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VIDEO: Today's Headline News from Associated Press

MUTED AFTER 9/11, NSA CRITICS FIND THEIR VOICE

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After 9/11, there were no shades of gray. There are plenty now.

 

The vigorous debate over the collection of millions of Americans' phone records, underlined by a narrow House vote upholding the practice, buried any notion that it's out of line, even unpatriotic, to challenge the national security efforts of the government.

 

Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, joined in common cause against the Obama administration's aggressive surveillance, falling just short Wednesday night against a similarly jumbled and determined coalition of leaders and lawmakers who supported it.

 

It's not every day you see Republican Speaker John Boehner and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi facing off together against their own parties' colleagues - with an assist from Rep. Michele Bachmann, no less - to help give President Barack Obama what he wanted. But that's what it took to overcome efforts to restrict the National Security Agency's surveillance program.

 

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush warned the world "either you are with us or you are with the terrorists," period, and those few politicians who objected to anything the U.S. wanted to do for its national security looked like oddballs.

 

MORMON MISSIONARY DESCRIBES SURVIVING TRAIN WRECK

 

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A young Mormon missionary from Utah who was among the survivors of a deadly Spain train crash has been discharged from the hospital.

 

Speaking by phone from La Coruna, Spain, Stephen Ward said Thursday he counts himself among the very lucky to have lived through the derailment Wednesday that killed 80 people.

 

The 18-year-old Bountiful man says he blacked out after he felt the train lift up from the tracks like a roller coaster. When he regained consciousness, he thought he was dreaming.

 

He soon realized it was real when he noticed his face was caked with blood and he heard the cries and screams of other injured people. He says he also saw dead bodies.

 

Ward arrived in Spain six weeks ago to start a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

 

Stephen Ward has spent countless hours in hospitals already in his life, his father said. At 14, he was diagnosed with a rare cancer known as Burkitt's lymphoma. He had to have a bone marrow transplant and nearly died two or three times, his father said.

 

"Not many people come that close to death twice before age 20," his father said. "I'm just grateful that he's alive and that's he my son."

 

AFTER GRIPPING BRITAIN, 'BROADCHURCH' TO HIT US

 

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) -- Another popular British TV series is getting exported to the U.S. to hopefully grip American viewers.

 

"Broadchurch" is a murder mystery drama centered on the killing of a young boy in a small town.

 

Cast members Olivia Colman, Jodie Whittaker and David Bradley promoted the show at Thursday's BBC America presentation as part of the annual Television Critics Association summer press tour. "Broadchurch" also stars David Tennant of "Dr. Who" fame.

 

The actors shot most of the series' eight episodes not knowing who the killer was, or if any of them would end up as the perpetrator.

 

"We had bets going on all the way through. In our makeup van we had everybody's photograph up and you put a sticker on who you thought it was," said Colman who plays a detective. "I only got one and I was disappointed," she joked.

 

"Broadchurch" premieres August 7 on BBC America at 10 p.m. EDT/PDT.