Sarkozy, Royal in presidential runoff

PARIS, France (CNN) -- Right-wing candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist rival Segolene Royal will face each other in a presidential run-off after they came through a first-round vote on Sunday, preliminary results showed.
According to numbers from the French Interior Ministry, Sarkozy earned 31.11 percent of the votes, while Royal won 25.83 percent.
Turnout was the highest in more than 40 years, and appeared to fall just short of the record for first-round voting set in 1965.
Because of the close margin, they will face a run-off on May 6.
Centrist Francois Bayrou, one of four main contenders, won 18.55 percent of the votes while far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen took 10.51 percent, according to the ministry.
Royal will become France's first woman president if she wins.
Official results from the election that drew a huge turnout were expected later on Sunday evening.
An IPSOS opinion poll released late on Sunday suggested Sarkozy would win 54 percent of votes in the second round and Royal would secure 46 percent.
Sarkozy told cheering supporters on he wanted to rally the French people behind a "new dream." (Watch Sarkozy talking about his vision )
"My dear compatriots, I want only one thing: to gather the French people around a new French dream," he told supporters at his UMP party.
France must now choose between two visions of society in the second round, Sarkozy said.
"By placing me in the lead and Madame Royal in second position, (voters) clearly marked their wish to have a definitive debate on two ideas of the nation, two projects of society, two value systems," he said.
Sarkozy's dream was one of "a fraternal republic where no-one will be afraid."
"I want to say to all the French who are afraid, that I want to protect them against violence, against delinquency, against unfair competition, against outsourcing," the former interior minister said.
Royal called for voters to rally round her, promising to bring France change without upheaval. (Watch Royal's speech after the result was announced )
"I call on all those who ... believe it is possible to reform France without brutalizing it, who want a triumph of human values over the stock market, who want an end to the painful rise of insecurity and precariousness, to come together," she told a rally in central-western France.
"Many of us -- regardless of the first round -- do not want a France ruled by the law of the strongest or the most brutal, sewn-up by money interests, where all powers are concentrated in the same few hands.
"I reach out to all those who believe it is not only possible but urgent to break with a system that is no longer working," Royal said.
Unprecedented interest
The vote has generated unprecedented interest in France, at a time when the country has been beset by economic and social problems.
With incumbent Jacques Chirac standing down after 12 years in office, candidates have tried to assert their credentials as part of a new generation of politicians eager to reshape the troubled country's traditional ways of life.
But observers say the main contenders have often struggled to define policies setting them apart from their rivals despite dynamic campaigning.
Interior Ministry figures showed that 84.48 percent of France's 40 million voters cast ballots. Such a figure would near the record of 84.8 percent set for a first round in 1965, according to The Associated Press.
Observers say the next president will inherit a nation on the brink of an economic crisis, struggling with national identity and coping with a poverty-stricken immigrant community still reeling from the 2005 youth riots.
In Sarkozy and Royal, voters face a clear choice between a right-wing program based on free-market ideas and a left-winger promising to safeguard the country's "social model."
Also running in the election were three Trotskyites, a Communist, a Green and anti-capitalist campaigner Jose Bove. The other two are a hunters' rights candidate and the Catholic nationalist Philippe de Villiers.
CNN correspondent Jim Bittermann said the campaign had been fierce compared to previous presidential races.
"It has been a really intense campaign, probably more so than usual," he said.
Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Blue Angels jet crashes during air show, killing aviator

(CNN) -- A jet flying in formation with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels precision flying team crashed into a Beaufort, South Carolina, neighborhood, causing an "enormous fireball" during an air show, authorities said.
The Navy aviator was killed, Beaufort County Coroner Curt Copeland said. The F/A-18's pilot is the only known fatality. The aviator's name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin.
William Winn, the county emergency management director, told The Associated Press that eight people on the ground were injured. The extent of their injuries was not known.
Officials announced that Sunday's scheduled air show will go on but that the Blue Angels will not take part.
A Navy statement said the aviator had been on the team for two years -- and it was his first as a demonstration pilot. The accident was under investigation, the statement said.
Fred Yelinek told CNN he saw the crash occur about a mile from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, which was holding the two-day show. He said the jet came down about 100 yards from him with an "earth-shattering rumble."
Yelinek said the jet struck a stand of pine trees, and pieces of the plane hit homes, but he didn't see any catch fire. The pieces were "as big as a hand but no larger," he said. (Watch Yelinek describe how the plane struck trees )
The Associated Press described the crash site as a neighborhood of small houses and trailers.
Photos from the site showed a street littered with debris, some of it resembling blown-out tires, and nearby trees on fire with smoke trailing away. There were no large pieces of debris.
Pieces of a tree and the plane crashed into the home of a neighbor, Yelinek said, but she was uninjured. Pieces also hit other houses and smashed car windshields, he said.
"Most people were very shaken but unhurt," the witness said.
"I was working on a pump in the yard across the street from the initial impact, and I heard the Blue Angeles go over ... in a full, tight formation," Yelinek said.
"And then, four or five minutes later, I hear them coming again, expecting to see pretty much the same thing. But I didn't hear any strange noises. And then it was the crashing sound of pieces of the airplane coming through the trees in the yard across the street."
"And then a huge fireball, maybe 200, 300 yards further on down. The debris started from the first impact with a pine tree, which was maybe 100 yards from my location."
"Part of the tree and the debris went through a house in that yard, then the main body of the airplane continued on about 300 more yards and hit about one city block further down at the intersection of Shanklin and Pine Grove roads.
"There's a lot of houses on all four corners of that intersection. And there was a lot of fire at that intersection, and continuing thereafter."
Another witness, Gerald Popp, said the six jets had been flying for about five minutes before one of them turned south, toward the Broad River.
"I saw him go down lower than the trees, and next I saw a big black cloud of smoke," said Popp, who also lives in Beaufort.
Pam and Bill Edwards said they were watching the air show from the media stand when they realized something was terribly wrong.
"It was right at the end of the air show ... we counted four planes landing, and there was one circling in that smoky area right over the crash site," Bill Edwards said. "I looked around the sky, and there was nothing else there. Then we saw the emergency helicopter go up, and we automatically assumed the worst at that point."
Justin Cooke, an off-duty air traffic controller at the base, told CNN that some of the runways used in the air show are near military base housing, which gets constant flyovers from the base's jets. But he said he didn't think the jet crashed into the base housing area.
"From my understanding, northeast of base housing is a residential area," Cooke said.
Although he was unable to confirm the jet had struck there, he said "one of my Marines said the power was out temporarily, and stuff had knocked off their walls from the impact" of the crash.
While the cause of the crash is unknown, he mentioned that birds pose a frequent problem to jets flying in the area, and can cause a crash.
"On an F-18, you have two motors, and if they take [a bird] in the engine, it could cause engine failure and shut that down," he said. He said the plane is capable of flying in excess of 450 mph.
The aerobatic maneuvers were to be repeated Sunday as part of the Low Country Blues Festival. The show also featured other aerial demonstration teams and civilian and military aircraft displays.
CNN meteorologists said the weather in Beaufort, which is near Savannah, was clear.
The last crash involving the Blue Angels was in 1999 in south Georgia. Two aviators were killed when their F/A-18 jet crashed while trying to land during a training flight.

Bells toll in honor of Virginia massacre victims

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- Four days after the deadliest shooting on a U.S. college campus, Americans remembered victims of the Virginia Tech massacre with moments of silence and the tolling of bells.
Crowds stopped what they were doing Friday to gather silently throughout the university grounds. Forming a sea of school colors, orange and maroon, most mourners stood and listened solemnly, some embraced each other.
In addition to the day of mourning, which was declared by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, school alumni have organized a "Hokie Hope" day, asking all alumni, students and friends of the school to wear the university's colors.
A salesperson at the Christianburg, Virginia, Wal-Mart said Hokie merchandise has been in high demand this week, as shipments continued to arrive at the store.
Amid the remembrances, Virginia Tech President Charles Steger announced that classes will resume on Monday.
"We will move forward in a way that will honor the memory of those we have lost," said Steger in a letter to students.
At noon, mourners will pause for a bell-ringing and a moment of silence across the university grounds, including the Drill Field, where a makeshift memorial honors the 32 students and faculty who were killed. Mourners continued to gathered at the memorial Friday morning.
Some of them wrote messages of hope, love and support on large boards that had been moved beneath tents due to Thursday's rain. Nearby, a handful of students relit candles. (Honoring the victims)
Reading the messages on the boards moved many visitors to tears.
"I'm glad I hugged you at our last practice," read one message to slain student Reema Samaha, a dancer. (Watch how the memorial has become the campus' center of gravity )
Another victim, engineering professor Kevin Granata, will be remembered at a public memorial service at 2 p.m. ET at the Blacksburg Presbyterian Church.
Granata was the father of three children: two sons, ages 13 and 12, and a daughter, 10. (Read how Granata was a top biomechanics researcher working on cerebral palsy)
Source: Cho fired more than 100 rounds
A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation confirmed Friday that Cho Seung-Hui, who police blame for the massacre, fired more than 100 shots during his rampage. Most victims were shot at least three times, the official said. Cho is believed to have used two pistols during the attack. The official said Cho used "a lot" of clips of ammunition during the shootings.
A woman who was wounded in the attack left Montgomery Regional Hospital on Thursday night, leaving a total of eight other gunshot victims recovering in three area medical facilities. The hospital expects to release one or two more patients later Friday or early Saturday, a spokesman said.
Kaine has invited communities across the nation to organize their own ceremonies Friday to remember those killed in the nation's worst shooting spree.
Memorial services were scheduled in cities across the nation, including Arlington, Texas; Seattle, Washington; Georgetown, Kentucky; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Washington.
Candlelight vigils were set for Santa Monica Beach, California; Vancouver, Washington; Middletown, Pennsylvania; Charleston, West Virginia; and St. Mary's City, Maryland.
Bells will toll to honor the victims across the states of Georgia and Colorado at 12 p.m. ET, and residents are being asked to observe a moment of silence.
The observances coincided with Friday's eighth anniversary of the massacre by two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. (Read more about how Colorado plans to join Friday's day of mourning)
For some, sorrow was mixed with anger, not only at Cho for his rampage and his multimedia screed, but also at the media for airing his last recorded words and images.
News outlets were urged to focus on the victims of the shootings rather than the twisted ramblings of the man who gunned them down before killing himself as police closed in.
Peter Read, father of victim Mary Read, pleaded for media outlets to stop broadcasting the images that Cho mailed between the day's two shooting incidents.
"It's a second assault on us," he said. "It's a second assault on our children. Please put the focus back where it belongs: on these wonderful, vibrant, young human beings who were bringing so much to this world." (Watch how the airing of Cho's messages sparked an uproar )
Great-aunt calls Cho 'idiot'
In 2005, Cho was declared mentally ill by a Virginia special justice, who found he was "an imminent danger" to himself, a court document states. (Read more about "the kid who never spoke")
Cho's great-aunt, Kim Yang-soon, described Cho as "very cold" and said her niece was constantly worried about him, according to a translation from The Associated Press.
"Who would have known he would cause such trouble, the idiot," Kim said from her home in South Korea.
Cho's family left South Korea when he was 8 years old, settling in Centreville, Virginia. Some there said that Cho was picked on in his younger years, but that he wasn't alone in that respect.
"We called him the trombone kid, because he would just walk with his trombone all alone," Centreville resident John Williams said, adding that Cho was so quiet that he was an "easy target."
But experts said that Cho's messages provide evidence of a much bigger problem.
"The grandiosity, the persecutory beliefs that he expressed certainly are consistent with psychosis that we usually will see as part of a mental illness," said Dr. Todd Cox of Johns Hopkins University. (Watch why warning signs don't always predict behavior )
In the messages he mailed to NBC, Cho referred to the two students responsible for the Columbine killings in 1999 as "martyrs."
Law enforcement agencies across the nation have received about a dozen copycat threats to schools across the country in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre, according to the FBI.
The university said Thursday that it will award posthumous degrees to the slain students at the scheduled May 11 commencement.
Copyright 2007 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nigeria: 25 militants killed in fighting

KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Nigerian security forces killed 25 Islamic militants in an all-day battle on the outskirts of the northern city of Kano on Wednesday, authorities said.
Troops surrounded the militants in the Panshekara district of the city early on Wednesday after they had burned a police station and killed 13 officers in an ambush a day earlier. (Full story)
Sustained bursts of automatic gunfire were audible at a military checkpoint on the edge of the Panshekara district. A fighter plane swooped over the area repeatedly and a column of black smoke rose into the sky.
"The army has discovered the enclave of militants and we are pushing them back. We have killed many of the militants," army Brig. Gen. Kenneth Agbola Vigo said, adding that he expected to complete the operation by nightfall.
A senior police officer said 25 militants were killed.
"In total you have 25 militants killed: 22 in the battle zone and three shot by police outside the perimeter," the officer said, asking not to be named.
The three in the second group were killed after they shot at police from a moving car. Officers recovered 10 million naira ($78,000) from the car, the officer added.
Thousands of residents fled from the area.
The police officer said some soldiers had also been killed in the battle, but there was no official confirmation.
The heavily armed militants burned down a police station on Tuesday, wounding two officers, and then ambushed and killed 13 police who came to investigate.
Residents said the militants were avenging the assassination of a hardline Muslim cleric at a mosque in Kano on Friday, which they blamed on the government.
The Secretary-General of Jama'atu Nasril Islam, Nigeria's largest Muslim organization, said the militants, who use names such as "Taliban" and "al Qaeda", were not a recognized group.
"They use Islamic names to scare people and show their anger. Police should not be a target," Abdulkadir Orire said.
Kano has seen several bouts of ethnic and religious bloodshed in the past few years, and tensions are running high in the city of 6 million because of flawed state elections held on Saturday and a presidential vote on April 21.
It was not clear if the latest violence was election-related.
The attack was the second on a police station in northern Nigeria's biggest city in a week. Attackers killed a divisional police officer in the Sharada district last week, but the motive for that incident was not clear.
Kano is one of 12 northern Nigerian states which introduced sharia law in 2000. The move by state governors alienated Christian minorities and sparked violence.
Southern Nigeria is predominantly Christian.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Professor: Shooter's writing dripped with anger

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (CNN) -- A year and a half before before Cho Seung-Hui went on a deadly shooting spree on the campus of Virginia Tech, a professor was so concerned about his anger that she took him out of another teacher's creative writing class and taught him one-on-one.
The former chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department, Lucinda Roy, said the anger Cho expressed was palpable if not explicit.
Cho, an English major, never wrote about guns or killing people,, she said. But his writing was disturbing enough that she went to police and other university officials to seek help. (Watch the professor tell how her student frightened her )
"The threats seemed to be underneath the surface," she said. "They were not explicit and that was the difficulty the police had."
"My argument was that he seemed so disturbed that we needed to do something about this."
Without a clear threat, nothing could be done, however, and Roy made the decision to instruct him away from other students.
"I just felt I was between a rock and a hard place," she said. "It seemed the only alternative was to send him back to the classroom, and I wouldn't do it."
While teaching Cho one-on-one, Roy said she "made it clear that that kind of writing was unacceptable and he needed to write in another voice."
She also said that she encouraged Cho to go to counseling, and believed that he may have "gotten tired of hearing it" and begun to tell her he had been going when, perhaps, he had not.
Cho was an intelligent student, Roy said, but he left students and professors alike unnerved in his presence.
Police say Cho killed at least 30 people and wounded 17 others before killing himself in Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building, Monday.
According to a search warrant, police found a note in Norris Hall containing a bomb threat directed at engineering buildings on the campus. During a three-week period before the shootings, the university received two other bomb threat notes, and police are investigating to see if those threats were related to the shooting. (Watch how the note threatens engineering buildings)
It's also believed the 23-year-old student killed two other people earlier that day in a dormitory on campus. (Watch how some are asking why warnings weren't issued sooner )
Virginia Tech Police Chief Wendell Flinchum said ballistics tests show that one of the two guns recovered at Norris Hall was used at the dorm. (Watch what police were looking for in Cho's room )
'Twisted, macabre violence'
Ian MacFarlane, who said he had class with Cho, called two plays Cho wrote "very graphic" and "extremely disturbing."
MacFarlane provided a copy of the writings to AOL where he is an employee. (Read MacFarlane's blog and the two plays)
"It was like something out of a nightmare," MacFarlane wrote in a blog. "The plays had really twisted, macabre violence that used weapons I wouldn't have even thought of.
"Before Cho got to class that day, we students were talking to each other with serious worry about whether he could be a school shooter."
Cho paid $571 for a 9 mm Glock 19 pistol just over a month ago, the owner of Roanoke Firearms told CNN Tuesday. He also used a .22-caliber Walther pistol in the attack, police said. (Interactive: The weapons used in the shootings)
John Markell said Cho was very low-key when he purchased the Glock and 50 rounds of ammunition with a credit card in an "unremarkable" purchase.
Cho presented three forms of identification and did not say why he wanted the gun, Markell said. (Watch how quickly these guns can be fired, reloaded )
State police conducted an instant background check that probably took about a minute, the store owner said.
Markell said he was shocked when three agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms arrived at his store Monday with the receipt for the weapon.
Shooter's note
Cho did not leave a suicide note, according to Col. Steve Flaherty, superintendent of the Virginia State Police. (Watch Flaherty describe the scene after the shootings )
However, ABC News reported that other law enforcement sources said Cho did leave some kind of note in his dorm room. It contained an explanation of his actions and states, "You caused me to do this," ABC News reported.
It also railed against "rich kids," "debauchery" and "deceitful charlatans" on campus, according to the Chicago Tribune. (Note indicates Cho was angry at "rich kids")
Authorities are still investigating whether Cho had any accomplices in planning or executing Monday's rampage, Flaherty said.
Cho, a resident alien from South Korea, lived at the university's Harper Hall, Flinchum said.
"He was a loner, and we're having difficulty finding information about him," said Larry Hincker, associate vice president for university relations.
Governor not ready to talk gun control
Tuesday, after an emotional convocation service on campus attended by President Bush, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine announced that at the university's request, he was appointing an independent panel to review Monday's tragedy.
"It is a very important thing, and a standard thing, that a thorough after-action review be done, both on the event and the response, so that we can learn all we
However, Kaine said he wasn't interested in arguments about gun control.
"People who want to take this within 24 hours of the event and make it their political hobby horse to ride, I've got nothing but loathing for them," Kaine said at a Tuesday evening news conference.
"To those who want to try to make this into some little crusade, I say: Take that elsewhere. Let this community deal with grieving individuals and be sensitive to those needs."
As questions continued to arise about how police reacted to the first shooting at the dorm, university President Charles Steger on Tuesday defended the response, saying police believed it to be "a domestic fight, perhaps a murder-suicide" that was contained to one dorm room.
Police cordoned off the 895-student West Ambler Johnston dorm and all residents were told about the shooting as police looked for witnesses, Steger said.
Authorities were still investigating what they believed was an "isolated incident" when the slaughter started at Norris Hall.
"I don't think anyone could have predicted that another event was going to take place two hours later," Steger said, adding that it would've been difficult to warn every student because most were off campus at the time. (Watch a student's recording of police responding to loud bangs )