Haiti

LOS ANGELES -- Two years after a deadly earthquake knocked Haiti to its knees, signs of progress can be hard to come by.

More than a half million homeless still live in squalid camps rife with violence. The cholera epidemic that ravaged the country after the disaster continues to kill. And despite the best efforts of the newly elected government, only half the rubble choking the once-teeming streets of Port-au-Prince has been cleared.

MIAMI -- In what may be his first public statement since onetime nemesis Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier showed up in Haiti, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said he is "ready" to return to his troubled homeland.

Aristide, a two-time head-of-state, wrote a letter from South Africa, according to his former foreign press liaison, Michelle Karshan. Copies were e-mailed to a list of undisclosed recipients and it is now circulating on the Internet.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The investigation is just beginning into what caused a Boeing C-17 to crash and burn on Elmendorf Air Force Base Wednesday evening, killing all four crew members and damaging nearby Alaska Railroad tracks that carry passenger and freight trains.

WASHINGTON -- An eighth grader from Florida won the National Geographic Bee on Wednesday with the help of a question about Caribbean neighbor Haiti.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The last of 10 Americans detained while trying to take 33 children out of Haiti following the Jan. 12 earthquake was released Monday after a judge convicted her and sentenced her to the time she had already served in jail.