Madonna stalker on the loose

While Madonna was away from her home and in Florida later that year, he scaled the perimetre wall there, jumped into her pool and was eventually shot twice by a security guard.

A man who was convicted of stalking and threatening pop star Madonna in the 1990s walked away unnoticed from the California mental health facility where he was being held and remains at large, Los Angeles police said on Thursday. 

Robert Dewey Hoskins, 54, was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in 1996 after being arrested for scaling a wall around the singer's home in the Hollywood Hills and threatening to slit her throat. 

Madonna testified during Hoskins' trial that she had nightmares about the homeless man from Oregon after seeing him near her home in 1995. 

She said her bodyguard told her Hoskins claimed she was supposed to be his wife, and ''if he couldn't have me, he was going to slice my throat from ear to ear.'' 

While Madonna was away from her home and in Florida later that year, he scaled the perimetre wall there, jumped into her pool and was eventually shot twice by a security guard. 

Upon his release from prison, Hoskins was sent to a California hospital. He was eventually let go but was arrested again in July 2011 and sent to a different health facility in the Los Angeles-area community of Norwalk. 

Hoskins walked off undetected from that hospital last Friday and has not been seen since. Police describe him as highly psychotic with violent tendencies when not taking medication.  

 Madonna stalker on the loose

Civil War still divides Americans - CNN.com

Civil War still divides Americans - CNN.com ... Republicans were also most likely to say they admired the leaders of the southern states during the Civil War, with eight in 10 Republicans expressing admiration for the leaders in the South, virtually identical to the 79 percent of Republicans who admired the northern leaders during the Civil War

CNN Associate Producer Gabriella Schwarz contributed to this report.

It has been 150 years since the Civil War began with the first shots at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, and in some respects views of the Confederacy and the role that slavery played in the events of 1861 still divide the public, according to a new national poll.

In the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll released Tuesday, roughly one in four Americans said they sympathize more with the Confederacy than the Union, a figure that rises to nearly four in ten among white Southerners.

When asked the reason behind the Civil War, whether it was fought over slavery or states' rights, 52 percent of all Americas said the leaders of the Confederacy seceded to keep slavery legal in their state, but a sizeable 42 percent minority said slavery was not the main reason why those states seceded.

"The results of that question show that there are still racial, political and geographic divisions over the Civil War that still exists a century and a half later," CNN Polling Director Holland Keating said.

When broken down by political party, most Democrats said southern states seceded over slavery, independents were split and most Republicans said slavery was not the main reason that Confederate states left the Union.

Republicans were also most likely to say they admired the leaders of the southern states during the Civil War, with eight in 10 Republicans expressing admiration for the leaders in the South, virtually identical to the 79 percent of Republicans who admired the northern leaders during the Civil War.

The survey polled 824 adults via telephone between April 9 and April 10. The poll had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

 Civil War still divides Americans - CNN.com