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Carnival, the world's largest cruise operator, has rejected a request from a powerful U.S. senator that it reimburse the U.S. government for the costs it incurs for rescuing the company's ships when they become disabled.

The violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank has been unearthed, a British auction house said Friday. Survivors of the Titanic have said they remember the band, led by Wallace Hartley, playing on deck even as passengers boarded lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg.

Cruise Week editor in chief Mike Driscoll tells USA TODAY that the Carnival Dream incident "seems to be a technical issue that happens all the time on land ... at hotels" and is getting so much attention only because it happened a month after a fire on the Carnival Triumph. "But it's bad news for the cruise industry," he says, with the Dream and Triumph out of service at least temporarily and it might "cement in (some people's) minds a fear about cruises."

"You don't back a horse called Striding Snail, you don't name your boat Titanic II." Sound advice from a 1996 Beautiful South tune, "Little Blue." One man, however, seems hellbent on ignoring such plain folk wisdom in an audacious pursuit to rewrite history... A replica of the doomed ship Titanic will sail in 2016, says Blue Star Line chairman Clive Palmer.

What could possibly go wrong? An Australian billionaire is getting ready to build a new version of the Titanic that could set sail in late 2016.

A Coast Guard official said Monday that the cause of the engine-room fire on the Carnival cruise ship Triumph was a leak in a fuel oil return line.

More than 4,000 passengers and crew were stuck on a cruise ship since an engine room fire cut power and left the ship listing four days ago.

The crippled Carnival Triumph cruise ship — described as a "nightmare" of filth — finally docked in Mobile, Ala., Thursday night, but officials said it would still be hours before all the passengers would be able to get off.

A cruise ship disabled for five nightmarish days in the Gulf limped under tow into port with more than 4,000 people aboard late Thursday.

A Coast Guard official says a disabled cruise ship is stopped off the coast of Alabama because of a broken towline attached to one of the boats towing the vessel.