Spacecraft inches closer to history

The Mars Orbiter spacecraft prepares for a prelaunch test at Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR in Srihairkota.

The Mars Orbiter spacecraft is pictured attached to the PSLV-C25 launch vehicle, with the heat shield open.

The PSLV-C25 launch vehicle is pictured with the heat shield closed.

Scientists and engineers work on the Mars Orbiter vehicle at the Indian Space Research Organisation's (ISRO) satellite centre in Bangalore on September 11, 2013.

An Indian security forces member watches the PSLV-C25 launch vehicle carrying the Mars Orbiter probe as its payload on October 30, 2013.

Indian bystanders watch a bank of screens showing the live telecast of the launch of India's Mars Orbiter Mission inside a showroom in New Delhi on November 5, 2013.

The PSLV-C25 launch vehicle, carrying the Mars Orbiter probe as its payload, lifts off on November 5, 2013.

• India's Mars Orbiter Mission is expected to enter Mars' orbit Wednesday


• India's spacecraft cost $74 million, a fraction of the $671 million spent by NASA's MAVEN


• Live telecast will be available on ISRO's website


• Entering Mars' orbit is complicated, as nearly half of all attempts have failed

(CNN) -- Just days after NASA's Mars orbiter reached the Red Planet, India's first mission could follow suit and make history Wednesday.

India's Mars Orbiter Mission has been groundbreaking for the country, with a price tag of $74 million, a fraction of the $671 million NASA spent on its MAVEN spacecraft.

If Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan, successfully enters Mars' orbit, India would become the first Asian nation to do so.

Interactive: Exploring Mars from Viking to MAVEN

To date, only the U.S., Europe and the Soviets have successfully sent spacecraft to Mars. But India is also aiming for another record.

India launches mission to Mars

Open Mic: India's Mars mission

It's aiming to be the first country in the world to succeed in its first attempt to enter the Mars orbit, said S. Satish, a space expert based in Bangalore, India.

"It's a great technical achievement for the country," he said.

Once it nears Mars' orbit, the spacecraft will have to execute a series of complicated and critical maneuvers. About half of all spacecraft sent to missions on the planet have veered off course, malfunctioned or crashed.

#MarsOrbiterMission - The plan of action for Mars Orbit Insertion on September 24. http://ift.tt/1wSDmLW

— ISRO (@isro) September 18, 2014

"The trajectory it has to follow is very complicated," Satish said.

The Mars Orbiter Mission will fire a small rocket in the reverse direction, to reduce speed for exactly 24 minutes and 11 seconds capture into Mars' orbit.

A live telecast will be available starting 6:45 a.m. Indian Standard Time (9:15 p.m. EST) on the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) website. The entry into Mars' orbit is expected at 7:21 a.m. in India (9:51 p.m. EST)

The spacecraft launched on November 5, and has traveled over 215 million kilometers to get near Mars. Its mission is to orbit the Red Planet, mapping its surface and studying the atmosphere.

The mission has been freighted with patriotic significance for India since its inception, and is seen as a symbolic coup over its neighbor, China, which is also ramping up its space ambitions.

READ: Is India's Mars mission the latest escalation in Asia's space race?

Once it enters the orbit, India's Mars Orbiter Mission will be in the company of NASA's two Mars rovers on the ground, a European orbiter, and the MAVEN, which has been there since Sunday.

The U.S. has expressed interest in cooperating with India as their spacecraft gather data about the planet.

READ: MAVEN spacecraft enters Mars orbit to explore its climate change

ISRO spent significantly less than NASA on its Mars mission. Some space observers noted that India's Mars orbiter cost less than the $100 million budget for the space thriller "Gravity."

"It shows how optimal is the design, that way we're able to cut cost and we're not compromising quality," Satish said.

CNN's Suzanne Presto and Tim Hume contributed to this report.

What Obama told U.N. about climate

• President Obama gives address on climate change at United Nations on Tuesday


• U.N. Secretary-General hosting world leaders at one-day climate change summit


• Obama administration unveiled climate-change action plan in 2013

(CNN) -- President Barack Obama told a United Nations meeting on Tuesday that pollution must be contained to address climate change.

Specifically, he called out China, saying that the most populous country on Earth, with the fastest increase in carbon pollution, must join the United States to lead the rest of the world in carbon reduction.

"We have a responsibility to lead," Obama said to applause. "That's what big nations have to do."

Obama was speaking at the U.N. Climate Summit, a one-day meeting hosted by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and open to leaders of all 193 U.N. member states.

A man waves a rainbow flag as he marches in New York.

Craziest moments at the United Nations

Wednesday begins the U.N. General Assembly meeting, which has marked climate change as one of its top issues as well.

The event offers Obama a chance to shift the conversation away from the threat posed by ISIS, Ebola, and other national security matters and focus on an issue where he can tout accomplishments.

Hours after ordering strikes on Syria, Obama said that the "urgent and growing threat of climate change" would ultimately "define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other" issue.

Obtaining broad agreement to combat global climate change does not come easy, an issue the President addressed. For instance, China has been reluctant to stem the influx of energy production, as it's in more demand. And in the United States, the issue is controversial, with some claiming to believe that humans don't cause climate change.

"In each of our countries, there are interests that will be resistant to action. In each country there is a suspicion that if we act and other countries don't -- that we will be at an economic disadvantage. But we have to lead," Obama said.

Obama painted a tragic picture caused by a changing climate in the U.S., detailing floods in Miami, wildfires in the West, hurricanes in the north and drought followed by excessive raid in the middle of the country.

Obama noted that some countries are more impacted than others by climate change, but said, "No nation is immune."

Actions announced

The President unveiled a series of actions to urge the international community to cut emissions. He also announced measures to help developing countries better prepare for climate change.

While efforts are still under way to meet and exceed goals set for 2015, the President outlined a partnership plan to meet additional carbon reduction goals by 2020.

"We cannot condemn our children and their children to a future that is beyond their capacity to repair -- not when we have the means, the technological innovation and the scientific imagination to begin the work of repairing it right now," he said. "I believe in the words of Dr. King that there is such a thing as being too late."

Actions taken so far

In June 2013, Obama announced a plan to cut carbon pollution, including directing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish new emission standards for active coal plants in the United States, and working with other countries including China and India -- two of the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases -- to establish new plans for addressing pollution globally.

The plan included many executive actions -- things that don't need approval from Congress, such as new standards for coal plants -- that were controversial.

A year later, in June, 2014, the EPA proposed a new plan designed to cut carbon emissions by 30% by the year 2030. That plan has become a popular subject in several Senate races this year, including West Virginia and Kentucky.

Still to be done

For the environmental community, the next big frontier to tackle is methane emissions -- different from carbon emissions but, environmentalists say, just as important in the fight against climate change.

"For us the big next steps include making a decision to address methane pollution from the oil and gas sector," said John Coequyt, director of the international climate campaign at the Sierra Club, one of the country's oldest environmental organizations. "That's one of the biggest unresolved pieces."

Polling

A demonstration in New York on Sunday featuring appearances from U.N. leader Ban and actor Leonardo DiCaprio, among others, turned out tens of thousands of supporters, but polling indicates that many Americans do not list addressing climate change as an issue they believe should be a top priority for the President and Congress.

A Pew research poll conducted earlier this year found that 29% of respondents listed "dealing with global warming" as a top policy priority -- and that number has remained virtually unchanged since Obama took office in 2009.

And a Gallup poll conducted in March 2014, found that a little under a fourth of Americans -- 24% -- list climate change as a national problem that they worry about "a great deal."

However, when it comes to addressing climate change, polling indicates most Americans back action. A Gallup poll from June found that 65% of those surveyed support the government tightening pollution regulations on businesses.

Bin Laden's son-in-law sentenced

Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, in an image from the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting Center.

• Sulaiman Abu Ghaith gets a life sentence for conspiring to kill Americans, supporting terrorists


• Prosecutors say he aided al Qaeda as spokesman


• He also was a recruiter, helping "restore al Qaeda's trove of new terrorists," prosecutors say

New York (CNN) -- Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday, said Jerika Richardson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan.

In March, he was found guilty of helping al Qaeda terrorists conspire to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorists.

"Justice has been served," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "This outcome ensures that Sulaiman Abu (Ghaith), a senior member of al Qaeda and an associate of Usama bin Laden, will never again set foot outside a prison cell."

The life term was imposed by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Authorities described Abu Ghaith as bin Laden's "propaganda minister" and the "face and voice of al Qaeda in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks."

Osama bin Laden's son-in-law in court

Bin Laden's son-in-law held in New York

At his trial, federal prosecutors said Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti cleric, played a crucial role as the organization's principal mouthpiece and recruiter, helping "restore al Qaeda's trove of new terrorists" as deadly missions turned its members into martyrs.

"He was more than just Usama bin Laden's propaganda minister. Within hours after the devastating 9/11 attacks, Abu Ghayth was using his position in al Qaeda's homicidal hierarchy to persuade others to pledge themselves to al Qaeda in the cause of murdering more Americans," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a prepared statement after the guilty verdict was announced.

Abu Ghaith, 48, was flown to the United States a year ago from Jordan and charged with conspiring to kill Americans.

The government did not allege that he served an operational function or had a direct hand in carrying out the attacks.

Bharara said at the time of Abu Ghaith's conviction: "Like the others who have faced terrorism charges in Manhattan's federal courthouse before him, Abu Ghayth received a fair trial, after which a unanimous jury rendered its verdict, justly holding him accountable for his crimes. We hope this verdict brings some small measure of comfort to the families of the victims of al Qaeda's murderous designs."

In a statement, George Venizelos, assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York field office, likened Abu Ghaith to "a consigliere for the mob or the chief of staff to a corrupt foreign leader" and said he was a "spokesman, confidant and senior adviser" to bin Laden's organization.

Abu Ghaith "looked to better al Qaeda's reputation at every turn, offering advice and counsel to the organization's senior leadership. He encouraged others to abandon the true tenets of their faith, swearing bayat to the twisted ideology of al Qaeda," Venizelos said, using the Islamic word for allegiance.

The trial was held blocks from the site of Manhattan's World Trade Center, and several survivors of the attacks and family members of victims attended.

Bin Laden spiritual adviser

Abu Ghaith testified that he never joined the ranks of al Qaeda and assisted bin Laden only as a speaker on spiritual topics.

Known in the Persian Gulf region as a religious scholar and fiery orator, Abu Ghaith met the al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan in June 2001, according to testimony. He denied advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks but said he'd heard talk that "something big" was about to happen. He moved his family from Afghanistan to Kuwait days before the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Just after the attacks, the al Qaeda leader summoned Abu Ghaith to his remote mountain hiding place and asked him to help "deliver a message to the world" on the organization's behalf, the religious scholar testified.

After his arrest last year in Jordan, activists and legislators sparred over where to try Abu Ghaith, with some calling for the case to be heard in a military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Instead, the trial took place amid extra security measures at the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The jury watched videos produced after the meeting with the al Qaeda leader, of Abu Ghaith making passionate calls for further attacks on Americans, flanked by bin Laden on one side and an AK-47 rifle on the other.

He called for fellow Muslims to "terrorize the infidels" and vowed the "storm of airplanes will not abate," a phrase he said on the stand was given to him in "bullet points" provided by bin Laden for the speeches.

Abu Ghaith's attorney, Stan Cohen, accused prosecutors of using 9/11 imagery in lieu of evidence of his client's guilt and told the jurors that he counted 172 references to bin Laden and 9/11 in the first half of the prosecution's closing argument.

"It was intended to sweep you away in anguish and pain and to ask for retaliation. It was intended to make you look away from the evidence," Cohen told the panel. He said none of the government's witnesses conclusively tied his client to terrorism-related activities, including a terrorism specialist with the FBI and two cooperating former al Qaeda members.

CNN's Lena Jakobsson contributed to this report.

Who has U.S. journalist Austin Tice?

A picture shows freelance photographer Austin Tice in an undisclosed location.

• Freelance journalist Austin Tice has been missing in Syria since 2012


• His parents don't believe ISIS is holding him but don't know who has him


• The Tices have traveled to Lebanon three times to get information

Watch the full interview with Austin Tice's parents on "Erin Burnett Out Front" at 7 p.m. ET.

Houston (CNN) -- For a year after her journalist son went missing in Syria in 2012, Debra Tice kept calling his cell phone. It would ring and ring. Nothing. She would send Austin Tice messages on Facebook. No response.

"It's excruciating," Tice's father, Marc, told CNN on Monday at their Houston home. The void of not knowing what happened to their son or who has him is a "constant presence."

All they know is that he was abducted in a Damascus suburb.

His absence haunts them. When they try to relax and do something normal in life, some small pleasure, there is an immediate feeling that they should be writing another letter, making another call or searching for some thread they haven't pulled that may be hidden in the extensive notes they've accumulated over the years they have searched.

Former U.S. Marine held captive in Syria

Parents of missing journalist speak out

Video appears to show missing journalist

When Debra Tice insists that her son will be found, she speaks firmly, her eyes intently fixed, voice firm and clear.

"There has never been a moment of questioning that he's coming home," she said.

That state of mind keeps despair at bay, and she won't waver from faith.

But could ISIS, the vicious militant group that has beheaded two other American journalists, have him?

The Tices don't know for sure, but say they don't think that's the case.

There has been no communication or ransom requests from the captors to the Tices -- a tactic ISIS has previously used in the abductions of other journalists.

That is what leads the Tices to believe ISIS does not have their son.

Even contemplating a scenario like that is unbearable to them.

"If we start thinking about that ... the pit of despair has no depth," Debra Tice said. "It's an abyss."

Video of Tice

Only one clue has emerged since the disappearance of the 33-year-old, who is also a former U.S. Marine captain.

A shaky 47-second video uploaded to YouTube in September 2012 showed him blindfolded, apparently being walked through rocky terrain by men carrying guns.

Tice was freelancing for McClatchy and The Washington Post, filing stories for them starting in May 2012.

His Twitter posts and pictures on the photo-sharing site Flickr drew thousands of followers.

In July 2012, Tice appeared on CNN's "Global Public Square" to talk about what he saw in Syria. He was then a law student and spending his summer reporting on the war.

He described being embedded with a rebel group fighting to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and seeing that the government's helicopters fly so high it seemed impossible that fighters could aim their missiles. He also said that he witnessed hostile fire that seemed random and badly aimed from al-Assad's tanks and troops.

He was last publicly heard from via Twitter on August 11 of that year, saying that he spent the day with Free Syrian Army rebels who were fighting to oust al-Assad from power.

Tice tweeted that he enjoyed a good time at a pool party.

"They even brought me whiskey. Hands down, best birthday ever," he posted.

Parents on a mission

The Tices have traveled, at their own expense, to Lebanon to meet with people who they felt might help them find their son, they told CNN.

They made three trips to Beirut, they said, and did not want to specify exactly whom they talked with, referring only to "folks" in "channels that are credible."

They said the most complete information they've received about their son -- including that he is alive -- has come from sources other than those in the United States. They have worked to cultivate those sources.

But the Tices want to be clear. They aren't concerned with changing policy. They have a singular focus.

"We want to get our son home safely," Debra Tice said.

A 'strong guy'

The Tices have talked to people who have been held hostage and freed. The parents are comforted to hear how much it means to those former captives when they realize how hard and constant their families' fight to find them was.

"It's about faith," Debra Tice said.

Marc Tice said his son is a "strong guy" with a "strong mind, a strong body," which gives him confidence that whatever his son is enduring, he will somehow find a way through.

Austin Tice loves the people of the Middle East, his parents said. Since he was a child, he has been curious. He wanted to know how people lived. He wanted to explore the world.

He felt compelled to go to Syria because he was frustrated hearing time and again, during media coverage of the civil war, that reports could not be verified.

Al-Assad often blocked foreign journalists from covering the conflict and many journalists steered away from the war because the violence was so intense and often directed at them.

"He thought, 'Really, I have the ability to stay safe,'" Marc Tice said.

His son, he said, felt it was a "calling" to go.

CNN's Ed Lavandera and Elwyn Lopez conducted this interview in Houston. Ashley Fantz wrote the story in Atlanta.

White tiger mauls visitor at zoo

A white tiger rests in a pond at the Zoological Park in New Delhi in 2009.

• NEW: The victim was a man aged 19 or 20 from New Delhi, police say


• The visitor "jumped into the tiger's enclosure," the zoo director says


• Cell phone video appears to show the tiger grabbing the man by his neck, mauling him

New Delhi (CNN) -- A day out turned to tragedy Tuesday when a white tiger in a New Delhi zoo mauled a visitor to death, an official said.

The attack happened around lunchtime after the visitor "jumped into the tiger's enclosure," zoo director Amitabh Agnihotri told CNN.

At a police briefing on the case, Mandeep Singh Randhawa, a deputy police commissioner, said the victim was a man aged 19 or 20 from New Delhi.

Only his first name, Maqsood, has been released so far.

Oklahoma zoo tiger mauls employee's arm

Local media earlier reported that he appeared to be a teenage schoolboy.

The tiger apparently grabbed the visitor by his neck, dragged him to a corner and mauled him, a cell phone video played out on local television networks showed.

Eyewitnesses who spoke with reporters gave a similar account of the attack and accused zoo security of a slow response.

"Instead of focusing on saving that person's life, the security was focusing on shooing away the crowds who had gathered there," an unnamed woman visitor said in televised comments from outside the zoo.

Family settles lawsuit in mauling death of boy at zoo

Afghan soldiers in U.S. face charges

• The men have been placed into removal proceedings


• They went missing after a trip to a Massachusetts mall


• The men were caught by Canadian Border guards

(CNN) -- Three Afghan National Army officers, who disappeared while guests of the U.S. military at a training exercise in Massachusetts, are being charged with immigration violations.

The men disappeared Saturday and reappeared Monday in the custody of Canadian border guards.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement took custody of the three Tuesday morning, Massachusetts ICE spokesman Daniel Modricker told CNN.

Three missing Afghan soldiers in custody

They are being charged with administrative immigration violations and have been placed into removal proceedings, the spokesman said.

Maj. Jan Mohammad Arash, Cpt. Mohammad Nasir Askarzada and Cpt. Noorullah Aminyar were caught by Canadian border guards at Rainbow Bridge, a checkpoint on the border at Niagara Falls. They went missing after a trip to a mall.

Authorities have said they posed no threat to the public.

The men arrived in the United States on September 11 for the annual Exercise Regional Cooperation and were quartered at Joint Base Cape Cod, according to the Massachusetts National Guard. The training included troops from six nations.

CNN's Leigh Remizowski contributed to this report.

Uncle Sam's auditors carry guns

A small provision of the Homeland Security Act allows certain federal regulators and auditors to carry firearms.

• The audit arm of civilian agencies employ armed investigators


• The USDA just bought 85 "submachine guns"


• Congress doesn't know what weapons the agencies have

Washington (CNN) -- Thanks to the war on terror, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's audit arm has 85 shiny new submachine guns, locked and loaded.

A small and mostly forgotten provision in the behemoth 2002 Homeland Security Act turned federal auditors, famous for investigating nonviolent financial crimes into gun-toting sworn officers.

At 73 federal agencies and departments, independent sub-agencies called the Offices of the Inspector General, or OIGs, conduct oversight, perform audits and enforce laws.

It is that last function that led the USDA to order the .40-caliber "submachine guns" in May. A spokesman for USDA OIG told CNN that these "semi-automatic" weapons were acquired on September 9, 2014.

The Department of Education's OIG put out a similar purchase order in 2010 for 27 shotguns.

Surprisingly, Congress does not know how many and what type of weapons the agencies have been stockpiling, according to Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah.

He wants a Governmental Accountability Office report on the issue and has introduced legislation this year to strip the OIGs of their guns.

"Americans don't see why dozens of federal agencies need their own highly armed police forces with the authority to raid homes and businesses," Stewart told CNN.

So why do meat inspectors and civil servants processing crop insurance claims need automatic weapons? "Regarding the need for weapons' procurements, OIG's Investigations division conducts hundreds of criminal investigations each year, some of which involve OIG agents, USDA employees, and/or members of the public facing potentially life threatening situations," USDA Deputy Counsel Paul Feeney said.

But USDA did not have those law enforcement powers prior to a 2002 law meant to correct for the poor law enforcement coordination prior to September 11.

One of the unforeseen changes was section 812 that turned the Inspector General offices into law enforcement agencies.

Prior to that, Inspectors General had to ask for special permission -- citing specific need to carry firearms -- from the U.S. Attorney General. These were granted on an ad hoc basis and almost universally, but they had to be renewed. The 2002 Homeland Security Act codified these law enforcement powers and the right for agents of the Inspectors General to carry firearms.

The agencies efforts to stock weapons and ammunition caught the eye of curious lawmakers in 2013 when the House Oversight Committee held a subcommittee hearing.

The hearing revealed that the Social Security Administration has 290 investigators who carry firearms, but for the past two decades, those agents have only fired their guns twice in the line of duty.

But agencies are getting some use of their police gear.

Last year, the EPA launched a criminal investigation into an Alaskan gold mine for potential violations of the Clean Water Act. They sent 10 officers (five from the EPA OIG who carried shotguns) in bulletproof vests, according to a review of the incident by the state of Alaska. No charges have been levied.

In 2011, the FDA conducted armed raids of an Amish farm searching for raw-milk related infractions.

In justifying the need for Social Security's audit arm to carry guns, SSA's Inspector General Patrick O'Carroll cited a standoff with a murder suspect. But O'Carroll acknowledged Kentucky State Police accompanied Social Security's agents in that pursuit.

Rep. Stewart thinks that law enforcement-specific agencies should take the lead, not regulators. "When there are genuinely dangerous situations involving federal law, that's the job of the Department of Justice, not regulatory agencies like the FDA or the Department of Education," Stewart said.

Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, whose members have been raided by the FDA, said agents have even pointed their guns at unarmed food producers suspected of permit violations.

"These people don't need their own enforcement teams."

"They have the U.S. Marshals at their disposal, if there really is a problem," Kennedy told CNN.

USDA's Inspector General office confirmed to CNN that the majority enforcement actions -- arrest and search warrants -- are done in conjunction with another federal, state or other law enforcement agency.

According to a 2012 report by the Department of Justice's statistics arm, there were over 3500 gun-wielding agents assigned to the various Offices of Inspector General as of 2008, including 52 at NASA, 34 at the Small Business Administration, six at the National Science Foundation, and 28 at the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government's HR wing.