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(CNN) — He’s a former British Open champion but Ben Curtis’ fall from grace has been such that the Valero Texas Open was only the fourth tournament he’d scraped a place in this season.

But after securing his first PGA Tour victory in six-years on Sunday, and scooping the $1.1 million prize pot, the 34-year-old can stop praying for the phone to ring to offer him a shot at redemption.

His status had sunk to such an extent he had lost his Tour privileges but after holding his nerve over a tense few final holes, he secured a two-stroke victory over Matt Every and John Huh.

“It’s been a tough couple of years,” an emotional Curtis told the PGA Tour’s official website. “Just played through it, that’s all you can do.

“You think you’re just staying positive and not worried about it, but I think deep down, you realize all the hard work you put in that, you know, finally paid off.”

Curtis was catapulted into the limelight when he won the first major tournament he competed in — the 2003 Open at Royal St George’s. It was the first time a player had won on a major debut in 90 years.

He was named PGA Tour rookie of the year that same season, and four further victories followed up to 2006. But his form dipped and so began a drought that lasted 2,045 days.

Last year, he failed to record a single top ten finish for the first time since he joined the Tour.

“That’s a long time,” he added. “The last couple of years I felt like I was so close to playing so many good tournaments.

“I’d end up missing the cut by one or I’d have a bad round here or there or I haven’t putted well. Finally, every part of the game came together.”

Curtis showed he still has the mettle required to get over the line in a dramatic final few holes. He saved par on the 17th hole with a nerveless 23-foot putt.

Then on the final hole he rolled in a birdie putt to finish on nine-under and claim the tournament by two clear strokes.

“When you come out here and win one, well, if I win one every year I have a great career. That would be true,” Curtis said.

“But, you know, to get to three, four, five wins — you’re a solid player. I just feel like you get yourself into contention and just have that belief, and anything can happen.”

His victory secured Curtis a two-year Tour card and almost certainly means he will qualify for the lucrative FedExCup Playoffs at the end of the season.

After restoring his pride, Curtis is determined to make the most of his reinstated privileges too, which means he can play in all but a few tournaments on the 2012 Tour.

So where will he begin? “New Orleans next week,” he replied.

(CNN) — It is perhaps the most iconic sports photograph ever taken.

Captured at the medal ceremony for the men’s 200 meters at the 1968 Mexico Olympics, U.S. sprinter Tommie Smith stands defiantly, head bowed, his black-gloved fist thrust into the thin air.

Behind him fellow American John Carlos joins with his own Black Power salute, an act of defiance aimed at highlighting the segregation and racism burning back in their homeland.

It was an act that scandalized the Olympics. Smith and Carlos were sent home in disgrace and banned from the Olympics for life. But they were treated as returning heroes by the black community for sacrificing their personal glory for the cause. History, too, has been kind to them.

Yet few know that the man standing in front of both of them, the Australian sprinter Peter Norman who shocked everyone by powering past Carlos and winning the silver medal, played his own, crucial role in sporting history.

On his left breast he wore a small badge that read: “Olympic Project for Human Rights” — an organization set up a year previously opposed to racism in sport. But while Smith and Carlos are now feted as human rights pioneers, the badge was enough to effectively end Norman’s career. He returned home to Australia a pariah, suffering unofficial sanction and ridicule as the Black Power salute’s forgotten man. He never ran in the Olympics again.

“As soon as he got home he was hated,” explains his nephew Matthew Norman, who has directed a new film — “Salute!” — about Peter’s life before and after the 1968 Olympics.

“A lot of people in America didn’t realize that Peter had a much bigger role to play. He was fifth (fastest) in the world, and his run is still a Commonwealth record today. And yet he didn’t go to Munich (1972 Olympics) because he played up. He would have won a gold.

“He suffered to the day he died.”

An obscure pick

Peter Norman grew up in a working-class district of Melbourne. As a youngster he couldn’t afford the kit to play Australian Rules Football, his favorite sport. But his father managed to borrow a secondhand pair of running spikes, and his talent for sprinting was quickly recognized. Yet Norman was still an obscure pick when the 28-year-old arrived in the high altitude of Mexico City. It was the first time he had run on an Olympic standard track, and he thrived in the thin air.

“I could feel my knees bouncing around my chin,” Norman said in “Salute!”

“It lengthened my stride by about 4 inches!”

It was events off the track that had dominated the lead-up to the 1968 Olympics. In the U.S., the civil rights movement fought running battles with the police and army across America against segregation and racism. Both Martin Luther King Junior and Robert Kennedy had been assassinated and the Vietnam War was raging.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, hundreds of protesting students were massacred in the run-up to the Games. The regime covered up their deaths as the athletes arrived.

Australia too, was in the midst of racial strife. The country’s “White Australia” policy had provoked protests of its own. It put heavy restrictions on non-white immigration — and a raft of prejudicial laws against its indigenous aboriginal population, including a policy of taking Aboriginal children from their birth parents and handing them to white couples for adoption, a practice that continued until the 1970s.

Unexpected threat

Although Norman was a staunch anti-racism advocate, no one expected him to take a stand in Mexico. The Australian Olympic Committee had laid out just three rules for him to follow. The first was to repeat his qualification time before the Games.

“Rule number two: don’t finish last in any round,” Norman recalled.

“Third, and under no circumstances, don’t get beaten by a Pom (a British runner).”

Norman had previously been ignored by the U.S. team, who had assumed they’d win a clean sweep of medals in the 200 meters, but he burst on to their radar when he broke the Olympic record in one of the early heats.

“When I first saw Peter, I said, ‘Who’s this little white guy?’ ” Carlos told CNN.

He would soon regret the oversight. When the 200 meters final arrived, all eyes were on the U.S. duo. Smith was expected to win easily (“You wouldn’t be able to catch him on a motorbike,” was Norman’s assessment) but the speculation centered on what political gesture the American athletes might make on the podium.

The starting pistol was fired and Smith powered to gold. But out of nowhere Norman stormed down the last 50 meters, taking the line before a shocked Carlos. Norman’s time of 20 seconds flat would have won gold four years later at the Munich Olympics and at the Sydney Games in 2000.

A fateful decision

Smith and Carlos had already decided to make a statement on the podium. They were to wear black gloves. But Carlos left his at the Olympic village. It was Norman who suggested they should wear one each on alternate hands. Yet Norman had no means of making a protest of his own. So he asked a member of the U.S. rowing team for his “Olympic Project for Human Rights” badge, so that he could show solidarity.

“He came up to me and said, ‘Have you got one of those buttons, mate,’ ” said U.S. rower Paul Hoffman. “If a white Australian is going to ask me for an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge, then by God he would have one. I only had one, which was mine, so I took it off and gave it to him.”

The three men walked towards their destiny. The medals were handed out before the three turned towards the flags and the start of the Star Spangled Banner.

“I couldn’t see what was happening,” Norman said of that moment.

“I had known they had gone through with their plans when a voice in the crowd sang the American anthem but then faded to nothing. The stadium went quiet.”

The fallout was immediate for Smith and Carlos, who were sent home in disgrace. Norman was never given the chance to go a step closer. He was never picked to run in the Olympics again.

“I would have dearly loved to go to Munich (but) I’d earned the frowning eyes of the powers that be in track and field,” he said in “Salute!”

“I’d qualified for the 200 meters 13 times and 100 meters five times (but) they’d rather leave me home than have me over there (in Munich).”

Shunned in his own country?

Norman retired from athletics immediately after hearing he’d been cut from the Munich team. He would never return to the track. Neither would his achievements count for much 28 years later when Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics.

“At the Sydney Olympics he wasn’t invited in any capacity,” says Matthew Norman.

“There was no outcry. He was the greatest Olympic sprinter in our history.”

In his own country Peter Norman remained the forgotten man. As soon as the U.S. delegation discovered that Norman wasn’t going to attend, the United States Olympic Committee arranged to fly him to Sydney to be part of their delegation. He was invited to the birthday party of 200 and 400-meter runner Michael Johnson, where he was to be the guest of honor. Johnson took his hand, hugged him and declared that Norman was one of his biggest heroes.

“Peter was not sanctioned … we are not sure why he missed selection in 1972 but it had nothing to do with what happened in Mexico,” the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) told CNN when asked about Norman’s exclusion from the team that traveled to Munich.

“Peter was not excluded from any Sydney 2000 celebrations.”

The AOC points out that Australia’s greatest ever sprinter had been given several crucial roles in the festivities.

“He represented the AOC at several team selection announcements,” it said, “including the announcement of the table tennis team in his home town of Melbourne prior to the Sydney Games.”

Remembering Peter Norman

When “Salute!” was released in Australia in 2008 it caused a sensation, breaking box office records. In a country known for its reverence of sporting legends, many were hearing Norman’s story for the first time. But he would never see the film that would put his achievements back into the public consciousness.

Peter Norman died of a heart attack on October 9, 2006.

At the funeral both Smith and Carlos gave the eulogy, where they announced that the U.S. Track and Field association had declared the day of his death to be “Peter Norman Day” — the first time in the organization’s history that such an honor had been bestowed on a foreign athlete.

Both men helped carry his coffin before it was lowered into the ground. For them, Norman was a hero — “A lone soldier,” according to Carlos — for his small but determined stand against racism.

“He paid the price. This was Peter Norman’s stand for human rights, not Peter Norman helping Tommie Smith and John Carlos out,” Smith told CNN. The three had remained friends ever since their chance meeting on that podium in Mexico City 44 years ago.

“He just happened to be a white guy, an Australian white guy, between two black guys in the victory stand believing in the same thing.”

A proud legacy

Arguably the biggest price Norman paid was the fact that his run in the 200 meters final had been obscured by the Black Power salute. It remains to this day one of the finest, and least expected, individual performances by a sprinter at the modern Olympics.

By the end of the final, Norman had shaved half a second off his best time. His full potential was never realized yet, even after the ignominy of his return, Norman bore no grudges.

“It has been said that sharing my silver medal with that incident on the victory dais detracted from my performance,” Norman explains poignantly at end of “Salute!”

“On the contrary. I have to confess, I was rather proud to be part of it.”

Varadero, Cuba (CNN) — Decades navigating the roads in Cuba have left deep scars on Sergio Morales’ jet black 1947 Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The Harley’s frame is a battlefield of craters and gashes. The frozen odometer stopped counting at 45,000 kilometers. In Cuba, where little is in abundance save shortages, Morales uses a car wheel for his motorcycle’s back tire.

But when Morales kick-starts the Harley, its engine roars to full-throated life.

Morales is a “harlista,” what Cubans call the small band of men and women who have preserved the island’s motorcycle culture.

That hasn’t been an easy task in a country where a five-decades-old U.S. economic embargo makes getting new parts — much less bikes — near impossible.

“It’s work. You have to have spirit, desire,” Morales said. “There’s nowhere to buy spare parts here so over the years we have had to find alternative fixes or invent our own.”

And being a Harley fanatic courted controversy in the early years of the Cuban revolution when everything American, from jazz music to rock ‘n’ roll, was considered suspect. It also didn’t help that Harleys were the motorcycle of choice for police during the Batista dictatorship.

But now the iconic American bikes are enjoying something of a comeback.

Over the weekend, Morales was one of about 50 harlistas to participate in Cuba’s first ever nationwide Harley-Davidson rally in the beach resort town of Varadero.

“It’s an opportunity for us to celebrate not just the Harley but the Cuban Harley,” Morales said. “And in one of the prettiest places with the best beaches in the country.”

The sight of the motley crew of black leather-sporting motorcyclists pulling into a seaside town seemed like a scene straight out of the classic Marlon Brando film “The Wild One,” where a band of bikers terrorize a small community.

But in Varadero it was the bikers who were beset upon by admiring locals and tourists. One family of American tourists said they had changed their travel plans to come from Mexico to Cuba for a few days after learning about the event.

“We are here to give these guys a hand; it’s lot of work to keep their bikes running,” said event organizer Kristen MacQueen.

Cuban Harley aficionados are unique, MacQueen said, because their vintage bikes are not just for show.

“A lot of the people use them in their everyday life to get around,” MacQueen said. “For some people here, it’s their only form of transportation.”

The bikes lined up at the Varadero rally were a mix of Harleys from the decades leading up to Cuba’s 1959 revolution. Some Harleys were adorned with the face of revolutionary icon Che Guevara, others with American eagles.

In between demonstrating their agility in biking competitions, the harlistas checked out one another’s rides and explained to tourists how they keep them running.

Even with foreigners bringing in replacement parts from the outside, keeping the Harleys running is no small feat. Many of the bikes used parts cannibalized from Asian and old Soviet bikes and cars. Some Harlistas are legendary in the community for hand-making the parts they need.

But however challenging, none of the Cuban Harley fanatics says they plan to abandon their passion any time soon.

“You get to a point where the Harley becomes part of your family,” Cuban Harley owner Yuri Garcia said. “You become inseparable. If you sold it, you’d never find another bike like it.”

(CNN) — Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a Batmobile-like race car which will take to the track at the legendary Le Mans 24 Hour event in June.

Nissan’s experimental DeltaWing, which bears a startling resemblance to the vehicle made famous by the “Caped Crusader,” was unveiled by the Japanese manufacturer in London on Tuesday.

The purpose of the car is to promote fuel efficiency, with the DeltaWing’s 1.6 liter engine set to complete motorsport’s legendary endurance challenge using half the gas of its regular counterparts.

Despite being granted entry to the marquee French race, the DeltaWing will not be counted in the final Le Mans 24 Hour classification as it is participating as an experimental vehicle.

“This announcement gives Nissan the opportunity to become part of a ground-breaking motorsport project, and one which could shape the future of the sport,” Nissan’s executive vice president Andy Palmer said in a statement.

“As motor racing rulebooks have become tighter over time, racing cars look more and more similar and the technology used has had less and less relevance to road car development.

“Nissan DeltaWing aims to change that, and we are delighted to have become part of the project.”

The DeltaWing’s radical design has half the aerodynamic drag of a conventional car and is only half the weight. It can also produce 300 bhp (horsepower) thanks to a turbocharged four-cylinder engine.

Rather than being piloted by Bruce Wayne’s vigilante alter ego, the first two drivers of the DeltaWing will be Britain’s Marino Franchitti, the younger brother of IndyCar legend Dario Franchitti, and Michael Krumm of Germany.

“It’s a spectacular piece,” DeltaWing designer Ben Bowlby said. “We’ve got the engine of our dreams: it’s the right weight, has the right power and it’s phenomenally efficient.”

(CNN) — Julian Cardona is a photojournalist who works in the “murder capital of the world” — Juarez, Mexico.

He takes pictures of bodies and survivors, migrants and countrymen, violence and vigils.

The 51-year-old photographer puts his life on the line for such photography because he wants the world to know of a patch of earth that many American journalists — even those in Mexico, too — fear to tread and often avoid.

That’s because the violence by Mexican cartels and other criminals who control swaths of the borderlands have secured a reputation for ferocious violence and carnage, including to those who dare to chronicle the death toll.

To capture the human suffering and endurance, often in the powerful imagery of black-and-white photographs, Cardona doesn’t venture out alone anymore. He partners with other photographers — who had been competitors under less dark times — because they believe there’s greater safety in numbers.

A woman walks past grafitti-covered houses in an abandoned neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez.

“When you work as a local journalist, it’s more frequent that you (are) facing more risks,” he said in an interview at California State University, Northridge, where he spoke to students about cartel violence and where his photos are on display this month.

Cardona has observed how the Mexican side of the border has been a landscape of change, beginning with the North American Free Trade Agreement in the early 1990s to the massive movement of Mexicans to the United States and elsewhere.

Many parts of Juarez are now a “ghost town,” he says.

Last year, Juarez recorded 1,933 violent deaths, according to the Chihuahua state attorney’s office. That figure is considered exorbitant, especially when compared with the 209 homicides in New York City last year, even though that U.S. city’s population is six times greater than Juarez’s.

Even so, that figure represented a 38% decline in violent deaths from the year before, when the city counted 3,117 killings. The number of violent deaths was 2,643 in 2009 and 1,607 in 2008. A mere 300 killings were reported in 2007.

Juarez also is known for its high “femicide” rate, the unsolved murders of hundreds of girls and women.

“During my childhood, Juarez was a very calm place, very secure place,” Cardona told CNN.

“It’s changed to be very insecure and has become for four years the most violent city on the earth,” he added.

“You are covering one massacre as another massacre is happening in another district of the city,” Cardona said. “We have disappearances of women, we have disappearances of men, we have execution of women, execution of men, bodies of women left in the desert. People who don’t pay extortion are assassinated. People who are kidnapped are assassinated, also. People who refuse to give their cars are killed, also. It is a wide spectrum of where you can be killed in Juarez.

“According to some of my colleagues,” he continued, “90% of the cases are never investigated. That can give you the idea of the role of the state and this terrible situation.”

Before Juarez became synonymous with homicide, the city used to be a party town, with a robust nightlife.

But a University of Juarez study shows that the bloodshed since the early 1990s has displaced 250,000 people, Cardona said.

“In many places it looks like a ghost town, a ghost district,” he said.

Cardona dares to enter these haunted places — as well as populated neighborhoods.

“Most of the time the people I meet are going into turning points of their lives. It’s very often I’m a witness to these changes in their lives,” he said.

“Under these circumstances, it is incredible how people are still open to talk to a journalist and tell their stories, and how their communities have been devastated by the economy, and how they cannot sustain their lives and families’ educations — they have to migrate to the U.S. — and also how people struggle to survive and make a living in the U.S. doing very dangerous jobs.”

Cardona lives in Juarez, but his parents and siblings live across the border in El Paso, Texas, and don’t visit him because of the violence, he said.

CNN’s Jade Biesboer contributed to this report.

(CNN) — The rejection of the resignation plan for the embattled police chief in the Trayvon Martin case leaves Sanford, Florida, in “limbo,” the city manager said Tuesday.

“It would be better for us to have a separation,” City Manager Norton N. Bonaparte told CNN, speaking about Chief Bill Lee. “It will be challenging for him to come back.”

City commissioners in Sanford voted Monday to reject the proposed resignation of Lee, who has been under fire for the handling of the probe into Trayvon Martin’s death in February.

Lee has been on paid leave since March 22, a day after the commission expressed a lack of confidence in him because of the case. He remains so after the commission’s decision, and Capt. Darren Scott continues to serve as acting chief.

The chief’s hiring last May was sparked in part by outrage after the white son of a Sanford lieutenant was caught on tape beating a homeless black man in December 2010 but was not arrested until a month later, when news stations began airing the video.

The Martin case has sparked intense discussions about race, gun control and the state’s “stand your ground” law, which make it legal for people to use deadly force when they feel a reasonable threat of death or serious injury.

Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who has said he killed 17-year-old Martin in self-defense, was not arrested after being questioned by police the night of the shooting. Weeks later, after a special prosecutor was assigned to the case, he was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. He was released from jail on bond early Monday and hours later entered a not guilty plea.

Sanford residents and many civil rights leaders from outside central Florida have criticized the city’s police department for not immediately arresting Zimmerman, a 28-year-old Hispanic, after he shot the unarmed black teenager.

On Monday, the city issued a statement announcing that a separation agreement had been reached with Lee to resign. If approved by the City Commission, it would have taken effect at midnight.

But by a 3-2 vote, the commission opted not to accept the proposed deal, which would have permanently dismissed Lee from the job and given him a severance package. Two commissioners had questioned the fairness of Lee losing his job. Mayor Jeff Triplett said he preferred to wait possibly several months for the results of an investigation into Lee and his department.

“I’m not ready to have him come back and run the police department, but I don’t know if I’m ready for this either,” said Triplett, who sided with the majority to reject the resignation.

Bonaparte said Monday that “moving the city forward” is a priority, and something that he hoped might have been expedited by making Lee’s departure final.

“Basically, what the city commission said is that they want to have more information. In particular, they want to have the results of an independent investigation that would determine what actually took place that night and how the Sanford Police Department acted. Did they do things that they shouldn’t have done, or did they not do things that they should have done?” he said Tuesday.

But Bonaparte said he and Lee “determined that with the vote of no confidence, it would be very challenging for him to continue as the police chief” and worked out a severance plan.

Bonaparte said the review will “take time” and there will be a lot of evidence emerging since the case is a criminal matter. He has said an interim chief — who would replace Scott, the current acting chief — could be in place early next week.

“While I asked for a review, it seems as though it will be some time before I can get that information, maybe as much as three months or more,” Bonaparte said. “And rather than staying in this limbo, it would be better for us to have a separation. Chief Lee and I talked and came to an agreement it would be best if he separate from the Sanford Police Department.”

He said “tensions got pretty hot” at the city commission meeting, which was attended by several police supporters and “those who say that Chief Lee should not come back.”

Patty Mahany, a commissioner who is supportive of Lee, said Monday that reports of gaping rifts in Sanford along racial lines have been vastly overstated. “I don’t think Sanford needs healing,” she said.

“What did the chief do wrong? I mean, tell us,” Mahany added.

Randy Jones, another dissenting commissioner, pointed to other parts of the agreement stating Lee was “willing, ready and able” to remain on as chief, hadn’t been found to have done anything wrong and was resigning on Bonaparte’s “recommendation.”

Jones blamed outsiders for fanning the flames.

“It is not Sanford residents who created this firestorm,” he said. “It was brought in from the outside. We all know it.”

But Bonaparte said people in Sanford, as well as those across the United States, “felt that there was an example where black life was not being truly valued.”

“The fact that Mr. Zimmerman could kill Mr. Martin” has “struck a nerve” in Sanford and throughout the country, Bonaparte said.

Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for Martin’s family, criticized the commission for not letting Lee step down.

“Sanford residents deserve quality leadership in law enforcement who will handle investigations fairly for all people,” he said. “If Chief Bill Lee recognized that his resignation would help start the healing process in Sanford, city leadership should have accepted it in an effort to move the city forward.”

In March, Sanford’s city commission passed a 3-2 motion expressing “no confidence” in the police chief. Triplett and Commissioners Velma Williams and Mark McCarty voted for the motion, while Mahany and Jones voted against it.

Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida who specializes in Florida politics and state and local government, said Triplett’s vote Monday to reject the police chief’s resignation was surprising since the mayor voted for the no-confidence motion in the first place.

Jewett said he thinks Triplett’s motivation is to foster calm and moderation and to reach out to different sectors of a town where people are at odds over the police handling of the case.

“My initial thought was he’s sort of being cautious,” Jewett said. “He wants to take his time and not rush. It sort of fits his leadership style.”

Zimmerman is now free and awaiting trial, after making bail and leaving the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Sanford at 12:05 a.m. Monday.

“He’s doing well. He’s very glad to be out, trying to get settled in, still worried about his safety … talking to his family and feeling much better than being in (jail),” his lawyer Mark O’Mara told CNN later Monday.

Also Monday, O’Mara filed documents in court in which Zimmerman entered a written not guilty plea and waived the right to appear at a formal arraignment.

O’Mara said Zimmerman is now “on his own” with no police protection or security detail, shuttling to and from several secret locations in light of threats against him and his family. He wore a bulletproof vest while leaving the jail accompanied by Michael Smith, the owner of Magic Bail Bonds.

“There’s been a lot of chatter lately about his release, and that’s concerning to him and us,” O’Mara said.

The Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said that Zimmerman had been fitted with a GPS monitoring device, allowing authorities to track his location.

Zimmerman’s release came as something of a surprise. Over the weekend, his lawyer had said Zimmerman might remain behind bars until the middle of this week as his team worked to secure funds to meet the $150,000 bail set last Friday.

With the 10% cash payment customarily made to secure bond, Zimmerman’s family needed $15,000 for him to make bail.

Martin’s family wasn’t pleased by news of Zimmerman’s release, said one of their attorneys, Daryl Parks.

“It’s tough for them to see their son’s killer walk free again,” he said.

Although details of the shooting remain murky, what is known is that on February 26, Martin left the home of his father’s fiancee in Sanford and went to a nearby convenience store, where he bought a bag of Skittles and an Arizona Iced Tea.

After spotting him, Zimmerman called 911 to report a “suspicious” person in the neighborhood. In the call, the neighborhood watch volunteer said he followed Martin after the teen started to run, prompting the dispatcher to tell him, “We don’t need you to do that.”

Zimmerman claims the unarmed teen attacked him before he fired his gun. Martin’s supporters say Zimmerman targeted Martin because he was black.

On Friday, Zimmerman’s father testified that when he saw his son the day after the shooting, he was wearing a protective cover over his nose, his face was swollen, and he had two vertical gashes on his head.

Martin’s family and the special prosecutor appointed to investigate the case have rejected Zimmerman’s self-defense claim, saying they believe Zimmerman disregarded the police dispatcher who advised him to stop following Martin, racially profiled the young man and unjustly killed him.

CNN’s Vivian Kuo, David Mattingly, Leslie Tripp Holland, Martin Savidge and Holly Yan contributed to this report.

(CNN) — He has a long way to go to emulate the success of his father, who won five majors and thrilled the world of golf, but Javier Ballesteros is off to a promising start.

The 21-year-old made his debut on the professional golf circuit Thursday, 38 years after Severiano began his pro career on exactly the same course.

After starting at the Sant Cugat course in Catalunya, Spain, Seve went on to win three British Opens and two Masters titles and etch his name into the record books as one of the most entertaining and flamboyant players ever to pick up a club.

Seve died in May last year, at the age of 54, provoking an outpouring of grief from the world of golf. Many stars of the game attended his funeral in his home village of Pedrena.

Javier insists he doesn’t feel any weight of pressure being the son of one of golf’s most revered characters, but he offered a glimpse of his talent as he shot a five-under-par round to sit three shots off the lead after day one of the Peugeot Alps de Barcelona.

“My goal for this competition is enjoy it,” he said on the European Tour’s official website. “I don’t set goals when I play a tournament, especially being an amateur.

“What I have to do is enjoy and learn. I have no extra pressure being Seve’s son, I don’t really have anything to prove. I’m just going to be myself.

“When I registered for the Peugeot Tour event at Sant Cugat I didn’t know that my father played his first professional tournament here and now that I know, it’s double the excitement for me.”

Seve won 91 tournaments in a 33-year career and was a crucial part of Europe’s Ryder Cup team during much of the 1980s and 1990s, forming a formidable partnership with fellow Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal.

Javier clearly has inherited a wealth of talent from Seve but says he is yet to decide if he will follow his father’s footsteps and become a golf professional once he has finished studying law in Madrid.

“I have always played golf,” he added. “I was on the national team when I was 14 to 16 years old, and being surrounded by golf at home always made me think about being a pro in the future.

“But I have to finish university first. It is something my parents have always told me to do, especially my father, and that is my priority. Then we will see.

“I have not made a schedule or set a time. It’s not just a case of turning professional as soon as I finish college. We will just see what happens.”

(CNN) — When one of the Titanic’s four giant funnels collapsed, Dick Williams saw his father Charles killed in front of him.

Grief stricken but with his survival instinct still intact, the 21-year-old dived into the icy waters of the Atlantic to take his chances and swim for his life.

The cold was almost paralyzing and many poor souls perished almost immediately, but Williams was made of stern stuff and managed to pull himself into a collapsible lifeboat.

With others desperately clamoring to get on board, it was almost waist deep in water and the cold proved almost unbearable for the occupants.

Many died before they were helped, initially by another more stable lifeboat and then by the liner RMS Carpathia, a haven for so many Titanic survivors.

A little distance away, Karl Behr sat shivering, huddled in one of the last lifeboats to leave the stricken super liner — which had been heralded as “unsinkable” ahead of her maiden voyage from the British port of Southampton on April 10, 1912.

Next to him was Helen Newsom, a fellow passenger on their first-class journey who was later to be his wife.

In the same lifeboat was the Titanic’s owner, Bruce Ismay, who had embarked on the journey with his reputation never higher, but was later to be vilified for allegedly deserting his ship.

Amputation threat

It took nearly six long hours for the lifeboats and the 706 survivors to be reached, by which time Williams had lost all feeling in his legs, which had turned purple with frostbite and lack of circulation.

The ship doctor on the Carpathia warned him that they were so far gone that amputation was the likely outcome.

But Williams could not conceive this possibility and took about literally walking his legs back to life, relentlessly pacing the decks on the journey to New York — two hours at a time, despite the intense discomfort.

It was during this time that he met Behr for the first time.

Little is recorded of their exchanges, but from memoirs it is reported that at 26, the elder man was “very helpful” to Williams.

Aside from their shared survival of one of the greatest maritime tragedies in history, where over 1,500 passengers and crew perished, they had one other thing in common.

Both were to become members in the International Tennis Hall of Fame, having been on-court rivals and later Davis Cup teammates for the United States.

And both were to be central figures in two books which have been published around the 100th anniversary of the 1912 tragedy.

Rival books

Like so much associated with the Titanic in the many books and films on the subject, controversy and disagreement over what actually happened is never far from the surface.

First came “Starboard at Midnight,” written by Behr’s granddaughter Helen Behr Sandford and published last year.

Former U.S. Davis Cup team press officer Randy Walker commissioned Hollywood screenwriter Lindsay Gibbs to write a “factional” account for his New Chapter Press publishing firm — “Titanic: The Tennis Story,” which came out this month.

Sanford, who is published by Darwin Press, stuck more or less strictly to memoirs and historical records, although a small passage in her book is also fictional.

Walker, who has published books on great players such as Rod Laver, believes the tale to be the “greatest story in the history of tennis” but allowed the 45-year-old Gibbs some leeway in developing characters and themes.

He compares the treatment to that of the Oscar winning film “Chariots of Fire” about British track and field runners Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell where fact merged with fiction to dramatize the story.

However, Sandford is aghast at the portrayal of her grandfather and Williams.

The 62-year-old, who is known as Lynn, is deeply protective of the memory of her forebear.

“The ‘other’ book is truly appalling,” she told CNN. “Dick Williams and Karl Behr were wonderful, dignified men, who would never have exhibited the characteristics that are displayed.

“If Karl and Dick were here right now they would be incensed and absolutely miserable at how they took their lives and created something out of fiction.”

Gibbs stands by her writings: “I’m proud of what I did, which was based around a lot of research by Randy Walker.”

“Lindsay Gibbs is a very good writer,” conceded Sanford. “But the saddest part is she didn’t honor the truth at all.”

With both books competing for sales, there is no sign the row will settle down, but what is not disputed is how the lives of the two men became intertwined in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Remarkable recovery

Williams made a remarkable recovery and less than three months later he faced the more experienced Behr in a tennis tournament on the lawns of Longwood Cricket Club in Boston.

Williams raced into a two-set lead, but the wily Behr prevailed in five sets. Legend has it that their shared experience on the Titanic was never mentioned by the two fellow Ivy Leaguers.

Williams was on the rise and won the 1914 U.S. National Championship (now known as the U.S. Open), beating Behr in the quarterfinals. Both were in the 1914 U.S. Davis Cup team, with Behr as a reserve.

Further success followed for Williams in the 1916 U.S. Nationals before serving in the United States army in World War One, being decorated for valor.

Resuming his career after the hostilities, Williams enjoyed major success in doubles competition in the Davis Cup and grand slams.

His crowning glory came aged 33 at the 1924 Paris Olympics, where he partnered Hazel Wightman to the gold medal in the mixed doubles — the last time the event was part of the Games.

The pair remain the reigning Olympic champions as mixed doubles will be reintroduced at London 2012, with the likes of Roger Federer and Victoria Azarenka coveting the gold.

Williams became a successful banker in Philadelphia and died aged 77 in 1968.

Behr’s story was more complex and the events of April 14, 1912 left an indelible mark on his psyche as he suffered from “survivor’s guilt.”

As both his granddaughter and Gibbs touch on in their accounts, the circumstances under which he ended in a lifeboat with women and children has come under scrutiny, particularly as the reviled Ismay was also an occupant.

Honor at stake

Sanford said that her grandfather was in the “right place at the right time” as the first-class passengers were shown to the lifeboats, at first more as precaution because it was widely believed that the Titanic was “unsinkable.”

Walker concurs. “According to our research, Karl was very honorable,” he said.

As boat No. 5 was lowered, Ismay was imploring passengers into the craft and was asked by a lady passenger “if the men could join us.” He replied in the affirmative and Behr climbed aboard.

In Gibbs’ book, a smitten Behr proposes to Newsom while in the lifeboat — poetic license, indeed.

Sanford recounts that they actually waited eight months to announce their engagement. “They feared a backlash from being Titanic survivors,” she said.

Behr’s sense of duty intensified as World War One started in Europe and he became a leading campaigner for American involvement working alongside former president Theodore Roosevelt.

As Sanford recounts, Behr organized the Citizen Preparedness Parade in New York in 1916, with over 135,000 people taking part, which galvanized similar pro-war parades across the country.

When American finally entered the war in 1917, Behr was refused permission to enlist, perhaps because of his German background. Exhausted and demoralized, his health collapsed and he entered a sanitarium, but he was allowed to serve just as the war ended.

By then his tennis career was over and he spent the rest of his life in business, being on the board of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and other firms.

He died in 1949, aged 64. His wife Helen later remarried and died in Princeton, New Jersey in 1965.

As a small child, Sanford recalled asking her grandmother about the events of the fateful night.

“She just said, ‘I can’t answer you, but I can say the worst part of the experience was on the Carpathia.’ “

It was never mentioned again, but Sanford became determined to recount the events and spent many years researching before putting pen to paper.

She recently joined members of the Williams family at a special event organized by the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Its headquarters in Newport, Rhode Island has a special exhibition to honor both remarkable men and their remarkable story.

(CNN) — Mahesh Bhupathi is best known in tennis for his many successes as a doubles specialist, but now he’s playing a new role — that of a double agent.

The 37-year-old Indian veteran is still a professional on the ATP Tour, winning his latest doubles title in Dubai earlier this month, but also acts as manager to two of India’s brightest tennis hopes through his company Globosport.

And with a host of Bollywood film stars also featuring in the firm’s portfolio, Bhupathi has a ready-made route to success once his career on court comes to an end.

Bhupathi, who cites entrepreneurs such as Virgin boss Richard Branson and telecoms mogul Sunil Mittal as businessmen he looks up to, has recently made his screen debut in one of his company’s latest projects.

His wife, Lara Dutta, is an award-winning actress and was named Miss Universe in 2000.

When he does hang up his racket, the first player from India to win a grand slam title — Bhupathi now has 11 all in doubles formats — aims to mix the glitz and glamor of Bollywood with a plan to boost the prospects of burgeoning tennis talent in the country.

“All of us growing up are aware what support it takes to build a tennis player,” he told CNN’s Open Court show. “I don’t think there’s any dearth of talent in India — we’ve always had the best juniors in the world.

“The big transition is how do you get from the juniors to the seniors, and that comes through financial support.

“In the West the kids have coaches, trainers and a pretty robust support staff, so it takes a lot of money.

“We have one kid we are supporting fulltime now. He’s 14 years old and very talented, so hopefully we can make it to where we help more and more kids and eventually there will be a pipeline of players coming out of the country.”

Outside of cricket, whose stars are worshiped in India, Bhupathi is one of the country’s best known sporting figures.

He has a clean sweep of grand slam titles in the mixed doubles, claiming his first crown at the French Open in 1997 with Japanese partner Rika Hiraki, and can also boast four men’s doubles titles to boot.

At January’s Australian Open he partnered compatriot Rohan Bopanna — with whom he recently won the Dubai Open title — but they were knocked out in round three.

Yet it is his partnership with another Indian player, Leander Paes, that has reaped dividends. They have won three men’s doubles titles together — at the French Open in 1999 and 2001 as well as Wimbledon in 1999.

Even with a career that is still in full swing, Bhupathi also acts as agent to Sania Mirza — the first Indian woman to break into the world’s top 30 players — and Somdev Devvarman, who reached a high of 62 in the men’s rankings last year.

“For me it’s two fulltime jobs so I’ve got to put in more work, but I really enjoy doing what I do,” he explained. “Sania was one of our first clients, I think we signed her when she was 15.

“The tennis part of it is easy for me because I’m on the road, I’m networked into the tennis world, so doing her racket and apparel, this is very easy as I’m there on site.

“I’m aware tennis isn’t going to last forever, and this going to be a smooth and natural transition now because Golobosport is eight years old.”

But though Bollywood is beckoning, Bhupathi insists his eyes are still firmly fixed on court for now.

An Apple spokesman declined to comment for this story.

The fade Colony describes doesn’t appear to be on the immediate horizon.

Jerusalem (CNN) — Israel’s former security chief is slamming the country’s prime minister and defense minister for their handling of Iran, saying neither one inspires confidence.

“I don’t trust a leadership that relies on messianic leadership,” said Yuval Diskin, the former head of the Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service, at a public conference Friday night in Israel.

“Our two messiahs from Caesaria and from the Akiorv Towers are not fit to stand at the helm of the government,” Diskin said, referring to the respective residences of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

His comments were widely reported in the Israeli media Saturday.

Diskin, a widely respected former security official, also took the two Israeli leaders to task for mischaracterizing the possible effectiveness of a military strike against Iran and its nuclear program.

He said the Israeli government presented “a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.”

It is not the first time a high-profile figure has criticized the Israeli government’s handling of Iran.

Meir Dagan, the former chief of Israel’s spy agency, the Mossad, has been a frequent and vocal critic of talk about an Israel strike on Iran, famously calling it a “stupid idea.”

Neither Netanyahu’s nor Barak’s office would immediately comment on Diskin’s remarks, but other members of the governing coalition were quick to criticize them.

Israeli vice-premier and Likud party member Silvan Shalom told the Jerusalem Post that Diskin should not have spoken in public.

“I think that Diskin was wrong to say what he did, and that when he considers what he said he will realize that he was wrong,” Shalom said.

Diskin’s blunt commentary follows controversial remarks by Israel’s top general, who said Iran is led by “very rational people” and doesn’t appear poised to build a nuclear bomb that would threaten his nation.

Iran “is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb,” Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper in Wednesday editions. “It hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile.”

Those comments were in stark contrast to those of Netanyahu, who suggested to CNN this week that time is running out for Western sanctions on Iran to have a meaningful effect on Tehran’s nuclear program.

The sanctions “are certainly taking a bite out of the Iranian economy,” Netanyahu said in an interview broadcast Tuesday on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.” But, he said, “They haven’t rolled back the Iranian program — or even stopped it — by one iota.”

Editor’s note: Please be aware that this review may contain spoilers.

(CNN) — Emily Blunt may be the most vivacious and personable light comic actress in the movies right now. She has something of Carole Lombard’s instinct to take a tired scene and give it a good kick in the pants. And Jason Segel’s forlorn and directionless Tom in “The Five-Year Engagment” could use it, too.

Segel is the anti-matter to Blunt’s shooting star: doughy (well, he is playing a sous chef here), oversized and doleful, he’s one of those actors who has learned to capitalize on his flaws, exposing his inadequacies as often as possible to lugubrious comic effect.

We’ve all seen lopsided couples like this, but the central flaw in “The Five-Year Engagment” (which Segel also co-wrote with his regular collaborator, director Nicholas Stoller) is that despite their regular protestations of love, for most of the movie, Segel’s Tom and Blunt’s Violet make a miserable team. She’s selfish, he sacrifices his career, are you laughing yet?

We are given to understand that wedded bliss would make all the difference, but somehow they just can’t get their act together.

Tom proposes in the movie’s very first scene. There is an engagement party, everything is going swimmingly, but events overtake them. Violet’s sister (Alison Brie) gets pregnant by Tom’s best man (Chris Pratt, doing a big-screen tweak on his “Parks and Recreation” persona), so their nuptials take precedence. There are religious and geographical divisions to be ironed out — Tom’s family is Jewish, Violet’s Church of England. Then she’s offered a place at the University of Michigan, and while Tom renounces his promising culinary career in San Francisco to be with her, somehow the circumstances don’t seem so propitious for a wedding ceremony. She’s still happy, but he’s stuck in a rut and losing his grip.

Delay and deferment don’t seem like the ideal building blocks for comedy, especially when this couple already lives together. Are we expected to care that much if they tie the knot? Does their hesitation reflect misgivings about the institution, or doubts about the relationship itself?

The latter, naturally, but only because Tom is asked to play second fiddle to his more goal-oriented fiancée. In other words, to play what is traditionally the part of the supportive wife. What is a man to do when he’s no longer the principal breadwinner? Michigan is cold, and they hunt things there. Going native involves home-knitted sweaters, crossbows and lots of facial hair. Clearly, this is not going to work.

The movie occasionally throws up scenes or situations adults might recognize from their own attempts to reconcile romance and professional fulfillment, but no more than you might find in an average sitcom. This being a Judd Apatow production, that would be a sitcom afflicted with Tourette Syndrome and more male nudity than usual, but still essentially a sitcom nonetheless.

Ungainly and uneven, the movie offers some compensation in the peripherals (whoever cast Jacki Weaver, the terrifying matriarch from “Animal Kingdom” as Violet’s mum has a wicked sense of humor, and Rhys Ifans is lively as a charismatic psychology professor) but struggles to convey any sense of purpose in its story.

Rom-coms traditionally end in marriage, convenient shorthand for the fairytale happy ever after, and “The Five-Year Engagement” is no different; it just takes an awfully long time to get there.