Mississippi Shootout Kills One Police Officer, Wounds Another, Manhunt Continues; Huge Blast in Volgograd Station; Michael Schumacher in Coma After Injury; Michael Schumacher in a Coma; This Week in Sports
ROSA FLORES, CNN ANCHOR: And just to give you some perspective for folks in America, when it comes to success and popularity, he is the equivalent of Richard Petty in NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Senior or Jimmy Johnson. Again, we will bring you more details as they become available. And just ahead, we're following several more big, developing stories as hundreds of thousands of athletes and tourists prepare to head to Russia, a train station there is hit by suicide bomber. Sixteen people are dead. Plus, still trapped, and making the best of it. But when will a ship frozen in the Antarctic ocean finally go home? And more than a million Americans lose unemployment benefits. What do they do next? We'll take a look just ahead. But, first, the FBI says the coast-to-coast crime spree of a violent bank robber ended today. We don't know what he looks like. But the entire town Tupelo, Mississippi knows what he allegedly did, gunning down one of their police officers, a military veteran, during the getaway in the middle of the day. Officer Gale Stauffer has been laid to rest. Now, his widower says she can begin to heal because his reported killer can no longer hurt anyone else. Instead of lying low as nationwide manhunt intensify he allegedly robbed another bank in Arizona and ended up dead. Phoenix police are holding a news conference right now. And CNN's Alexandra Field is tracking the story from our New York bureau. And Alexandra, how did this suspect die?</s>ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rosa, the FBI says he was killed in a shootout with Phoenix Arizona police. His death putting to an end the nationwide manhunt. It started Monday. A gun fight in Tupelo, Mississippi left one police officer critically injured, another killed. Police say a man who tried to robbed a Tupelo bank opened fire on the officers before taking off. Police then linked that suspect to an attempted bank robbery in Atlanta, Georgia earlier that morning after almost a week on the lookout for the suspect, police close in on him Saturday in Phoenix when they say he was walking out of the bank during a gun and a bag of money. They say he fired at two officers who are not hurt. One of the officers fired back, killing him. The FBI is linking suspect to the robberies in three states and the death of Tupelo officer Gail Stauffer. His widow spoke this morning thanking police.</s>BETH STAUFFER, OFFICER GALE STAUFFER'S WIDOW: We can truly began a healing process and that cannot had happened without the hard work of</s>FIELD: At this time, the FBI says it is not looking for any additional suspects related to those robberies or the death of officer Stauffer -- Rosa.</s>FLORES: And Alexandra, what else do we know about this suspect?</s>FIELD: Well, right now, Phoenix Arizona police are actually holding a press conference. We are expecting to learn the suspect's name. We'll bring you any details coming from that press conference just as soon as we have them.</s>FLORES: And we want to update you on something we just received this information into the CNN NEWSROOM. The name of that suspect, we are told, is Mario Garnet (ph). Again, that is Mario Garnet (ph), the name of that suspect that we're looking at. You're looking at surveillance video. We have not been able to identify that suspect, but we have that name now. And I know that Alexander Field is going to be getting more information for us from that press conference. And we will bring it to you as soon as it becomes available. Two competing theories on the cause behind last year's deadly attack in Benghazi are likely both wrong. That is according to the "New York Times." An in-depth report by the paper finds al-Qaeda probably was not involved in the assault that killed four Americans. Nor was the attack sparked solely by an anti-Muslim video as initially suggested by the Obama administration. Instead, the report suggests independent Libyan militias played a key role. The conclusion parallels CNN's previous reporting, but nonetheless, garnered reaction today on Washington's handling of the matter.</s>REP. DARRELL ISSA (R), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: The initial reports did not name this video as a prime cause. There was a small piece of information on a cable, they seized on it along with a lot of other information and chose to use that as a talking point.</s>FLORES: And we should add that 15 months after the attack, there are still no arrests. Just weeks before the start of the winter Olympic games, a strain station in Russia turns into a scene of</s>DIANA MAGNAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rosa, a huge blast in Volgograd</s>VLADIMIR MARKIN, HEAD, RUSSIA'S INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE (through translator): According to available information, the explosion was carried out by the female suicide bomber who saw a police officer next to her on the way to the metal detector. She became nervous and activated the explosive device. Preliminary, the explosion was equivalent to 10 kilograms of TNT.</s>MAGNAY: Two months ago in the same city of Volgograd, another female suicide bomber blew herself up on a bus killing six people. Now, this phenomenon of the female suicide bomber, Black Widows as they're called, is a hallmark of the fighting, the Islam has been insurgency that's raging in Russia's north caucus region. And that is very close again to the area where the Sochi Olympics will start in just a few weeks time. Security there obviously extremely tight around Sochi and itself. But this region is big. Volgograd is around 400 miles away from Sochi. And also a little more than 400 miles away from Dagestan, the most troubled part of the north caucuses. In a video message in July, one of the biggest Chechen war lords who is Russia's most wanted man,</s>FLORES: All right, Diana Magnay, thank you so much. Torturous weather is hampering the rescue of dozens of people stranded off the coast of Antarctica. Seventy-four people are anxiously awaiting a rescue from an expedition vessel that's been stuck since before Christmas in miles and miles of frozen ocean. Hours ago, an Australian ice breaker which is within 28 nautical miles of that vessel, but was forced to a halt by blinding snow. The groups made up researchers, crews, and tourists are documenting every single moment of their stay.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Remember what we before we left? Alicia is tagging some amazing pictures which we put in here for you. And what you really have, we miss you very, very much but we're having a great time with lots of really good work and working on the seals and</s>FLORES: A Chinese ice breaker is also in the area, but thick ice frozen froze its attempts to rescue. And we are following again that breaking news right now. We're working to get more details on the condition of legendary formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher. Our latest information is that he is in a coma following a very bad skiing accident in the French Alps and his condition is critical. Michael Schumacher needed emergency brain surgery due to what we're told is severe head trauma. Let's get Mark McKay in here. He is with CNN's sports. And you kind of give us a sense of who he is when it comes to sports.</s>MARK MCKAY, CNN SPORTS: Rosa, he is -- Yes, well, I can say that he is the best, the top Formula 1 driver in history of that sports around the world, one of the most recognizable athletes certainly around the world. He made his Formula 1 debut racing in 1991 claiming a record seven world titles by the time of his first retire in 2006. He won five of those titles with the Italian racing force known as Ferrari. He returned to Formula 1 in 2010 but he struggled with a German Mercedes racing team then he retired for a second time last year. He is one of these athletes, Rosa, that transcends his sport. He is certainly one of the most recognizable and popular athletes in his native, Germany, certainly through Europe. And Formula One, with its end roads around the world. I would say he is one of the most popular and well-known athletes in the world.</s>FLORES: Now, compare this to U.S. NASCAR, for example.</s>MCKAY: Well, Formula 1 is a sport that has had trouble making end roads of the United States off and on. So these drivers, well, they may not walk around in the streets of New York or Los Angeles, if you recognized anywhere else. They go around the world. People know them. Formula 1, a huge sports. Schumacher now stepping away from this sport and taking part in one of his love, skiing. He was skiing Sunday morning in the French resort of Mirabelle when this accidents occurred. He apparently was wearing a helmet, but still suffered the traumatic head injury which now season tonight's in France, in a hospital in France, Rosa, in a critical condition.</s>FLORES: Now, comparing to Richard Petty, Jimmy Johnson, perhaps.</s>MCKAY: Well, this guy is Formula One. He is the top driver. The most well known, certainly the winningest driver in the history. No one has won seven world titles in Formula 1. So, to call him a legend, Rosa, that would not be an understatement.</s>FLORES: All right, Mark McKay, thank you so much for giving us some perspective.</s>MCKAY: We'll continue to follow the story.</s>FLORES: We definitely will as we get more details about his condition, we'll definitely update them. And hopefully, you'll be back.</s>MCKAY: I will be happy to.</s>FLORES: All right, thank you so much. Now, to politics. In just a moment, my next guest will have to pull out their political crystal ball. We're going to ask these experts what we can expect out of Washington in 2014. Neither of our guests have been told what we'll ask and we've got a couple of surprises for them, I should say. And, also, just ahead, still trapped, but putting on a brave face as passengers of a ship frozen in the Antarctic ocean wait for rescue. All of that and more coming up next.