quote.

Here's what King actually said in a 1968 sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta: "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter."

That context, and especially the use of the word "if," completely changes the meaning, Angelou said.

King's son, Martin Luther King III, told CNN that he wants the memorial fixed: "It's going to be corrected .... that was not what Dad said."

Even President Obama has weighed in regarding the quote.

It's unclear how the line will be fixed. Will an actual quote replace it?

On Monday, the nation is pausing to remember King, who was slain while trying to put the country on a path toward racial equality. Commemorations, service projects and, of course, a Google Doodle are among the observances.

King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis. Had he lived, he would have been 83 on Sunday.

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Natalee Holloway justice? Joran Van der Sloot gets 28 years

Natalee Holloway is a name likely to haunt a generation of U.S. parents. The teenager from Mountain Brook, Ala., went to Aruba in 2005 as part of a senior high school trip to celebrate her graduation -- and was never heard from again. Many believe she was killed by Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot or, at the very least, that he knows what happened to her.

Van der Sloot was sentenced Friday in Peru to serve 28 years in a prison for fatally beating another young woman, Stephany Flores, 21, in his hotel room in Lima. It's unusual for such a murder case in a foreign land to make headlines in America. But U.S. media have covered this case because it gives a bittersweet measure of solace to the grieving Holloway family -- and to all parents who can feel their suffering.

Flores and Holloway's parents never met. But Flores possibly met her end while trying to help Natalee Holloway's family.

Investigators have long believed that Van der Sloot violently turned on the Flores after she found something, perhaps a clue, related to Holloway on his computer.

Flores' murder took place May 30, 2010. That's precisely five years to the day that Holloway was seen leaving a nightclub in Aruba with Van der Sloot and two other men on May 30, 2005.

After that night, Holloway vanished.

Her disappearance made international headlines and triggered a massive, multiagency search that included sifting the bottom of the ocean floor off Aruba in a bid for clues.

Over the years, Van der Sloot has told law enforcement officials, as well as the media, conflicting stories about Holloway. In one scenario, he politely dropped Holloway off at her hotel. In another, he left her, alone, on the beach after she collapsed. He also claimed at one point that he sold her into sexual slavery. And, of course, he has said that he had nothing at all to do with Holloway's disappearance.

While U.S. authorities did not have the jurisdiction to charge him in Holloway's disappearance, they have not given up hope that he will someday be forced to face charges in a U.S. courtroom.

In another turn of events, Van der Sloot allegedly contacted Holloway's mother, Beth, and promised to reveal everything about his daughter's disappearance -- in exchange for $250,000.

The FBI, which became involved in the alleged 2010 extortion plot, set up a sting to capture Van der Sloot. But he fled to Peru with a down payment of several thousand dollars that was wired to him as part of the negotiations.

In a sad coincidence, Holloway's family was in court this week for a previously scheduled hearing. The matter? A formal declaration of her death, necessary so that her parents can tend to matters related to the teen's meager estate.

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--Rene Lynch
Twitter / renelynch

Photo: Joran Van der Sloot arrives in court Friday for his sentencing. Credit: Karel Navarro / Associated Press