'Teddy bear' drops 300 pounds

Ryan McDonald once tipped the scales at 530 pounds Giving up fast food and soda helped him lose 300 pounds He's competed 5K and 10K runs, a half-marathon, a duathlon and a sprint triathlon

NPR host tweets mom's passing

n"> NPR host tweets dying mom's last moments - CNN.com Video

'Dismembered' guy stuns strangers

n"> 'Dismembered' magician scares strangers - CNN.com Video

NSA secrets kill our trust

Bruce Schneier: Government officials lied to us that the state doesn't collect our data Schneier: It's clear that we can't trust anything anyone says about the NSA programs He says corporations have gone along with government in hiding the truth from us Schneier: Too much secrecy has robbed people of their trust in government

Why can't women be priests?

Alice L. Laffey: Pope Francis says Catholic Church needs "deep theology of women" But she says many will accuse church of discrimination as long as it denies women priesthood She says jury still out: By some theological readings, women not precluded from priesthood Laffey: His warm stance toward women in church bodes well for taking on issues of poverty

Al Qaeda's ice cream eating contest

Writers: Al Qaeda posting feel-good videos, holding ice cream eating contests, tugs of war They say al Qaeda and affiliates want to win "hearts and minds," but the groups have failed Writers: Al Qaeda fighters in Syria try sugar and spice tack, but in Iraq they kill civilians New image will not win over people appalled by murder in the name of Islam, they say

'Real Housewives' with real legal issues

"http://schema.org/NewsArticle" lang="en-US"> 'Real Housewives' with real legal issues - CNN.com SET EDITION:  U.S. INTERNATIONAL MÉXICO ARABIC TV:   CNN CNNi CNN en Español HLN Sign up Log in Home TV & Video CNN Trends U.S. World Politics Justice Entertainment Tech Health Living Travel Opinion iReport Money Sports

TV show gives away babies

n"> Pakistani TV show gives away babies - CNN.com Video

Unfair verdict on Manning

Douglas Rushkoff: Manning found guilty of espionage. Why is whistle-blowing punishable? He says U.S. government hasn't faced it can't control info in digital age of easy access He says Manning exposed objectionable official actions of U.S.--not secrets, but approaches Rushkoff: The transparency of a digital age means U.S. has no choice but to do right thing

The inner demons that drove Nixon

David Gergen worked in the Nixon administration as a young staffer He recalls being impressed by Nixon's thinking but got glimpses of his dark side Nixon had enemies but also dealt with inner demons he couldn't control, Gergen says Gergen: New film gives viewers a side of Nixon rarely seen

Starbucks, ban loaded guns

Starbucks refuses to ban loaded guns from its shops in 43 states that allow open carry Writers: Thousands of mothers want Starbucks to ban guns; nobody needs to be armed They say chain bans smoking in front of any store; is smoke riskier than loaded guns? Writers: Many businesses in open carry states ban guns to keep workers, customers safe

Starbucks, loaded guns and lattes

Starbucks refuses to ban loaded guns from its shops in 43 states that allow open carry Writers: Thousands of mothers want Starbucks to ban guns; nobody needs to be armed They say chain bans smoking in front of any store; is smoke riskier than loaded guns? Writers: Many businesses in open carry states ban guns to keep workers, customers safe

NPR host tweets mom's dying moments

NEW: The mother of NPR host Scott Simon passed away on Monday Simon has been tweeting from Patricia Lyons Simon's hospital room Reaction has been mostly positive with some dissenters disagreeing with the medium Simon's posts offer an intimate look into mother-son relationship and a new use of the media

Pope's remarkable words on gays

Kevin Clarke: Pope Francis' remarks about gays aren't a new position on homosexuality Clarke: His talking frankly was startling, but calling for compassion for gays is not new Clarke: The church may change its tone and approach to gay and lesbian Catholics, however But pope's call in Rio for action on social injustice and poverty was equally important, he says

Bikini-clad worshippers at Mass

n"> Bikini-clad worshippers attend Rio Mass - CNN.com Video

Army worms create farm nightmare

n"> Army worms created a field of nightmares - CNN.com Video

Don Lemon: How to fix black society

n"> Don Lemon's five things to think about - CNN.com Video

I now pronounce me ... broke

Stephanie Gallman has been a bridesmaid 12 times She loves weddings but hates how hard they hit her wallet Planning can save you a lot of cash Save on the gift by getting creative

A fish more precious than gold

Paul Begala says Alaska boasts a pristine salmon fishing region He says Bristol Bay is threatened by proposal to build big mine for copper, gold Begala says EPA found it would threaten streams and wetlands He urges EPA to use its authority to block the plan for the mine

Four lessons from Nixon

A film based on home movies by Nixon aides airs on CNN at 9 p.m. ET Thursday Julian Zelizer says the film is a reminder of key lessons from Nixon's presidency He says Watergate showed dangers of executive power, need for investigative reporting Zelizer: In Watergate, an energized Congress showed effectiveness

Explain Obamacare to me

Dean Obeidallah says the administration has done a poor job of explaining Obamacare He says the plan has many popular features but the public doesn't fully understand it A failure to explain has left room for Republicans to distort it, he says Obeidallah: Administration has belatedly moved to tout the benefits of Obamacare

China's economy headed for crash?

Michael Pettis: Some experts think that China's economy is in big trouble Pettis: Most likely, China's growth rate will decline in the coming years He says the country needs to shift from investment to consumption model Pettis: If China recalibrates its economy in the right way, everyone will benefit

Cat gives baby tongue bath

n"> Distraction: Cat gives baby tongue bath - CNN.com Video

See girl amuse dolphin

n"> Girl amuses dolphin - CNN.com Video

'Pink Panther' breaks out of prison

n"> 'Pink Panther' breaks out of prison - CNN.com Video

Rafter knocked unconscious then ...

n"> See guide rescue unconscious rafter - CNN.com Video

Girl catches baby tossed out window

n"> Girl catches newborn dropped from window - CNN.com Video

Musician JJ Cale dies

NEW: Eric Clapton laments JJ Cale's passing Cale wrote a number of hits, including "After Midnight" He died after suffering a heart attack, his rep says He is credited with helping create what is known as the Tulsa Sound

Greene: Goodbye, mail carrier

Bob Greene: Postal service may kill door-to-door service, switch to 'cluster boxes' He says it's an unpopular idea, but postal service must find ways to save money He says if a personalized service like mail delivery were proposed today, it wouldn't fly Greene: Cluster boxes almost inevitable; postal service is in an unenviable position

Greene: See you at the cluster box

Bob Greene: Postal service may kill door-to-door service, switch to 'cluster boxes' He says it's an unpopular idea, but postal service must find ways to save money He says if a personalized service like mail delivery were proposed today, it wouldn't fly Greene: Cluster boxes almost inevitable; postal service is in an unenviable position

10 most controversial Wikipedia pages

George W. Bush tops list of most controversial English-language Wiki pages Analysis looked at Wikipedia pages with most frequent changes Politics and religions dominate the top 10 A pro wrestling page also made the list

Huge whales nearly eat divers

n"> Humpback whales nearly devour divers - CNN.com Video

See massive tuna that sank boat

n"> Massive tuna capsizes fisherman's boat - CNN.com Video

Distraction: Dog and crow play ball

n"> Distraction: Dog and crow play ball - CNN.com Video

Afghanistan's future relies on women

Ahmad Massoud: Afghanistan's future is closely tied to the role of its women He says it can't be stable and productive if women can't learn or work Massoud: Food security and economic innovation are the keys to expanding rights

How 'superwind' blows away stars

Meg Urry: New data have mapped a "superwind" flowing out of a nearby galaxy Urry: There is enough mass in the wind to carry away a lot of gas in the galaxy She says this suggests an answer to why galaxies today do not have more stars Urry: It's because cold gas, which forms stars, is being blown out of galaxies

See Beyonce's hair sucked into fan

n"> Beyonce's hair gets stuck in fan - CNN.com Video

6-year-old killed; accused teen shot

n"> Teen accused in girl's death wounded - CNN.com Video

New view of drone death toll

U.S. drone program is especially controversial in Pakistan Peter Bergen: A leaked report suggests fewer civilian drone deaths than previously reported Pakistan's new prime minister opposes drone program, cites issue of sovereignty Bergen: Having reliable estimates on drone deaths is important

Watch Simpson plea for release

n"> O.J. Simpson pleading for release - CNN.com Video

O.J.: I've been a good inmate

O.J. Simpson was sentenced to 33 years for his role in an incident at a Las Vegas A Nevada jury convicted him on 12 counts, including kidnapping and armed robbery He asks a parole board to cut his sentence, saying he'd only gone to get his property Simpson laments missing graduations, birthdays and a funeral in 5 years in custody

Why high-speed rail is safe, smart

Yonah Freemark: High-speed train crash in Spain draws new attention to rail safety He says Obama wants high-speed rail, and construction will start soon in California He says France, Japan have had safe, well-managed high-speed rail for decades Freemark: High-speed rail could revolutionize transportation in U.S. and is worth doing

She explained the female orgasm

Thomas Maier: Virginia Johnson, who has died, helped women take control of their sexuality From modest beginnings, she partnered with William Masters on revolutionary sex research She and Masters took on subjects not discussed, like women's multiple orgasms Maier: Masters said their research depended on her; she helped change the terms of sex

When Detroit was glorious

Heidi Ewing: People in Detroit always talk about how pretty, how lively, things used to be Ewing grew up in suburbs, but she loved the snapshots of her parents in 1960s Detroit She wanted to film the "comeback city," but found desperate people on the margins Ewing decided to turn camera on the folks who stayed to bring Detroit back to its vibrant past

Detroit, the 'used to be' city

Heidi Ewing: People in Detroit always talk about how pretty, how lively, things used to be Ewing grew up in suburbs, but she loved the snapshots of her parents in 1960s Detroit She wanted to film the "comeback city," but found desperate people on the margins Ewing decided to turn camera on the folks who stayed to bring Detroit back to its vibrant past

Let's deport Rep. Steve King

8 Dreamers reentered U.S. and got caught, but U.S. doesn't know what to do with them Rep. Steve King once proposed an electric fence on border, said "we do this with livestock" He also said for each valedictorian Dreamer, 100 Dreamers are drug smugglers Ruben Navarrette: Deported Dreamers a lot better for our society than Rep. King

Bionic fashion: Hot wearable tech

Two major conferences in the U.S. discuss the future of wearable technology Nano-tattoos, sleep optimization and augmented reality devices could become part of our daily lives Health and fitness monitors to play a large role in the future of wearable technologies

Croc bites trainer's head at show

n"> Crocodile bites down onto trainer's head - CNN.com Video

Luxury cruise fails health inspection

n"> Cruise line hid food in cabins - CNN.com Video

'Big Bang' hints about Sheldon & Amy

'Big Bang' Comic-Con panel teased upcoming season Johnny Galecki surprised in 'Star Wars' costume Sheldon and Amy may consummate their relationship

Is income inequality 'morally wrong'?

Obama: "Growing inequality isn't just morally wrong; it's bad economics" John Sutter talks to philosophers about the morality of extreme income inequality Obama's remarks came Wednesday in a policy speech about the economy Sutter says the morality of income distribution is a central question for America

Just don't call Whitey Bulger a rat

Kevin Cullen: Whitey Bulger's worst fear is to be called in an informant Cullen: Public record shows he was a rat, but loyalty, above all else, is the Irish code Cullen: Bulger obsessed with being the good bad guy, who helped old ladies with groceries Defense burden: His friends are vile, murdering thugs, and he was in charge, Cullen says

Weiner 'sexted'; do you?

Roxanne Jones: Don't count out "Carlos Danger" yet; Weiner should still run for mayor Calls for him to quit may not take into account Americans' growing tendency to "sext," she says She says if Spitzer can run with his sex scandal, why not Weiner? Voters should decide Jones: Maybe it's time to accept that flawed people can still govern productively

Weiner 'sexted'; do you?"

Roxanne Jones: Don't count out "Carlos Danger" yet; Weiner should still run for mayor Calls for him to quit may not take into account Americans' growing tendency to "sext," she says She says if Spitzer can run with his sex scandal, why not Weiner? Voters should decide Jones: Maybe it's time to accept that flawed people can still govern productively

5-time world boxing champ dies

Emile Griffith won welterweight and middleweight titles during his boxing career Benny Paret died days after being pummeled in the ring by Griffith in 1962 Griffith was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990 "He was as great a gentleman as he was a fighter," the hall's director says

Haiku clue in Japan serial killings

Five bodies discovered in remote village in Western Japan; their house burned down A note, in the form of a poem, was found in the home of man police are hunting Hundreds of police searching for 63-year-old man who lived next to victims

Don't count out 'Carlos Danger' yet

Roxanne Jones: Don't count out "Carlos Danger" yet; Weiner should still run for mayor Calls for him to quit may not take into account Americans' growing tendency to "sext," she says She says if Spitzer can run with his sex scandal, why not Weiner? Voters should decide Jones: Maybe it's time to accept that flawed people can still govern productively

New York doesn't like to look stupid

Errol Louis: Weiner should know New Yorkers hate to be punchline of a national joke Louis: Business leaders didn't want him and now they might hound him out of mayoral race He says city's big papers want Weiner to drop out, and he has only himself to blame Louis: Weiner seems to think he'll be forgiven, but voters will decide on primary day

Apple is becoming a wallflower

Apple's quarterly earnings show profits have fallen but sales have beaten expectations Andrew Mayer: Apple seems to be in danger of becoming a follower He says Apple is testing larger screens for its mobile devices in competition with Samsung Mayer: What the company needs are bold new ideas, not bigger iPhones or iPads

Snowden -- facts, fictions and fears

Michael Hayden: Many have misconstrued NSA access to phone calls He says agency has information on calls but not content of the calls Hayden says agency needs metadata on calls to track terrorists He says NSA was criticized in wake of 9/11 for not detecting the plot

U.S. silent on imprisoning rape victims?

Nina Burleigh: Case of woman sentenced to jail in Dubai for reporting rape is not unusual Westerners can leave, she says, but Arab women and foreign servants must stay and endure She says Arab Spring hasn't done much for women: Don't be fooled by modern skyscrapers Burleigh: The power of petro-dollars fuels our silence, shows we fail on global women's rights

'Law & Order' actor Dennis Farina dies

Actor Dennis Farina was known for cop and tough-guy roles Farina played Joe Fontana on "Law & Order" Actor was longtime Chicago police officer who went into acting

See massive tuna that sank boat

n"> Massive tuna capsizes fisherman's boat - CNN.com Video

Why U.S. is gaga over royal baby

Dan Jones: Royal births in past were world news events, as they were key to world politics He asks: Why, when Windsors have so little sway now, does a birth still captivate world? He says Brits care: royal family a link to nation's history; Americans' interest less clear Jones: Monarchy like reality show; a tie to old class system. Brits jazzed that world cares

Newt Gingrich on Obama and race

Newt Gingrich: Obama addressed race openly, as he did in 2008 Gingrich says America hasn't made progress on problems related to race He points to deep-seated cultural, governmental issues that are at work Gingrich: We need dialogue on solutions and the courage to carry them out

Why black critics attack Obama

LZ Granderson: Why do Tavis Smiley and Cornet West unfairly criticize President Obama? Granderson: Could it be because they feel personal grievances toward Obama? He says the two are right to criticize Obama on policy issues but name-calling is petty Granderson: Smiley, West seem egocentric in believing they are face of black intellectualism

Don't let dopes spoil baseball

Ryan Braun suspended for the rest of the year by Major League Baseball Mike Downey says news of suspension comes in midst of a great season People want to focus on Mariano Rivera, Chris Davis, Yasiel Puig, Downey says Downey: Baseball's troubles with drugs are tiresome and distract from the game

Gingrich on Obama and race

Newt Gingrich: Obama addressed race openly, as he did in 2008 Gingrich says America hasn't made progress on problems related to race He points to deep-seated cultural, governmental issues that are at work Gingrich: We need dialogue on solutions and the courage to carry them out

Franken: Come clean on U.S. spying

Al Franken: Americans don't know scope of surveillance and which authority OKs it Franken: We need a balance between protecting U.S. from terror and protecting privacy We can't know if civil liberties are safe if all about surveillance is secret, he says Franken: We need to know who, when and how, to judge if surveillance crosses a line

Franken: We need to know about spying

Al Franken: Americans don't know scope of spying and which authority OKs it Franken: We need a balance between protecting U.S. from terror and protecting privacy We can't know if civil liberties are safe if all surrounding spying is secret, he says Franken: We need to know who, when and how, to judge if the spying crosses a line

Why I wouldn't want to be royal baby

All eyes have been on Duchess of Cambridge ahead of the birth of her first baby Britain's royal family is closely watched by the media and the public Simon Hooper: New royal should be "first to embrace the cause of republicanism"

U.S. has Kardashians, Brits have royals

Dan Jones: Royal births in past were world news events, as they were key to world politics He asks: Why, when Windsors have so little sway now, does a birth still captivate world? He says Brits care: royal family a link to nation's history; Americans' interest less clear Jones: Monarchy like reality show; a tie to old class system. Brits jazzed that world cares

A royal family for the 21st century

Tom Rogan: The British royal family is enduring; can it maintain relevance in 21st century? He says how new royal parents, son reflect modern world to Brits is key to answer When queen's reign ends, Will, Kate will need to show worth, be relatable but distant, he says Rogan: New prince is an incarnation of royal tradition gelled to social modernity

Why 'The Newsroom' matters

John Avlon: "The Newsroom" isn't reality, but it expresses idealism journalists feel Avlon: Show's anchor Will McAvoy is now a character in social media, debates He says when news is about stars and cats, "Newsroom" offers inspiration Avlon: Show could attract young, talented and idealistic to journalism careers

Death by 'amusement' park ride

Woman dies on roller coaster in Texas on Friday John Sutter: Federal regulations for roller coasters should be considered Official says the federal government has no authority over rides that aren't mobile

It's more than 'Stand your ground'

Ruben Navarrette: Much of talk on Trayvon Martin deals with "stand your ground" law He says there are other issues worth exploring, including racial/ethnic profiling Navarrette: Latinos are often left out of the discussion about race in America He says the danger of political prosecutions is also worthy of consideration

GOP self-destructive on Obamacare

House Republicans voted to delay Affordable Care Act's individual health care mandate Julian Zelizer: GOP risks fissures as Obamacare benefits become clear to Americans He says GOP governors are at odds with legislators over aspects of the law Zelizer: Uncompromising stance on health care is bad strategy for GOP

GOP's self-destructive on Obamacare

House Republicans voted to delay Affordable Care Act's individual health care mandate Julian Zelizer: GOP risks fissures as Obamacare benefits become clear to Americans He says GOP governors are at odds with legislators over aspects of the law Zelizer: Uncompromising stance on health care is bad strategy for GOP

WH reporter Helen Thomas dies

NEW: Thomas covered White House with "intensity and tenacity," Clintons say Thomas will be buried in Detroit She was a trailblazer on the White House press corps Her retirement in 2010 came amid controversy

Prank proposal leaves bride in tears

n"> Prank proposal leaves bride in tears - CNN.com Video

Sleep-away camp: Crazy ways to cope

Many parents find the separation hard to bear when their kids go off to camp CNN Parents' Kelly Wallace and her husband joke that they'll stow away with their daughters Visiting day at camp can be especially harrowing, with parents vying to prove their love Parents also send extravagant gift baskets and scour the camp websites for photos

Stuck woman mistaken for ghost

n"> Woman calling for help mistaken for ghost - CNN.com Video

Man convicted of sex abuse on plane

The victim awoke as another passenger was assaulting her with his hands, prosecutors said She reported the incident to flight attendants, as did a third passenger who saw the assault A 49-year-old New Jersey man was arrested when the plane landed That man was convicted Friday and could be sentenced to life in prison

Wife gives NBA hubby 1 cheat a year

n"> Wife gives husband permission to cheat - CNN.com Video

Why football is like dog fighting

n"> Gladwell likens football to dog fighting - CNN.com Video

Greene: Better story than J.K. Rowling's

Bob Greene: J.K. Rowling used pseudonym to publish book that didn't sell, but critics liked She was outed as author, sales of the book soared Greene: If publisher hadn't known it was Rowling, it would have been a more telling tale He says once an unknown author retyped a famous novel; no publisher would take it

Shocker for breastfeeding mom

n"> Server responds to breastfeeding by ... - CNN.com Video

See pup welcome soldier home

n"> A soldier is welcomed home by loving pup - CNN.com Video

There was gold in them thar stars

New studies suggest gold could be created in the collision of two neutron stars Meg Urry: Most elements were made by nuclear fusion inside a star, but not precious metals She says the next time you wear gold, remember that it came from deep in space

Distraction: Pig loves tummy rubs

n"> Distraction: Micro pig loves tummy rubs - CNN.com Video

New photos of Tsarnaev's capture

NEW: Police: The sergeant who took photos of Tsarnaev was relieved of duty for one day New photos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev show "the real Boston bomber," photographer says The pictures show a bloodied, ashen Tsarnaev emerging from a trailered boat It's part of the backlash against Rolling Stone's cover photo of the bombing suspect

Was Obama speaking for all of us?

Mo Elliethee: Obama offered thoughts on Zimmerman case; shared own experiences He says he was quickly criticized as racially divisive; it's sad how far from truth this is He says Obama was speaking to divisions we all face Elliethee: Not everything has to be a fight. Why not talk about issues?

Why Trayvon matters to Obama

President Obama commented on the case of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman Brazile: Obama suggested approaches to moving forward on race relations She says that in her youth, Dr. King inspired her and others with similar messages Brazile: We can start by acting more kindly toward those with whom we disagree

I'm not outraged by Rolling Stone

David Weinberger says he's not outraged about the Rolling Stone cover He asks, why must we prove bombings upset us before we can discuss not minding cover? He says cover assumes that we all agree bombings were an act of a monster Weinberger: Cover confronts the mystery of someone like us who came to hate us

How do you want to die?

Stephan Mayer: Critically ill for five weeks, Mandela makes us think of how we want to die Mayer: There's an epidemic of people suffering as they die hooked up to machines He says we deny death, are scared, don't want loved ones to go, allow medicine to prolong life Mayer: One day you might need to decide when to allow someone you love to die

Immigrants driving housing recovery

Writers: The housing recovery fueled by immigrants moving in as U.S. born move out They say immigrants' need for affordable housing revives local housing markets Writers: They buy goods and services, revive neighborhoods, work crucial jobs
Writers: We need immigration reform, to help build a more dynamic economy and nation

Rolling Stone cover: Why we must look

David Weinberger says he's not outraged about the Rolling Stone cover He asks, why must we prove bombings upset us before we can discuss not minding cover? He says cover assumes that we all agree bombings were an act of a monster Weinberger: Cover confronts the mystery of someone like us who came to hate us

Remarks make Obama a lightning rod

Mo Elliethee: Obama offered thoughts on Zimmerman case; shared own experiences He says he was quickly criticized as racially divisive; it's sad how far from truth this is He says Obama was speaking to divisions we all face Elliethee: Not everything has to be a fight. Why not talk about issues?

Pelosi: Women stuck in 'Mad Men' era

Nancy Pelosi and Rosa DeLauro: Women and their families are worse off than ever Writers: We need fair, equal pay for women, early education for children, access to job training They say old policies and "Mad Men" view of the world add to women's money woes House Democrats agenda: "When women succeed, America succeeds"

Putin is a hypocrite on Snowden

Frida Ghitis: NSA spying revelations have brought joy to world's violators of human rights Ghitis: While Russia convicts corruption-fighter Alexei Navalny, it defends Snowden She says Navatny is the most prominent of a long series of politically-motivated prosecutions Ghitis: Putin is basking in moral relativism, feeling his abuses are OK by criticizing U.S. spying

Putin's hypocrisy on Snowden, Navalny

Frida Ghitis: NSA spying revelations have brought joy to world's violators of human rights Ghitis: While Russia convicts corruption-fighter Alexei Navalny, it defends Snowden She says Navatny is the most prominent of a long series of politically-motivated prosecutions Ghitis: Putin is basking in moral relativism, feeling his abuses are OK by criticizing U.S. spying

Ex-CIA chief: What Snowden did

Michael Hayden: Snowden will likely be most damaging leaker in American history He says the large trove of data reveals how America collects much of its intelligence Hayden says U.S. economic rivals will use it to disadvantage American companies He says other nations will doubt whether the U.S. can do anything in secret

From NY to LA in 45 minutes? Well ...

Elon Musk wants to revolutionize transportation with high-speed trains in enormous pneumatic tubes Such trains could theoretically whisk people from Los Angeles to New York in 45 minutes A Colorado firm is in the early stages of development of such a system Musk is the serial entrepreneur behind Tesla, the electric car company, and Space X

What's still made in the USA?

Filmmaker tours country trying to live entirely off products made in the USA He learns that a little bit of consumer effort can make a big difference to small businesses "Advanced manufacturing will be the next revolution in this country," Josh Miller says Have you transformed your passion into profits? Share your story on iReport!

Superyacht bigger than Navy destroyer

590-foot Azzam becomes world's largest superyacht The yacht is 57-feet longer than Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich's Eclipse With a top speed of 30-knots, the Azzam is also the fastest superyacht on the waves

A rare look inside the royal family

n"> A rare look inside the royal family - CNN.com Video

Al Qaeda in Yemen on the ropes

Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen confirms death of a key leader Peter Bergen says it amounts to a concession that the group is in deep trouble Militants in Yemen were riding high in 2011, but drone campaign has set them back, he says Bergen: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is struggling to survive

Want to die tethered to a machine?

Stephan Mayer: Critically ill for five weeks, Mandela makes us think of how we want to die Mayer: There's an epidemic of people suffering as they die hooked up to machines He says we deny death, are scared, don't want loved ones to go, allow medicine to prolong life Mayer: One day you might need to decide when to allow someone you love to die

Mexico confronts drug cartel horror

Mexico arrested Miguel Trevino Morales, leader of the brutal drug cartel The Zetas Ruben Navarrette: The arrest is a major coup for new Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto He says Trevino Morales is behind bars, but his brother will take over the cartel Navarrette: High-profile arrests put the cartels on notice that they're in the cross hairs

Hoping Kate will have a girl

Arianne Chernock: Popular opinion prefers that Prince William and Kate have a girl Chernock: The fervor has to do with a new succession law that gives girls equal rights She says another reason is women have worn the crown in Britain in recent history

Kris Jenner debuts fake baby North

n"> Kris Jenner's baby stunt - CNN.com Video

Fans stick with Deen like buttah

Fans are sending butter stick wrappers to Food Network and other companies that have dropped Paula Deen. The Facebook page, "We Support Paula Deen" has more than 600,000 followers. Fans are decorating butter wrappers and getting creative with boycott letters. Fans say they support Deen and believe she should be forgiven for her mistakes.

'King of the Hill' actor dies at 67

Character actor dies in his sleep at home in California Cause of death unknown Burkley known for voicing 'King of the Hill' characters

Seeking what's still made in the USA

Filmmaker tours country trying to live entirely off products made in the USA He learns that a little bit of consumer effort can make a big difference to small businesses "Advanced manufacturing will be the next revolution in this country," Josh Miller says Have you transformed your passion into profits? Share your story on iReport!

Jenny McCarthy's scary views

Jenny McCarthy is joining ABC's "The View" -- one of the most visible morning TV shows David Perry: The criticism toward hiring McCarthy focus on her anti-vaccine stance He says McCarthy has made statement about vaccines that are false and dangerous Perry: Now that she has a bigger platform, what dangerous ideas will she seize on?

Zimmerman verdict is real justice

Andrew McCarthy: Justice Department should handle cases based strictly on facts and law McCarthy: Attorney General Eric Holder should not have politicized the Zimmerman case He says Zimmerman case is not a federal case because civil rights was not an issue McCarthy: If justice had been served, Zimmerman case would never have been a criminal case

Blame the U.S. for Mexico obesity?

U.N. report says Mexico is now more obese than the United States John Sutter: Maybe we should blame Mexico's northern neighbor He says U.S. trends like fast food and sugary soda have drifted south Sutter: "The least the U.S. could do is be a better neighbor"

Honor Trayvon Martin by voting

Cornell Belcher: What would civil rights pioneers have done about verdict? He says protests are fine but a smart strategy would focus on organizing Belcher says voters should rally around Trayvon case, hold politicians accountable He says voters must push politicians to favor gun control, anti-profiling legislation

Photographer captures own death

n"> Photojournalist captured his own death - CNN.com Video

Dwight Howard on leaving Lakers

n"> Dwight Howard on Kobe and leaving Lakers - CNN.com Video

Fired when a man can't control himself

Iowa court rules it's not sex discrimination for a man to fire a woman because she's attractive Pepper Schwartz thought we're at the point that if a man can't control his lust, it's illegal Schwartz: Women are insulted, not hired if unattractive, fired if they are too pretty Saving your marriage by firing an employee for her looks is a gender issue, she says

Editor's note: Pepper Schwartz is professor of sociology at the University of Washington and the author or co-author of 17 books, the latest of which is "The Normal Bar." She is the AARP love and relationship ambassador and writes the Naked Truth column for AARP.org. She is a senior fellow at the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit organization that gathers research on American families, and chief expert for perfectmatch.com.

(CNN) -- Just when you think we're becoming civilized and smarter about our knowledge of gender, you get a stupid decision such as the one from the Iowa Supreme Court and you wonder whether sanity will ever reign.

I thought we had decided the issue that men's "uncontrollable lust" was indeed controllable, and if they didn't control it, they were going to be charged and convicted of sexual harassment, rape, frottage -- well you get the idea.

So now the all-male Iowa Supreme Court has said, albeit in a new way, that men are so controlled by their gonads that they can fire an employee at will for being able to incite attraction, sex, love, whatever. No matter that she is just going about her job or being a stellar employee; if she's got a cute butt or a nicely turned nose, her job is history.

Pepper Schwartz

If you haven't heard, the court stood by an earlier ruling that a Fort Dodge dentist acted legally when he fired his dental assistant -- even while acknowledging she had been an excellent employee for 10 years -- because he and his wife were afraid he would try to start an affair with her and ruin their marriage. The employee had sued for sex discrimination. But the court said firing an employee for being too attractive, despite no inappropriate behavior on her part, is not sex discrimination because gender is not the issue. Feelings are.

Don't tell me this has nothing to do with gender.

I don't see women firing men because they can't control themselves. Is this because they don't have manly kind of urges? Or is it because they don't have access to the same excuses, such as uncontrollable attraction and desire? Either way, it's a gender issue. And if a woman is denied employment because of her gender, that is a protected legal status.

Don't tell me this has nothing to do with gender. I don't see women firing men because they can't control themselves.
Pepper Schwartz

But the Iowa Supreme Court guys didn't see it that way. By the way, Iowa women: Is this enough to motivate you to get some women on your Supreme Court? The guys saw the issue, at least in part, as protecting the institution of marriage rather than an infringement on a woman's right to work.

Let's be real honest here: If the only way this man and woman could protect their marriage is to remove an attractive woman from their midst, then I'd say this marriage has a lot more problems than just an attractive dental assistant.

What is this dentist's wife going to do -- put blinders on her husband like a race horse? Do employees have to pass an ugliness test? Do they pick the couples in their extended friendship network according to whether the wife is curvaceous?

Women have been at risk because of their looks for a long time. There are online sites where women are evaluated like so many heifers on whether they are " Hot or Not?" Words such as "dog" "sow" "and needing a "paper bag over her head" have been thrown at us as a part of male bravado.

Beautiful women get cat-calls, sometimes really rude and threatening gestures and unwanted commentary on their looks. Talk about women being between a rock and a hard place. Insulted and not hired if they aren't attractive, fired if they are too attractive.

Could someone tell us just exactly how we should look?

More important, could we have some continuing education for the courts around the nation so that they realize looks are a gender issue -- and therefore protecting women from being fired because of them is appropriate.

If another case like this goes through the judicial system, I hope a very different conclusion will be reached. Otherwise, all kinds of firings may arise that use this excuse to get rid of women employees.

Why, this could even spread to the courts -- male judges might ban some women lawyers from presenting cases because, gosh darn it, they are just too lovely.

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Voices: Lessons from Zimmerman trial

Omarosa's brother was killed by a white man, and she connected with Trayvon's family David Rice talks about the black boy's conditioning to be invisible to protect himself Abigail Thernstrom says Obama was wrong to say if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Nicole Austin-Hillery sees 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' Richard Gabriel sees normal human bias

CNN EXCLUSIVE: Juror B37 has more to reveal about the trial of George Zimmerman and how the not guilty verdict was reached. Watch Anderson Cooper 360, on CNN tonight at 8 ET.

(CNN) -- Here are some views written for CNN on the "not guilty' verdict in George Zimmerman's trial on charges of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

Omarosa: We whose loved ones were killed despair

The George Zimmerman "not guilty" verdict hit me very hard. I, like many Americans, watched the trial very closely, hoping that justice would be served in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. I was not prepared for my deep emotional response to this shocking outcome.

Omarosa O. Manigault

Last year I rallied with other families, who like mine, had lost a loved one to gun violence. I joined the Rev. Al Sharpton, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Trayvon Martin's family in Los Angeles. I connected instantly with Sabrina Fulton, Trayvon's mother, bonded by grief. I shared the story of my brother's murder during the rally to show the Martin family was not alone in their struggle or despair.

My brother Jack Thomas Manigault Jr. was shot and killed in cold blood on October 11, 2011. He was in his bed sleeping when a 22-year-old man forced his way into his home and killed him. What followed was a year-long bout with the judicial system. On April 24, 2012, on the eve of the murder trial, my family and I made the difficult decision to accept a plea deal from the defense. When faced with the daunting decision of whether to put my family and my brother's four sons through a very public trial, I opted not to.

My lawyer warned me because my brother was African American and his assailant white, the trial would be judged through a racial prism. My brother was not perfect, but Jack had been working to turn his life around. I was cautioned that my brother would have his character and past called into question and anything he had done as a young man could and would be used to justify his fate.

At times I questioned my decision to accept a plea deal. The judge assured my brother's killer, who pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and other charges, that a conviction at trial would have netted him a harsher sentence than one negotiated by prosecutors and defense attorneys. It was the risk that we as a family took to protect my brother from being characterized as just another black male fatality.

Sabrina Fulton stands for all of the mothers and families who have to face the painful reality that we may never find peace or justice in this judicial system for our loved ones. We should use this moment to examine the system that at times, like now, leaves many of us shocked and dismayed. I hope and pray that some day things will get better.

Omarosa O. Manigault is assistant pastor at Weller Street Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles and former reality TV star.

Rice: Trayvon was killed for being young, male and black

Black men and boys are conditioned to be invisible. Our visibility scares folk. It scares white people and many "respectable" black people, too. It scared George Zimmerman. And George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin because of his fear, and because of the cowardice at the core of his special type of being afraid.

David Wall Rice

Trayvon Martin was profiled on the night he was killed. There is little room for debate here. And on Saturday night, six jurors in Sanford, Florida indicated that it is all right to think a 17-year-old black boy is a threat just for being who he is. It is OK to shoot him through the heart, to end his life. It is legal to do it. It is justified, even if that black young man is an innocent, a child packing a beverage and a pack of candy. That mistake gets a pass.

Novelist Ralph Ellison explained so precisely, "They see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination -- indeed, everything and anything except me." This is the every day reality of being a black man. We all know it, even if it's just deep down and covered up. Nonetheless, we go along with the disjointed dance of democracy and justice for all.

We know that black men and boys are understood to be a threat. Trayvon Martin and his family, and those who more squarely fit feared stereotypes, deserve justice. Fear of "them," of me, fear of my son, is a psycho-social distance bred from insecurity and has nothing to do with the "other."

"What are you without racism?" Toni Morrison asked Charlie Rose some years ago in an interview. We do well to follow her inquiries. "Are you any good? Are you still strong, still smart? Do you still like yourself?"

A knock-knock joke at the opening for the defense and the not-guilty verdict at the end show the level of respect that the Florida judicial system afforded Trayvon Martin's life. This is the racism that black boys and men consistently negotiate. Our lives, clearly, depend on negotiating it well. Those who argue counter are simply ignorant of the deeply embedded institutional and cultural racism here in the U.S.

Now comes the work that many of us are ready to undertake, or to recommit to. The work to be visible -- to step beyond the easy stereotypes that we play to and the ones that society affixes to us.

The work is beginning. Social media messages. Rallies on Sunday in New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Atlanta and other cities across the country demonstrate the momentum of feeling against the terrible wrong of the Martin case, a wrong that threatens the liberties of us all.

-- David Rice is associate professor and chair of the Department of Psychology at Morehouse College.

LZ Granderson: Trayvon could have been my son

Hours before the George Zimmerman not-guilty verdict was announced, my partner and I were discussing ways to prevent our 16-year-old son from getting shot while jogging in the upper-middle-class, predominantly white neighborhood we had recently moved into.

LZ Granderson

I promise you, it was a very real conversation.

"Maybe we should get T-shirts and sweatshirts with the school's name on it," my partner said.

After the verdict -- it came as a punch to the stomach -- we thought maybe it was best if he only ran inside at the nearby gym.

This is what it means to be a parent of a young black man in America today: sleepless nights, courtesy of a cocktail of institutional racism, self-inflicted wounds and statistics.

Lots and lots of statistics.

About the too-high high school dropout rate among black youths, the distressingly high number of black men who are perpetrators -- and victims -- of violent crimes, the disproportionately steep incarceration rates for black men. Those who create our pop culture have learned to monetize that negative image, and some young black men are mesmerized by it, adopting it as their own. As a result, we are all susceptible to the same prejudicial thoughts that led George Zimmerman to view a 17-year-old boy with a hoodie on his head and a bag of candy in his hand as suspicious.

Read LZ's full commentary

Trayvon could have been my son -- and that scares the hell out of me. If, during this 16-month ordeal, that thought never crossed your mind, then you have no idea what it is like to be the parent of a young, black male in America. After the verdict, attorneys from both the prosecution and defense seemed to go out of their way in their press conferences to say race was not a factor, which sounded more like wishful thinking than accurate commentary.

-- LZ Granderson, who writes a weekly column for CNN.com, is a senior writer and columnist for ESPN the Magazine and ESPN.com.

Thernstrom: Obama's mistake on Trayvon Martin case

Every American can make his or her own judgment about whether justice was served by the verdict in the George Zimmerman murder trial but one thing we should all recognize: President Obama's interference in a local law enforcement matter was unprecedented and inappropriate, and he comes away from the case looking badly tarnished by his poor judgment.

Abigail Thernstrom

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," the president said when asked about the case in the Rose Garden on March 23, 2012, after many had called for Zimmerman's arrest but several weeks before he was charged. "When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids."

In fact, if the president had a son, he would have been born to extraordinary privilege and raised with all the advantages of two very affluent and highly educated parents. He would have gone to tony private schools. His path in life would have been almost as dissimilar from Trayvon's as one could imagine.

Read Thernstom's full column

Yes, Obama's hypothetical son and Trayvon would have shared the same brown skin color. Would that have made them interchangeable? Not unless all brown-skinned boys are the same. Does the president really believe that?

The president's remarks created a clear impression that he was motivated by one of two factors, and we can only guess as to which, or what combination of the two, was at work here. One possibility is that this is merely another manifestation of the president's well-known narcissism.

The other, more troubling possibility is that the president surrendered to his political instincts.

On Sunday, the president did once again separate himself from the voices of anger. "We are a nation of laws and the jury has spoken," he said. But if his Justice Department brings civil rights charges against Zimmerman, the ugly racial politics of this prosecution will be undeniable.

Let us hope it never comes to that, for at that point a double tragedy will have occurred. Trayvon Martin will be dead, and our hopes for a president whose judgment is unaffected by his race will have been thoroughly and irreparably dashed.

-- Abigail Thernstrom is the vice chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Brazile: Those who despair or delight in verdict are wrong

Like so many others, I am distraught. It will take many days to sort through my feelings and reactions to the verdict of not guilty in the Trayvon Martin case. Still, some thoughts and lessons are obvious, immediate and, in a sense, imperative.

Donna Brazile

First, those who delight in the verdict are wrong. There is no winner here. Trayvon Martin is still dead and George Zimmerman still must live with the fact that he killed without reason or cause. Here, the "should have" rules: He should have stayed in the truck.

Those who react to the verdict with despair are wrong. We work hard for justice in this world, but we, being human, are flawed. We will make mistakes. The law is only our best approximation of justice, and the law needs constant revision. But doing what's right is not limited to the law. Sometimes, we must go beyond it.

Read Donna Brazile's full column

Those who expect -- perhaps desire -- a riot are wrong. We are better than that. We respect the law. While the law cannot force a person to be moral or tolerant, through the law we can demand respect and expect equality.

We must be honest about our weaknesses. Racial profiling still exists and it is a cancer.

If you don't know about the "black male code," you should. It's something black boys learn early. It goes, in part, like this: Even though you're not a criminal, some people assume you are, especially if you're wearing certain clothes. Never argue with the police, but protect your dignity and take pride in humility.

Let us focus on ways to improve the system -- the criminal system, the justice system, the moral system, the general welfare system. Let us focus on acts of goodness and kindness that bring us together, as a people and as creations of God.

-- Donna Brazile, a CNN contributor and a Democratic strategist, is vice chairwoman for voter registration and participation at the Democratic National Committee.

Obeidallah: Our lack of racial empathy is appalling

The George Zimmerman trial has made one thing crystal clear. When racial issues arise, we tend to unquestionably cheer for our own race like it's a sporting match. There's little regard for the arguments or feelings of those from another race.

Dean Obeidallah

Is the racial empathy gap in America growing? It seems so. At least judging by the chatter of comments surrounding the trial.

I heard repeatedly the statement from some Zimmerman supporters -- including a radio show host -- that "94% of black murder victims were killed by other blacks."

So instead of being empathetic to the Martin family -- whose son Trayvon was killed by Zimmerman -- the words discounted the killing by essentially saying that black people kill each other so much, why should we care about this one black kid?

On the other side, some people of color despicably threatened to harm or even kill Zimmerman after he was acquitted.

No matter what race you belong to, you have to admit this lack of concern for other races needs to be addressed.

Read Obeidallah's full column

Racial empathy means opening yourself to understanding why the other side believes what it does can help you find common ground.

Of course, this is not easy. It requires you to, at least temporarily, stop dismissing competing arguments. You don't have to agree with the opposing views, but you should listen and try to understand them.

Let's look at issues from the vantage point of another race: Why are they angry? Why are they afraid? What would you feel like if you lived in a community where the crime you see is committed almost exclusively by one race? Conversely, how would you feel if you were repeatedly profiled by the police and society simply because of your skin color?

If we don't get past the knee jerking defensiveness when discussing race, we will likely be burying more Trayvon Martins.

-- Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is a political comedian and frequent commentator on various TV networks including CNN.

Austin-Hillery: Echoes of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

In the iconic film, "To Kill a Mockingbird," Atticus Finch, a white lawyer defending a black man accused of attempting to rape a white woman in the deep South, is delivering his closing argument to an all-white-male jury: "In this country, our courts are the great levelers ... in our courts, all men are created equal," he says.

Nicole Austin-Hillery

Like the fictional defendant in the film, black America knows all too well that in this country, the promise of equal justice for all is often a hollow one. When black boys and men are killed by non-blacks, more often than not, justice will not be served.

Many black parents will try to explain to their children, especially their sons, what to make of the verdict, and they may be at a loss for words. How is it possible that a black child, walking where he had a right to walk, doing absolutely nothing wrong, could be pursued, confronted and ultimately shot dead by a neighborhood watch volunteer -- and the killer escape punishment?

Read Austin-Hillery's full column

White America cannot conceive of such a thing happening to its children, nor can it imagine that, were such a travesty to occur, the killer would escape punishment. But for black America, Trayvon Martin is the latest name on a long list of African-American men and boys whose non-black killers escaped justice in America's courts -- a list that runs from Emmett Till to Amadou Diallo to Oscar Grant to Sean Bell.

Often, the killers are never even charged and brought to trial, which is precisely the course that the Zimmerman case would have taken were it not for the protests of African-Americans and others across the country.

Black America's belief in the possibility of receiving justice from our legal system is eroded by every verdict that fails to hold a killer who is not black accountable for the death of a black man or boy.

My heart is heavy, not merely because Zimmerman was acquitted, but also because we as a nation have yet to make Atticus Finch's words ring true. Until we do -- until our courts are really "the great levelers" in which "all men are created equal," African-Americans killed by non-blacks will not find justice.

-- Nicole Austin-Hillery is the director and counsel of the Washington Office of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Gabriel: White or black, we see what we've experienced

In the courts and in society, we tend to think of racial bias as overt bigotry and imagine that the George Zimmermans and the Paula Deens of the world hold negative stereotypes of other races and intentionally think less of them as people.

Richard Gabriel

Actual bias, however, operates in the brain in a much different way.

Despite our noble desire to love our fellow man, we are all suspicious of "The Other" -- in this case, the young man in a hoodie in the rain.

George Zimmerman has denied he holds any racial animosity. And that may be true. But with his statements, "F***ing punks. These a**holes, they always get away," he may have been unconsciously referring to a combination of race, youth, behavior, and clothing.

Trayvon Martin, in saying he was being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker," no doubt also racially labeled Zimmerman out of fear.

Read Gabriel's full column

There is a principle in social psychology called ingroup-outgroup bias, which is the tendency to judge members of your own group more favorably and others more harshly.

So when Juror B37 speaks to Anderson Cooper about not finding Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel credible because she was "hard to understand" and "using phrases I had never heard before," it is obvious that it was hard for this juror to relate to this witness.

And it is a combination of skin color, idiom, nonverbal behavior, and personality that causes this cultural outgroup divide. This juror did not know about Rachel Jeantel's underbite, or that she grew up speaking Spanish and Creole.

Juror B37 spoke about Zimmerman's justified actions, his state of mind, her sympathies for him as well as the deceased Martin. In jury selection, she spoke about Sanford protests as "rioting." This juror could more easily relate to Zimmerman as the neighborhood watch volunteer trying to protect his neighborhood.

Nearly 20 years ago, when I was working for the defense on the O.J. Simpson case, much was made about the racial makeup of that jury -- made up of nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic. But it was not just the skin color of those jurors that determined that verdict. Three-quarters of those jurors had personal experience with the police profiling, planting evidence, and engaging in other mistreatment.

We see what we have experienced. So we see what we want to see, whether we are a white juror in Sanford, Florida, or an African-American juror in Los Angeles.

It's time to stop pretending. It's time to make implicit bias explicit. If we're going to talk about race, let's talk about race without resorting to platitudes, righteousness or defensiveness. It's time to recognize that race is more than skin color. It is a rich tapestry woven with cultural, linguistic, behavioral and moral threads.

-- Richard Gabriel is the president of the American Society of Trial Consultants Foundation and president of Decision Analysis, a national trial consulting company. He has worked on the Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson cases.

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Juror, Jeantel and bias

Richard Gabriel: People see themselves as unbiased, but we all carry prejudices with us Gabriel: Juror's comments showed divide between her and key witness He says George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin expressed bias in remarks It's better to confront our biases than to keep hiding them, he says

CNN Exclusive: Juror B37 has more to reveal about the trial of George Zimmerman and how the not-guilty verdict was reached. Watch Anderson Cooper 360˚ on CNN Tuesday night at 8 ET.

(CNN) -- Editor's note: Richard Gabriel is the president of the American Society of Trial Consultants Foundation and president of Decision Analysis, a national trial consulting company. He has worked on the Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson cases and is the author of the upcoming book, "Acquittal", to be published by Berkley Publishing, Penguin Group USA.

In the courts and in society, we tend to think of racial bias as overt bigotry and imagine that the George Zimmermans and the Paula Deens of the world hold negative stereotypes of other races and intentionally think less of them as people.

Actual bias, however, operates in the brain in a much different way.

Our acceptance of other people and cultures is a recent development in human history. The thousands of years of survival training we have acquired in our slow march up the Homo sapiens ladder have taught us to fear and suspect others who do not look and act like us. Wars and genocide have ravaged populations in such forms as the Crusades, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, the war in Bosnia, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict, and the recently highlighted battles between Shiites and Sunnis, all in the name of demographic differences.

Richard Gabriel

Thomas Jefferson wrote the "all men are created equal" language in the Declaration of Independence while owning slaves. And despite the Emancipation Proclamation, the Supreme Court codified the oxymoronic "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws in the Plessy v. Ferguson case only 33 years later.

So, despite our noble desire to love our fellow man, we are all suspicious of "The Other" -- in this case, the young man in a hoodie in the rain. Whether that figure comes in the form of a black teenager, a gay co-worker, the Muslim neighbor, the overweight teacher, the barista with the tattoos and piercings, or, yes, even the gun owner, we all have biases. And yet most of us will never admit we have them, placing our own Gandhi-like bias-free self-image on a pillar of fairness and equity. But the truth is, the more we deny we have biases, the more we broaden and deepen those prejudices.

George Zimmerman has denied he holds any racial animosity. And that may be true. But with his statements, "F***ing punks. These a**holes, they always get away," he may have been unconsciously referring to a combination of race, youth, behavior, and clothing. His frustration with the high crime rate in Sanford, Florida, and the robberies in his neighborhood no doubt aggravated his need to "profile" the perpetrators he felt were victimizing his community.

Trayvon Martin, in saying he was being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker," no doubt also racially labeled Zimmerman out of fear. That is how all of our brains work. We categorize the characteristics of those who seem so different from ourselves that it makes us uneasy. And we do it without even thinking about it.

Taking to the streets post-verdict Martin's relatives respond to verdict Juror: Zimmerman feared for his life Jeantel: Verdict was disappointing

There is a well-known principle in social psychology called ingroup-outgroup bias, which is the tendency to judge members of your own group more favorably and others more harshly. This has been followed by a great deal of recent research on "implicit bias" -- a subconscious negative association that we automatically attribute to others. Both of these cognitive blind spots are dangerous because they run in the background of our minds, all day long, outside our awareness.

So when Juror B37 speaks to Anderson Cooper about not finding Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel credible because she found her "hard to understand" and Jeantel was "using phrases I had never heard before," it is obvious that it was hard for this juror to relate to this witness.

And it is a combination of skin color, idiom, nonverbal behavior, and personality that causes this cultural outgroup divide, not just her race. This juror did not know about Rachel Jeantel's underbite, or that she grew up speaking Spanish and Creole, or how those things affected her communication style, and thus could not relate to her.

In her interview, Juror B37 spoke about Zimmerman's justified actions, his state of mind, her sympathies for him as well as the deceased Martin. In jury selection, she spoke about the Sanford protests before the trial as "rioting." This juror could more easily relate to Zimmerman as the neighborhood watch volunteer trying to protect his neighborhood.

Jeantel, in her interview with Piers Morgan, said she believes that the situation was "racial" and Zimmerman was "finally gonna get one." Some of Martin's supporters invoked Emmett Till and Medgar Evers and criticized the racial makeup of the Zimmerman jury. Their comments, from their experiences, reveal the harsh reality of the world they live in.

Nearly 20 years ago, when I was working for the defense on the O.J. Simpson case, much was made about the racial makeup of that jury (made up of nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic). But again, it was not just the skin color of those jurors alone that determined that verdict. Three-quarters of those jurors had personal experience with the police profiling, planting evidence, and engaging in other mistreatment. Their experience, derived from their racial reality, obviously made them more receptive to the defense's arguments about police misconduct. We see what we have experienced. So we see what we want to see, whether we are a white juror in Sanford, Florida, or an African-American juror in Los Angeles.

I have worked on more than a thousand trials and have watched jurors in hundreds of jury selections struggle to recognize their own biases and reconcile them with their desire to be impartial judges of facts and laws.

In jury selection in the Zimmerman case, jurors spoke about impressions they had already formed about the case, as well as their own experiences with crime and law enforcement. And while I do not question the Zimmerman jurors' fairness in deciding this case, fundamental psychology and common sense says that you are never fully able to "set aside" your experiences and the beliefs that you have held for years.

In much of this country, this pervasive ingroup-outgroup implicit bias has allowed minority defendants to be charged and sentenced at statistically disproportionate numbers while the disparity is dismissed with excuses, a shrug, and a resigned "What are you gonna do?" It has allowed institutional discrimination to occur in government, businesses, schools, and the courts, while politicians, executives, teachers, and judges vehemently deny its existence. And it has left a bitter legacy of disparate treatment of African-Americans by mostly white juries.

At the conclusion of this tragic case, we can divide again into camps of pro-Martin or pro-Zimmerman advocates and bemoan the lack of racial progress. However, instead of just shaking our heads and speaking sadly about how far we still have to go in the area of race relations, let's use this solemn opportunity to actually move the discussion forward. Just the fact that there has been so much peaceful reflection after this verdict shows a great deal of progress.

The American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, and the American Society of Trial Consultants Foundation have all recognized that these biases are a pernicious form of decay in our justice system, and these organizations are studying and implementing reforms in the courts.

A Tufts University study in 2006 showed that diverse juries made better decisions because the different perspectives made them more thorough and less likely to make factual errors. While I am not criticizing this jury's decision, the courts and local communities would all benefit from greater diversity.

Former Police Chief William Bratton significantly reduced inner city crime rates in New York and Los Angeles and improved police relations in minority neighborhoods by community policing policies that favored mediating differences instead of authoritarian strong-arm tactics.

Community courts are gaining favor as a way of building partnerships among residents, merchants, churches, and schools to address local safety and crime problems.

Bias is not simple, and we shouldn't pretend it is. We also should not act as though it is a horrible monster that we should run from. It isn't. It lives in all of us. We just don't know it. The real question for us is not whether we have biases, but how our biases affect how we see and interact with strangers, standing scared in the rain in the middle of a gated community.

So it's time to stop pretending. It's time to make implicit bias explicit. If we're going to talk about race, let's talk about race without resorting to platitudes, righteousness or defensiveness. It's time to recognize that race is more than skin color. It is a rich tapestry woven with cultural, linguistic, behavioral and moral threads.

It's time to talk without judging. It's time to listen without condemning. It's time to admit and take responsibility for who we are. Most importantly, it's time to start understanding. If we really want this trial to mean something, we owe both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman at least that much.

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Abolition in the Land of Lincoln

New group called the Abolition Institute forms in Illinois It will tackle the issue of slavery in the West Africa country Mauritania John Sutter: The group offers hope that things will change in Mauritania The institute brings together veterans of the Save Darfur and Hotel Rwanda campaigns

Editor's note: John D. Sutter is a columnist for CNN Opinion and head of CNN's Change the List project. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+. E-mail him at ctl@cnn.com.

(CNN) -- "Abolition" isn't a word you hear much in 2013. It should be, though. And a group of modern-day freedom fighters in Illinois is resurrecting the term -- with its echoes of 1800s America -- to combat ongoing slavery in a faraway West African country.

The Abolition Institute, which launched its website on Monday, is a newly formed group trying to end slavery in Mauritania, a remote outpost in the Sahara where an estimated 10% to 20% of people are enslaved, according to a U.N. expert.

"There's just a special connection between Illinois, where President Lincoln and President Grant and President Obama are from, and Mauritania," said Sean Tenner, the group's co-founder, who also hails from Illinois. "(They're) different places, but with the same path."

Hopefully that path leads to universal freedom.

I traveled to Mauritania in December 2011 to report on the issue for CNN's Freedom Project. It's an amazing and gut-wrenching place, full of vast potential but struggling to break slavery's psychological chains. More than a year later, I'm left with a deep sense of hope and cautious optimism that Mauritania will be able to break them.

John D. Sutter

Tenner and his nascent group are one reason for that. He saw the CNN report online in March 2012 and decided he wanted to do something to help abolish slavery in a country he'd never visited, in the name of people who he's mostly never met.

"To say it changed my life and changed other peoples' lives would be an understatement," he said.

The Abolition Institute has applied for 501(c)3 status as a nonprofit organization, Tenner said, but has not been granted that status yet. Its website lets users quickly petition the United States and other world governments to put pressure on Mauritania to prosecute slave owners "instead of protecting them." It calls slavery in Mauritania "one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time."

Tenner assembled a well-connected board of directors to raise awareness about the issue and to collect funds for anti-slavery groups who work on the ground in Mauritania.

The board includes veterans of Obama political campaigns, the Save Darfur movement, the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation -- as well as Mauritanian human rights activists who are now living in North America. Paul Rusesabagina, whose story inspired the film "Hotel Rwanda" and who is credited with rescuing 1,200 people during the 1994 genocide in that East African country, spoke at the Abolition Institute's grand opening.

Tenner, a 35-year-old from suburban Chicago, is following the path of many brave abolitionists in Mauritania -- several of whom I was lucky enough to meet.

Since our online project published last year, Biram Dah Abeid, head of one local abolitionist group, was arrested for burning Quornic texts he says condone slavery. Later, after being released, he was given the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk by a human rights group in Ireland.

Meanwhile, Boubacar Messaoud, head of a group called SOS Slaves and one of the long-standing heroes of the country's abolitionist movement, has provided assistance to women who recently escaped slavery or who come from the enslaved class. Tenner had a Chicago Cubs jersey made with Messaoud's name on it -- and wants to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Tenner's first goal, though, is to make people aware that slavery exists in Mauritania, although government officials have denied its existence.

And he's smart to do so by forging ties between his state -- home to the American president who banned slavery and the country's first African-American president -- and a country in West Africa that continues to struggle for freedom.

"The more people around the world who are aware of the issue the more pressure will be generated on ... Mauritania," he said, "and the better the situation will become."

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Race, bias and the Zimmerman jury

Richard Gabriel: People see themselves as unbiased, but we all carry prejudices with us Gabriel: Juror's comments showed divide between her and key witness He says George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin expressed bias in remarks It's better to confront our biases than to keep hiding them, he says

CNN Exclusive: Juror B37 has more to reveal about the trial of George Zimmerman and how the not-guilty verdict was reached. Watch Anderson Cooper 360˚ on CNN Tuesday night at 8 ET.

(CNN) -- Editor's note: Richard Gabriel is the president of the American Society of Trial Consultants Foundation and president of Decision Analysis, a national trial consulting company. He has worked on the Casey Anthony and O.J. Simpson cases and is the author of the upcoming book, "Acquittal", to be published by Berkley Publishing, Penguin Group USA.

In the courts and in society, we tend to think of racial bias as overt bigotry and imagine that the George Zimmermans and the Paula Deens of the world hold negative stereotypes of other races and intentionally think less of them as people.

Actual bias, however, operates in the brain in a much different way.

Our acceptance of other people and cultures is a recent development in human history. The thousands of years of survival training we have acquired in our slow march up the Homo sapiens ladder have taught us to fear and suspect others who do not look and act like us. Wars and genocide have ravaged populations in such forms as the Crusades, Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, the war in Bosnia, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict, and the recently highlighted battles between Shiites and Sunnis, all in the name of demographic differences.

Richard Gabriel

Thomas Jefferson wrote the "all men are created equal" language in the Declaration of Independence while owning slaves. And despite the Emancipation Proclamation, the Supreme Court codified the oxymoronic "separate but equal" Jim Crow laws in the Plessy v. Ferguson case only 33 years later.

So, despite our noble desire to love our fellow man, we are all suspicious of "The Other" -- in this case, the young man in a hoodie in the rain. Whether that figure comes in the form of a black teenager, a gay co-worker, the Muslim neighbor, the overweight teacher, the barista with the tattoos and piercings, or, yes, even the gun owner, we all have biases. And yet most of us will never admit we have them, placing our own Gandhi-like bias-free self-image on a pillar of fairness and equity. But the truth is, the more we deny we have biases, the more we broaden and deepen those prejudices.

George Zimmerman has denied he holds any racial animosity. And that may be true. But with his statements, "F***ing punks. These a**holes, they always get away," he may have been unconsciously referring to a combination of race, youth, behavior, and clothing. His frustration with the high crime rate in Sanford, Florida, and the robberies in his neighborhood no doubt aggravated his need to "profile" the perpetrators he felt were victimizing his community.

Trayvon Martin, in saying he was being followed by a "creepy-ass cracker," no doubt also racially labeled Zimmerman out of fear. That is how all of our brains work. We categorize the characteristics of those who seem so different from ourselves that it makes us uneasy. And we do it without even thinking about it.

Taking to the streets post-verdict Martin's relatives respond to verdict

There is a well-known principle in social psychology called ingroup-outgroup bias, which is the tendency to judge members of your own group more favorably and others more harshly. This has been followed by a great deal of recent research on "implicit bias" -- a subconscious negative association that we automatically attribute to others. Both of these cognitive blind spots are dangerous because they run in the background of our minds, all day long, outside our awareness.

So when Juror B37 speaks to Anderson Cooper about not finding Trayvon Martin's friend Rachel Jeantel credible because she found her "hard to understand" and Jeantel was "using phrases I had never heard before," it is obvious that it was hard for this juror to relate to this witness.

And it is a combination of skin color, idiom, nonverbal behavior, and personality that causes this cultural outgroup divide, not just her race. This juror did not know about Rachel Jeantel's underbite, or that she grew up speaking Spanish and Creole, or how those things affected her communication style, and thus could not relate to her.

In her interview, Juror B37 spoke about Zimmerman's justified actions, his state of mind, her sympathies for him as well as the deceased Martin. In jury selection, she spoke about the Sanford protests before the trial as "rioting." This juror could more easily relate to Zimmerman as the neighborhood watch volunteer trying to protect his neighborhood.

Jeantel, in her interview with Piers Morgan, said she believes that the situation was "racial" and Zimmerman was "finally gonna get one." Some of Martin's supporters invoked Emmett Till and Medgar Evers and criticized the racial makeup of the Zimmerman jury. Their comments, from their experiences, reveal the harsh reality of the world they live in.

Nearly 20 years ago, when I was working for the defense on the O.J. Simpson case, much was made about the racial makeup of that jury (made up of nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic). But again, it was not just the skin color of those jurors alone that determined that verdict. Three-quarters of those jurors had personal experience with the police profiling, planting evidence, and engaging in other mistreatment. Their experience, derived from their racial reality, obviously made them more receptive to the defense's arguments about police misconduct. We see what we have experienced. So we see what we want to see, whether we are a white juror in Sanford, Florida, or an African-American juror in Los Angeles.

I have worked on more than a thousand trials and have watched jurors in hundreds of jury selections struggle to recognize their own biases and reconcile them with their desire to be impartial judges of facts and laws.

In jury selection in the Zimmerman case, jurors spoke about impressions they had already formed about the case, as well as their own experiences with crime and law enforcement. And while I do not question the Zimmerman jurors' fairness in deciding this case, fundamental psychology and common sense says that you are never fully able to "set aside" your experiences and the beliefs that you have held for years.

In much of this country, this pervasive ingroup-outgroup implicit bias has allowed minority defendants to be charged and sentenced at statistically disproportionate numbers while the disparity is dismissed with excuses, a shrug, and a resigned "What are you gonna do?" It has allowed institutional discrimination to occur in government, businesses, schools, and the courts, while politicians, executives, teachers, and judges vehemently deny its existence. And it has left a bitter legacy of disparate treatment of African-Americans by mostly white juries.

At the conclusion of this tragic case, we can divide again into camps of pro-Martin or pro-Zimmerman advocates and bemoan the lack of racial progress. However, instead of just shaking our heads and speaking sadly about how far we still have to go in the area of race relations, let's use this solemn opportunity to actually move the discussion forward. Just the fact that there has been so much peaceful reflection after this verdict shows a great deal of progress.

The American Bar Association, the National Center for State Courts, the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System, and the American Society of Trial Consultants Foundation have all recognized that these biases are a pernicious form of decay in our justice system, and these organizations are studying and implementing reforms in the courts.

A Tufts University study in 2006 showed that diverse juries made better decisions because the different perspectives made them more thorough and less likely to make factual errors. While I am not criticizing this jury's decision, the courts and local communities would all benefit from greater diversity.

Former Police Chief William Bratton significantly reduced inner city crime rates in New York and Los Angeles and improved police relations in minority neighborhoods by community policing policies that favored mediating differences instead of authoritarian strong-arm tactics.

Community courts are gaining favor as a way of building partnerships among residents, merchants, churches, and schools to address local safety and crime problems.

Bias is not simple, and we shouldn't pretend it is. We also should not act as though it is a horrible monster that we should run from. It isn't. It lives in all of us. We just don't know it. The real question for us is not whether we have biases, but how our biases affect how we see and interact with strangers, standing scared in the rain in the middle of a gated community.

So it's time to stop pretending. It's time to make implicit bias explicit. If we're going to talk about race, let's talk about race without resorting to platitudes, righteousness or defensiveness. It's time to recognize that race is more than skin color. It is a rich tapestry woven with cultural, linguistic, behavioral and moral threads.

It's time to talk without judging. It's time to listen without condemning. It's time to admit and take responsibility for who we are. Most importantly, it's time to start understanding. If we really want this trial to mean something, we owe both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman at least that much.

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Our lack of racial empathy is appalling

Dean Obeidallah: Zimmerman trial shows that people see issues along racial lines Obeidallah: We need more racial empathy so that we can reduce tragedies and anger He says psychology studies show that more empathy can foster conflict resolution Obeidallah: We can start by trying to see what it would be like to belong to a different race

Editor's note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is a political comedian and frequent commentator on various TV networks including CNN. He is the editor of the politics blog The Dean's Report. Follow him on Twitter @deanofcomedy.

(CNN) -- The George Zimmerman trial has made one thing crystal clear. When racial issues arise, we tend to unquestionably cheer for our own race like it's a sporting match. There's little regard for the arguments or feelings of those from another race.

Is the racial empathy gap in America growing? It seems so. At least judging by the chatter of comments surrounding the trial.

I heard repeatedly the statement from some Zimmerman supporters -- including a radio show host on Monday morning who is far from being a racist -- that "94% of black murder victims were killed by other blacks."

Dean Obeidallah

So instead of being empathetic to the Martin family -- whose son Trayvon was killed by Zimmerman -- the words discounted the killing by essentially saying that black people kill each other so much so why should we care about this one black kid?

It doesn't end there. There were speculations that there will be riots by the black community should Zimmerman be found not guilty.

As CNN's Don Lemon rightly pointed out Friday, these warnings basically label blacks as "barbarians" who "can't contain themselves."

On the other side, some people of color despicably threatened to harm or even kill Zimmerman after he was acquitted.

Juror: George feared for his life Juror B37: 'It's very emotional' for me

No matter what race you belong to, you have to admit this lack of concern for other races need to be addressed.

Sure, there were people protesting the Zimmerman verdict other than blacks, but overall they were few and in between. (Keep in mind that 75% of America's population is white.)

And when I say we lack racial empathy, I'm not talking about feeling sorry for a race because of their "plight." I mean true empathy -- "the ability to understand and share the feelings of another."

Racial empathy means being able to honestly contemplate what it would be like to be a member of a different race.

Psychologists have noted that this type of empathy fosters conflict resolution. Opening yourself to understanding why the other side believes what it does can help you find common ground.

Of course, this is not easy. It requires you to, at least temporarily, stop self-righteously dismissing competing arguments. You don't have to agree with the opposing views, but you should listen and try to understand them.

But when was the last time you heard leaders of community groups -- regardless of race -- say: "Let's look at from the other side?" I haven't.

A recent important study on racial empathy offers insights on the tangible consequences of our failure to identify with other races. Researchers found that participants believed that black people felt less physical pain when subjected to the same injury as white people because blacks "have faced more hardship."

In other words, the study shows that people are quicker to dismiss the suffering of blacks than of whites because black people have historically suffered more challenges like "higher rates of diseases, disability and premature death." The alarming conclusion is that this leads "to racial bias and potentially disastrous outcomes (e.g., condoning policy brutality against blacks, underestimating and undertreating black patients' pain)."

There's no simple fortune cookie piece of advice out there on how we can become more open and honest. But we can start simple.

How can we increase our racial sympathy? Let's look at issues from the vantage point of another race: Why are they angry? Why are they afraid? What would you feel like if you lived in a community where the crime you see is committed almost exclusively by one race? Conversely, how would you feel if you were repeatedly profiled by the police and society simply because of your skin color?

If we don't get past the knee jerking defensiveness when discussing race, we will likely be burying more Trayvon Martins. Let's try to stop the tragedies before they happen.

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