PORTO SANTO STEFANO, Italy (AP) — A coast guard official says that 70 people unaccounted for after a cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Tuscany might be "in the belly of the ship."

Capt. Cosimo Nicastro said Saturday divers are helping carry out a risky operation to inspect the submerged half of the Costa Concordia in case anyone remained trapped inside.

Nicastro tells Sky TG24 TV there are no firm indications that any one was trapped. But he notes rescuers carried out an extensive search of the waters near the ship for hours and "we would have seen bodies."

He says "the place where they might be is in the belly of the ship."

Three bodies were recovered after the cruise ship with more than 4,200 people aboard ran aground off the tiny island of Giglio late Friday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

PORTO SANTO STEFANO, Italy (AP) – Survivors from a luxury cruise ship that ran aground and tipped over, leaving at least three dead and 69 people still unaccounted for, described Saturday a chaotic evacuation, as plates and glasses crashed and they crawled along upended hallways trying to reach safety.

Three bodies were recovered from the sea after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the tiny island of Giglio near the coast of Tuscany late Friday, tearing a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull and sending in a rush of water.

The ANSA news agency quoting the prefect's office in the province of Grosseto as saying that authorities have accounted for 4,165 of the 4,234 people who had boarded the liner.

By morning Saturday, the ship was lying virtually flat off Gigio's coast, its starboard side submerged in the water and the huge gash showing clearly on its upturned hull.

Passengers described a scene reminiscent of "Titanic", complaining the crew failed to give instructions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many of them to be released.

Helicopters plucked to safety some people who were trapped on the ship, some survivors were rescued by boats in the area, and witnesses said some people jumped from the ship into the dark, cold sea. Coast guard rescuers were continuing to search the ship for passengers.

Authorities still hadn't counted all the survivors by the time they reached mainland 12 hours later.

The evacuation drill was only scheduled for Saturday afternoon, even though some passengers had already been on board for several days.

"It was so unorganized, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 5 p.m.," said Melissa Goduti, 28, of Wallingford, Connecticut, who had set out on the cruise of the Mediterranean hours earlier. "We had joked 'What if something had happened today?'"

"Have you seen 'Titanic?' That's exactly what it was," said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents on the first of two cruises around the Mediterranean. They all bore dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells, trying to reach rescue boats.

"We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing," her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61 said. "We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls."

She choked up as she recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall. "He said 'take my baby,'" Mrs. Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand as she teared up. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her.

"I thought that was the end and I thought they should be with their baby," she said.

"I wonder where they are," daughter Valerie whispered.

The family said they were some of the last off the ship, forced to shimmy along a rope down the exposed side of the ship to a waiting rescue vessel below.

Survivor Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, shivered near the harbor of Porto Santo Stefano, on the mainland, after stepping off a ferry from Giglio. She was wearing elegant dinner clothes – a gray cashmere sweater, a silk scarf – along with a large pair of hiking boots, which a kind islander gave her after she lost her shoes in the scramble to escape. Left behind in her cabin were her passport, credit cards and phone.

Hammer, 65, told The Associated Press that she was eating her first course, an appetizer of cuttlefish, sauteed mushrooms and salad, on her first night aboard her first-ever cruise, which was a gift to her and her husband, Gert, from her local church where she volunteers.

Suddenly, "we heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous," she said.

Several passengers concurred, saying crew members for a good 45 minutes told passengers there was a simple "technical problem" that had caused the lights to go off. Seasoned cruisers, however, knew better and went to get their life jackets from their cabins and report to their "muster stations," the emergency stations each passenger is assigned to, they said.

Once there, though, crew members delayed lowering the lifeboats even thought the ship was listing badly, they said.

"We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side," said Mike van Dijk, a 54-year-old from Pretoria, South Africa. "We were standing in the corridors and they weren't allowing us to get onto the boats. It was a scramble, an absolute scramble."

Passengers Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ontario, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, said they were watching the magic show in the ship's main theater when they felt an inital lurch, as if from a severe steering maneuver, followed a few seconds later by a "shudder" that tipped trash cans over. The subsequent listing of the ship made the theater curtains seem like they were standing on their side.

"And then the magician disappeared," Laurie Willits said, saying the magician left the stage and panicked audience members fled for their cabins as well.

Once at their life boat station, crew members directed passengers to go upstairs from the fourth floor deck; Alan Willits said he refused.

"I said 'no this isn't right.' And I came out and I argued 'When you get this boat stabilized, I'll go up to the fifth floor then," he said. Eventually, his lifeboat was lowered down.

But things didn't improve for passengers once aboard the lifeboats or on land.

"No one counted us, neither in the life boats nor on land," said Ophelie Gondelle, 28, a French military officer from Marseille. She said there had been no evacuation drill since she boarded in Marseille, France on Jan. 8.

As dawn neared, a painstaking search of the 290-meter (950-foot) long ship's interior was being conducted to see if anyone might have been trapped inside, Paolillo said.

"There are some 2,000 cabins, and the ship isn't straight," Paolillo said, referring to the Concordia's dramatic more than 45-degree tilt. "I'll leave it to your imagination to understand how they (the rescuers) are working as they move through it."

Some Concordia crew members were still aboard to help the coast guard rescuers, he said.

Paolillo said it wasn't immediately known if the dead were passengers or crew, nor were the nationalities of the victims immediately known. It wasn't clear how they died.

Some 30 people were reported injured, most of them suffering only bruises, but at least two people were reported in grave condition. Several passengers came off the ferries on stretchers, but it appeared more out of exhaustion and shock than serious injury.

Some passengers, apparently in panic, had jumped off the boat into the sea, witnesses said. Authorities were trying to obtain a full passenger and crew list from Costa, so they could do a roll call to determine who might be missing.

The evacuees were taking refuge in schools, hotels, and a church on the tiny island of Giglio, a popular vacation isle about 18 miles (25 kilometers) off Italy's central west coast. Those evacuated the port of Porto Santo Stefano on the nearby mainland.

Passengers sat dazed in a middle school opened for them, wrapped in wool or aluminum blankets, with some wearing their life preservers and their shoeless feet covered with aluminum foil. Civil protection crews served them warm tea and bread, but confusion reigned supreme as passengers tried desperately to find the right bus to begin their journey home.

Tanja Berto, from Ebenfurth, Austria, was shuttled from one line to another with her mother and 2-year-old son Bruno, trying to figure out how to get back to Savona, where they began their cruise a week ago.

"It's his birthday today," she said of her son, rolling her eyes as she held Bruno and tended to her mother, who had grown faint and was lying on the ground. "Happy birthday, Bruno."

Survivors far outnumbered Giglio's 1,500 residents, and island Mayor Sergio Ortelli issued an appeal for islanders – "anyone with a roof" – to open their homes to shelter the evacuees.

Paolillo said the exact circumstances of the accident were still unclear, but that the first alarm went off about 10:30 p.m., about three hours after the Concordia had begun its voyage from the port of Civitavecchia, en route to its first port of call, Savona, in northwestern Italy.

The coast guard official, speaking from the port captain's office in the Tuscan port of Livorno, said the vessel "hit an obstacle" – it wasn't clear if it might have hit a rocky reef in the waters off Giglio – "ripping a gash 50 meters (160 feet) across" in the side of the ship, and started taking on water.

The cruise liner's captain, Paolillo said, then tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio's small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier. But after the ship started listing badly, lifeboat evacuation was no longer feasible, Paolillo said.

Five helicopters, from the coast guard, navy and air force, were taking turns airlifting survivors still aboard and ferrying them to safely. A coast guard member was airlifted aboard the vessel to help people get aboard a small basket so they could be hoisted up to the helicopter, said Capt. Cosimo Nicastro, another Coast Guard official.

Costa Cruises said the Costa Concordia was sailing on a cruise across the Mediterranean Sea, starting from Civitavecchia with scheduled calls to Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.

It said about 1,000 Italian passengers were onboard, as well as more than 500 Germans, about 160 French and about 1,000 crew members.

The Concordia had a previous accident in Italian waters, ANSA reported. In 2008, when strong winds buffeted Palermo, the cruise ship banged against the Sicilian port's dock, and suffered damage but no one was injured, ANSA said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration Monday rejected Iran's charge that a young Iranian-American man used a family trip to Iran as cover for espionage, after the Tehran government issued the first death penalty against a U.S. citizen since the Islamic Revolution 33 years ago. The U.S. suggested the decision was a political ploy.

In a case that surely will heighten tensions with Tehran, Iran charged Amir Mirzaei Hekmati with receiving special training and serving at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before traveling to Iran on an intelligence mission. A court convicted him of belonging to the CIA and trying to inculpate Iran of involvement in terrorism, according to a state radio report Monday.

The United States denied the accusations. The State Department called them a "complete fabrication" and White House spokesman Tommy Vietor added that "allegations that Mr. Hekmati either worked for or was sent to Iran by the CIA are false."

"The Iranian regime has a history of falsely accusing people of being spies, of eliciting forced confessions and of holding innocent Americans for political reasons," Vietor said in a statement.

The case sheds light on the legal but risky travel of U.S. citizens to Iran, common among many first-generation and second-generation Iranian-Americans but a practice largely hidden to the larger American populace. Thousands are believed to make the trip each year, though the State Department doesn't have firm figures because people must travel through third countries and most dual nationals enter the Islamic republic using Iranian passports.

But the State Department has warned that U.S.-Iranian citizens aren't necessarily any safer than others from the threat of arbitrary arrest. Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the U.S. has issued a series of travel warnings for Americans, with specific references to those holding both U.S. and Iranian citizenship.

"We urge Iranian-Americans to take particular care," Nuland told reporters. Because Iranian authorities don't recognize dual citizenship, they treat any such people arrested as they would other Iranians. The latest U.S. travel warning says Iranian-Americans face "the risk of being targeted" by Tehran and notes that "Iranian authorities have detained and harassed U.S. citizens of Iranian origin."

Hekmati, 28, is a former military translator who was born in Arizona and graduated from high school in Michigan. His family is of Iranian origin, and Hekmati claims dual citizenship. His father, Ali, a professor at a community college in Flint, Mich., has said his son was visiting his grandmothers in Iran.

The Marine Corps said Amir Nema Hekmati served between 2001 and 2005, including a deployment to Iraq in 2004 and a stint at the military language institute in Monterey, Calif. The Marine records do not indicate any deployment to Afghanistan. It was not clear why the middle name was listed differently.

Behnaz Hekmati, Amir's mother, said in an email to The Associated Press that she and her husband are "shocked and terrified" that their son has been sentenced to death. The verdict is "the result of a process that was neither transparent nor fair," she said.

Her son did not engage in any acts of spying or "'fighting against God," as the convicting judge has claimed in his sentence, she said. "Amir is not a criminal. His very life is being exploited for political gain."

The espionage charges against Hekmati are similar to previous prosecutions against Americans who were sentenced to jail time and later freed, including an Iranian-American journalist in 2009 and three U.S. citizens detained along the Iraq border. Iranian prosecutors, however, had stressed Hekmati's links to the U.S. military in calling for capital punishment.

State Department officials said they were unaware of any previous death penalty sentence to an American in Iran.

Nuland said officials were still trying to learn the details of the sentence. If Hekmati was indeed sentenced to death, she said the U.S. would condemn the verdict "in the strongest terms." But she refused to comment on what other measures the U.S. might take in response.

Iran and the United States currently are locked in a period of intense hostility – a situation that augurs poorly for a quick release for Hekmati.

The Obama administration has approved new sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear enrichment program, specifically targeting the regime's central bank and its ability to sell petroleum abroad, though they've yet to come into force. Iran has responded with warnings to American vessels against entering the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway that carries to market much of the oil pumped in the Middle East.

With two countries also at odds over allegations Iran has supported international terrorism, American officials are concerned that Hekmati's case may become a political tool for the Iranian government.

Having imposed the worst possible sentence immediately, Iran now could seek to drag out the case. In past cases Iran has held out the possibility of releasing American prisoners on humanitarian grounds, presumably in the hopes of gaining a counter-concession from Washington. September's release of a pair of American hikers held captive by Iran for two years is the most recent example.

President Barack Obama approved the new U.S. sanctions against Iran on New Year's Eve, despite his administration's fears they could lead to a spike in global oil prices or cause economic hardship on American allies in Europe and Asia that are still importing petroleum from Iran.

The measures affect foreign financial institutions doing business with Iran's central bank by barring them from doing business in the United States. The measures would apply to foreign central banks as well for transactions related to petroleum.

But the sanctions won't take effect for six months. The president also can waive them for national security reasons or if the country in question significantly reduces its purchases of Iranian oil. The State Department says it is trying to implement the law in a way that maximizes pressure on Tehran while causing minimal disruption to the U.S. and its allies.

The White House said the U.S. would work with its diplomatic partners "to convey our condemnation to the Iranian government."

Swiss diplomats, acting on behalf of the United States because Washington and Tehran don't have diplomatic relations, have tried unsuccessfully to gain consular access to Hekmati. Because Iran doesn't recognize Hekmati's U.S. citizenship, it has refused to grant that access.

Casting aside current tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the U.S. Navy on Friday rescued 13 Iranian seamen who were being held captive by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Oman.

A Navy helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, responding to a distress call from a merchant ship under attack by pirates, chased the pirates to their “mother ship,” an Iranian-flagged dhow that had earlier been hijacked.

A heavily-armed counter-piracy team from the Navy destroyer USS Kidd met little resistance when they boarded the dhow where they found 15 armed pirates and the 13 Iranians who were being held hostage. The pirates were taken into custody. The Iranians were set free in their dhow.

A dhow is a type of sailing vessel frequently used for commercial transits in the ( Arabian ) Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean.

This is not the first time that the US navy rescues Iranians . On August 20, 2010 the U.S. Navy rescued eight Iranian fishermen by SS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea and were transferred to an Iranian ship. The Harry S. Truman spotted the Iranian burning vessel and found the Iranians floating in a raft nearby. The carrier dispatched two helicopters to rescue the men, brought them on board and gave them medical attention and dry clothing.

ATHENS, Greece, Nov. 11 (UPI) — Greece's new interim coalition government was put into place Friday, with Lucas Papademos as the prime minister.

Papademos, former vice president of the European Central Bank, was sworn in by the head of the Greek Orthodox Church in a ceremony attended by President Carolos Papoulias.

Papademos and his Cabinet are tasked with getting approval for a European Union bailout package designed to keep the debt-laden country out of bankruptcy, the BBC reported.

The new prime minister said the goal of his transitional government is to keep Greece in the eurozone. He was named prime minister Thursday after negotiations by the country's main political parties.

Former Prime Minister George Papandreou was forced to step aside after calling for a referendum on the eurozone rescue package.

The Socialist Pasok party has retained Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos, while former EU environment commissioner Stavros Dimas of the New Democracy party, was named the new foreign minister, the BBC said.

A Taliban suicide bomber slammed a car packed with explosives into an armored bus carrying NATO troops in Kabul on Saturday. At least 13 American soldiers died in the attack, according to a Pentagon spokesman. The blast incinerated the vehicle and is the latest in a series of recent high-profile attacks in Afghanistan.

Four Afghans were also killed in the explosion, according to officials. Heavy black smoke poured from burning wreckage at the site along the four-lane highway frequently used by foreign military trainers in the southwestern section of the city.

The bus was carrying the troops to a military training center in the west of Kabul, where Parliament and the American University of Afghanistan are also located. In a text message to media outlets, the Taliban said a suicide bomber named Abdul Rahman had 1,540 pounds of explosives packed inside the vehicle, though Afghan officials told reporters the extent of the damage indicated an even larger amount.

It was the deadliest single attack against the U.S.-led coalition since the Taliban shot down a NATO helicopter on Aug. 6 in an eastern Afghan province, killing 30 U.S. troops, most of them elite Navy SEALs, and eight Afghans. The recent increase in spectacular attacks and high-profile assassinations, like that of former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani last month, signal that the Taliban is stepping up its campaign of violence.

It's a blow to efforts by the U.S. and President Hamid Karzai to forge peace with the fundamentalist Taliban movement as NATO plans to withdraw all its combat troops from the country by the end of 2014, with support for the costly war reaching new lows in the West.

Underscoring the difficulties ahead, the brazen assault occurred on the same day that top NATO and Afghan

officials were meeting elsewhere in Kabul to discuss the second phase of shifting security responsibilities to Afghan forces in all or part of 17 of the country's 34 provinces.

Saturday's attack broke a relative lull in the Afghan capital, an area where NATO has already shifted security responsibilities to the Afghans. While checkpoints dot the central part of the city, attacks occasionally take place, with many blamed on the Haqqani network, an al-Qaida and Taliban-linked movement that operates out of Pakistan.

The Taliban also claimed responsibility for another suicide bombing outside a government intelligence office in the northwest province of Kunaron on Saturday; only the bomber was killed.

Abdul Sabor Allayar, deputy provincial police chief, said the guards outside the government's intelligence office in Asad Abad became suspicious of the woman and started shooting, at which point she detonated her explosives. No other casualties were reported in that attack.

In a third attack, a man wearing an Afghan military uniform opened fire on a joint NATO-Afghan base, killing three Australian service members in Uruzgan province, an area in the restive south that is traditionally viewed as the Taliban's stronghold, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi said officials were investigating whether the shooter, who was killed in the incident, was a member of the Afghan army or a militant wearing an army uniform.

Libyans took to the streets to celebrate the end of a brutal era, to mark the historic day that the former strongman, once thought of as untouchable, was gone. They sighed relief that after many months of fierce fighting, the war was over. They had won what had been dubbed one of the Arab Spring's most improbable uprisings.

Mahmoud Jibril, the chairman of the executive board of the National Transitional Council, declared today, October 20, 2011 that Gadhafi is dead.  Today Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi was killed by revolutionary forces who were finally able to overrun his hometown.

Gadhafi ruled Libya with an iron fist for 42 years after seizing power in a bloodless coup against King Idris in 1969, when he was just an army captain.

Also killed were Gadhafi's son Mutassim and the chief of intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, said Anees al Sharif, a spokesman for the National Transitional Council's military arm in Tripoli. (CNN)

President Obama Campaign report to the FEC — In the third fundraising quarter of this year, 606,027 people donated to the campaign–breaking last quarter's record.  Supporters gave more than 766,000 total donations with 98 percent being $250 or less, an average of $56.  Donations totaled more than twice in the same quarter in the historic 2008 campaign. — The Campaign is focused on building infrastructure that will help win in 2012.

The Obama Campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC) far exceeded their goal of $55 million this quarter, combined.  — Together, Obama for America and the DNC raised more than $70 million.  This happened during a summer when the President focused on doing the job he was elected to do.   The Bigger news, as of now, from Obama for America Campaign — 982,967 supporters donated to their campaign.  The Campaign is within striking distance of 1 million fundraising supporters.