American Morning
LIVE Blog: Chat with us during the show
Editor's Note: Welcome to American Morning's LIVE Blog where you can discuss the "most news in the morning" with us each week day. Join the live chat during the show by adding your comments below. It's your chance to share your thoughts on the day's headlines. You have a better chance of having your comment get past our moderators if you follow our rules: 1) Keep it brief 2) No writing in ALL CAPS 3) Use your real name (first name only is fine) 4) No links 5) Watch your language (that includes $#&*) 6) Stay relevant to the topic.
Detained U.S. hiker could be freed as early as Monday
Tehran, Iran (CNN) - Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers detained in Iran for more than a year, could be released as early as Monday once $500,000 is submitted to the Iranian judiciary.
"Everything is in place for the release," said lawyer Massoud Shafii, who got to see the hikers for the first time on Sunday. "It's up to the family when to deliver the money."
The official Islamic Republic News Agency reported earlier Sunday that Shourd will be released if bail worth about $500,000 for her is submitted to the Iranian judiciary.
"Naturally she was happy, but her wish is for all three to be released together," said the lawyer, who met the Americans at Tehran's Evin prison after the prosecutor for Tehran's Revolutionary Court announced the offer to release Shourd on bail.
"I saw them and spoke to them," Shafii told CNN. "They were doing well."
Shafii said he doesn't know when exactly the release would take place. Read more.
Hurricane Igor, Tropical Storm Julia churn the Atlantic
(CNN) - Hurricane Igor, which quickly intensified over the weekend, was poised on Monday to become a Category 5 storm - the most-powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale that measures tropical weather.
The storm blossomed into a major Atlantic Ocean hurricane on Sunday with top winds of 150 mph (240 kph), but remained far from land, forecasters reported.
Igor, which started as tropical storm on Saturday, became a powerful Category 4 storm late Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center. Forecasters described it as "large and powerful."
As of 5 a.m. ET Monday, the storm was about 940 miles (1,515 kilometers) east of the northern Leeward Islands and was moving west at about 13 mph (20 kph), the center reported. Read more.
The Muslims who rescued my Jewish Ancestors
Editor's Note: David Levy is a proud U.S. Air Force Veteran. He is also a journalist and a graphic artist who lives in New York City.
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/09/10/muslim.art.jpg caption="Jewish animosity and religious persecution continued for a century and culminated in the Spanish Inquisition in 1478"]
By David Levy, Production
My mother hates the fact that I live and work in New York City, especially when 9/11 comes around. She worries about Islamist terrorists attacking the city again. And yet, she also reminds me I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the moderate Muslims who rescued my Spanish-Jewish Ancestors.
Spanish Jews, or Sephardi, are Jews whose ancestors lived in Spain or Portugal in the Middle Ages until they were persecuted and forced to leave. My father is Sephardic. He came to America from Cuba in the 60's when Fidel Castro took power. My grandparents were born in Turkey, where the Levy family had lived for hundreds of years, ever since sometime around 1492.
Does that year, 1492, ring a bell? Of course, it's the year Columbus set sail for India with ships and money from the Spanish King and Queen, Ferdinand and Isabella. But that's not the only, or even the biggest, historic event in Spain that year. The same Ferdinand and Isabella we know from grade school also ordered the expulsion of Jews from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, in 1492.
FULL POST
About this Show
Welcome to the American Morning blog where you can get daily news updates from American Morning's reporters and producers. Join us for "the most news in the morning," weekdays from 6-9 a.m. ET, only on CNN.
On Twitter
