Whether you find the government oppressive, the economy on a devastating course, or if you simply want adventure, you're not alone. Over 300,000 Americans emigrate each year.

Getting Out walks you through the world of the expat: the reasons, the rules, the resources, the tricks of the trade, along with compelling stories and expertise from expatriate Americans on every continent.

Getting Out shows you where you can most easily gain residence and citizenship, where can you live for a fraction of the cost of where you're living now, and what countries would be most compatible with your lifestyle, gender, age, or political beliefs.

"American society is more into the whole assimilation aspect of it," says New York-born Mr. Jaber. "In America, it's a lot easier to practice our religion without complications."

In a nation where mosques have sprung up alongside churches and synagogues, where Muslim women are free to wear the hijab (or not), and where education and job opportunities range from decent to good, the resentments that can breed extremism do not seem very evident in the Muslim community. Since 9/11, however, concern is rising among Muslim-Americans that they are becoming targets of bias and suspicion - by law enforcement as well as fellow citizens. It's a disquieting trend, say the young Muslims - one that might eventually help radicalism to grow.

It's impossible to pinpoint the factors that produce home-grown terrorists, analysts say. But it's also impossible to ignore the stark contrast between the lives of Muslims in European countries where bombings have occurred and those of Muslims in America.

"What we have here among Muslim-Americans is a very conservative success ethic," says John Zogby, president of Zogby International in Utica, N.Y., whose polling firm has surveyed the Muslim-American community. "People come to this country and they like it. They don't view it as the belly of the beast. With very few exceptions, you don't see the bitter enclaves that you have in Europe."

Part of what so shocked Spain about the Madrid train bombers, and then Britain after the London subway and bus bombings in July 2005, was that most of the perpetrators were native sons. In each case, the young men, allegedly inspired by Al Qaeda ideology, came from poorer neighborhoods heavy on immigrants. (By contrast, a plot foiled in August to blow up airplanes over the Atlantic involved suspects from leafy, middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Britain.)

America, too, has poorer neighborhoods with large Muslim concentrations, but they tend to be interspersed with other ethnic groups and better assimilated into society. Another difference, some suggest, is the general profile of Muslims who have come to the US and raised their families here.

Most Muslim immigrants came to America for educational or business opportunities and from educated, middle-class families in their home countries, according to an analysis by Peter Skerry of Boston College and the Brookings Institution. In Europe, the majority came to work in factory jobs and often from poorer areas at home.

European Muslims today live primarily in isolated, low-income enclaves where opportunities for good jobs and a good education are limited. In the US, 95 percent of Muslim-Americans are high school graduates, according to "Muslims in the Public Square," a Zogby International survey in 2004. Almost 60 percent are college graduates, and Muslims are thriving economically around the country. Sixty-nine percent of adults make more than $35,000 a year, and one-third earn more than $75,000, the survey showed.

In Britain, by contrast, two-thirds of Muslims live in low-income households, according to British census data. Three-quarters of those households are overcrowded. British Muslims' jobless rate is 15 percent - three times higher than in the general population. For young Muslims between 16 and 24, the jobless rate is higher: 17.5 percent.

"The culture is qualitatively different [in the American Muslim community] from what we've seen from public information from Europe, and that actually says very positive things about our society," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "We don't have large populations of immigrants with a generation sitting around semi-employed and deeply frustrated. That's a gigantic difference."

Jaber, the AmeriCorps volunteer, who is studying to become a medical doctor, says he has not experienced anti-Muslim bias. In part, he says, that may be because he doesn't have an accent or look particularly Middle Eastern - his father is Palestinian and his mother Filipino. But he also credits America's melting-pot mentality, as does Ms. Kotb, the Middle East consultant.

"We weren't isolated growing up. We were part of the culture," says Kotb, who grew up outside Washington in a family that inculcated a success ethic. "Religion was important, but not so much that you'd have to cover your head or if you don't pray five times a day, that's it - nothing like that. There were a lot more progressive attitudes" within her local Muslim community.

In mosques in America, it's fairly common for imams to preach assimilation, says Mr. Zogby. That's not as true in Europe, particularly in poorer neighborhoods where sermons can be laced with extremism.

"The success of ... Saudi-inspired religious zealotry in Europe was in large part because the Saudis put up the money to build mosques and pay for imams," says Ian Cuthbertson, a counterterrorism expert at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research. "The American Muslim community was rich enough not to require Saudi money to build its mosques."

In Europe, it's estimated that millions of second- and third-generation Muslims have not been well assimilated in their adopted countries, so have little or no fealty to either the European country they live in or the one their parents were born in. "They are much more susceptible to the Internet, returning jihadist fighters, and extremist imams," says Thomas Sanderson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "There's no doubt that Europe has an incubator environment and we have a somewhat sterile environment for radicalism."

To be sure, the United States has brought charges in several terrorism-related cases involving American Muslims. Some have resulted in convictions, notably the 2002 case of six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y. Other cases are pending.

Identifying and tracking home-grown terrorists is a complicated task - one that risks alienating or even infuriating the general Muslim-American citizenry if tactics are seen as unfair.

Feeling a chill

The young Muslims interviewed for this story chose their words carefully, but their inference is clear: They worry that suspicion toward Muslims has been building since 9/11, and they suggest that US intervention in Iraq and its support for Israel cause angst among many Arab-Americans.

US foreign policies "in the long term are going to hurt the US," says Mr. Radwan, the human rights activist, who works in Washington. "They, along with the crackdown on Muslim-Americans [by law enforcement], feed a feeling of resentment and the perception that the US acts on the basis of a double standard."

Indeed, America's Muslim community would wage the war on terror differently. According to the 2004 Zogby survey, three-quarters say the best way is for the US to change its foreign policy in the Middle East by recognizing a Palestinian state and being less supportive of Israel.

A newer concern for America's Muslims is their standing in post-9/11 society. Many sense that the ground under their feet is shifting - and young people like Florida-born Radwan, in particular, feel it. A 2001 graduate of Texas A&M University, Radwan wanted to become a doctor and began working as a medical researcher. One month after the 9/11 attacks, he was let go - at the end of a three-month probationary period. Afterward, he says, he couldn't get even an interview for a job that used his biochemistry degree or research skills. Eventually he abandoned his hopes of a medical career and shifted to human rights work.

That experience leads him to suggest another reason the US hasn't seen European-style homegrown terror cells: the intense scrutiny the FBI has focused on Muslim-Americans. "That is good in the short term, but bad in the long term," he says. "The Bush administration policies feed resentment that ... will stay in the Arab- American psyche for a long time."

The FBI says it doesn't target any community, neighborhood, or religion. Agents simply go where the leads take them, says John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. But he adds: "We have put a growing effort into community outreach because we understand the discomfort the amount of pressure our attention can bring to a community."

The 'home-grown' threat: Is it overstated?

A small but growing number of analysts believe that some US officials have overstated the threat of homegrown Islamist radicalism in the United States. While Al Qaeda and foreign terrorists remain determined to attack in America, they say, the focus on potential American cells may be leading the US to misdirect its antiterror efforts.

"My theory as to why we haven't found any [homegrown Islamist terrorist cells] is because there aren't very many of them.... They aren't the diabolical, capable, and inventive people envisioned by most politicians and people in the terrorism industry," says John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University. "The danger is that we've wasted an enormous amount of money with all of the wiretaps [and] investigations, and diverted two-thirds of the FBI from criminal work to terrorism work."

The FBI calls such conclusions "uninformed," citing alleged plots by radicalized US citizens. The most notable was the case of the Lackawanna Six, so named for the six Yemeni-Americans from Lackawanna, N.Y., who went to Al Qaeda training camps in the spring of 2001.

"The people who make these claims [about threats being exaggerated] are never the ones responsible for preventing these attacks," says John Miller, the FBI's assistant director of public affairs. "The point is that if you're the dead guy, or you're a family member of one of those guys, all you know is that you wanted someone to develop the intelligence and take the actions to prevent it."

Still, a lack of public evidence pointing to extensive Islamist extremism in the US is leading a small but growing number of experts to agree with Professor Meuller's assessment. Like Meuller, though, they add a cautionary note.

"There's not zero threat in any community, but it is good news and we have to hope that reflects an underlying reality that [homegrown extremist cells] don't exist here," says Jonathan Winer, a terrorism expert in Washington. "You've always got lone nuts in every imaginable ethnic group grabbing every imaginable ideology to justify terrorism."

Petty Officer 3rd Class Cooper Jackson, 23, pleaded guilty Monday to premeditated murder, kidnapping, impersonating a Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent and obstruction of justice in connection with the death of Cpl. Justin L. Huff, 23.

In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to spare him a possible death sentence.

Federal agents had testified at his Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a grand jury investigation, that Jackson had been fooled into falling in love with a woman who called herself Samantha and made up a story about being raped by servicemen.

"Samantha" turned out to be Ashley Elrod, a 22-year-old hotel clerk on North Carolina's Outer Banks, who testified that she lied about being raped. She said she "might have" told Jackson that one of the Marines was named Huff or Huffman, and she said Jackson called her after Huff was killed. Elrod has not been charged.

During his court-martial, Jackson told the Navy judge how he posed as an NCIS agent and took Huff to North Carolina to get information about the purported rape. He said he then slit Huff's throat and buried the body to avoid being caught.

"I'd broken several laws and I had a missing Marine with me," Jackson said at his hearing Monday. "Quite frankly, I was scared of the consequences of what would happen, of being caught, more so than I was of the consequences of taking his life."

If the judge accepts the plea, Jackson could be sentenced to life in prison with or without the possibility of parole, said his lawyer, Don Marcari. The sentencing phase was to begin Tuesday.

Huff, 23, of Indianapolis, was reported missing Jan. 2 after he didn't show up for class at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center in Virginia Beach, where Jackson also was a student.

Agents said Jackson, of Boones Mill, confessed when they questioned him Jan. 12. The next day, he led agents to Huff's body in a wooded area in Currituck County, N.C., just south of the Virginia-North Carolina border.

Michael Kelly Reiner, 46, of East Meadow, was fired from his 18-year teaching job at the Long Island School for the Gifted after he was arrested Sept. 27. Prosecutors said Monday that Reiner had 10 computer files containing about 500 sexually explicit images of children, along with 60 similar videos. Prosecutors said Reiner's home computer also held about 2,000 stories about the sexual abuse, torture and cannibalism of children, each story about two pages long.

Standing before Judge Joseph F. Bianco in orange jail scrubs, Reiner pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in Central Islip. His lawyer, Ronald Schoenberg of Mineola, said Reiner never actively sought child pornography, but it ended up on his computer via unwanted correspondence. He said the stories were part of a fantasy that Reiner entertained, but never acted upon.

"There's children who could be character witnesses for this man," said Schoenberg, referring to Reiner's tenure as a teacher. "He has had an exemplary record his whole life. He has never had a complaint made against him by a child, ever."

"He may say it's fictitious," Assistant U.S. Attorney Allen L. Bode said, referring to Reiner's contention that the materials were part of a fantasy. "I say it's more dangerous."

According to the indictment unsealed Monday, prosecutors found files with names such as "theboyz12" and "realboylove28" in Reiner's computer. The indictment also ordered Reiner to forfeit a computer processor, four external hard drives, a desktop computer and a laptop computer.

The charge of possession of child pornography carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, authorities said. Reiner's next court appearance will be a Dec. 1 bail hearing to determine whether he is eligible for release pending a trial.

Bode said he would argue for Reiner's continued detention, and use the files to show he poses a danger to children. Schoenberg said Reiner poses no risk, but he would nevertheless ask that he be released to the custody of a brother who does not live near schools or other places that attract children.

Family members who were in court Monday to support Reiner declined to comment.

The victim was Dale Reightler, 43, of Donaldson, according to his brother-in-law Charles Kimmel. Kimmel said the coal mine's owner also told the family Reightler was killed when explosives went off.

"All they know is they fired (the explosives)," Kimmel said. "They don't know if there was gas there and it went off. They won't know until they get it aired out and get up there tomorrow."

State and federal investigators were trying to determine the cause of the accident, the state Department of Environmental Protection said. Regulators ordered the mine closed until an investigation is complete.

Fillpot said the miners had checked for methane gas before the 10:30 a.m. detonation, but didn't detect any.

State officials were being cautious about calling the incident an explosion, saying it was too dangerous to go down into the mine shaft to investigate because the incident knocked out the mine's ventilation system. They hoped to have it restored Tuesday.

"Right now, it's a mining accident, a fatal mine accident, and that's what we're terming it until the investigation concludes," said Mark Carmon, a DEP spokesman.

The five miners who escaped were being interviewed, Carmon said.

The mine is in a remote, mountainous region in eastern Pennsylvania. A June inspection turned up no violations, while an August inspection found brush surrounding an exhaust fan that was cleared while the inspector was on site, according to state officials.

Four workers at the mine were injured Dec. 1, 2004, by debris from an explosion caused by a pipe with a faulty gauge, state officials said. The mine reopened after installing safety equipment, and two inspections this year turned up no significant violations, the state agency said.

The victim's neighbors were taking food to his family's home in the tightly knit mining community, neighbor Diana Carra said.

"The folks here really take care of each other," she said.

The owner of the coal company, Stu Himmelberger, was at Reightler's house Monday night to comfort the family but did not talk to a reporter. Kimmel, who also was at the home, said Reightler had worked in the mines since age 16, but dreamed of moving his wife and four children and setting up an auto repair business.

"He was going to give it up and go into auto repair full time," Kimmel said. "I guess that ain't going to happen."

The area has the nation's only deposits of anthracite, a type of hard, relatively clean-burning coal that once heated millions of homes but now represents a tiny sliver of the U.S. coal industry. The mines still operating are typically small, with only a few miners.

So far this year, there have been 41 other deaths in U.S. coal-mine accidents, none in Pennsylvania. In the deadliest accident, 12 men were killed at the Sago Mine in northern West Virginia in January.

Omaha banned smoking in public Oct. 2. Penalties are $100 for the first offense, $200 for the second and $500 for the third and subsequent infractions.

Teresa Negron, sergeant in charge of public information for the police, explained the department encourages observers of infractions to pick up the phone to report the infraction - just like they would for any other crime they observe being committed.

In the three weeks since the new smoking ban took effect, people have been observing the law, according to the city prosecutor.

The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite contains folate, which in the US can be added only to breads and cereals.

Expatriates say that enforcement of the ban has been stepped up recently and is ruining lifelong traditions of having Vegemite on toast for breakfast.

Former Geelong man Daniel Fogarty, who now lives in Calgary, Canada, said he was stunned when searched while crossing the US border recently.

"The border guard asked us if we were carrying any Vegemite," Mr Fogarty said.

"I was flabbergasted." Paul Watkins, who owns a store called About Australia in San Antonio, Texas, said he had been forced to stop importing Vegemite six months ago.

"We have completely stopped bringing it in," he said.

"(US authorities) have made a stance and there is nothing that can be done about it."

(CBS) NEW YORK There are thousands of faceless taxi drivers in New York City.

But when you hop into the cab of one Samuel Vazquez, well, let's just say you feel like you know him. And depending on your politics, that's not necessarily a good thing.

In fact, when it comes to New York cab drivers, some are definitely major league pros.

But Vazquez is just plain "Bush."

"I look like George Bush!" he says, referring, of course, to President George W. Bush. Unlike the commander in chief, though, Vazquez, 76, lives in the Bronx and has been a hack for 40 years.

His look-alike mug has put him in some pretty impressive political company. He has photos of himself with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and others.

But alas, Vazquez says, he and his likeness share precious little politically.

President Bush is a Republican. Vazquez is a Democrat.

President Bush supports the Iraq War. Vazquez, a Korean War veteran, isn't crazy about it.

Perhaps more striking, however, is a linguistic difference between the president and Vazquez. The president says "nuke-u-ler." Vazquez says a perfectly enunciated "nu-clee-er."

Vazquez often finds himself the subject of gawkers, people who want their pictures taken and folks who shout at him for the policies of the man he resembles.

"Are you sorting out Iraq?" one man on the street demanded to know recently.

But Vazquez says the encounters with strangers merely add richness to his colorful life. You might even say it's been quite a ride.

Vazquez, by the way, has been married to the same woman, Lucy, for 51 years. They have four children. And for the record, when it comes to his likeness, President Bush, he says he prefers to keep his opinions to himself.