HADDONFIELD, N.J. – Some stared at their televisions in disbelief. Others were too furious to process the news.
More than two decades after a terrorist bomb blew a Pan Am jetliner out of the sky, victims' relatives watched in anger as the only man ever convicted in the attack boarded another flight to his freedom in Libya, then arrived home to a hero's welcome.
"This is not fair to the families," said Stan Maslowski, whose 30-year-old daughter Diane was returning from London for Christmas when Flight 103 went down on Dec. 21, 1988. "This shows a terrorist can get away with murder."
Maslowski and his wife, Norma, turned on the TV at their Haddonfield home to watch the developments. "You get that lump in your throat and you feel like you're going to throw up," Norma Maslowski said.
Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released Thursday after serving eight years of a minimum 27-year sentence in Scottish prison. Scottish officials said the former Libyan intelligence officer has advanced prostate cancer and was given only months to live. They said they were bound by Scottish values to release him.
"He got on the plane looking fairly ill, and he got off the plane looking like he could do a dance," said Joanne Hartunian of Delmar, N.Y., who lost her daughter Lynne, a student at the State University of New York at Oswego. "It just made me physically ill."
"It brought it all back to Day One," Hartunian said. "I thought we had gotten past that horrible, horrible pain that we felt, but I felt the same pain today."
Many struggled to explain their feelings.
"It's appalling, disgusting and so sickening I can hardly find words to describe it," said Susan Cohen, of Cape May Court House, N.J., whose 20-year-old daughter Theodora died in the attack. "Lockerbie looks like it never happened now — there isn't anybody in prison for it."
The bombing turned the families of some of the 270 victims into activists who became deeply versed in terrorism policy, international relations, airline security and victim compensation.
The families, which organized as Victims of Pan Am Flight 103, have evolved from communicating through phone trees to keeping in touch through Facebook.
From the beginning, many were bitter that neither the United States nor other nations spoke out more strongly about the attack, although the White House on Thursday said Scotland should not have released him.
President Barack Obama called the release a mistake and urged the Libyan government to place al-Megrahi under house arrest.
Cohen and other relatives said they believe al-Megrahi was released to appease Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi because access to his nation's oil is so important.
Thursday's release is likely the end of the legal saga.
"Twenty years later, this is the last sad chapter where government leaders have no moral backbone," said Bert Ammerman of River Vale, whose brother Tom was killed on the flight.
Still, the victims group intends to go on. They planned a conference call Friday to discuss what to do next, and expect to join protests next month when Gadhafi is scheduled to visit New York, said Bob Monetti, whose brother was on the flight.
Monetti said he was disappointed but not surprised by the welcome al-Megrahi received in Libya. He hopes as many people will come out to protest Gadhafi in New York as came out to celebrate al-Megrahi's return home.

Peter Sullivan, a college roommate of victim Mike Doyle, said the criminal case does not have to end.

"I would like to see the United States expeditiously indict al-Megrahi and seek his extradition for trial in the U.S. for the murder of 189 innocent Americans," said Sullivan, of Akron, Ohio.

But not all the relatives thought the release was wrong.

"This is just one little thing that says this is not going to hurt any of us for him to be released and go die with his family," said Caroline Stevens of Little Rock, Ark., whose son Sandy Phillips died in the bombing. "We've got to look at one another in a more compassionate way and not rely on war and revenge and all that."

Ann Rogers said she had not been aware that al-Megrahi was close to getting his freedom. Her 21-year-old daughter died in the bombing.

"We haven't thought about him in a long time," said Rogers, of Olney, Md. "Whatever happens to him, the bottom line is Luann's still gone."

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Associated Press writers Deepti Hajela in New York; John Raby in Charleston, W.Va.; Jessica M. Pasko and Mary Esch in Albany, N.Y; Jim Hannah in Dayton, Ohio; Shawn Marsh and Beth DeFalco in Trenton, N.J.; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Md.; Sarah Karush in Washington; Blake Nicholson in Bismark, N.D.; Dan Nephin in Pittsburgh; Aaron Morrison in Baltimore; Matt Sedensky in Miami; and Chuck Bartels in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this article.

Computer software is so called to distinguish it from computer hardware, which encompasses the physical interconnections and devices required to store and execute (or run) the software. At the lowest level, software consists of a machine language specific to an individual processor. A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. Software is an ordered sequence of instructions for changing the state of the computer hardware in a particular sequence. It is usually written in high-level programming languages that are easier and more efficient for humans to use (closer to natural language) than machine language. High-level languages are compiled or interpreted into machine language object code. Software may also be written in an assembly language, essentially, a mnemonic representation of a machine language using a natural language alphabet. Assembly language must be assembled into object code via an assembler.

The term "software" was first used in this sense by John W. Tukey in 1958. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all computer programs. The theory that is the basis for most modern software was first proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay Computable numbers with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.

Club Management Software

GREENVILLE, S.C. – Even South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's supporters are asking if he can remain focused on state business during his final 16 months in office.
In June, the married Republican admitted a yearlong affair with an Argentine woman he has called his soul mate. He took a secret trip to Argentina to see her but told his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Now Sanford is making his way across the state, apologizing to constituents at Rotary Club meetings and asking community leaders for advice for the next legislative session. They want to know if he's up to the task of continuing to govern.
"I supported you at the ballot box. I supported you with my pocket book," said Jon Rogers, a financial consultant and member of the Greenville Rotary Club, which hosted Sanford on Thursday. "I think the question that you've got to answer ... is whether or not you can stay focused on your job and tasks."
Sanford, who acknowledges his political ambitions were dashed by the affair but says he intends to finish his term, told Rogers he would have quit already if he didn't believe he could keep working in the state's best interests. The governor is in his second term and cannot run for office again.
"Every one of us gets broken sooner or later in life," Sanford said. "I am very, very much committed to focus on the job at hand."
Last month, the Sanfords and their four sons took a two-week European vacation in hopes of mending their family. Several days after they returned, Jenny Sanford moved out of the governor's official residence in Columbia, taking the couple's children to the family's home near Charleston for the school year. The two have said they are working on their marriage.
Sanford is also facing questions after an Associated Press investigation revealed he used state aircraft for personal and partisan political trips. Attorney General Henry McMaster and legislators have called on the South Carolina Ethics Commission to investigate.
Sanford said Thursday that the media continue to bring up the affair while he tries to focus on his goals of government restructuring.
"If I say, look, I want to apologize ... I may talk about something else for the next 45 minutes, but the story is, well, he's once again still apologizing," said Sanford, who several moments later did say he was sorry to several dozen Rotary Club members.
Another luncheon attendee questioned Sanford's ability to effectively lead South Carolina's fiscal conservatives, whose support twice carried him into office. Before news of the affair broke, Sanford had spent months railing against President Barack Obama's federal stimulus package, fighting with his own legislature over whether to take some of the money available to the state.
"You're not serving the higher purpose, by remaining in office," said Ron Mason, who works in real estate. "The messenger has been shot and is bloodied on the floor. And the message of conservatism that you've stood for seems to be suffering."
Sanford replied that the message he represents is unsullied by his own shortcomings.
"I do believe in this notion of redemption, forgiveness, rebirth, hope and growth," Sanford said. "I'm a broken person. ... God can use broken people."

WASHINGTON – Union leaders argue that federal safety officials made a mistake in implying that an air traffic controller could have prevented a mid-air collision over the Hudson River.
National Air Traffic Controllers Union officials said the federal officials erred in saying a controller at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey who was handling a small plane failed to warn its pilot there were other aircraft in his path. Minutes later the plane and a helicopter collided and plunged into the Hudson, killing nine people.
Union officials said a federal agency later noted that the helicopter didn't appear on the Teterboro controller's radar screen until 7 seconds after the controller handed off responsibility to Newark and told the pilot to contact the airport.