2:National story

Obama, McCain meet face-to-face

(CNN) -- President-elect Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain met Monday for the first time since the presidential election to talk about how they can work together on problems facing the country.

John McCain, left, and Barack Obama meet at Obama's transition office in Chicago.

McCain arrived at Obama's transition headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, at around 11 a.m.

Obama aides said the president-elect was expected to focus on common ground issues, like climate change and ethics reform, in Monday's meeting.

The two were not expected to talk about any possible Cabinet position for McCain, according to both McCain and Obama advisers.

"We're going to have a good conversation about how we can do some work together to fix up the country, and also to offer thanks to Sen. McCain for the outstanding service he's already rendered," Obama told reporters shortly before the meeting got under way.

Asked whether he would help Obama with his administration, McCain responded, "Obviously." Watch what to expect at the meeting »

The meeting comes as Obama is trying to fill out his Cabinet with the most capable people and show he can reach across party lines.

In Obama's first television interview since the election, he told CBS' "60 Minutes" that the global economic crisis provides an opening for the two parties to come together.

"You actually have a consensus among conservative, Republican-leaning economists and liberal, left-leaning economists. And the consensus is this: that we have to do whatever it takes to get this economy moving again, that we're going to have to spend money now to stimulate the economy," Obama said on the program, which aired Sunday.

The last time Obama and McCain appeared together was in a debate during the bruising campaign season.

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They were joined Monday by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, and Obama's new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Ed Rollins, a Republican strategist and CNN contributor, said he expects the former rivals to "bury the hatchet" when they meet.

"I think John McCain can serve a very important role as a liaison in the Congress to Republicans, and I think he'll be willing to do that," Rollins said.

Obama last week met with two former rivals for the Democratic nomination -- Sen. Hillary Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson -- about the secretary of state position in his administration, sources told CNN.

Rollins said Obama's meeting with Clinton "makes the Democratic Party very powerful."

"I think it shows Barack Obama's a bigger man than most people in the sense that he's willing to take the person who gave him a real race for his money into his Cabinet," he said.

Obama's transition team has made public some key staff appointments, but no Cabinet positions have been announced.

Republicans have praised the prospect of Clinton becoming secretary of state.

Henry Kissinger, who was secretary of state in the Nixon and Ford administrations, said Clinton would be an "outstanding" selection, Bloomberg News reported.

GOP Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona told Fox News, "She's got the experience; she's got the temperament for it."

And California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told ABC it would be a "great move."

A new poll suggests that most Americans are confident that the president-elect will make the right decisions when it comes to picking his top officials.

Forty-three percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday morning are very confident that Obama will make the right choices, with 34 percent somewhat confident and only 23 percent not confident.

"Obama is having the kind of honeymoon that no president-elect has had in at least 30 years," said CNN polling director Keating Holland. "It's no surprise that Americans have a positive view of anything Obama might do -- at least until he does something controversial."

Asked which appointment will matter the most to the country's future, 41 percent said the secretary of the treasury; 25 percent said secretary of state; 24 percent, secretary of defense; and 8 percent named the attorney general.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted November 6 to 9, with 1,246 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The transition team over the weekend announced several White House appointments.

Peter Rouse, Obama's chief of staff in his Senate office, will serve as a senior adviser to the president.

Mona Sutphen will serve as a deputy chief of staff. Sutphen is a member of the transition team staff and has been managing director of Stonebridge International LLC, an international strategic consulting firm based in Washington.

Jim Messina was also named a deputy chief of staff. Messina is currently the director of personnel for the president-elect's transition team. He served as a national chief of staff for Obama's presidential campaign.

Also, a longtime friend of the Obamas, Valerie Jarrett, was officially named Saturday as a senior adviser to the incoming president.

Obama, in a statement released Saturday morning by his transition staff, announced that Jarrett will serve as senior adviser and assistant to the president for intergovernmental relations and public liaison.

Jarrett is currently co-chair of Obama's transition team and was senior adviser for his presidential campaign.

1: International Story

BEIJING, China (CNN) -- A subway tunnel collapse in eastern China over the weekend killed at least seven people and 14 others remain missing, state-run media reported late Monday.

The 75-meter section of a tunnel in Hangzhou collapsed Saturday.

The search continues for the missing, believed to be trapped at the collapsed subway construction site in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province, the Xinhua news agency reported.

The collapse injured 24 people, all of whom were initially hospitalized, Xinhua said. As of late Monday, 11 had been released.

The accident happened at 3:20 p.m. Saturday when a 75-meter-long section of the subway tunnel under construction collapsed at the Fengqing Avenue in Xiaoshan District.

The company overseeing the project, China Railway Construction Group, has stopped all of its subway construction in the city pending safety checks, said Bai Zhongren, vice president of the company.

2: National story

Car bomb kills Israeli crime boss

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- A car bomb killed one of Israel's most prominent crime bosses in Tel Aviv Monday, Israeli police sources say.

Police at the scene of the car bomb blast which killed crime boss Yaakov Alpheron.

Police say Yaakov Alperon was killed instantly when an explosive device was apparently detonated by remote control on a busy street in Tel Aviv.

The blast injured two other people, including a 13 year-old boy.

Head of one of Israel's most notorious crime families, Alperon is the most senior figure to be killed and the latest casualty of ongoing mob wars that have left scores of innocent people dead. In the past these mob-style hits have led to more revenge attacks.

1: National Story

FBI agent Donald Bain was sitting in his car in a parking lot with two other agents. He was armed and wore a Kevlar vest. He was also carrying a "flash-bang" grenade, a nonlethal weapon that emits a bright flash and deafening bang that's used to shock and disorient criminal suspects or the enemy in combat situations.

The three agents -- Bain, Thomas Scanzano and James Milligan -- were waiting for developments on a kidnapping that had turned into a hostage stakeout.

That's when, Bain says, the flash-bang grenade in his vest just blew up.

"The car is on fire," Bain recalled. "I was told later I was on fire. Smoke billowing in the car. It was obviously chaos."

Scanzano remembers "it was like being in combat. There was smoke and fire in the vehicle, and I knew that we were in trouble."

An ambulance rushed the three agents to a nearby hospital.

"To me, it felt like someone just whacked me in the back with a baseball bat as hard as they could," said Bain, recalling the incident, which happened four years ago.

Bain suffered severe bruising, a concussion and burns to his neck and ears. All three agents said they have experienced hearing loss.

"There was smoke, and it was like a grenade going off in the car," Scanzano said.

The company that manufactured the flash-bang grenade that Bain used is Pyrotechnic Specialties Inc., also known as PSI, based in Byron, Georgia.

Earlier this year, PSI, its chief operating officer, David Karlson, and three other defendants were indicted for fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. According to the federal indictment, PSI had a $15 million contract to supply flash-bang grenades to the military before it supplied them to the FBI.

The indictment states the company knew its flash bangs were defective and even knew how to fix those flaws, which would have cost PSI $3.72 per unit.

But, according to the indictment, many of the defective grenades the military was using were relabeled and then sold to the FBI and other local law enforcement agencies.

"In order to sell diversionary charges which had been rejected by, and were otherwise unacceptable to the Department of Defense, the defendants developed a scheme and artifice to defraud, and attempt to defraud, the United States of America, as well as state and local law enforcement agencies," the indictment states.

In a court filing, PSI's attorneys state the "indictment is lacking in detail, vague and/or confusing, however, either in regard to what particular conduct by PSI or Mr. Karlson is alleged to be wrongful; or what particular laws, regulations, rules or other authorities rendered any alleged conduct by PSI or Mr. Karlson wrongful, as well as many other areas."

CNN tried to speak with Karlson at PSI headquarters, but he would not comment. PSI attorney Craig Gillen also declined to comment.

The criminal trial is scheduled to begin in January in Macon, Georgia. No court date has been set for the civil lawsuits.

"It drives me crazy," Scanzano said. "I don't sleep. I have tremendous headaches. I have the doctors claim severe hearing loss, but for all practical purposes, I'm deaf in my left ear."

Andrew J. Stern, a Philadelphia attorney, has filed civil suits against PSI on behalf of the three FBI agents.

"I don't know how someone looks themselves in the mirror every day in light of the kind of things that have happened here," Stern told CNN.

Stern has also filed a civil lawsuit against PSI on behalf of Dean Wagner, a master sergeant in the Army who also said he was seriously injured by a flash-bang grenade that he says prematurely detonated and was manufactured by PSI.

An emotional Wagner told CNN he was days away from finishing his second tour in Iraq when he was putting away his flash bangs. One of them exploded, severely damaging his right hand. The injuries were so severe that he ended up having his hand amputated.

Wagner said PSI officials have no idea how the incident has affected his life.

"They don't have a clue what it's like," Wagner said. "If they could experience that, or someone close to them would have to go through that experience, I'm sure it would be a different story and maybe they wouldn't have allowed it to happen."

1: Local Story

Last week, the 13-year-old Warren resident, who is an eighth-grader at Coastal Christian School in Waldoboro, became the first person to bag a moose in Waldo County in 73 years.

Patrick Krennerich

The youngster bagged the 1- to 2-year-old cow, which weighed 550 pounds, at 4:15 p.m. Nov. 3 in Freedom using a 30-06 rifle. The moose was tagged by Paul Flynn at the Freedom General Store. Guide Steve Cole of Thorndike helped Krennerich bag the moose. Krennerich's dad, Nate Fickett, also was on the hunt.

This fall there were 45 moose permits awarded in Wildlife Management District 23, the first time the zone that includes Waldo County has received moose permits since 1935. Krennerich's moose was the first tagged in the county for this season, thus the first in 73 years.

Krennerich was on the first of a several-day hunt with his guide and dad.

"It was enormously exciting for us," said Flynn of tagging the historic moose. "Having [the hunter] be a 13-year-old boy was even better."

Cole operates Spruce Mountain Lodge and Guide Service in Thorndike. Krennerich and Fickett found him via an Internet search. Cole's involvement in the successful hunt was to use a moose call and get Krennerich into an area to find moose.

And what was Krennerich's initial reaction to shooting the moose? "Well after he got done squealing he was pretty happy," said Cole. "It was pretty exciting. We hunted all day and didn't see anything and once it did happen it lasted just a few seconds."

Krennerich has gone deer hunting with his dad for about two years, but had not gotten any animal himself until this moose. This is the second year the youngster applied for a moose permit.

In June, there were about 100,000 applicants for about 3,000 moose permits issued in the state, with only 45 going to the area Krennerich got his moose. Krennerich and his dad would have gone on a hunt by themselves if the youngster's permit was in the northern part of the state, which has plenty of moose. That is not the case in Waldo County, which has a much less dense population of the large animals.

Patrick Krennerich, 13, of Warren kneels next to the moose he bagged Nov. 3 in Freedom. It was the first moose tagged in Waldo County since 1935. The one- to two-year-old cow, which weighed 550 pounds, was shot at 4:15 p.m. using a 30-06 rifle. This fall there were 45 moose permits awarded in Wildlife Management District 23, the first time the zone that includes Waldo County has received moose permits in 73 years. The moose was tagged by Paul Flynn at the Freedom General Store. The other moose tagging station in Waldo County is in Liberty. Guide Steve Cole of Thorndike helped Krennerich bag the moose. Krennerich's dad, Nate Fickett, also was on the hunt. (Image courtesy of Nate Fickett)

The plan was to hunt for the entire week, if necessary, but, as fate would have it, only one day was needed for Krennerich to realize success. The hunt in WMD 23 is for all of November.

Krennerich, his dad and the guide hit the woods early in the morning Nov. 3 and spent the day tracking and calling for moose. Krennerich said he could hear moose, mostly cows, "talking" back to the group, but did not see any animals. Bulls (males) and cows (females) respond differently to calls.

The group sat near one bog for a couple of hours but got cold and decided to keep moving. "It was a long day," Nate said. "It started really cold. The frost was on the ground until noontime. The spot we got the moose was one we hunted earlier in the morning and that was the spot the guide really wanted us to concentrate on because that is where he had seen all the tracks when he did his scouting the week prior."

The guide's hunch proved the perfect formula to hunting success.

The guide began to make moose calls and the group could hear responses. Krennerich heard a bull, which is what he wanted (his permit allowed him to hunt both males and females). "There was a bull chasing the cow because you could hear it and you could see the trees moving and thrashing around," Nate said.

Still waiting for a chance to bag the bigger prize, Krennerich momentarily had his gun pointed at the cow, which had come out of the woods and appeared on a dirt road. However, the youngster still scanned the woods for a chance to see — and shoot — the bull.

Nate and the guide encouraged Krennerich to shoot the cow because, with so few moose in WMD 23, no one knew how many chances they would get. So Krennerich shot the moose twice from 30 yards.

"I was more excited than he was," Nate said.

Patrick Krennerich, front, shakes hands with guide Steve Cole after the successful hunt. (Image courtesy of Nate Fickett)

Krennerich was more matter-of-fact in his response, saying he was just happy to get the moose that the group had gone into the woods and spent all day to find. "If I had a bull tag I would have gone after the bull," the youngster said.

Ultimately, Krennerich's name was drawn for a moose permit out of thousands of applicants and he was lucky enough to get his moose on the first day of his hunt.

Krennerich plans to go deer hunting during the Thanksgiving break. He also hopes to get a turkey during fall or spring turkey season, and he and his dad are planning a bear-hunting trip with Cole for next year.

While this was Krennerich's first personal hunting success, Krennerich has many fish stories to tell, the best being when he caught a 7.5-pound largemouth bass while fishing on Seven Tree Pond in Union two years ago.

"That was really cool," Krennerich said. "I thought I was stuck on a log and then it started moving." He decided to catch and release the fish. "I figured I would like to catch him again but that probably is not going to happen."

Krennerich did not have a camera to take a photo of the fish.

That Krennerich would experience his historic first moose this fall is perhaps fitting on many levels. First, he is a young man with an unwavering passion for the outdoors, including hunting and fishing. He loves being out in nature.

Krennerich is an avid golfer and, in winter, spends as much time as possible on his snowmobile. He has climbed Mount Katahdin three times, the first when he was age 10.

For a school project on mummies, Patrick Krennerich has all the ingredients needed to begin the mummifying process on a roaster chicker.

Krennerich also has dealt with personal challenges during his young life. He is a cancer survivor. He also is civic minded, being recognized by Sen. Susan Collins a few years ago for being one of several local children to take the initiative to raise money and replace their school's worn flag, said his mother, Kelly Fickett.

Krennerich has been through his share of challenges. When he was 6 months old, he was diagnosed with cancer in the form of a malignant neuroblastoma tumor behind his right lung. "They found it after he had viral pneumonia that made his right lung collapse," said his mom. "They were monitoring the lung via regular x-rays and when it had reinflated, they saw the mass behind it. He had major surgery to remove the nectarine-sized tumor and then endured six months of chemotherapy. At the time, this form of cancer was universally fatal if diagnosed after one year of age. He is now completely cancer free, but does still undergo yearly echocardiograms and EKGs to check his heart for late affects of his chemotherapy. So far, nothing has shown up."

The tumor did, however, leave a lasting impact on Krennerich as it pushed on his spine and left a curve in it. That curve puts constant pressure on Krennerich's nerves, which, in turn have left him with migraine headaches, which occasionally can be debilitating. Sometimes the youngster has to spend 10 to 12 hours in bed, and the headaches often leave him physically ill.

Krennerich was homeschooled through the fourth grade. He then enrolled in public school in fifth grade and was immediately pushed ahead to the sixth grade.

While in sixth grade at the Warren Community School, Krennerich and a friend were given the responsibility of raising and lowering the flag every day. In the course of these duties, they noticed the flag was worn and took it upon themselves to raise money and make arrangements to purchase a new flag, which they also arranged to have flown over the United States Capital Building. Sen. Collins came to the school to honor them and had a special ceremony to raise the new flag.

Krennerich loves history and wants to be an archaeologist when he grows up, but is having trouble deciding which part of history to focus on — perhaps either Egyptian or Civil War. Last year he wrote a science paper and choose mummies as his topic. He wrote about all of the different kinds of mummies and even mummified a small roaster chicken to go with the paper.

Krennerich has many collections — coins, stamps, sports trading cards — but his most prized collection is hundreds of books. He has many old books. He enjoys historical fiction and westerns, especially those by author Louis L'Amour. Everywhere he goes, he always has two books with him, the one he is reading at the moment and an extra in case he finishes it.

His grandfather, Howard Vultee of Camden, who used to be an avid hunter, gave Krennerich one of his most prized possessions, a head mount of a grants gazelle from Africa. Vultee calls the youngster a "renaissance man."

Krennerich also loves to go banding wild birds with his uncle Richard Brown of Lunenburg Mass, who is a professor ornithology (study of birds) at Atlantic Union College in South Lancaster, Mass.

Krennerich, who hopes to someday go on a hunting safari, also has a passion for building model airplanes and automobiles.

1: Same Sex Marriage: Adam & Eve? or Adam and Steve?

I don't know how I feel about same sex marriage. I mean, it's their choice who they want to marry and I'm fine with that. I'm just not exactly sure how I feel about it though. I do know some people that are gay/lesbian, but I just don't know.

2: same sex marriage:Adam & Eve or Adam & Steve

I think that same sex marriage is wrong i don't think that boys should be able to have a baby and i don't think that people should be able to marry the same sex ether.