iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The daughter of baseball legend Joe Torre made the perfect catch on Wednesday when she caught a 1-year-old boy who fell out of a New York City building, according to reports.Cristina Torre, 44, who was biking past the building, was able to catch the child before he fell to the pavement, WABC reported.Police told WABC the child who was left unsupervised by his parents, had crawled onto the fire escape and tumbled down the awning moments before Torre came to the rescue, showing off her inherited fielding skills.After her flawless catch, a witness told the New York Daily News that Torre, "just smiled and said she was in shock."The baby was taken to Lutheran Medical Center where he was being treated for lacerations to the face, according to WABC; he was said to be in stable condition.Three siblings taken from the apartment are being cared for by the Administration for Children’s Services, according to WABC, while the baby’s parents were taken into police custody.During his tenure as the New York Yankees’ manager from 1996 to 2007, Joe Torre, a former all-star catcher, led the team to four World Series championship titles.Joe Torre is the executive vice president of Major League Baseball operations.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(GALWAY, N.Y.) -- A New York man who allegedly wanted to kill President Obama and apparently blamed him for the recent Boston bombings has been arrested for trying to build and detonate a weapon of mass destruction.Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, of Galway, N.Y., spent months designing and constructing an X-ray system that would emit deadly amounts of radiation and could be detonated remotely, according to the FBI. Crawford recruited Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson, N.Y, to join in the plot, and both were arrested Tuesday, the FBI said.Crawford and Feight allegedly planned to hide their weapon in a truck and FBI experts said it would have been "functional" and "lethal."According to the FBI, Crawford cited "a political figure" and a Muslim organization as "potential targets." Sources familiar with the investigation identified the "political figure" as Obama."Obama's policies caused this," Crawford allegedly wrote in a text message on April 15, the day a series of bombings killed three and injured scores more at the Boston marathon."He directed the [government] to start bringing [Muslims] here without background checks," Crawford wrote, according to the FBI. "They don't have to follow any laws, and this administration has done more to enable a government sponsored invasion than the press can cover up."The FBI launched an investigation into Crawford last spring after he allegedly walked into a synagogue in Albany, N.Y., and inquired about technology that could kill, "Israel's enemies while they slept." The synagogue notified police, and within six weeks the FBI had a source secretly recording meetings with Crawford, according an FBI affidavit filed in the case.In a June 2012 conversation, Crawford -- described by the FBI as a member of the Ku Klux Klan -- called his design "Hiroshima on a light switch," the affidavit said. And in August 2012, Crawford allegedly asked a high-ranking official in the KKK for money to fund his plot. The KKK official informed the FBI, and within weeks two undercover agents posing as KKK members were introduced to Crawford.Over the next several months, Crawford conducted extensive research for the design, at times expressing frustration over the slow pace of the team's progress, the FBI affidavit indicated. Ultimately, with help from the undercover agents, Crawford and Feight acquired the necessary parts and even tested the device that would remotely detonate the weapon, according to the FBI. It would all be powered through a truck's cigarette lighter, the FBI said.Crawford and Feight planned to meet Tuesday to connect the final components of their weapon, but they were arrested by the FBI.The pair had met at GE, where Crawford was an industrial mechanic and Feight sometimes worked as an outside contractor due to his engineering skills. But GE has "no reason to believe" any crimes, "took place on GE property," and Crawford has since been suspended, the company said in a statement."We are cooperating fully with authorities on their investigation," said Jim Healy, communications director for GE Power & Water.Both defendants have been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, namely through use of a weapon of mass destruction. The charges came via a criminal complaint, which means a grand jury will decide whether to indict the men if a plea deal is not reached beforehand.In a statement, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian said the public must, "remain vigilant to detect and stop potential terrorists," and the head of the FBI's field office in Albany, Andrew Vale, said such anti-terrorism efforts "are only successful" with the public's help.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Mexican Latinos make up more than two-thirds of all Latinos in the United States, according to a new Pew Hispanic report.Of the 51.9 million Latinos living in the U.S. in 2011, more than 33.5 million trace their family back to Mexico. The report looked at demographic data collected from the 2011 American Community Survey. The report also examined U.S. citizenship, education levels and median income among U.S. Hispanics.Puerto Ricans make up the second-largest group, accounting for 9.5 percent, or about 5 million people.Salvadoran, Cuban, and Dominican come in next with 1.9, 1.8, and 1.5 million, respectively -- although, Salvadoran and Cuban numbers have been statistically equal and alternating yearly.Mexican Latinos have always represented the largest segment of the U.S. Latino population and the report found that 74 percent of people who trace their roots to Mexico hold U.S. citizenship.“One of the things we've done for the first time is shown the long view of the share of Mexican Americans,” Mark Lopez, associate director for the Pew Hispanic Center, told ABC News. “Since 1860 the community has diversified. In 1860 they were 81 percent, but today’s numbers reflects the diversification of immigration in the U.S...there are Hispanics from every part of Latin America and Spain in the U.S.”The report also found Mexican Americans to be of the lowest average age (25), while Cuban Americans were the oldest, at 40.When looking solely at foreign-born, as of the 2011 data, Venezuelans and Peruvians accounted for the majority at 69 percent and 68 percent, respectively. Those two groups ranked 13 and 11 when looking at the total Latino population.“South Americans are some of the more recent arrivals to the U.S. and the people who are coming from South Americas are more likely to have college degrees, more likely to be in high-paying occupations, and their family income numbers are higher,” Lopez said. "The folks who come from South America, many of them are actually foreign -born and many of them have a college degree.”Argentineans had the highest average household income in 2011 at $55,000, and Hondurans the lowest at $31,000, also giving Hondurans the highest poverty rate among U.S. Hispanics with 33 percent. Mexican’s averaged $38,000, with a poverty rate of 28 percent.The poverty rate for Hispanics is higher than it is for the general U.S. population. According to the 2011 census, the nation’s median income was $50,054 and poverty rate was 15 percent.“Part of that is the level of education,” Lopez said. “On the whole the Hispanic community is less likely to hold a college degree than the general U.S. population...there is still a substantial difference in educational attainment.”But Lopez says that many Mexican Americans have not “quite entered adulthood” yet and recent years have seen a surge in the number going to college.“Hispanics are now the largest minority group on college campuses,” Lopez said. “Looking forward it's likely we are going to see the number with a college degree rise, but that is still going to be a decade or more down the road because we are just starting to see this increase among Hispanics in college enrollments.”Just over 50 percent of Venezuelans, the report found, have a college degree, while Guatemalans and Salvadorans were the least likely (seven percent).All together, United States Latinos trace their heritage to more than 20 Spanish-speaking nations worldwide, but 14 countries represented the majority of U.S. Latinos. As of the 2013 census, Hispanic population is the nation’s largest and fastest-growing immigrant group -- 53 million in 2012, making up 17 percent of the U.S. population. The census report found non-Hispanic blacks represent 12 percent of the U.S. population.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Michael DeHoog/Sports Imagery / Getty Images(BOSTON) -- New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who is caught in the middle of a homicide investigation of an "associate," is also being sued by a former friend who claims Hernandez shot his eye out after the two left a Miami strip club. The suit states that Hernandez "possessed a gun which he was not legally licensed to have." In a lawsuit filed in federal court on June 13, attorneys representing Alexander Bradley, 32, state that their client, Hernandez and several others were at Tootsie's strip club in Miami on Feb. 13 when Bradley and Hernandez got into an argument. The group then left the club, and while driving towards Palm Beach, Hernandez's gun discharged inside the vehicle. "It fired, and a bullet went through my client's arm and blew out his right eye," attorney David Jaroslawicz told ABC News. "It has been enucleated -- replaced with a prosthetic eye. He has also lost use of his right arm." The lawyer said that "to my knowledge" no charges were filed as a result of the shooting. Jaroslawicz said that the suit was voluntarily discontinued because language describing the injuries was incorrect. It is being refiled Wednesday, he said. Bradley has done personal assistant work for Hernandez, according to Jaroslawicz. He did not disclose the amount of damages sought in the suit, but said that Bradley has had four surgeries so far and anticipates two or three more. Massachusetts state police, who searched Hernandez's home Tuesday night, executed a search warrant Wednesday for an Enterprise rental car that was leased by Hernandez. The car was left near where the body of Odin Lloyd, 27, was found Monday evening with a gunshot wound to the head. The body was discovered in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard, less than a mile from Hernandez's $1.3 million, 5,600-square-foot home in North Attleborough. Police spent hours at Hernandez's home Tuesday night, taking evidence photos and removing boxes. Another search was conducted of a car parked in Hernandez's driveway, a 2012 Chrysler 200 LX. The license plate connected that car to an Enterprise rental in Hernandez's name, several law enforcement sources told ABC News. A third enterprise rental car registered to Hernandez was recovered at a Boston Enterprise rental location. Tuesday night, police were looking for this car, one of several that was registered to the football player, and intend to search it as well, sources said. "Someone dropped it off yesterday," a law enforcement source told ABC News. "Last night a BOLO [be on the lookout] was issued to all police for that vehicle, a silver Chevy. It has been recovered," the source said. Police could be seen Wednesday searching the woods and front yards of homes stretching from the scene of the crime to Hernandez's house. A gun was found in the search, but ballistic tests discounted it as the weapon that killed Lloyd, sources said. Lloyd was a linebacker for a semi-pro team called the Boston Bandits. Suffolk County District Attorney Jake Wark told ABC News that Lloyd had one arrest in 2008, a misdemeanor charge stemming from a fight. Stacey James, a New England Patriots official, said on behalf of the team, "I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation." Hernandez's sports agency, Athletes First, declined to comment. His lawyer did not respond to repeated calls from ABC News Wednesday. Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder surgery, though he was spotted at practice recently welcoming new Patriots quarterback Tim Tebow.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(ASHLAND, Ohio) -- The lawyer for an Ohio suspect accused of keeping a mentally disabled woman and her daughter as slaves and threatening them with deadly snakes, says his client is innocent and the alleged victim was free to come and go as she pleased. The alleged victim, a 29-year-old woman, claims she was kept against her will by three suspects in their home outside Cleveland beginning in late 2011 and was forced to do housework without pay. She also claims that she was monitored around the clock to keep her from escaping. According to an FBI criminal complaint, the three suspects are accused of pilfering her bank account and terrorizing the woman and her 5-year-old daughter with pitbulls and a collection of snakes, which included a venomous coral snake and a 130-pound python. The woman and her child were initially forced to sleep on a "cement floor in the basement with no mattress," but were later moved to another room, which was kept locked so the girl could not leave, according to the FBI. The pair were permitted only to eat canned food while forced to feed fresh fruits and vegetables to "the iguana that freely roamed in their bedroom." On another occasion, a hot meal was tauntingly denied to the little girl and fed instead to a dog, according to court documents filed by the FBI. The suspects threatened the woman with a gun and smashed her hand with a rock and sent her to a hospital emergency room to obtain pain medication, which the men kept for their own use, according to the FBI. "These defendants violated the victim's most basic civil right, freedom, by exploiting her most basic instinct, the protection of her child," said Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Cleveland office in a statement. "The FBI continues to aggressively pursue and bring to justice those individuals who abuse and harm innocent members of our community." Jordie Callahan, 26, Jessica Hunt, 31, and Daniel J. Brown, 33, were charged with forced labor, a federal crime. Callahan also was charged with tampering with a witness. All three suspects appeared in court on Monday and were ordered held in a county jail until a bond hearing on Monday. They all have obtained legal counsel. Police found the woman when she was arrested for shoplifting a candy bar and told police she preferred to go to jail than back to the home where the suspects were "were mean to her." Edward Bryan, a federal defender representing Hunt, said his client, as well as the two men, would plead not guilty once they were formally arraigned. "They do plan to plead not guilty," Bryan told ABC News. "There are some serious questions about the veracity of claims in the affidavit." Bryan says the woman requested to live in the Ashland, Ohio, home. In order to retain custody of her daughter following a child abuse allegation, she had to have a permanent address, and officials from the county's child protective services visited the home and found the conditions there suitable, the lawyer said. Officials from the Ashland County Department of Jobs and Family Services would not return calls for comment to confirm those details. "People want to believe a sensationalist story," said Bryan, "but this is much more mundane." Lawyers for the other suspects did not comment to ABC News.The case immediately drew parallels to the recent arrest of Ariel Castro, just one hour away in Cleveland. Castro is accused of keeping three kidnapped women sex slaves in his home for a decade. "This is not like that at all," Bryan told ABC News. "This woman was not kidnapped off the street and held in a basement in shackles of chains. She was able to come and go as she pleased." Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Hudson-LaPore Family Photo(CHICAGO) -- A body found in Lake Michigan has been identified as missing Chicago student Austin LaPore, investigators said. "The family of Austin Hudson LaPore positively identified his body earlier today," an official with the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office told ABC News. Authorities pulled the body of LaPore, 20, out of Lake Michigan Wednesday morning after he went missing one week ago, ABC News Chicago station WLS-TV reported. Police will conduct an autopsy Thursday to determine the cause of death, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. Eddie Hudson, a fisherman, found LaPore's body and called the police. The discovery came a day after a K-9 team determined that LaPore had spent a significant amount of time on the coast of Lake Michigan last Wednesday night, when severe storms created powerful winds and wave action that could have pulled him in, according to an update to a LaPore family website, www.findaustinhudson.com. LaPore was last seen Wednesday night when he left his Hyde Park apartment to watch unusually strong weather over Lake Michigan.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Two New York men have been charged with plotting to develop an X-ray weapon.Opponents of Israel were the alleged targets of two upstate New York men, Glendon Crawford and Eric Feight, who prosecutors say wanted to create a portable device that could deliver lethal doses of radiation.Authorities say there were tipped off when Crawford approached Jewish groups seeking help with technology that could be used against "people he perceived as enemies of Israel."The FBI says the two men have been working on the device for nearly a year but the public was in no danger because undercover investigators were there the whole time.Crawford and Feight face 15 years in prison.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
State of Massachusetts(BOSTON) -- Hitman John Martorano admitted on the stand Wednesday that he lied to his best friend before he shot him in the back of the head. "I couldn't tell him I was going to shoot him," Martorano told the court of the murder of John Callahan, a close friend for decades who was murdered, the hitman testified, because Bulger "insisted on it." It was one of several lies that lawyers from accused Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger elicited from Martorano, a key prosecution witness in Bulger's trial for 19 murders and other crimes. Under cross examination by defense lawyer Hank Brennan, Martorano conceded he had previously lied about his partnership with Bulger. And he lied to Massachusetts State Trooper Tom Foley about details regarding the murder of Edward Connors, who was gunned down in a phone booth in 1975, Brennan pointed out. "I recanted that," Martorano retorted. Brennan asked Martorano what the government told him about his plea deal. "I was told that if I ever told a lie I would go to jail for the rest of my life," Martorano told the court. Bulger's defense attorneys spent the start of Martorano's third and final day on the stand in trying to portray the confessed hitman as a liar who would say anything about his former friend Bulger to save himself from life in prison or the death penalty. Still, Martorano would testify about his feelings on informants. "An informant is a Judas, a rat, a no-good guy," Martorano told the court. "I was always brought up that's the worst person in the world. As far as being a rat, that's the opposite of how I want to live."
Martorano has explained that he never testified against anyone who didn't hurt him and chose to help the government put Bulger and Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi behind bars because they "broke my heart" by moonlighting as paid FBI informants while allegedly running the Boston rackets. He was once so close to Bulger and Flemmi he named his youngest son, James Stephen, after the gangsters. He did not learn that Bulger and Flemmi were working for the FBI until 1995. Before that, Bulger cradled James Stephen Martorano and was christened as the baby's godfather, a photograph of which was entered into evidence by the U.S. Attorney this week. Brennan appealed to Martorano's ego in his questioning, asking him if he "answered to Bulger" and whether the Winter Hill gang leader "was his boss." "Were you partners?" Brennan asked. "I thought so," Martorano answered. He stammered a bit and then added: "He knew what buttons to push." It was clear that Brennan's line of questioning also pushed Martorano's buttons. For three straight days the man who has confessed to 20 murders told the court he "tried to be" a nice guy and that he preferred to think of himself as a vigilante rather than a serial killer, has been calm and collected. Martorano appeared somewhat rattled as Brennan questioned his recollection of details about Bulger's alleged involvement in some of Martorano's activities. Brennan also hammered Martorano on his cooperation agreement with federal officials and the benefits he received from the government after he admitted to murdering 20 people. "Any time you wanted money you could call," Brennan asked of Martorano's relationship with federal agents while he was incarcerated, "and they would put $400 in your canteen account." Martorano admitted to collecting roughly $8,000 while he was incarcerated in a federal pen. Then he got another $20,000 from the federal government when he was released from prison in 2007. "I asked for startup money. When I got out I had nothing," Martorano admitted. Brennan pointed out that Martorano was able to keep a house he owned in Florida and waive the restitution he was ordered to pay as part of his plea agreement. He also asked Martorano about his $250,000 movie deal and the more than $70,000 he received for collaborating with Boston newspaperman Howie Carr for the book Hitman, for which he still receives royalties. "I didn't want to hurt anyone with it," Martorano said. "I was trying to make a living. I didn't try to hurt anyone with the book."
Brennan tried to implicate Martorano in continuing criminal activity upon his release from prison in 2007. He asked Martorano whether he tried to shake down a man who the hitman claimed owed him $100,000. Martorano explained that he wanted to ask that man if there was any money he owed to Mafia figures in New York City. "I didn't want anyone chasing me for money that I might have owed," Martorano testified. "I didn't chase him. I just went to see him in the North End." Martorano said he continues to gamble with another man and "takes a piece of it" of the winnings "because he's a better gambler than me." With that, the defense attorneys ended their cross-examination of the government's star witness. The dapperly-dressed Martorano regained his composure during assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak redirect questioning, which focused on the murders Bulger is accused of involvement in. "Were you and Mr. Bulger involved in the murder of Michael Milano?" Wyshak asked. "Correct," Martorano stated. "Were you and Mr. Bulger involved in the murder of Al Plumber?" "Correct," Martorano answered. "Were you and Mr. Bulger involved in the murder of William O'Brien?" "Correct." The question was asked 13 times more with names of Al Norangelli, Eddie Connors, Thomas King, James O'Toole, James Souza, Richard Castucci, Roger Wheeler, John Callahan, Brian Halloran and Buddy Leonard. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Cuyahoga County Jail(CUYAHOGA COUNTY, Ohio) -- More charges could be added to the 329-count indictment against alleged Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro, who appeared in court Wednesday for a brief pre-trial hearing. "We are presenting additional evidence to the grand jury next week and week after. We expect that we are going to request further indictments," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said Wednesday. A tentative Aug. 4 trial date was set Wednesday for Castro, who was indicted earlier this month for allegedly kidnapping Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight and imprisoning them, sometimes restrained by chains, in his Cleveland home.
The former school bus driver is also accused of the aggravated murder of a fetus for allegedly forcibly causing an abortion in Knight, who he is accused of impregnating, a charge that could potentially carry the death penalty. Knight told investigators she became pregnant five times by Castro, but he punched her in the belly until she miscarried. Berry later delivered Castro's baby while in captivity. That girl is now 6.The 52-year-old walked into Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday in shackles, with his head hung low, and answered "yes" and "no" to the judge's questions before another pre-trial hearing was set for June 26. Castro's defense attorney, Craig Weintraub, said at a news conference last week that he hoped the two sides could work "towards a resolution to avoid a trial" and to avoid the death penalty for Castro. He called on prosecutors to drop the aggravated murder charge. Castro has pleaded not guilty.
The women were freed on May 6 when neighbors heard Berry screaming for help behind a closed door.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Keith Levit Photography/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Court documents and FBI field reports reviewed by ABC News undercut and contradict the dramatic testimony from senior counter-terrorism officials that the National Security Agency's surveillance programs thwarted an attack by al Qaeda on the New York Stock Exchange. According to an FBI interview with an imprisoned al Qaeda figure involved in the plot, "there was no further operational planning of that target" after surveillance found the four streets around the exchange building "were blocked off from vehicular traffic." The FBI document was filed last month in federal court in New York as part of the government sentencing memorandum for one of the alleged plotters, Sabirhan Hasanoff, who is to be sentenced next week. But the FBI deputy director, Sean Joyce, provided Congress with a different version of events Tuesday as he cited the stock exchange plot as one of more than 50 "terror events" that had been disrupted with the help of the NSA's secret surveillance programs. "We went up on the electronic surveillance and identified his co-conspirators and this was the plot that was in the very initial stages of plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," Joyce testified. Asked whether it was a "serious plot" by one member of Congress, Joyce said, "I think the jury considered it serious since they were all convicted." In fact, ABC News found there was no jury trial of any of the three alleged plotters. None of them were charged with planning an attack on Wall Street. Rather, all three pleaded guilty to charges including providing financial and material support to al Qaeda. A U.S. official familiar with the case acknowledged that Joyce had "misspoke" about a jury finding. The official insisted that a terror plot may not seem like a serious threat if it's stopped in the planning stages, as the Stock Exchange targeting was. "It was, as Deputy Director Joyce state, in its nascent stages and could have progressed well beyond that if it wasn't for our ability to obtain the FISA material," the official told ABC News. Describing the charges against one of the plotters, Khalid Ouazzani of Kansas City, the then-United States attorney Beth Phillips, now a federal judge, said, "We have no evidence that Ouazzani engaged in any specific plot against the United States government." A spokesman, Don Ledford, added Wednesday, "We would still stand by that, that he posed no imminent threat to the public." One current and one former counter-terrorism official told ABC News there may be more to the Hasanoff case than the public record contains, including sensitive intelligence prosecutors chose not to enter into evidence. Officials said whatever the role of the NSA programs, there is no doubt that Hasanoff and the others were potential threats to the U.S. through their repeated contacts with al Qaeda figures in Yemen. Authorities said the NSA surveillance programs did first identify Ouazzani as being in contact with al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, and that information helped lead to two other Americans, Hasanoff and Wesam El-Hanafi, who all swore an oath of allegiance to al Qaeda, according to the court documents. FBI agents were then able to investigate Ouazzani, track his travels to the Middle East and later he became a cooperating witness for the government. According to the government documents, the New York Stock Exchange plot began in 2008 with a request to Hasanoff to "perform surveillance" for "purposes of planning an attack in the United States." On August 7, Hasanoff wrote in an email to his al Qaeda coordinator in Yemen, intercepted by the government, "I have visited the tourist locations you asked me about and will report to you after two weeks in detail." The FBI report says the al Qaeda leader "was not satisfied with the report, and he accordingly disposed of it. (The report apparently lacked sufficient detail about New York Stock Exchange security matters to be as helpful as the Doctor had hoped.)" The attorney for Hasanoff, David Rhunke, said the idea that the FBI and the NSA would use the alleged plot to justify the surveillance programs is "almost silly." In his plea to the court ahead of sentencing, Hasanoff said "he deliberately provided nothing beyond what anyone could have learned from Google Earth, a tourist map or brochure." He said there was "no further discussion of surveillance of the NYSE or any other tourist sites after August 2008." Yet, FBI deputy director Joyce repeatedly cited the case in defending the controversial electronic surveillance. "I sit before you today, humbly, to say these tools have helped us," he said. Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, testified, "The information gathered from these programs provided the US government with critical leads to help prevent over fifty potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world." Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
MPI/Getty Images(DETROIT) -- The FBI announced Wednesday that the search for the body of Jimmy Hoffa, who vanished nearly 38 years ago, has now been called off, as investigators found no remains of the former Teamsters boss in a field in eastern Michigan.Investigators acting on a tip from a reputed underboss of the Detroit Mafia started digging in a field in Oakland Township, 25 miles north of Detroit, on Monday, after a search warrant was issued in the case. The search area, according to ABC’s Detroit affiliate WXYZ, was near land that was once owned by suspected mobsters.Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said that although animal bones had been found at the scene, no human remains had been found, WXYZ reported. No physical evidence has been gathered for lab testing, he said.Tony Zerilli, who the FBI considers a key figure in the Detroit Mafia, told reporter Marc Santia of WNBC in New York that Hoffa was going to be put “in a shallow grave” there and later taken upstate for “final burial” before the plan “fell through.”“The Hoffa body is in that field -- no doubt about it,” Zerilli’s attorney, David Chasnick, said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “There used to be a barn in that field. Buried under the barn, under the cement slab -- that’s where our understanding is that the body should be.”Hoffa was president of the Teamsters union until 1971. He disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant on July 30, 1975. He was declared legally dead July 30, 1982.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
John Parra/WireImage(NEW YORK) -- Serena Williams is apologizing for off-the-cuff remarks she made during an interview with Rolling Stone about the 16-year-old victim of the Steubenville sexual assault case, in which two high school football players were sent to jail.“I am currently reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article. What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame,” Williams said in a statement to ABC’s Good Morning America.“What happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me. I was deeply saddened. For someone to be raped, and at only sixteen, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved — that of the rape victim and of the accused,” Williams wrote.“I have fought all of my career for women’s equality, women’s equal rights, respect in their fields — anything I could do to support women I have done,” she added. “My prayers and support always goes out to the rape victim. In this case, most especially, to an innocent 16 year old child.”Williams’ remarks, published in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine fresh off her win at the French Open, drew widespread criticism after they were picked up by sports news website Deadspin.com.Williams and the magazine interviewer were watching television when a news segment on the Ohio case aired. She said the 16-year-old victim “put herself in that position.”“Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know. I’m not blaming the girl…but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other people,” Williams said during the interview with Rolling Stone contributor Stephen Rodrick.“She’s lucky…she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different,” she added.Two Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players, Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond were convicted of sexually assaulting the 16-year-old in March.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
JON LEVY/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In a new documentary, former government investigators who looked into the mysterious crash of TWA Flight 800, which killed 230 people, are breaking their silence to claim that the explosion that brought down the plane in 1996 was likely no accident, and that the final report on the cause of the blast was falsified.TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air on July 17, 1996, about 11 minutes after taking off from New York's JFK airport on its way to Paris. Though theories abounded as to what happened to the plane -- from a bomb on the aircraft to it being struck by a missile or even a meteorite -- the National Transportation Safety Board concluded after a four-year investigation that the probable cause of the crash was an accidental fuel tank explosion. The NTSB said it could not be sure what exactly ignited the blast, but "of the sources evaluated by the investigation, the most likely was a short circuit outside of the [fuel tank] that allowed excessive voltage to enter it through electrical wiring..."But according to the new documentary, which premieres on Epix next month named TWA Flight 800, six former members of the official crash investigation have stepped forward to refute the NTSB's findings, saying the crash report was purposefully falsified, and to claim the investigation was "systematically undermined" by federal authorities."We didn't find any part of the airplane that indicated a mechanical failure," one of the whistleblowers says in a trailer for the film. The former officials allege the explosion came from outside the plane, though they don't speculate any further on the original source.Another of the whistleblowers, former senior accident investigator with the NTSB, Hank Hughes, said in a preview of the documentary that FBI agents were spotted on surveillance cameras going through the hanger where the crash evidence was kept "in the wee hours of the morning...for purposes unknown."Some of the previous theories about the crash have been disproven in the years since and Tom Haueter, former director of Aviation Safety at the NTSB, told ABC News on Wednesday that the former officials in the documentary are wrong. He said that the evidence that the explosion was an internal accident was "irrefutable."There was "no sign" of penetration from the outside, Haueter said.The whistleblowers are calling for the NTSB to reopen its investigation, and the NTSB said in a statement Wednesday that it will reexamine the case if new evidence is presented or "on a showing that the Board's findings are erroneous.""While the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed and we can review any new information not previously considered by the Board," the NTSB said. "The TWA Flight 800 investigation lasted four years and remains one of the NTSB's most detailed investigations. Investigators took great care reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data and held a five-day hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident during a two-day Board meeting."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Hemera/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- Investigators plan to execute a search warrant on an Enterprise rental car registered to New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, ABC News has learned.The car was near the body of a man who was found murdered Monday evening.The search of the vehicle was planned after police spent hours at the $1.3 million home of the football player in North Attleborough, Mass., Tuesday night, taking evidence photos and removing boxes.Another search was conducted of a car parked in Hernandez's driveway, a 2012 Chrysler 200 LX. The license plate connected that car to Enterprise rental as well, several law enforcement sources told ABC News.Hernandez was cooperative with police Tuesday night, but the investigation is far from over, the sources said.The case began with the discovery on Monday around 5:30 p.m. of the body of a 27-year-old Boston man who was shot in the head, the sources said. The man was described as an "associate" of Hernandez, and the body was in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard, not far from an Enterprise car that had been rented by Hernandez, sources said.The Bristol County District Attorney's Office has refused to comment on the case. Detectives assigned to that office were seen at the Hernandez home Tuesday night.Stacey James, a New England Patriots official, said on behalf of the team, "I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation."Hernandez's sports agency, Athletes First, declined to comment.His lawyer did not immediately respond to ABC News on Wednesday.Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder surgery, though he was spotted at practice recently welcoming new Patriots' quarterback Tim Tebow.
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ABC(WESTERVILLE, Ohio) -- An Ohio day care worker who police say sprinkled drugs in children's snacks to make them fall asleep has denied dispensing any medication without parental approval."I simply wouldn't do it. I didn't do it," Tammy Eppley told ABC News on Tuesday. "Anytime I gave the children any medication, I had permission from the parent."Eppley, 37, was charged in Franklin County Municipal Court Monday with six counts of child endangerment after the mother of three allegedly used Melatonin and Benadryl to drug the children for whom she cared, including her own 2-year-old daughter.Eppley ran the Caterpillar Clubhouse day care out of her Westerville home, where she cared for six children, ranging in ages from 2 to 5 years old, officials said.Police say they have a series of text messages, videos and voice recordings Eppley sent to a former friend apparently bragging about mixing the substances into "snacks for the children in order to get them to sleep during the day."In one text, Eppley allegedly said a child remarked the "sprinkles on some cupcakes tasted funny."Eppley denies the allegations, claiming the text messages and videos were taken out of context and a former friend is out to get her."I made jokes about it. Very off-color jokes that I regret, but I never said I did in fact do that and she knew that," Eppley said. "This person knew exactly how to hurt me most."Franklin County Children Services concluded an investigation last month that resulted in no action against Eppley, calling the evidence against her "unsubstantiated."The police believe otherwise, however."We thought that there was enough probable cause to charge her with this, and we're pretty positive that she did this," Westerville Lt. Paul Scowden said.Eppley did not require a day care license because she was caring for six children at her home, according to Ohio state law. Seven or more children require a state license.Eppley says she can't find a lawyer and has lost her day care business after the charges were levied against her."The hardest part has been watching my kids suffer for it. Obviously, losing kids that I fell in love with," she said with tears in her eyes. "I'm a good person. I'm not a mug shot."
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US Army Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency -- Mark Wilson/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Most Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll support telephone and Internet surveillance by the National Security Administration, but two-thirds also favor congressional hearings on the subject -- indicating broad interest in more information about these activities. The public by 58-39 percent supports the NSA collecting “extensive records of phone calls, as well as Internet data related to specific investigations, to try to identify possible terrorist threats.”Support for the program is far higher among Democrats and liberals than among Republicans and strong conservatives, reversing Bush-era political divisions on issues of privacy vs. security.
See a PDF with full results, charts and tables here.
At the same time, in a strikingly nonpartisan result, 65 percent of Americans favor congressional hearings on the subject -- a view expressed by more than six in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents alike, as well as by virtually equal numbers across the ideological spectrum. The survey, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds a close division in attitudes on whether or not to prosecute Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who disclosed the classified NSA program. Forty-three percent support charging him with a crime; 48 percent oppose such charges. These results reflect attitudes on a developing story; views could shift based on more information about the government’s activities or the potential impact of Snowden’s disclosures. That highlights the competing values at stake -- the right to privacy from government intrusion vs. security from terrorism. Attitudes on the NSA effort are similar to those measured in a Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll June 9, in which 56 percent called it acceptable for the agency to obtain “secret court orders to track telephone call records of millions of Americans in an effort to investigate terrorism.” Surveys asking other questions have had different results -- 48 percent approval for “the government's collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts” in a Pew/USA Today poll June 16; the same level of approval in a Time magazine poll June 11; and in a CBS News poll June 10, just 38 percent approval for “federal government agencies collecting phone records of ordinary Americans” in order to reduce the threat of terrorism. A variety of factors could be at play, including exactly which records or data have been collected; how and why they were collected; as well as, speculatively, a distinction between asking about “support” vs. “approval” for a program that some may see as needed yet at the same time intrusive. As noted, results of this survey turn Bush-era partisan divisions on their head. In ABC/Post polls during the presidency of George W. Bush, Republicans and conservatives put far more emphasis on anti-terrorism investigations, even at the cost of privacy, while Democrats and independents were more apt to prioritize privacy rights. The divisions were closer in a 2010 survey; now with the NSA controversy arising on the Obama administration’s watch, the tables are turned: Seventy-three percent of Democrats and 67 percent of liberals in this survey support the NSA program; that declines to 49 percent of Republicans (and about as many independents, 51 percent) and just 46 percent of those who call themselves “very” conservative. (Support is much higher, 62 percent, among “somewhat” conservatives, similar to its level among political moderates.) In line these results, the survey also finds substantially more support for the NSA program among nonwhites, who are more apt to be Democrats, than among whites, 68 vs. 53 percent. And whites are more apt than nonwhites to favor hearings, 70 vs. 57 percent. Opposition to charging Snowden with a crime peaks among very conservatives, at 56 percent, and adults who (like Snowden himself) are younger than 30. Fifty-eight percent in this group prefer not to see him charged.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for The Guardian(LOS ANGELES) -- Journalist Michael Hastings, whose article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal effectively ended his command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was killed in a single-car crash early Tuesday, Los Angeles Police confirmed on Tuesday. Hastings was 33.According to the accident report, Hastings' vehicle crossed a median and struck a tree where it burst into flames. One witness reported that Hastings' car was moving at a high rate of speed at the time of the crash.A contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine, Hastings' 2010 article, "The Runaway General," focused on McChrystal's apparent contempt for his civilian commanders. Summoned back to Washington, President Obama demanded the general's resignation, remarking how the conduct described in Hastings' article "undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system."McChrystal was replaced by then-Gen. David Petraeus, regarded as one of the architects for the turnaround of the Iraq war.Hastings won the 2010 Polk award for magazine reporting for "The Runaway General." Also a reporter for BuzzFeed, he leaves behind a wife, Elise Jordan.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Michael DeHoog/Sports Imagery/ Getty Images(NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass.) -- Investigators searched the North Attleborough home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Tuesday following the killing of a man police call an "associate" of Hernandez, ABC News has learned.Massachusetts State Police and prosecutors arrived at Hernandez's $1.3 million, 5,600-square-foot home, which is outfitted with a home gym and a swimming pool, just before 5 p.m. and spent hours with him inside the mansion.Two Hernandez friends tried to leave house at the time of the search, but they were stopped by a state police car at the end of the driveway. Crime scene investigators later searched the car the men tried to leave in.During the search, Hernandez received a hand-delivered package from the prominent law firm Ropes and Gray around 7:30 p.m., with the deliveryman telling reporters swarming the sidewalk outside that it was addressed to "Mr. Hernandez himself."Hernandez was initially uncooperative with police after the body of a 27-year-old man was found in an industrial park not far from the Patriots player's home, two law enforcement sources said.A rental vehicle with Rhode Island plates was recovered near the scene, which led investigators to Hernandez, sources told ABC News.Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter confirmed in a media statement that a body was found around 5:30 p.m. Monday in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard. Sutter said that based on the "nature and circumstances" of the body that the investigation would be handed over to Massachusetts State Police detectives.North Attleborough is home to many Patriots players because of its proximity to Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots play. In fact, Hernandez bought his home from a former Patriots player, Ty Warren.Neighbors expressed concern outside of the house as it was searched.One, Jill Cambridge, 43, wore a Patriots jersey as she defended the star tight end."I think the kids around here, especially, look up to the Patriots players," she said. "I just hope he's not involved in this."Another neighbor, Susan Mayer, and her 14-year-old daughter, Rachel, described Hernandez as a very warm guy."There is a lot of action around here because of the Patriots,'' Susan Mayer said.Rachel was more concerned about keeping Hernandez on the team."We need the Patriots to win," she said.She added that Hernandez, along with Matt Light and other Patriots standouts, hosted a haunted house and scared dozens of kids while dressed up in costumes last Halloween.Stacey James, a New England Patriots official, said on behalf of the team, "I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation."Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder scope, though he was spotted at practice recently welcoming new Patriots quarterback Tim Tebow.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Joe Burbank - Pool/Getty Images(SANFORD, Fla.) -- The jury selection process in the George Zimmerman murder trial will move on to round two on Wednesday, as the prosecution and defense look to whittle down a pool of potential jurors into a final list of jurors and alternates.A jury is expected to be seated as early as Wednesday, but the process could go through Thursday.The prosecution and the defense team Tuesday agreed on a pool of 40 potential jurors that included 16 men and 24 women. It took both sides seven days to collect 40 potential jurors fit to move on to the next round, called regular voir dire.On Wednesday, 30 of the 40 potential jurors will be brought into the courtroom and further questioned as a group on their beliefs and biases.In February 2012, Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla., shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin after a confrontation in the dark. Zimmerman has cited self-defense as his reason for shooting the unarmed teen, who he said had been acting “suspiciously."During Wednesday’s process, both the prosecution and the defense will have 10 strikes, meaning they can excuse as many as 10 jurors without an explanation. Until this point, the jurors were only excused “for cause,” meaning they were too closely related to the case or knew too much.The counsels must agree upon a final six jurors and four alternates who will be sequestered for the duration of the trial. For now, Judge Debra Nelson has ruled the names of the jurors will be kept secret.Of the 40 potential jurors, many are white and female. In the racial breakdown of the jury pool, there are 28 white potential jurors, 19 of them female and nine male. There are only six black potential jurors, three male and three female. There are four Hispanic potential jurors and two who identified as mixed-race.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
US Drug Enforcement Administration(NEW YORK) -- A suburban mother of two accused of running a sophisticated $3 million marijuana enterprise out of a New York warehouse was slapped with a federal indictment on Tuesday by prosecutors who said her operation was no different than that of Colombian druglords.Andrea Sanderlin, 45, of Scarsdale, N.Y., was charged with manufacturing and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute it, and for maintaining a warehouse where marijuana was grown and processed, according to the United States Attorney's Office Eastern District of New York, which announced the charges Tuesday afternoon."There's really no difference whether you're a suburban mom growing marijuana in a warehouse in Queens, or a cartel member making cocaine in the jungles of Colombia -- manufacturing and distributing illegal narcotics comes at a hefty price when you are caught by law enforcement," said James Hayes, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's office of investigations in New York.Sanderlin was arrested on May 20 after authorities raided a Queens warehouse, where they found $3 million worth of pot, including close to 3,000 plants, according to Brian Crowell, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge of the investigation.Crowell called the setup a "highly sophisticated indoor marijuana grow operation."After her arrest, Sanderlin drew comparisons with Nancy Botwin, the maternal drug dealer played by Mary-Louise Parker on the Showtime series Weeds."Sanderlin could have focused her talents on building a legitimate business enterprise to support her family and serve as a role model for her children," United States attorney Loretta Lynch said Tuesday."Instead, she allegedly chose to inhabit the shadowy underworld of large-scale drug dealers, using drug proceeds to maintain her family's facade of upper-middle-class stability," Lynch said.Sanderlin's attorney, Joel Winograd, could not immediately be reached for comment.Anthony Flores, who lives across the street from the Queens warehouse, told ABC News earlier this month that he had met Sanderlin a number of times."She introduced herself one day. 'Yeah, we're manufacturing baby furniture,'" Flores said she told him of her line of work.Flores said Sanderlin would often ask him to move his car so she could park her 2010 Mercedes SUV in front of the warehouse."She's a very attractive young lady," he said. "I didn't think anything of it. She said her store was on Fifth Avenue."Flores said he was outside his home May 20 when Sanderlin slowly drove past the warehouse, possibly noticing the undercover police vehicles parked in the area."Then all the guys came out," he said. "It was just like, get down, open the door. It was nuts."Flores said Sanderlin didn't want to get out of her car at first, and it took law enforcement 10 minutes to take her into custody. Sanderlin was then handcuffed and brought inside the warehouse where, DEA Special Agent David Lee said, "agents discovered two separate rooms constructed within the warehouse designed to grow marijuana.""Each room contained state-of-the-art lighting, irrigation and ventilation systems to facilitate growing the marijuana," Lee said.It's unclear how long she'd been running the alleged operation, but she registered the name Fantastic Enterprises in July 2007, officials said.If convicted, Sanderlin could face a minimum of 10 years in prison and $10 million in fines. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The military timelines for integrating women into combat units were laid out on Tuesday at a Pentagon press conference by representatives of military services and U.S. Special Operations Command. SOCOM's Major Gen. Bennet Sacolick said "the days of Rambo are over," as he made the point that it takes brains as well as brawn to be a modern day Special Operator.“I mean, we're looking for young men that can speak and learn a foreign language and understand culture, that can work with indigenous populations and culturally attune manners. I mean, just -- you know, the defining characteristic of our operators are intellect. And when people fail in the special forces qualification course, predominantly they fail because they're -- they're not doing their homework.” Sacolick admitted that SOCOM has concerns about letting women into its elite ranks but said his command is not predisposed to any course of action. That’s why it will undertake three studies over the next year before making a recommendation to the secretary of defense by July 2015. One study is “primarily focused on the social implications of integrating women at the team level,” Sacolick explained. There’ll also be two Rand studies, one looking at the behavior and cultural aspects of integrating women into its formations that operate in that remote special operations environment. The other will be a comprehensive survey of every special operator to gauge their opinions, much as was done with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Why the survey? Sacolick said that “more often than not, we listen to the -- who we hear is the -- more than vocal minority in our formations [which] are [also] filled with the quiet professionals, and they need to give them a venue. They need to find out how they feel about integration at the team level. I think that's going to be really important." The military services have similar long timelines that will meet the Pentagon’s goal of integrating women in all combat units by January 2016. On Tuesday they gave presentations about the different methods they're using to work towards gender-neutral standards for jobs that men and women will be able to do in combat units. For example, the Marines have settled on five “proxy tasks” like loading an artillery shell into a tank gun that are representative of hundreds of micro-tasks. They’re going to study how 800 male and female Marines work their way through the drills to come up with a screening test that will eventually be used on incoming recruits who want to serve in infantry units. The service representatives said they are consulting with SOCOM as to how to proceed with allowing women into their special ops units. There were no specific comments about reports on Monday regarding timelines for letting women to train as Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The military timelines for integrating women into combat units were laid out on Tuesday at a Pentagon press conference by representatives of military services and U.S. Special Operations Command. SOCOM's Major Gen. Bennet Sacolick said "the days of Rambo are over," as he made the point that it takes brains as well as brawn to be a modern day Special Operator.“I mean, we're looking for young men that can speak and learn a foreign language and understand culture, that can work with indigenous populations and culturally attune manners. I mean, just -- you know, the defining characteristic of our operators are intellect. And when people fail in the special forces qualification course, predominantly they fail because they're -- they're not doing their homework.” Sacolick admitted that SOCOM has concerns about letting women into its elite ranks but said his command is not predisposed to any course of action. That’s why it will undertake three studies over the next year before making a recommendation to the secretary of defense by July 2015. One study is “primarily focused on the social implications of integrating women at the team level,” Sacolick explained. There’ll also be two Rand studies, one looking at the behavior and cultural aspects of integrating women into its formations that operate in that remote special operations environment. The other will be a comprehensive survey of every special operator to gauge their opinions, much as was done with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Why the survey? Sacolick said that “more often than not, we listen to the -- who we hear is the -- more than vocal minority in our formations [which] are [also] filled with the quiet professionals, and they need to give them a venue. They need to find out how they feel about integration at the team level. I think that's going to be really important." The military services have similar long timelines that will meet the Pentagon’s goal of integrating women in all combat units by January 2016. On Tuesday they gave presentations about the different methods they're using to work towards gender-neutral standards for jobs that men and women will be able to do in combat units. For example, the Marines have settled on five “proxy tasks” like loading an artillery shell into a tank gun that are representative of hundreds of micro-tasks. They’re going to study how 800 male and female Marines work their way through the drills to come up with a screening test that will eventually be used on incoming recruits who want to serve in infantry units. The service representatives said they are consulting with SOCOM as to how to proceed with allowing women into their special ops units. There were no specific comments about reports on Monday regarding timelines for letting women to train as Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images(BOSTON) -- Nightclub owner Richard Castucci had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but his biggest would prove to be too trusting of an FBI agent who grew up in South Boston.Castucci was 48 and a father of four when he went to the FBI and said he had information on accused Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's alleged criminal activities. Castucci's information made its way to FBI agent John Connolly, who had been nicknamed "Zip" by Bulger and his Winter Hill gang because the lawman shared the same South Boston zip code as the Bulger clan."Whitey came and told us Zip Connolly told him Richie was in there," John Martorano told the court Tuesday in his second day of testimony in Bulger's federal trial on 19 murders. Monday was the first time Martorano saw Bulger since 1982. He told the court that he was once so close to Bulger that he named his youngest son after him.Bulger told Martorano and another Winter Hill gang associate, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, that Castucci had to go, Martorano testified Tuesday. "We decided to take Richie out," he said.Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak asked Martorano to clarify. "You decided to murder Mr. Castucci?""Yeah," Martorano answered. "Once we made the decision we called Richie up and told him to come over."Castucci was driven to the Somerville, Mass., garage that acted as the Winter Hill gang's headquarters, Martorano told the court. There, Castucci and Bulger sat at a table "counting money."Martorano came into the kitchen and pulled his favorite gun, a snub-nose .38 revolver, from his pocket. He told the court he liked to carry a snub-nose .38 because he could easily slip it in and out of his pocket.Castucci never saw it coming. "I walked around to the side of Mr. Castucci," Martorano told the court. He then pointed his finger at his forehead and continued. "I shot him in the temple. Stevie and Whitey cleaned it up."The cleanup involved stuffing Castucci's body into a sleeping bag, which was then put in the trunk of his own Cadillac, which was abandoned behind an apartment complex not far from the nightclub the victim owned, Martorano testified. It was winter 1976, and by the time Castucci's car was finally discovered it was buried in nearly four feet of snow. And his body was frozen solid.An evidence photo of Castucci's icy remains in the trunk of his car with the sleeping bag zipped up to his chin was entered into evidence along with another picture of a hole in the victim's right temple.Bulger's relationship with John "Zip" Connolly helped the Winter Hill gang more than once, Martorano testified. "We were told things."In 1982, Bulger warned Martorano about a pending indictment connected to fixing horse races. Martorano decided he "was going to go away for six months and have a vacation," he testified.That conversation would be Martorano's last face-to-face contact with Bulger until his testimony this week in a South Boston federal courthouse. But even if Martorano and Bulger didn't see each other, Martorano said he would still kill for his boss."I didn't enjoy killing anybody. I enjoyed helping a friend if I could," Martorano told the court."I would rather be considered a vigilante than a serial killer," Martorano told the court. "I was always taught to take care of my family and my friends. Family and friends come first. My father always taught me that. The priests and the nuns I grew up with taught me that....Judas is the worst person in the world.''It wouldn't be until 1994 that Martorano would discover his friends, "my partners in crime, my children's godfathers,'' he said on the stand Monday, were cooperating with the Boston FBI. That news "broke my heart,'' Martorano said.Before that, Martorano continued to kill for the Winter Hill gang, especially when "Mr. Bulger insisted on it," he said. Bulger would insist on a number of murders in the 1980s, and Martorano admitted to committing three of Bulger's orders on the stand."We were up to our necks in murders," he testified.It had taken two days of testimony to cover the murders the government's star witness against Bulger had committed. The prosecutor, Wyshak, finished his questioning with this:"Mr. Martorano, do you regret your life of crime?"Martorano answered, "Who wouldn't?"Then it was Bulger's defense attorneys' turn to question Martorano. Attorney Hank Brennan began by peppering Martorano with questions."You've killed for friends?""Yes." Martorano answered."You've killed for family?" Brennan asked."Yes."Brennan went on asking, "You have killed strangers? You have killed innocent people?" Martorano answered correct two more times.Then came a question that seemed to stun Martorano."Did you say hi to your friend before you were going to murder him, did you look him in the eye?" Brennan asked.Martorano hesitated slightly then answered: "Yes I did."He is expected to take the stand again Wednesday for additional cross-examination by Bulger's attorneys, who continue to depict him as a liar willing to do anything to save his own neck and profit from his crimes.Martorano said Monday that he received $250,000 in a movie deal and made another $50,000 collaborating on the book, Hitman, by Boston newspaperman Howie Carr. The FBI had also given him $20,000 when he got out of jail.Connolly is now serving a life sentence in connection with the murder of John B. Callahan, a successful Boston businessman and longtime Martorano ally, after he was accused of providing information for the hit. Martorano testified against him.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Kansas City Police Department(WASHINGTON) -- Top U.S. security officials have revealed that the government's recently exposed surveillance programs led them to an al Qaeda cell that plotted and scouted, but ultimately abandoned, a plan to bomb Wall Street in 2008."We found through electronic surveillance that they were actually in the initial stages of plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," FBI Assistant Director Sean Joyce told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.Joyce was testifying alongside high-level U.S. officials, including National Security Agency head Gen. Keith Alexander, before the House Intelligence Committee to defend the NSA's practice of collecting vast amounts of telephone and Internet usage data – programs recently revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden, who is in hiding in Hong Kong after confessing to the leaks, called the reach of the programs "horrifying." The U.S. officials who testified Tuesday claimed they helped put a stop to more than 50 terror plots in 20 countries – four of which were discussed publicly.The NYSE plot, which had until Tuesday been unknown to the public, was centered around an auto parts dealer in Kansas City, Mo., named Khalid Ouazzani, who pleaded guilty in 2010 for his role in a conspiracy to provide funding to al Qaeda. At the time of his plea, the complex case against Ouazzani seemed to have little to do with the famous NYSE headquarters on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, except for a vague reference in his plea agreement that said, "Over a period of years, [Ouazzani] and others discussed various ways they could support al Qaeda."The FBI now says Ouazzani was talking to an extremist in Yemen about a terror plot that would strike at the symbolic heart of America's capitalist system – an attack on Wall Street.Ouazzani was never charged with planning any attacks, and a federal law enforcement official told ABC News it was Ouazzani's role as a cooperating witness, after he was identified with the help of NSA programs, that helped authorities uncover the plot in the first place.A senior law enforcement official told ABC News that "overseas intel" connected Ouazzani to two U.S. citizen extremists, Sabirhan Hasanoff and Wesam el-Hanafi. Court documents unsealed on Tuesday showed that all three swore their allegiance to al Qaeda, but it was Hasanoff who traveled to New York in 2008 to conduct a scouting mission for a possible bombing attack on the Stock Exchange.Hasanoff wrote a "rudimentary report" to a "senior terrorist leader" in an email about the security situation there, the court documents say. However, the leader decided that while the information "could be used by someone who wanted to do an operation, he was not satisfied with the report, and he accordingly disposed of it."Ouazzani's crew and the plot never "went operational," a counter-terrorism official in New York said.Hasanoff and el-Hanafi both later pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in June 2012, but again the Department of Justice omitted any mention of the Stock Exchange in their announcement at the time.The plot was left out of the public record apparently because it was discovered in part from intelligence gathered through surveillance authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) in Washington, DC. Though there are ways to use such evidence at trial, the Justice Department tries to instead attempt to secure convictions on more typical varieties of crimes like fraud and money-laundering. That was the path chosen in case of the NYSE bomb plot that never was.The Stock Exchange, at 11 Wall Street, is just a half-mile away from the site of the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks by al Qaeda. Nicknamed the "Big Board," the Exchange is the world's largest stock market with the total value of the companies it lists hovering at more than $16.6 trillion.Though an attack on the building would be a colossal symbolic blow to the country, the market itself would remain largely intact because the vast majority of trading is now done online, and the market's computer network was relocated to off-site locations in the wake of the 2001 attacks. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
(BOSTON) -- Massachusetts investigators plan to interview New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in connection with the murder of a man police call an "associate" of player No. 81, ABC News has learned.Hernandez's jersey number is 81.Hernandez has been uncooperative with police since the body of a 27-year-old man was found in an industrial park not far from the Patriot player's North Attleboro home, two law enforcement sources told ABC News.A rental vehicle with Rhode Island plates was recovered near the scene, which led investigators to Hernandez, sources told ABC News.Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter confirmed in a press statement that a body was found around 5:30 p.m. Monday in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard. Sutter said that based on the "nature and circumstances" of the body that the investigation would be handed over to Massachusetts state police detectives.Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder scope.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
ABC News(PORTER, Ind.) -- Officials remain baffled as to how a dark, slick substance that forced dozens of swimmers out of the water at a northwest Indiana beach mysteriously vanished. "They checked the beach, and they can't find any evidence of it," Indiana Department of Environmental Management spokesman Barry Sneed told ABC News. "[Authorities] figure it may have sunk, or moved farther north. It's a strange phenomenon." Swimmers notified law enforcement authorities that a dark-colored residue stretching nearly a mile long on Lake Michigan had appeared on the surface of the water at Porter Beach in Porter, Ind., Monday afternoon, Sneed said. Porter Fire Department Deputy Chief Jay Craig told ABC News that when he arrived at the lake the water looked slick with what appeared to be oil. Upon further inspection, the substance was a gun-metal gray with metal flakes in it. Craig said you could tell how deep someone had been in the water depending on where their bodies were stained with the dark residue. "They were worried when they saw two kids come out of the water and the one was, his head and half his body was covered a bit in black," Porter resident Carl Dahlin told ABC's Chicago station WLS-TV. "We are completely baffled as to what it truly is, whether it came from one of the steel mills or something out of the smokestacks or possibly washed off one of the big barges as they came into the harbor," Gene Davis, Indiana conservation officer, told WLS-TV. Officials shut down the beach as the Coast Guard, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the National Park Service were called in to help identify the slime. The appearance of the unidentifiable slick forced the closure of five northern Indiana beaches on Lake Michigan, Sneed said. "In my eight years here, we've never had to close the water because of an unknown substance like this," said Indiana Dunes State Park Manager Brandt Baughman. "We're not going to open our beach until we know what it is." Indiana Dunes State Park remains closed as a result of strong waves and rip tides, but other beaches in the area have issued a swim at your own risk advisory. Meanwhile, officials work to determine what the mysterious substance was and where it could have gone. While authorities worried that the sheen could spread east toward Michigan City, Ind., Sneed said the substance was nowhere to be found this morning. Sneed said that while preliminary testing of water samples indicated the mystery sheen might have been a food additive that was also used in fertilizer, this morning's reading revealed it might have been a type of acid. While the tests yield variable results, samples were sent to a lab for further analysis, Sneed said.
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Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(TEMPE, Ariz.) -- Tuesday night Arizona police were considering conducting a sonar search of the bottom of a community lake for the body of a Tempe college student whose car was found with two punctured tires, according to police."Unfortunately, we have been down this road too many times before, where we have found bodies of young people in the lake. Nothing indicates that she is down there, but we are trying to eliminate everything we can," Sgt. Mike Pooley of the Tempe Police Department told ABC News.Divers Monday night searched for clues in the man-made reservoir but found nothing. They are hoping that a search using sonar equipment will prove more fruitful.Adrienne Salinas, 19, was reported missing by her father, Rick Salinas, on Father's Day, according to police."We got the call from her father on Sunday afternoon," Pooley said.Salinas was last seen on Friday night at her home near Gateway Community College, where she is a student."She was seen early Saturday morning by her roommate. Salinas told her roommate she was going to her boyfriend's house. She had taken a change of clothes with her," said Pooley.Salinas never made it to her boyfriend's house."We got a call at 3:44 in the morning about a car accident almost a mile away from her house," Pooley said."A vehicle had hit the median and then sped away. By the time we found the car, it was was a block away from Salinas' house with two flat tires."Police believe Salinas was driving the vehicle."We think that when Salinas hit the median on her way to her boyfriend's house, she turned around to drive back home. She couldn't go all the way, because her two tires were punctured, so she got out of the car," said Pooley.That is when police believe the woman disappeared."The last text Salinas sent was to her boyfriend at 4:43 Saturday morning. She told him she was on her way," said Pooley. "Her phone went dead at 5:07 later that morning."Investigators have interviewed Salinas' boyfriend, roommates, family members and classmates."We have done a pretty large canvas of the entire neighborhood," Pooley said. "Detectives are following up and looking at her cellphone records, emails and social media accounts."Pooley would not get into specific details regarding the case but told ABC News the police had no leads. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Frontier Airlines(DENVER) -- Charges have been filed against a Colorado man accused of making threats onboard a Frontier Airlines flight last weekend.Mark Bote, 23, of Thornton, Colo., is accused of claiming he had a bomb in his backpack when he was aboard Frontier Airlines flight 601 from Knoxville, Tenn., to Denver on June 14.The plane was evacuated when it landed in Denver.
An investigation failed to turn up a bomb.Bote faces a federal charge of false information and threats. If he's found guilty, he could get five years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The last time you wanted to vent about your family or co-workers within the space of 140 characters, you didn’t “submit a post to the microblogging service known as Twitter.” You tweeted.These days, pop culture associates the act of tweeting less with chirping birds and more with social networking. Now the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) will officially recognize the word “tweet” in its June 2013 update.John Simpson, chief editor of the OED, made the announcement on the dictionary’s website. He says that including the new definition of tweet “breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a new word needs to be current for 10 years before consideration for inclusion.”The OED attributes the first use of “tweeting” back to 2007. On March 15, 2007 on the now defunct blog NevOn, the blogger posted, “Not much chance to tweet on Twitter, especially since it seems that SMS posting from my mobile phone doesn’t work.” It was the land before smartphones, when Twitter users had to rely on text messaging to broadcast their thoughts.This isn’t Twitter’s first appearance in the OED; “retweet” was added to the dictionary in 2011. The OED is a bit behind competitor the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which added the word “tweet” in August 2011.Other words that have made their way into the OED’s latest update? “Flash mob,” “geekery,” “live-blogging,” and “e-reader.”
Check out the full list of new words here.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
FBI(NEW YORK) -- Federal authorities announced Tuesday a new push to track down the man or woman who used a bicycle for their getaway when they tried to blow up a military recruiting station in New York's Times Square five years ago, fearing the suspect may be a serial bike bomber."Someone, somewhere, knows something about a bomber who's still on the run," said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos.The FBI said they believe the March 6, 2008 blast at the Armed Forces Career Center is likely linked to two earlier blasts at the consulates of foreign nations in New York -- the U.K.'s in 2005 and Mexico's in 2007.
The bureau also announced a reward of $65,000 for information on the case, the first time there has been a reward associated with the case.The device in Times Square was made from an ammunition can and described at the time as unsophisticated. The FBI now believes it was more powerful than the pair of bombs detonated at the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three and injuring more than 260 others.In the case of the bicycle bomber, the Times Square bomb exploded at 3:45 a.m., when few people were around. The blast caused minor damage to the landmark military recruiting station."While published reports have repeatedly cited the early morning time of the attack and the lack of casualties, the fact is the bomber narrowly missed killing or injuring passers-by who can be seen clearly in the vicinity, moments before the blast," said New York City Police Department Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. "The distance between polemics by bombing and the murdering of innocents is short, indeed."Ten minutes of newly-released surveillance images show the bomb detonating in Times Square and the bike bomber riding through the streets of New York."Today we're asking for the public's assistance in finding those responsible and encouraging the public to look closely at these photos and video, which could be the key to breaking the case," Venizelos said.The suspect on the bicycle was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt and pants of an unknown color. The height, weight, age, sex and race of the suspect are unknown.Anyone with information on any of the three bombings is encouraged to call the FBI at 212-384-1000. Tipsters may remain anonymous. The FBI and the NYPD will be using the hash tag #BikeBomber to disseminate information about the attacks and to solicit information. The photos and video are also being displayed on digital billboards throughout the northeast, including in Times Square.
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- In a few years women could be in training to become Army Rangers and Navy SEALs under plans to be announced Tuesday by the military services for integrating women into combat units.Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last January lifted the 1994 Combat Exclusion Rule that restricted women from serving in frontline infantry, armor and special operations units and set a January 2016 compliance deadline. The concept of a frontline became blurred in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as women serving in other units also became the targets of roadside bombs and attacks. To date, almost 150 military women have died in those wars.The services have varying numbers of jobs that have remained closed to women as a result of the Combat Exclusion Rule. While the Navy has 88 percent of its jobs open for women, the Air Force has for years had 99 percent of its positions open to women. Among the jobs closed to women in the Air Force are positions in combat control, tactical air command and control, pararescue and special-operations weather positions.The stated goal of the lifting of the ban was to open all combat jobs to women, but the services were given the option of requesting an exception that would have to be approved by the Defense secretary. Though tentative in nature and many details still have to be reviewed, the timelines reflect the goal of including women in all combat units.The plans to be presented Tuesday will include timelines for integrating women into most combat roles. Defense officials say they will also include timelines that would allow women to enter the Army's elite Ranger School by the spring of 2015 and Navy SEALS training in early 2016.When the ban was lifted, the military services said they would develop new job-specific standards for men and women serving in combat units that would be "gender neutral." Many of those standards remain to be developed, though Defense officials say that elite Special Operation Forces will retain the current physical and psychological standards used on potential candidates wishing to join their ranks.Some gender-neutral standards have already been developed for certain frontline jobs and will open up to women fairly quickly. For example, as early as next month, female sailors will be allowed to train to join the Navy's Riverine force that provides security operations in river and coastal areas.But other combat jobs will still require longer study and review for not only developing the new standards but more mundane things like new lodging and privacy needs that would be necessitated by allowing women into the units.While the Army has tentatively set plans to allow women to enter Army Ranger School to earn the "Ranger Tab," it does not mean that female graduates will automatically get to serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Like their male peers, they will have to successfully meet the unit's own selective standards.
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Sandra Schorken(OAKLAND, Calif.) -- Two men and a woman dove in to a California estuary on Sunday to rescue a family, including two children, trapped in a vehicle about to submerge.Andy Goodwin, Erik Schorken and Schorken’s family were driving along the estuary in Oakland, Calif., on their way back from a Father’s Day lunch, when they noticed a woman frantically waving her hands and pointing towards the water.“I said to my wife, ‘I think someone might have gone into the water,’” Schorken told ABC News. “But no one was stopping.”Then they saw an ambulance, so Schorken decided to pull over and see what was going on.It turned out the ambulance was there for another matter, but the car’s occupants noticed people were trapped in the water, so Schorken, Goodwin and Tracey McCormick, who was also driving by the estuary at the time, jumped in and swam out to the scene.“This car was 60 degrees up in the air; it was going nose down into the water,” Schorken said. “I just kept swimming out there.”The mission soon appeared hopeless. Because the car’s doors were locked, the would-be rescuers had no way of accessing the victims. Halfway towards the car, Goodwin swam back to the shore.“I swam about halfway out and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do much,” Goodwin told ABC News.McCormick said that when she reached the vehicle, the victims’ hands “were on the windows screaming to get us out.”One of the paramedics had an emergency pocket knife designed to break through glass. She handed Goodwin the pocket knife. Goodwin subsequently gave it to McCormick, who gave it to Schorken after she had trouble with it. Schorken broke through the window, and he and McCormick took the family -- a mother, a father, and two kids Schorken guessed were between the ages of 7 and 10 -- 20 feet to shore.As soon as they reached the land, the car completely submerged into the water.“I looked behind me and the car was gone. I couldn’t believe how fast it sunk,” said McCormick.The family was fine and was not taken to the hospital, the Oakland Police Department told ABC News.ABC News affiliate KGO-TV reported the rescue on Sunday, referring to Goodwin and Schorken as “good Samaritans.”
Although Schorken did not know the name of the family he rescued, he had their phone number and was planning on inviting them over for dinner.Calls to the number Schorken provided went unanswered.Johnna Watson of the Oakland Police Department said the family likely would not have survived without the help.“Time is of the essence in a situation like this,” she told ABC News. “By the time we arrived on scene the occupants were taken out. This made the difference between life and death.”Watson said there will be an investigation into the cause of the accident.
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The Guardian via Getty Images(LONDON) -- Using the British newspaper The Guardian as a mouthpiece, contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden responded Monday to allegations made by U.S. political figures, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, that he is a traitor for uncovering surveillance programs operated by the National Security Agency.Snowden, who has taken refuge in Hong Kong, answered online questions posed by The Guardian, writing, "Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American."Cheney, who was interviewed on Fox News Sunday, also suggested that the 29-year-old former Maryland resident may be spying for the Chinese, an accusation Snowden said he found laughable.Snowden told The Guardian, "If I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now."He said that any assertion that he was conducting espionage for China is a "smear" tactic, meant to distract the public's attention away from what Snowden asserts are the illegal activities of the U.S. government in collecting the phone records of virtually all Americans.As far as what might ultimately happen to him, Snowden mused, "All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."He added that he's also opposed to collecting data about non-Americans as well, writing, "Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95 percent of the world instead of 100 percent."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Comstock/Thinkstock(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) -- The U.S. Naval Academy says it has plans to charge three football players in connection with the rape of a female midshipman that allegedly took place in April 2012.After a lengthy investigation, the school's superintendent has referred the case for the military's equivalent of a grand jury, known as Article 32."The initial NCIS investigation has been completed and reviewed. The superintendent has decided to send this case to Article 32 proceedings," U.S. Naval Academy spokesman John Schofield said Monday.The accuser, who has not been named, reported the sexual assault after attending an off-campus party at a location known as the "football house," according to Military.com. She said she was informed by friends and though social media that she had been sexually assaulted while incapacitated at the party.All three football players, who have also not been named, remain at the Naval Academy, where one senior was kept from graduating on May 24, the site reports.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Julia Di Sieno(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) -- A 3-week-old kitten survived a 1,000-mile trip across two states inside the engine of a Honda Fit and is expected to make a full recovery.“I was concerned about this kitten because it had been in the car engine for two to three days,” Julia Di Sieno, executive director and co-founder of Animal Rescue Team, Inc., told ABC News. “I put on latex gloves, and I managed to get my hands in there until I had a little kitten and wiggled it through.”Late last week, an owner of a silver Honda Fit heard meowing coming from her car before a journey from Oregon to Santa Barbara, Calif., Di Sieno said.“She heard the kitten crying before she departed and there was nothing she could do. She tried to find the kitten,” said Di Sieno. “So they continued on their journey, driving south.”The next day, Di Sieno received a call from the car owner with concerns that a kitten was trapped somewhere inside her car. Di Sieno was as much as 45 miles away, so she asked the car owner to call the Santa Barbara police department and request that they summon animal control.“Animal control was dispatched, an officer showed up, and he thought perhaps the kitten was no longer in the compartment,” Di Sieno said.That afternoon, Di Sieno received a second phone call from the owner saying there were still cries from a cat inside the engine compartment.“I had to go do something,” Di Sieno said.Di Sieno arrived at the scene and had a difficult time locating the cat. After assessing the situation, she decided to call a tow truck for some extra help.“They needed to get underneath the car to find it,” Chuck Love of Love’s Towing told ABC News. “We lifted up the car, and she still couldn’t find it.”With Love holding a flashlight and Di Sieno feeling around for the kitten, the duo spotted the scared feline shifting around the engine. Di Sieno was able to use a “jab stick” to administer sedation, and finally was able to get the kitten to an accessible spot.“It took a half an hour, at least, to get it out, and after getting it out it was so cute and so small,” said Love. “Lucky it was small, because then [otherwise] we wouldn’t have been able to get it out. Of course, if it wasn’t that small it would’ve never been able to get in there.”The short-haired, grey, male kitten meowed as it was pulled out of the engine in frail condition. Di Sieno took him home, started immediate care and found the 3- to 4-week-old kitten was dehydrated and had an infected eye. Now just a couple of a days later, the kitten is recovering and expected to make a full recovery.“He is very tame now, purring, and finally eating. We’ve been treating him with antibiotics,” said Di Sieno.Di Sieno has been saving animals for more than 29 years at Animal Rescue Team, Inc., sustained solely by donations. She’s rescued lions, bears and other large mammals, but she said this was the first time she’s rescued a kitten from an engine.“It was refreshing for me because I’m passionate about this work and saving animals,” she said. “The moment I pulled him up, it was so exhilarating.”She added that, for a lost kitten, an engine is a perfect small, tight compartment to seek warmth, especially if it was in a climate such as Oregon.Di Sieno said she couldn’t have done the rescue without Love’s help.She said she appreciated “having someone step up like that without asking for money. … He was determined to help me and get that cat out of that engine. I thought we’d name him ‘Love’ for now.”
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Just how many unregistered or stolen guns are available on the streets? A new report by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives finds the numbers are staggering. According to the report, the result of an audit ordered by President Obama following the Newtown shootings, more than 191,000 guns were lost or stolen in the United States in 2012. The government says more than 16,000 of those guns disappeared from licensed gun dealers. Pistols were the most common firearm stolen, the report says, and gun dealers reported more than 4,000 rifles were simply lost. And these numbers only represent the missing guns reported to the National Crime Information Center. ATF spokesman Charles Mulham points out that in many states it's not even mandatory to report stolen firearms.Still, UCLA Public Policy expert Mark Kleiman says the number of lost or stolen firearms seems low, given the 300 million firearms in private hands in the U.S."The bigger issue than stolen guns is the easy availability of guns to people who aren't legally possessed through the private sale loophole," Kleiman says.The ATF report also shows Texas is the top state for total firearms reported lost and stolen in 2012. Kleiman explains that people with stolen firearms might be more likely to commit violent crimes."In some cases, gun dealers, federal firearms licensees, falsely report a theft as a way of concealing an illegal sale," say Kleiman.As for owners of legally registered guns, Mulham says they should be taking steps to safeguard firearms in their possession."You need to [be responsible] in keeping that weapon not only out of the hands of criminals if you were robbed or if your house was to be burglarized, but also out of the hands of children," he says.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Siri Stafford/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) -- The family of a University of Chicago student who vanished during a powerful storm last week was intending on Monday to review surveillance videos from restaurants, bars and shops near Lake Michigan, hoping for a glimpse of the missing man.Austin Hudson-LaPore, 20, a third-year biochemistry major from New Mexico, was last seen by his roommate a little after 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. He had not taken his wallet or phone, according to a website set up by the Hudson-LaPore family, www.findaustinhudson.com.The website was updated on Sunday to say that the Chicago Police Department has sent divers and a sonar boat to investigate a portion of Lake Michigan near Hudson-LaPore’s apartment. The police have not released the results of that search.“In the end, we had no news so we assume they found nothing,” the family wrote.The family said on its website that they are doing their own search and sought out commercial surveillance cameras on the route they believe Hudson-LaPore may have taken that night.“We found several of these cameras with some at restaurants with outdoor seating, at dive bars, at liquor stores and at high-end condo buildings. Everyone we approached were very welcoming and eager to help. So, tomorrow morning we’ll head out early to start watching security tapes to see if we can get a glimpse of Austin. That will establish time and direction of travel for him,” they wrote Sunday.They also appealed for help from anyone who may have seen Hudson-LaPore that night.“We love Austin very much. He is a smart, happy and outgoing young man who is fully engaged in the community and we’d like your help in getting him safely back to his family,” the family said in a statement.The family believe Hudson-LaPore went for a walk Wednesday night to observe unusually severe weather over Lake Michigan.“We think that because of Austin’s fascination with weather, that he set out to walk to the lake to watch the storm from there, leaving his cell phone and wallet behind so they wouldn’t get wet,” the family said.Weather reports from Wednesday night show that Hudson-LaPore would have likely faced powerful winds and heavy rain as a massive storm system made its way through the Midwest.“In walking to the lake, he probably walked along either 53rd Street or 55th Street. We believe that during his walk to the lake, something went wrong,” the family continued.The family is asking anybody with information to contact the Chicago Police Department. They are using social media sites like Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter to gain national attention.“We are appealing to the community that if anyone saw anything unusual along those routes, that they please contact the Chicago Police Department immediately,” the family said.Hudson-LaPore was last seen wearing black gym shoes and blue jeans. He is 5-foot-7, weighs 110 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes.A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department told ABC News that the investigation is ongoing. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(SURFSIDE BEACH, Texas) -- A 15-year-old boy was recovering after he was attacked by a shark earlier Monday at Surfside Beach in Texas.The teen suffered non-threatening lacerations on his hand and leg, first responders told ABC News, and was in stable condition when he was airlifted to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston.The victim's name and his current condition have not been released.Officials said it was the first shark bite in 25 years on Surfside Beach, a popular swimming spot situated on the Gulf of Mexico.As the temperatures heat up and more swimmers hit the water, shark sightings have rattled nerves.A pair of great white shark sightings off the coast of Cape Cod in recent days had swimmers heading for the safety of the beach.The ominous dorsal fin lurking off Nauset Beach in Orleans, Mass., was enough for officials to temporarily close the popular swim spot on Sunday, just days after another great white shark sighting in the Cape Cod area."It was reported to me that our senior lifeguard had spotted a dorsal fin about 150 yards east of the public bathing beach. He estimated it to be 12 to 13 feet in length," Dawson Farber, harbormaster in Orleans, told ABC News.Lifeguards ordered swimmers out of the water at 10:15 a.m. and cordoned off a quarter-mile swath of the beach, Farber said. The waters were reopened to the public an hour later, he said, after there were no additional sightings in the area."We had a number of sightings last year, some confirmed, some unconfirmed," Farber said. "We are operating under the assumption these animals are here to stay."Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Jared Marcum, 14, was arrested after a confrontation with the school's band teacher over his NRA T-shirt, which bears the organization's logo and a hunting rifle. (Cabelas.com)(LOGAN, W. Va.) -- A West Virginia judge has ruled that an eighth grader who was arrested after wearing an NRA T-shirt to school will stand trial for obstructing an officer, a crime that can carry up to a year in jail and $500 fine.Jared Marcum, 14, was charged last week after wearing the shirt to school in April. The shirt included the logo of the National Rifle Association, an image of a rifle, and words “protect your right.”Jared was asked to remove the shirt or turn it inside out by a secretary and then a teacher at Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va. When he refused to do so he was brought to the principal, who called police.The boy said that when police arrived at the school, they told him “sit down and shut up” and threatened to charge him with making terroristic threats when he tried to explain his side of the story.Jared said he was detained in a room with the principal and two officers. He was unarmed and presented no threat to the officers or students, according to his lawyer.He received just one day of suspension from school.Jared’s attorney on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case. A hearing on that motion will take place on July 11.The law allows persons under arrest to question police and tell their side of a story, said his lawyer, Ben White.“Case law says you can question police and you can talk to police – you just can’t use foul language, or insult them,” said White.Calls to the school district and Logan County prosecutor were not returned. The police would not comment.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
John Foxx/Thinkstock(NEWARK, N.J.) -- Passengers aboard United flight 116 bound for the U.S. from Hong Kong were finally able to leave a Newark Liberty International Airport terminal late Monday afternoon after a flier was taken into custody and hospitalized after allegedly demanding that the plane be diverted to Canada.An official with the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force said the man -- identified as Daniel Morgan Perry and reportedly in his 30s and American -- had been transported to Newark's University Hospital for observation.During the flight, which landed around 1:40 p.m., the man was restrained by passengers. The official said there were no air marshals on the flight."It's apparently an unstable person who is controlled by his medication and maybe he didn't take it," the official said.Jacques Roizen, who was one of the passengers who restrained Perry, said nearly 10 hours into the 16-hour flight, a man six rows in front of him started screaming out of nowhere. Roizen said that he had not seen the man drinking."[He was] screaming stuff about national security advisers, the CIA, saying names of people [he claimed were] working for the CIA," Roizen told ABC News. "[He was saying] that we couldn't land the plane, we had to divert the plane. He couldn't land in the U.S."Roizen said Perry was afraid of being poisoned by one of the passengers."He saw everybody as a threat," Roizen said. "He thought everyone was working for the FBI, the CIA....He was drawing a parallel between [National Security Agency leaker] Edward Snowden and himself....He was convinced he was going to die before this flight landed."Within minutes, about five passengers had restrained the man with plastic handcuffs from the flight crew.Florida resident Paula Shea said the staff handled the situation "perfectly" and that she had not gotten scared."They did everything that you should do," she said. "It was a person that was trying to...divert to Canada."Roizen said he and another passenger sat by Perry for the remaining six hours trying to calm him by talking about their families, Father's Day and their children.He said the man started to cry after a passenger told him that his actions had scared the children aboard."He seemed to react to that," Roizen said. "At one point, he started crying because he said, 'I don't want to hurt the children.' He asked both of us to put him under arrest, asked us to read him his rights."Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- The daughter of baseball legend Joe Torre made the perfect catch on Wednesday when she caught a 1-year-old boy who fell out of a New York City building, according to reports.Cristina Torre, 44, who was biking past the building, was able to catch the child before he fell to the pavement, WABC reported.Police told WABC the child who was left unsupervised by his parents, had crawled onto the fire escape and tumbled down the awning moments before Torre came to the rescue, showing off her inherited fielding skills.After her flawless catch, a witness told the New York Daily News that Torre, "just smiled and said she was in shock."The baby was taken to Lutheran Medical Center where he was being treated for lacerations to the face, according to WABC; he was said to be in stable condition.Three siblings taken from the apartment are being cared for by the Administration for Children’s Services, according to WABC, while the baby’s parents were taken into police custody.During his tenure as the New York Yankees’ manager from 1996 to 2007, Joe Torre, a former all-star catcher, led the team to four World Series championship titles.Joe Torre is the executive vice president of Major League Baseball operations.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(GALWAY, N.Y.) -- A New York man who allegedly wanted to kill President Obama and apparently blamed him for the recent Boston bombings has been arrested for trying to build and detonate a weapon of mass destruction.Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, of Galway, N.Y., spent months designing and constructing an X-ray system that would emit deadly amounts of radiation and could be detonated remotely, according to the FBI. Crawford recruited Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hudson, N.Y, to join in the plot, and both were arrested Tuesday, the FBI said.Crawford and Feight allegedly planned to hide their weapon in a truck and FBI experts said it would have been "functional" and "lethal."According to the FBI, Crawford cited "a political figure" and a Muslim organization as "potential targets." Sources familiar with the investigation identified the "political figure" as Obama."Obama's policies caused this," Crawford allegedly wrote in a text message on April 15, the day a series of bombings killed three and injured scores more at the Boston marathon."He directed the [government] to start bringing [Muslims] here without background checks," Crawford wrote, according to the FBI. "They don't have to follow any laws, and this administration has done more to enable a government sponsored invasion than the press can cover up."The FBI launched an investigation into Crawford last spring after he allegedly walked into a synagogue in Albany, N.Y., and inquired about technology that could kill, "Israel's enemies while they slept." The synagogue notified police, and within six weeks the FBI had a source secretly recording meetings with Crawford, according an FBI affidavit filed in the case.In a June 2012 conversation, Crawford -- described by the FBI as a member of the Ku Klux Klan -- called his design "Hiroshima on a light switch," the affidavit said. And in August 2012, Crawford allegedly asked a high-ranking official in the KKK for money to fund his plot. The KKK official informed the FBI, and within weeks two undercover agents posing as KKK members were introduced to Crawford.Over the next several months, Crawford conducted extensive research for the design, at times expressing frustration over the slow pace of the team's progress, the FBI affidavit indicated. Ultimately, with help from the undercover agents, Crawford and Feight acquired the necessary parts and even tested the device that would remotely detonate the weapon, according to the FBI. It would all be powered through a truck's cigarette lighter, the FBI said.Crawford and Feight planned to meet Tuesday to connect the final components of their weapon, but they were arrested by the FBI.The pair had met at GE, where Crawford was an industrial mechanic and Feight sometimes worked as an outside contractor due to his engineering skills. But GE has "no reason to believe" any crimes, "took place on GE property," and Crawford has since been suspended, the company said in a statement."We are cooperating fully with authorities on their investigation," said Jim Healy, communications director for GE Power & Water.Both defendants have been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, namely through use of a weapon of mass destruction. The charges came via a criminal complaint, which means a grand jury will decide whether to indict the men if a plea deal is not reached beforehand.In a statement, U.S. Attorney Richard Hartunian said the public must, "remain vigilant to detect and stop potential terrorists," and the head of the FBI's field office in Albany, Andrew Vale, said such anti-terrorism efforts "are only successful" with the public's help.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Mexican Latinos make up more than two-thirds of all Latinos in the United States, according to a new Pew Hispanic report.Of the 51.9 million Latinos living in the U.S. in 2011, more than 33.5 million trace their family back to Mexico. The report looked at demographic data collected from the 2011 American Community Survey. The report also examined U.S. citizenship, education levels and median income among U.S. Hispanics.Puerto Ricans make up the second-largest group, accounting for 9.5 percent, or about 5 million people.Salvadoran, Cuban, and Dominican come in next with 1.9, 1.8, and 1.5 million, respectively -- although, Salvadoran and Cuban numbers have been statistically equal and alternating yearly.Mexican Latinos have always represented the largest segment of the U.S. Latino population and the report found that 74 percent of people who trace their roots to Mexico hold U.S. citizenship.“One of the things we've done for the first time is shown the long view of the share of Mexican Americans,” Mark Lopez, associate director for the Pew Hispanic Center, told ABC News. “Since 1860 the community has diversified. In 1860 they were 81 percent, but today’s numbers reflects the diversification of immigration in the U.S...there are Hispanics from every part of Latin America and Spain in the U.S.”The report also found Mexican Americans to be of the lowest average age (25), while Cuban Americans were the oldest, at 40.When looking solely at foreign-born, as of the 2011 data, Venezuelans and Peruvians accounted for the majority at 69 percent and 68 percent, respectively. Those two groups ranked 13 and 11 when looking at the total Latino population.“South Americans are some of the more recent arrivals to the U.S. and the people who are coming from South Americas are more likely to have college degrees, more likely to be in high-paying occupations, and their family income numbers are higher,” Lopez said. "The folks who come from South America, many of them are actually foreign -born and many of them have a college degree.”Argentineans had the highest average household income in 2011 at $55,000, and Hondurans the lowest at $31,000, also giving Hondurans the highest poverty rate among U.S. Hispanics with 33 percent. Mexican’s averaged $38,000, with a poverty rate of 28 percent.The poverty rate for Hispanics is higher than it is for the general U.S. population. According to the 2011 census, the nation’s median income was $50,054 and poverty rate was 15 percent.“Part of that is the level of education,” Lopez said. “On the whole the Hispanic community is less likely to hold a college degree than the general U.S. population...there is still a substantial difference in educational attainment.”But Lopez says that many Mexican Americans have not “quite entered adulthood” yet and recent years have seen a surge in the number going to college.“Hispanics are now the largest minority group on college campuses,” Lopez said. “Looking forward it's likely we are going to see the number with a college degree rise, but that is still going to be a decade or more down the road because we are just starting to see this increase among Hispanics in college enrollments.”Just over 50 percent of Venezuelans, the report found, have a college degree, while Guatemalans and Salvadorans were the least likely (seven percent).All together, United States Latinos trace their heritage to more than 20 Spanish-speaking nations worldwide, but 14 countries represented the majority of U.S. Latinos. As of the 2013 census, Hispanic population is the nation’s largest and fastest-growing immigrant group -- 53 million in 2012, making up 17 percent of the U.S. population. The census report found non-Hispanic blacks represent 12 percent of the U.S. population.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Michael DeHoog/Sports Imagery / Getty Images(BOSTON) -- New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, who is caught in the middle of a homicide investigation of an "associate," is also being sued by a former friend who claims Hernandez shot his eye out after the two left a Miami strip club. The suit states that Hernandez "possessed a gun which he was not legally licensed to have." In a lawsuit filed in federal court on June 13, attorneys representing Alexander Bradley, 32, state that their client, Hernandez and several others were at Tootsie's strip club in Miami on Feb. 13 when Bradley and Hernandez got into an argument. The group then left the club, and while driving towards Palm Beach, Hernandez's gun discharged inside the vehicle. "It fired, and a bullet went through my client's arm and blew out his right eye," attorney David Jaroslawicz told ABC News. "It has been enucleated -- replaced with a prosthetic eye. He has also lost use of his right arm." The lawyer said that "to my knowledge" no charges were filed as a result of the shooting. Jaroslawicz said that the suit was voluntarily discontinued because language describing the injuries was incorrect. It is being refiled Wednesday, he said. Bradley has done personal assistant work for Hernandez, according to Jaroslawicz. He did not disclose the amount of damages sought in the suit, but said that Bradley has had four surgeries so far and anticipates two or three more. Massachusetts state police, who searched Hernandez's home Tuesday night, executed a search warrant Wednesday for an Enterprise rental car that was leased by Hernandez. The car was left near where the body of Odin Lloyd, 27, was found Monday evening with a gunshot wound to the head. The body was discovered in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard, less than a mile from Hernandez's $1.3 million, 5,600-square-foot home in North Attleborough. Police spent hours at Hernandez's home Tuesday night, taking evidence photos and removing boxes. Another search was conducted of a car parked in Hernandez's driveway, a 2012 Chrysler 200 LX. The license plate connected that car to an Enterprise rental in Hernandez's name, several law enforcement sources told ABC News. A third enterprise rental car registered to Hernandez was recovered at a Boston Enterprise rental location. Tuesday night, police were looking for this car, one of several that was registered to the football player, and intend to search it as well, sources said. "Someone dropped it off yesterday," a law enforcement source told ABC News. "Last night a BOLO [be on the lookout] was issued to all police for that vehicle, a silver Chevy. It has been recovered," the source said. Police could be seen Wednesday searching the woods and front yards of homes stretching from the scene of the crime to Hernandez's house. A gun was found in the search, but ballistic tests discounted it as the weapon that killed Lloyd, sources said. Lloyd was a linebacker for a semi-pro team called the Boston Bandits. Suffolk County District Attorney Jake Wark told ABC News that Lloyd had one arrest in 2008, a misdemeanor charge stemming from a fight. Stacey James, a New England Patriots official, said on behalf of the team, "I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation." Hernandez's sports agency, Athletes First, declined to comment. His lawyer did not respond to repeated calls from ABC News Wednesday. Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder surgery, though he was spotted at practice recently welcoming new Patriots quarterback Tim Tebow.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(ASHLAND, Ohio) -- The lawyer for an Ohio suspect accused of keeping a mentally disabled woman and her daughter as slaves and threatening them with deadly snakes, says his client is innocent and the alleged victim was free to come and go as she pleased. The alleged victim, a 29-year-old woman, claims she was kept against her will by three suspects in their home outside Cleveland beginning in late 2011 and was forced to do housework without pay. She also claims that she was monitored around the clock to keep her from escaping. According to an FBI criminal complaint, the three suspects are accused of pilfering her bank account and terrorizing the woman and her 5-year-old daughter with pitbulls and a collection of snakes, which included a venomous coral snake and a 130-pound python. The woman and her child were initially forced to sleep on a "cement floor in the basement with no mattress," but were later moved to another room, which was kept locked so the girl could not leave, according to the FBI. The pair were permitted only to eat canned food while forced to feed fresh fruits and vegetables to "the iguana that freely roamed in their bedroom." On another occasion, a hot meal was tauntingly denied to the little girl and fed instead to a dog, according to court documents filed by the FBI. The suspects threatened the woman with a gun and smashed her hand with a rock and sent her to a hospital emergency room to obtain pain medication, which the men kept for their own use, according to the FBI. "These defendants violated the victim's most basic civil right, freedom, by exploiting her most basic instinct, the protection of her child," said Stephen D. Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Cleveland office in a statement. "The FBI continues to aggressively pursue and bring to justice those individuals who abuse and harm innocent members of our community." Jordie Callahan, 26, Jessica Hunt, 31, and Daniel J. Brown, 33, were charged with forced labor, a federal crime. Callahan also was charged with tampering with a witness. All three suspects appeared in court on Monday and were ordered held in a county jail until a bond hearing on Monday. They all have obtained legal counsel. Police found the woman when she was arrested for shoplifting a candy bar and told police she preferred to go to jail than back to the home where the suspects were "were mean to her." Edward Bryan, a federal defender representing Hunt, said his client, as well as the two men, would plead not guilty once they were formally arraigned. "They do plan to plead not guilty," Bryan told ABC News. "There are some serious questions about the veracity of claims in the affidavit." Bryan says the woman requested to live in the Ashland, Ohio, home. In order to retain custody of her daughter following a child abuse allegation, she had to have a permanent address, and officials from the county's child protective services visited the home and found the conditions there suitable, the lawyer said. Officials from the Ashland County Department of Jobs and Family Services would not return calls for comment to confirm those details. "People want to believe a sensationalist story," said Bryan, "but this is much more mundane." Lawyers for the other suspects did not comment to ABC News.The case immediately drew parallels to the recent arrest of Ariel Castro, just one hour away in Cleveland. Castro is accused of keeping three kidnapped women sex slaves in his home for a decade. "This is not like that at all," Bryan told ABC News. "This woman was not kidnapped off the street and held in a basement in shackles of chains. She was able to come and go as she pleased." Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Hudson-LaPore Family Photo(CHICAGO) -- A body found in Lake Michigan has been identified as missing Chicago student Austin LaPore, investigators said. "The family of Austin Hudson LaPore positively identified his body earlier today," an official with the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office told ABC News. Authorities pulled the body of LaPore, 20, out of Lake Michigan Wednesday morning after he went missing one week ago, ABC News Chicago station WLS-TV reported. Police will conduct an autopsy Thursday to determine the cause of death, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. Eddie Hudson, a fisherman, found LaPore's body and called the police. The discovery came a day after a K-9 team determined that LaPore had spent a significant amount of time on the coast of Lake Michigan last Wednesday night, when severe storms created powerful winds and wave action that could have pulled him in, according to an update to a LaPore family website, www.findaustinhudson.com. LaPore was last seen Wednesday night when he left his Hyde Park apartment to watch unusually strong weather over Lake Michigan.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Two New York men have been charged with plotting to develop an X-ray weapon.Opponents of Israel were the alleged targets of two upstate New York men, Glendon Crawford and Eric Feight, who prosecutors say wanted to create a portable device that could deliver lethal doses of radiation.Authorities say there were tipped off when Crawford approached Jewish groups seeking help with technology that could be used against "people he perceived as enemies of Israel."The FBI says the two men have been working on the device for nearly a year but the public was in no danger because undercover investigators were there the whole time.Crawford and Feight face 15 years in prison.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
State of Massachusetts(BOSTON) -- Hitman John Martorano admitted on the stand Wednesday that he lied to his best friend before he shot him in the back of the head. "I couldn't tell him I was going to shoot him," Martorano told the court of the murder of John Callahan, a close friend for decades who was murdered, the hitman testified, because Bulger "insisted on it." It was one of several lies that lawyers from accused Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger elicited from Martorano, a key prosecution witness in Bulger's trial for 19 murders and other crimes. Under cross examination by defense lawyer Hank Brennan, Martorano conceded he had previously lied about his partnership with Bulger. And he lied to Massachusetts State Trooper Tom Foley about details regarding the murder of Edward Connors, who was gunned down in a phone booth in 1975, Brennan pointed out. "I recanted that," Martorano retorted. Brennan asked Martorano what the government told him about his plea deal. "I was told that if I ever told a lie I would go to jail for the rest of my life," Martorano told the court. Bulger's defense attorneys spent the start of Martorano's third and final day on the stand in trying to portray the confessed hitman as a liar who would say anything about his former friend Bulger to save himself from life in prison or the death penalty. Still, Martorano would testify about his feelings on informants. "An informant is a Judas, a rat, a no-good guy," Martorano told the court. "I was always brought up that's the worst person in the world. As far as being a rat, that's the opposite of how I want to live."
Martorano has explained that he never testified against anyone who didn't hurt him and chose to help the government put Bulger and Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi behind bars because they "broke my heart" by moonlighting as paid FBI informants while allegedly running the Boston rackets. He was once so close to Bulger and Flemmi he named his youngest son, James Stephen, after the gangsters. He did not learn that Bulger and Flemmi were working for the FBI until 1995. Before that, Bulger cradled James Stephen Martorano and was christened as the baby's godfather, a photograph of which was entered into evidence by the U.S. Attorney this week. Brennan appealed to Martorano's ego in his questioning, asking him if he "answered to Bulger" and whether the Winter Hill gang leader "was his boss." "Were you partners?" Brennan asked. "I thought so," Martorano answered. He stammered a bit and then added: "He knew what buttons to push." It was clear that Brennan's line of questioning also pushed Martorano's buttons. For three straight days the man who has confessed to 20 murders told the court he "tried to be" a nice guy and that he preferred to think of himself as a vigilante rather than a serial killer, has been calm and collected. Martorano appeared somewhat rattled as Brennan questioned his recollection of details about Bulger's alleged involvement in some of Martorano's activities. Brennan also hammered Martorano on his cooperation agreement with federal officials and the benefits he received from the government after he admitted to murdering 20 people. "Any time you wanted money you could call," Brennan asked of Martorano's relationship with federal agents while he was incarcerated, "and they would put $400 in your canteen account." Martorano admitted to collecting roughly $8,000 while he was incarcerated in a federal pen. Then he got another $20,000 from the federal government when he was released from prison in 2007. "I asked for startup money. When I got out I had nothing," Martorano admitted. Brennan pointed out that Martorano was able to keep a house he owned in Florida and waive the restitution he was ordered to pay as part of his plea agreement. He also asked Martorano about his $250,000 movie deal and the more than $70,000 he received for collaborating with Boston newspaperman Howie Carr for the book Hitman, for which he still receives royalties. "I didn't want to hurt anyone with it," Martorano said. "I was trying to make a living. I didn't try to hurt anyone with the book."
Brennan tried to implicate Martorano in continuing criminal activity upon his release from prison in 2007. He asked Martorano whether he tried to shake down a man who the hitman claimed owed him $100,000. Martorano explained that he wanted to ask that man if there was any money he owed to Mafia figures in New York City. "I didn't want anyone chasing me for money that I might have owed," Martorano testified. "I didn't chase him. I just went to see him in the North End." Martorano said he continues to gamble with another man and "takes a piece of it" of the winnings "because he's a better gambler than me." With that, the defense attorneys ended their cross-examination of the government's star witness. The dapperly-dressed Martorano regained his composure during assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak redirect questioning, which focused on the murders Bulger is accused of involvement in. "Were you and Mr. Bulger involved in the murder of Michael Milano?" Wyshak asked. "Correct," Martorano stated. "Were you and Mr. Bulger involved in the murder of Al Plumber?" "Correct," Martorano answered. "Were you and Mr. Bulger involved in the murder of William O'Brien?" "Correct." The question was asked 13 times more with names of Al Norangelli, Eddie Connors, Thomas King, James O'Toole, James Souza, Richard Castucci, Roger Wheeler, John Callahan, Brian Halloran and Buddy Leonard. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Cuyahoga County Jail(CUYAHOGA COUNTY, Ohio) -- More charges could be added to the 329-count indictment against alleged Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro, who appeared in court Wednesday for a brief pre-trial hearing. "We are presenting additional evidence to the grand jury next week and week after. We expect that we are going to request further indictments," Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty said Wednesday. A tentative Aug. 4 trial date was set Wednesday for Castro, who was indicted earlier this month for allegedly kidnapping Gina DeJesus, Amanda Berry and Michelle Knight and imprisoning them, sometimes restrained by chains, in his Cleveland home.
The former school bus driver is also accused of the aggravated murder of a fetus for allegedly forcibly causing an abortion in Knight, who he is accused of impregnating, a charge that could potentially carry the death penalty. Knight told investigators she became pregnant five times by Castro, but he punched her in the belly until she miscarried. Berry later delivered Castro's baby while in captivity. That girl is now 6.The 52-year-old walked into Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court on Wednesday in shackles, with his head hung low, and answered "yes" and "no" to the judge's questions before another pre-trial hearing was set for June 26. Castro's defense attorney, Craig Weintraub, said at a news conference last week that he hoped the two sides could work "towards a resolution to avoid a trial" and to avoid the death penalty for Castro. He called on prosecutors to drop the aggravated murder charge. Castro has pleaded not guilty.
The women were freed on May 6 when neighbors heard Berry screaming for help behind a closed door.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Keith Levit Photography/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Court documents and FBI field reports reviewed by ABC News undercut and contradict the dramatic testimony from senior counter-terrorism officials that the National Security Agency's surveillance programs thwarted an attack by al Qaeda on the New York Stock Exchange. According to an FBI interview with an imprisoned al Qaeda figure involved in the plot, "there was no further operational planning of that target" after surveillance found the four streets around the exchange building "were blocked off from vehicular traffic." The FBI document was filed last month in federal court in New York as part of the government sentencing memorandum for one of the alleged plotters, Sabirhan Hasanoff, who is to be sentenced next week. But the FBI deputy director, Sean Joyce, provided Congress with a different version of events Tuesday as he cited the stock exchange plot as one of more than 50 "terror events" that had been disrupted with the help of the NSA's secret surveillance programs. "We went up on the electronic surveillance and identified his co-conspirators and this was the plot that was in the very initial stages of plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," Joyce testified. Asked whether it was a "serious plot" by one member of Congress, Joyce said, "I think the jury considered it serious since they were all convicted." In fact, ABC News found there was no jury trial of any of the three alleged plotters. None of them were charged with planning an attack on Wall Street. Rather, all three pleaded guilty to charges including providing financial and material support to al Qaeda. A U.S. official familiar with the case acknowledged that Joyce had "misspoke" about a jury finding. The official insisted that a terror plot may not seem like a serious threat if it's stopped in the planning stages, as the Stock Exchange targeting was. "It was, as Deputy Director Joyce state, in its nascent stages and could have progressed well beyond that if it wasn't for our ability to obtain the FISA material," the official told ABC News. Describing the charges against one of the plotters, Khalid Ouazzani of Kansas City, the then-United States attorney Beth Phillips, now a federal judge, said, "We have no evidence that Ouazzani engaged in any specific plot against the United States government." A spokesman, Don Ledford, added Wednesday, "We would still stand by that, that he posed no imminent threat to the public." One current and one former counter-terrorism official told ABC News there may be more to the Hasanoff case than the public record contains, including sensitive intelligence prosecutors chose not to enter into evidence. Officials said whatever the role of the NSA programs, there is no doubt that Hasanoff and the others were potential threats to the U.S. through their repeated contacts with al Qaeda figures in Yemen. Authorities said the NSA surveillance programs did first identify Ouazzani as being in contact with al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, and that information helped lead to two other Americans, Hasanoff and Wesam El-Hanafi, who all swore an oath of allegiance to al Qaeda, according to the court documents. FBI agents were then able to investigate Ouazzani, track his travels to the Middle East and later he became a cooperating witness for the government. According to the government documents, the New York Stock Exchange plot began in 2008 with a request to Hasanoff to "perform surveillance" for "purposes of planning an attack in the United States." On August 7, Hasanoff wrote in an email to his al Qaeda coordinator in Yemen, intercepted by the government, "I have visited the tourist locations you asked me about and will report to you after two weeks in detail." The FBI report says the al Qaeda leader "was not satisfied with the report, and he accordingly disposed of it. (The report apparently lacked sufficient detail about New York Stock Exchange security matters to be as helpful as the Doctor had hoped.)" The attorney for Hasanoff, David Rhunke, said the idea that the FBI and the NSA would use the alleged plot to justify the surveillance programs is "almost silly." In his plea to the court ahead of sentencing, Hasanoff said "he deliberately provided nothing beyond what anyone could have learned from Google Earth, a tourist map or brochure." He said there was "no further discussion of surveillance of the NYSE or any other tourist sites after August 2008." Yet, FBI deputy director Joyce repeatedly cited the case in defending the controversial electronic surveillance. "I sit before you today, humbly, to say these tools have helped us," he said. Gen. Keith Alexander, the head of the NSA, testified, "The information gathered from these programs provided the US government with critical leads to help prevent over fifty potential terrorist events in more than 20 countries around the world." Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
MPI/Getty Images(DETROIT) -- The FBI announced Wednesday that the search for the body of Jimmy Hoffa, who vanished nearly 38 years ago, has now been called off, as investigators found no remains of the former Teamsters boss in a field in eastern Michigan.Investigators acting on a tip from a reputed underboss of the Detroit Mafia started digging in a field in Oakland Township, 25 miles north of Detroit, on Monday, after a search warrant was issued in the case. The search area, according to ABC’s Detroit affiliate WXYZ, was near land that was once owned by suspected mobsters.Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said that although animal bones had been found at the scene, no human remains had been found, WXYZ reported. No physical evidence has been gathered for lab testing, he said.Tony Zerilli, who the FBI considers a key figure in the Detroit Mafia, told reporter Marc Santia of WNBC in New York that Hoffa was going to be put “in a shallow grave” there and later taken upstate for “final burial” before the plan “fell through.”“The Hoffa body is in that field -- no doubt about it,” Zerilli’s attorney, David Chasnick, said at a news conference Monday afternoon. “There used to be a barn in that field. Buried under the barn, under the cement slab -- that’s where our understanding is that the body should be.”Hoffa was president of the Teamsters union until 1971. He disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant on July 30, 1975. He was declared legally dead July 30, 1982.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
John Parra/WireImage(NEW YORK) -- Serena Williams is apologizing for off-the-cuff remarks she made during an interview with Rolling Stone about the 16-year-old victim of the Steubenville sexual assault case, in which two high school football players were sent to jail.“I am currently reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article. What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame,” Williams said in a statement to ABC’s Good Morning America.“What happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me. I was deeply saddened. For someone to be raped, and at only sixteen, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved — that of the rape victim and of the accused,” Williams wrote.“I have fought all of my career for women’s equality, women’s equal rights, respect in their fields — anything I could do to support women I have done,” she added. “My prayers and support always goes out to the rape victim. In this case, most especially, to an innocent 16 year old child.”Williams’ remarks, published in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone magazine fresh off her win at the French Open, drew widespread criticism after they were picked up by sports news website Deadspin.com.Williams and the magazine interviewer were watching television when a news segment on the Ohio case aired. She said the 16-year-old victim “put herself in that position.”“Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don’t know. I’m not blaming the girl…but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other people,” Williams said during the interview with Rolling Stone contributor Stephen Rodrick.“She’s lucky…she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different,” she added.Two Steubenville, Ohio, high school football players, Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond were convicted of sexually assaulting the 16-year-old in March.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
JON LEVY/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In a new documentary, former government investigators who looked into the mysterious crash of TWA Flight 800, which killed 230 people, are breaking their silence to claim that the explosion that brought down the plane in 1996 was likely no accident, and that the final report on the cause of the blast was falsified.TWA Flight 800 exploded in mid-air on July 17, 1996, about 11 minutes after taking off from New York's JFK airport on its way to Paris. Though theories abounded as to what happened to the plane -- from a bomb on the aircraft to it being struck by a missile or even a meteorite -- the National Transportation Safety Board concluded after a four-year investigation that the probable cause of the crash was an accidental fuel tank explosion. The NTSB said it could not be sure what exactly ignited the blast, but "of the sources evaluated by the investigation, the most likely was a short circuit outside of the [fuel tank] that allowed excessive voltage to enter it through electrical wiring..."But according to the new documentary, which premieres on Epix next month named TWA Flight 800, six former members of the official crash investigation have stepped forward to refute the NTSB's findings, saying the crash report was purposefully falsified, and to claim the investigation was "systematically undermined" by federal authorities."We didn't find any part of the airplane that indicated a mechanical failure," one of the whistleblowers says in a trailer for the film. The former officials allege the explosion came from outside the plane, though they don't speculate any further on the original source.Another of the whistleblowers, former senior accident investigator with the NTSB, Hank Hughes, said in a preview of the documentary that FBI agents were spotted on surveillance cameras going through the hanger where the crash evidence was kept "in the wee hours of the morning...for purposes unknown."Some of the previous theories about the crash have been disproven in the years since and Tom Haueter, former director of Aviation Safety at the NTSB, told ABC News on Wednesday that the former officials in the documentary are wrong. He said that the evidence that the explosion was an internal accident was "irrefutable."There was "no sign" of penetration from the outside, Haueter said.The whistleblowers are calling for the NTSB to reopen its investigation, and the NTSB said in a statement Wednesday that it will reexamine the case if new evidence is presented or "on a showing that the Board's findings are erroneous.""While the NTSB rarely re-investigates issues that have already been examined, our investigations are never closed and we can review any new information not previously considered by the Board," the NTSB said. "The TWA Flight 800 investigation lasted four years and remains one of the NTSB's most detailed investigations. Investigators took great care reviewing, documenting and analyzing facts and data and held a five-day hearing to gather additional facts before determining the probable cause of the accident during a two-day Board meeting."
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Hemera/Thinkstock(BOSTON) -- Investigators plan to execute a search warrant on an Enterprise rental car registered to New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, ABC News has learned.The car was near the body of a man who was found murdered Monday evening.The search of the vehicle was planned after police spent hours at the $1.3 million home of the football player in North Attleborough, Mass., Tuesday night, taking evidence photos and removing boxes.Another search was conducted of a car parked in Hernandez's driveway, a 2012 Chrysler 200 LX. The license plate connected that car to Enterprise rental as well, several law enforcement sources told ABC News.Hernandez was cooperative with police Tuesday night, but the investigation is far from over, the sources said.The case began with the discovery on Monday around 5:30 p.m. of the body of a 27-year-old Boston man who was shot in the head, the sources said. The man was described as an "associate" of Hernandez, and the body was in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard, not far from an Enterprise car that had been rented by Hernandez, sources said.The Bristol County District Attorney's Office has refused to comment on the case. Detectives assigned to that office were seen at the Hernandez home Tuesday night.Stacey James, a New England Patriots official, said on behalf of the team, "I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation."Hernandez's sports agency, Athletes First, declined to comment.His lawyer did not immediately respond to ABC News on Wednesday.Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder surgery, though he was spotted at practice recently welcoming new Patriots' quarterback Tim Tebow.
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ABC(WESTERVILLE, Ohio) -- An Ohio day care worker who police say sprinkled drugs in children's snacks to make them fall asleep has denied dispensing any medication without parental approval."I simply wouldn't do it. I didn't do it," Tammy Eppley told ABC News on Tuesday. "Anytime I gave the children any medication, I had permission from the parent."Eppley, 37, was charged in Franklin County Municipal Court Monday with six counts of child endangerment after the mother of three allegedly used Melatonin and Benadryl to drug the children for whom she cared, including her own 2-year-old daughter.Eppley ran the Caterpillar Clubhouse day care out of her Westerville home, where she cared for six children, ranging in ages from 2 to 5 years old, officials said.Police say they have a series of text messages, videos and voice recordings Eppley sent to a former friend apparently bragging about mixing the substances into "snacks for the children in order to get them to sleep during the day."In one text, Eppley allegedly said a child remarked the "sprinkles on some cupcakes tasted funny."Eppley denies the allegations, claiming the text messages and videos were taken out of context and a former friend is out to get her."I made jokes about it. Very off-color jokes that I regret, but I never said I did in fact do that and she knew that," Eppley said. "This person knew exactly how to hurt me most."Franklin County Children Services concluded an investigation last month that resulted in no action against Eppley, calling the evidence against her "unsubstantiated."The police believe otherwise, however."We thought that there was enough probable cause to charge her with this, and we're pretty positive that she did this," Westerville Lt. Paul Scowden said.Eppley did not require a day care license because she was caring for six children at her home, according to Ohio state law. Seven or more children require a state license.Eppley says she can't find a lawyer and has lost her day care business after the charges were levied against her."The hardest part has been watching my kids suffer for it. Obviously, losing kids that I fell in love with," she said with tears in her eyes. "I'm a good person. I'm not a mug shot."
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US Army Gen. Keith Alexander, director of the National Security Agency -- Mark Wilson/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Most Americans in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll support telephone and Internet surveillance by the National Security Administration, but two-thirds also favor congressional hearings on the subject -- indicating broad interest in more information about these activities. The public by 58-39 percent supports the NSA collecting “extensive records of phone calls, as well as Internet data related to specific investigations, to try to identify possible terrorist threats.”Support for the program is far higher among Democrats and liberals than among Republicans and strong conservatives, reversing Bush-era political divisions on issues of privacy vs. security.
See a PDF with full results, charts and tables here.
At the same time, in a strikingly nonpartisan result, 65 percent of Americans favor congressional hearings on the subject -- a view expressed by more than six in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents alike, as well as by virtually equal numbers across the ideological spectrum. The survey, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds a close division in attitudes on whether or not to prosecute Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who disclosed the classified NSA program. Forty-three percent support charging him with a crime; 48 percent oppose such charges. These results reflect attitudes on a developing story; views could shift based on more information about the government’s activities or the potential impact of Snowden’s disclosures. That highlights the competing values at stake -- the right to privacy from government intrusion vs. security from terrorism. Attitudes on the NSA effort are similar to those measured in a Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll June 9, in which 56 percent called it acceptable for the agency to obtain “secret court orders to track telephone call records of millions of Americans in an effort to investigate terrorism.” Surveys asking other questions have had different results -- 48 percent approval for “the government's collection of telephone and internet data as part of anti-terrorism efforts” in a Pew/USA Today poll June 16; the same level of approval in a Time magazine poll June 11; and in a CBS News poll June 10, just 38 percent approval for “federal government agencies collecting phone records of ordinary Americans” in order to reduce the threat of terrorism. A variety of factors could be at play, including exactly which records or data have been collected; how and why they were collected; as well as, speculatively, a distinction between asking about “support” vs. “approval” for a program that some may see as needed yet at the same time intrusive. As noted, results of this survey turn Bush-era partisan divisions on their head. In ABC/Post polls during the presidency of George W. Bush, Republicans and conservatives put far more emphasis on anti-terrorism investigations, even at the cost of privacy, while Democrats and independents were more apt to prioritize privacy rights. The divisions were closer in a 2010 survey; now with the NSA controversy arising on the Obama administration’s watch, the tables are turned: Seventy-three percent of Democrats and 67 percent of liberals in this survey support the NSA program; that declines to 49 percent of Republicans (and about as many independents, 51 percent) and just 46 percent of those who call themselves “very” conservative. (Support is much higher, 62 percent, among “somewhat” conservatives, similar to its level among political moderates.) In line these results, the survey also finds substantially more support for the NSA program among nonwhites, who are more apt to be Democrats, than among whites, 68 vs. 53 percent. And whites are more apt than nonwhites to favor hearings, 70 vs. 57 percent. Opposition to charging Snowden with a crime peaks among very conservatives, at 56 percent, and adults who (like Snowden himself) are younger than 30. Fifty-eight percent in this group prefer not to see him charged.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for The Guardian(LOS ANGELES) -- Journalist Michael Hastings, whose article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal effectively ended his command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was killed in a single-car crash early Tuesday, Los Angeles Police confirmed on Tuesday. Hastings was 33.According to the accident report, Hastings' vehicle crossed a median and struck a tree where it burst into flames. One witness reported that Hastings' car was moving at a high rate of speed at the time of the crash.A contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine, Hastings' 2010 article, "The Runaway General," focused on McChrystal's apparent contempt for his civilian commanders. Summoned back to Washington, President Obama demanded the general's resignation, remarking how the conduct described in Hastings' article "undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system."McChrystal was replaced by then-Gen. David Petraeus, regarded as one of the architects for the turnaround of the Iraq war.Hastings won the 2010 Polk award for magazine reporting for "The Runaway General." Also a reporter for BuzzFeed, he leaves behind a wife, Elise Jordan.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Michael DeHoog/Sports Imagery/ Getty Images(NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass.) -- Investigators searched the North Attleborough home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Tuesday following the killing of a man police call an "associate" of Hernandez, ABC News has learned.Massachusetts State Police and prosecutors arrived at Hernandez's $1.3 million, 5,600-square-foot home, which is outfitted with a home gym and a swimming pool, just before 5 p.m. and spent hours with him inside the mansion.Two Hernandez friends tried to leave house at the time of the search, but they were stopped by a state police car at the end of the driveway. Crime scene investigators later searched the car the men tried to leave in.During the search, Hernandez received a hand-delivered package from the prominent law firm Ropes and Gray around 7:30 p.m., with the deliveryman telling reporters swarming the sidewalk outside that it was addressed to "Mr. Hernandez himself."Hernandez was initially uncooperative with police after the body of a 27-year-old man was found in an industrial park not far from the Patriots player's home, two law enforcement sources said.A rental vehicle with Rhode Island plates was recovered near the scene, which led investigators to Hernandez, sources told ABC News.Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter confirmed in a media statement that a body was found around 5:30 p.m. Monday in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard. Sutter said that based on the "nature and circumstances" of the body that the investigation would be handed over to Massachusetts State Police detectives.North Attleborough is home to many Patriots players because of its proximity to Gillette Stadium, where the Patriots play. In fact, Hernandez bought his home from a former Patriots player, Ty Warren.Neighbors expressed concern outside of the house as it was searched.One, Jill Cambridge, 43, wore a Patriots jersey as she defended the star tight end."I think the kids around here, especially, look up to the Patriots players," she said. "I just hope he's not involved in this."Another neighbor, Susan Mayer, and her 14-year-old daughter, Rachel, described Hernandez as a very warm guy."There is a lot of action around here because of the Patriots,'' Susan Mayer said.Rachel was more concerned about keeping Hernandez on the team."We need the Patriots to win," she said.She added that Hernandez, along with Matt Light and other Patriots standouts, hosted a haunted house and scared dozens of kids while dressed up in costumes last Halloween.Stacey James, a New England Patriots official, said on behalf of the team, "I am aware of the reports, but I do not anticipate that we will be commenting publicly during an ongoing police investigation."Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder scope, though he was spotted at practice recently welcoming new Patriots quarterback Tim Tebow.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Joe Burbank - Pool/Getty Images(SANFORD, Fla.) -- The jury selection process in the George Zimmerman murder trial will move on to round two on Wednesday, as the prosecution and defense look to whittle down a pool of potential jurors into a final list of jurors and alternates.A jury is expected to be seated as early as Wednesday, but the process could go through Thursday.The prosecution and the defense team Tuesday agreed on a pool of 40 potential jurors that included 16 men and 24 women. It took both sides seven days to collect 40 potential jurors fit to move on to the next round, called regular voir dire.On Wednesday, 30 of the 40 potential jurors will be brought into the courtroom and further questioned as a group on their beliefs and biases.In February 2012, Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla., shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin after a confrontation in the dark. Zimmerman has cited self-defense as his reason for shooting the unarmed teen, who he said had been acting “suspiciously."During Wednesday’s process, both the prosecution and the defense will have 10 strikes, meaning they can excuse as many as 10 jurors without an explanation. Until this point, the jurors were only excused “for cause,” meaning they were too closely related to the case or knew too much.The counsels must agree upon a final six jurors and four alternates who will be sequestered for the duration of the trial. For now, Judge Debra Nelson has ruled the names of the jurors will be kept secret.Of the 40 potential jurors, many are white and female. In the racial breakdown of the jury pool, there are 28 white potential jurors, 19 of them female and nine male. There are only six black potential jurors, three male and three female. There are four Hispanic potential jurors and two who identified as mixed-race.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
US Drug Enforcement Administration(NEW YORK) -- A suburban mother of two accused of running a sophisticated $3 million marijuana enterprise out of a New York warehouse was slapped with a federal indictment on Tuesday by prosecutors who said her operation was no different than that of Colombian druglords.Andrea Sanderlin, 45, of Scarsdale, N.Y., was charged with manufacturing and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute it, and for maintaining a warehouse where marijuana was grown and processed, according to the United States Attorney's Office Eastern District of New York, which announced the charges Tuesday afternoon."There's really no difference whether you're a suburban mom growing marijuana in a warehouse in Queens, or a cartel member making cocaine in the jungles of Colombia -- manufacturing and distributing illegal narcotics comes at a hefty price when you are caught by law enforcement," said James Hayes, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's office of investigations in New York.Sanderlin was arrested on May 20 after authorities raided a Queens warehouse, where they found $3 million worth of pot, including close to 3,000 plants, according to Brian Crowell, Drug Enforcement Administration special agent in charge of the investigation.Crowell called the setup a "highly sophisticated indoor marijuana grow operation."After her arrest, Sanderlin drew comparisons with Nancy Botwin, the maternal drug dealer played by Mary-Louise Parker on the Showtime series Weeds."Sanderlin could have focused her talents on building a legitimate business enterprise to support her family and serve as a role model for her children," United States attorney Loretta Lynch said Tuesday."Instead, she allegedly chose to inhabit the shadowy underworld of large-scale drug dealers, using drug proceeds to maintain her family's facade of upper-middle-class stability," Lynch said.Sanderlin's attorney, Joel Winograd, could not immediately be reached for comment.Anthony Flores, who lives across the street from the Queens warehouse, told ABC News earlier this month that he had met Sanderlin a number of times."She introduced herself one day. 'Yeah, we're manufacturing baby furniture,'" Flores said she told him of her line of work.Flores said Sanderlin would often ask him to move his car so she could park her 2010 Mercedes SUV in front of the warehouse."She's a very attractive young lady," he said. "I didn't think anything of it. She said her store was on Fifth Avenue."Flores said he was outside his home May 20 when Sanderlin slowly drove past the warehouse, possibly noticing the undercover police vehicles parked in the area."Then all the guys came out," he said. "It was just like, get down, open the door. It was nuts."Flores said Sanderlin didn't want to get out of her car at first, and it took law enforcement 10 minutes to take her into custody. Sanderlin was then handcuffed and brought inside the warehouse where, DEA Special Agent David Lee said, "agents discovered two separate rooms constructed within the warehouse designed to grow marijuana.""Each room contained state-of-the-art lighting, irrigation and ventilation systems to facilitate growing the marijuana," Lee said.It's unclear how long she'd been running the alleged operation, but she registered the name Fantastic Enterprises in July 2007, officials said.If convicted, Sanderlin could face a minimum of 10 years in prison and $10 million in fines. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Comstock/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The military timelines for integrating women into combat units were laid out on Tuesday at a Pentagon press conference by representatives of military services and U.S. Special Operations Command. SOCOM's Major Gen. Bennet Sacolick said "the days of Rambo are over," as he made the point that it takes brains as well as brawn to be a modern day Special Operator.“I mean, we're looking for young men that can speak and learn a foreign language and understand culture, that can work with indigenous populations and culturally attune manners. I mean, just -- you know, the defining characteristic of our operators are intellect. And when people fail in the special forces qualification course, predominantly they fail because they're -- they're not doing their homework.” Sacolick admitted that SOCOM has concerns about letting women into its elite ranks but said his command is not predisposed to any course of action. That’s why it will undertake three studies over the next year before making a recommendation to the secretary of defense by July 2015. One study is “primarily focused on the social implications of integrating women at the team level,” Sacolick explained. There’ll also be two Rand studies, one looking at the behavior and cultural aspects of integrating women into its formations that operate in that remote special operations environment. The other will be a comprehensive survey of every special operator to gauge their opinions, much as was done with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Why the survey? Sacolick said that “more often than not, we listen to the -- who we hear is the -- more than vocal minority in our formations [which] are [also] filled with the quiet professionals, and they need to give them a venue. They need to find out how they feel about integration at the team level. I think that's going to be really important." The military services have similar long timelines that will meet the Pentagon’s goal of integrating women in all combat units by January 2016. On Tuesday they gave presentations about the different methods they're using to work towards gender-neutral standards for jobs that men and women will be able to do in combat units. For example, the Marines have settled on five “proxy tasks” like loading an artillery shell into a tank gun that are representative of hundreds of micro-tasks. They’re going to study how 800 male and female Marines work their way through the drills to come up with a screening test that will eventually be used on incoming recruits who want to serve in infantry units. The service representatives said they are consulting with SOCOM as to how to proceed with allowing women into their special ops units. There were no specific comments about reports on Monday regarding timelines for letting women to train as Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Wendy Maeda/The Boston Globe via Getty Images(BOSTON) -- Nightclub owner Richard Castucci had made a lot of mistakes in his life, but his biggest would prove to be too trusting of an FBI agent who grew up in South Boston.Castucci was 48 and a father of four when he went to the FBI and said he had information on accused Boston mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger's alleged criminal activities. Castucci's information made its way to FBI agent John Connolly, who had been nicknamed "Zip" by Bulger and his Winter Hill gang because the lawman shared the same South Boston zip code as the Bulger clan."Whitey came and told us Zip Connolly told him Richie was in there," John Martorano told the court Tuesday in his second day of testimony in Bulger's federal trial on 19 murders. Monday was the first time Martorano saw Bulger since 1982. He told the court that he was once so close to Bulger that he named his youngest son after him.Bulger told Martorano and another Winter Hill gang associate, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, that Castucci had to go, Martorano testified Tuesday. "We decided to take Richie out," he said.Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Wyshak asked Martorano to clarify. "You decided to murder Mr. Castucci?""Yeah," Martorano answered. "Once we made the decision we called Richie up and told him to come over."Castucci was driven to the Somerville, Mass., garage that acted as the Winter Hill gang's headquarters, Martorano told the court. There, Castucci and Bulger sat at a table "counting money."Martorano came into the kitchen and pulled his favorite gun, a snub-nose .38 revolver, from his pocket. He told the court he liked to carry a snub-nose .38 because he could easily slip it in and out of his pocket.Castucci never saw it coming. "I walked around to the side of Mr. Castucci," Martorano told the court. He then pointed his finger at his forehead and continued. "I shot him in the temple. Stevie and Whitey cleaned it up."The cleanup involved stuffing Castucci's body into a sleeping bag, which was then put in the trunk of his own Cadillac, which was abandoned behind an apartment complex not far from the nightclub the victim owned, Martorano testified. It was winter 1976, and by the time Castucci's car was finally discovered it was buried in nearly four feet of snow. And his body was frozen solid.An evidence photo of Castucci's icy remains in the trunk of his car with the sleeping bag zipped up to his chin was entered into evidence along with another picture of a hole in the victim's right temple.Bulger's relationship with John "Zip" Connolly helped the Winter Hill gang more than once, Martorano testified. "We were told things."In 1982, Bulger warned Martorano about a pending indictment connected to fixing horse races. Martorano decided he "was going to go away for six months and have a vacation," he testified.That conversation would be Martorano's last face-to-face contact with Bulger until his testimony this week in a South Boston federal courthouse. But even if Martorano and Bulger didn't see each other, Martorano said he would still kill for his boss."I didn't enjoy killing anybody. I enjoyed helping a friend if I could," Martorano told the court."I would rather be considered a vigilante than a serial killer," Martorano told the court. "I was always taught to take care of my family and my friends. Family and friends come first. My father always taught me that. The priests and the nuns I grew up with taught me that....Judas is the worst person in the world.''It wouldn't be until 1994 that Martorano would discover his friends, "my partners in crime, my children's godfathers,'' he said on the stand Monday, were cooperating with the Boston FBI. That news "broke my heart,'' Martorano said.Before that, Martorano continued to kill for the Winter Hill gang, especially when "Mr. Bulger insisted on it," he said. Bulger would insist on a number of murders in the 1980s, and Martorano admitted to committing three of Bulger's orders on the stand."We were up to our necks in murders," he testified.It had taken two days of testimony to cover the murders the government's star witness against Bulger had committed. The prosecutor, Wyshak, finished his questioning with this:"Mr. Martorano, do you regret your life of crime?"Martorano answered, "Who wouldn't?"Then it was Bulger's defense attorneys' turn to question Martorano. Attorney Hank Brennan began by peppering Martorano with questions."You've killed for friends?""Yes." Martorano answered."You've killed for family?" Brennan asked."Yes."Brennan went on asking, "You have killed strangers? You have killed innocent people?" Martorano answered correct two more times.Then came a question that seemed to stun Martorano."Did you say hi to your friend before you were going to murder him, did you look him in the eye?" Brennan asked.Martorano hesitated slightly then answered: "Yes I did."He is expected to take the stand again Wednesday for additional cross-examination by Bulger's attorneys, who continue to depict him as a liar willing to do anything to save his own neck and profit from his crimes.Martorano said Monday that he received $250,000 in a movie deal and made another $50,000 collaborating on the book, Hitman, by Boston newspaperman Howie Carr. The FBI had also given him $20,000 when he got out of jail.Connolly is now serving a life sentence in connection with the murder of John B. Callahan, a successful Boston businessman and longtime Martorano ally, after he was accused of providing information for the hit. Martorano testified against him.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Kansas City Police Department(WASHINGTON) -- Top U.S. security officials have revealed that the government's recently exposed surveillance programs led them to an al Qaeda cell that plotted and scouted, but ultimately abandoned, a plan to bomb Wall Street in 2008."We found through electronic surveillance that they were actually in the initial stages of plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange," FBI Assistant Director Sean Joyce told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.Joyce was testifying alongside high-level U.S. officials, including National Security Agency head Gen. Keith Alexander, before the House Intelligence Committee to defend the NSA's practice of collecting vast amounts of telephone and Internet usage data – programs recently revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Snowden, who is in hiding in Hong Kong after confessing to the leaks, called the reach of the programs "horrifying." The U.S. officials who testified Tuesday claimed they helped put a stop to more than 50 terror plots in 20 countries – four of which were discussed publicly.The NYSE plot, which had until Tuesday been unknown to the public, was centered around an auto parts dealer in Kansas City, Mo., named Khalid Ouazzani, who pleaded guilty in 2010 for his role in a conspiracy to provide funding to al Qaeda. At the time of his plea, the complex case against Ouazzani seemed to have little to do with the famous NYSE headquarters on Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, except for a vague reference in his plea agreement that said, "Over a period of years, [Ouazzani] and others discussed various ways they could support al Qaeda."The FBI now says Ouazzani was talking to an extremist in Yemen about a terror plot that would strike at the symbolic heart of America's capitalist system – an attack on Wall Street.Ouazzani was never charged with planning any attacks, and a federal law enforcement official told ABC News it was Ouazzani's role as a cooperating witness, after he was identified with the help of NSA programs, that helped authorities uncover the plot in the first place.A senior law enforcement official told ABC News that "overseas intel" connected Ouazzani to two U.S. citizen extremists, Sabirhan Hasanoff and Wesam el-Hanafi. Court documents unsealed on Tuesday showed that all three swore their allegiance to al Qaeda, but it was Hasanoff who traveled to New York in 2008 to conduct a scouting mission for a possible bombing attack on the Stock Exchange.Hasanoff wrote a "rudimentary report" to a "senior terrorist leader" in an email about the security situation there, the court documents say. However, the leader decided that while the information "could be used by someone who wanted to do an operation, he was not satisfied with the report, and he accordingly disposed of it."Ouazzani's crew and the plot never "went operational," a counter-terrorism official in New York said.Hasanoff and el-Hanafi both later pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in June 2012, but again the Department of Justice omitted any mention of the Stock Exchange in their announcement at the time.The plot was left out of the public record apparently because it was discovered in part from intelligence gathered through surveillance authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) in Washington, DC. Though there are ways to use such evidence at trial, the Justice Department tries to instead attempt to secure convictions on more typical varieties of crimes like fraud and money-laundering. That was the path chosen in case of the NYSE bomb plot that never was.The Stock Exchange, at 11 Wall Street, is just a half-mile away from the site of the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed during the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks by al Qaeda. Nicknamed the "Big Board," the Exchange is the world's largest stock market with the total value of the companies it lists hovering at more than $16.6 trillion.Though an attack on the building would be a colossal symbolic blow to the country, the market itself would remain largely intact because the vast majority of trading is now done online, and the market's computer network was relocated to off-site locations in the wake of the 2001 attacks. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
(BOSTON) -- Massachusetts investigators plan to interview New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez in connection with the murder of a man police call an "associate" of player No. 81, ABC News has learned.Hernandez's jersey number is 81.Hernandez has been uncooperative with police since the body of a 27-year-old man was found in an industrial park not far from the Patriot player's North Attleboro home, two law enforcement sources told ABC News.A rental vehicle with Rhode Island plates was recovered near the scene, which led investigators to Hernandez, sources told ABC News.Bristol County District Attorney Sam Sutter confirmed in a press statement that a body was found around 5:30 p.m. Monday in a clearing near John Dietsch Boulevard. Sutter said that based on the "nature and circumstances" of the body that the investigation would be handed over to Massachusetts state police detectives.Hernandez is spending the off-season recovering from a shoulder scope.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
ABC News(PORTER, Ind.) -- Officials remain baffled as to how a dark, slick substance that forced dozens of swimmers out of the water at a northwest Indiana beach mysteriously vanished. "They checked the beach, and they can't find any evidence of it," Indiana Department of Environmental Management spokesman Barry Sneed told ABC News. "[Authorities] figure it may have sunk, or moved farther north. It's a strange phenomenon." Swimmers notified law enforcement authorities that a dark-colored residue stretching nearly a mile long on Lake Michigan had appeared on the surface of the water at Porter Beach in Porter, Ind., Monday afternoon, Sneed said. Porter Fire Department Deputy Chief Jay Craig told ABC News that when he arrived at the lake the water looked slick with what appeared to be oil. Upon further inspection, the substance was a gun-metal gray with metal flakes in it. Craig said you could tell how deep someone had been in the water depending on where their bodies were stained with the dark residue. "They were worried when they saw two kids come out of the water and the one was, his head and half his body was covered a bit in black," Porter resident Carl Dahlin told ABC's Chicago station WLS-TV. "We are completely baffled as to what it truly is, whether it came from one of the steel mills or something out of the smokestacks or possibly washed off one of the big barges as they came into the harbor," Gene Davis, Indiana conservation officer, told WLS-TV. Officials shut down the beach as the Coast Guard, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the National Park Service were called in to help identify the slime. The appearance of the unidentifiable slick forced the closure of five northern Indiana beaches on Lake Michigan, Sneed said. "In my eight years here, we've never had to close the water because of an unknown substance like this," said Indiana Dunes State Park Manager Brandt Baughman. "We're not going to open our beach until we know what it is." Indiana Dunes State Park remains closed as a result of strong waves and rip tides, but other beaches in the area have issued a swim at your own risk advisory. Meanwhile, officials work to determine what the mysterious substance was and where it could have gone. While authorities worried that the sheen could spread east toward Michigan City, Ind., Sneed said the substance was nowhere to be found this morning. Sneed said that while preliminary testing of water samples indicated the mystery sheen might have been a food additive that was also used in fertilizer, this morning's reading revealed it might have been a type of acid. While the tests yield variable results, samples were sent to a lab for further analysis, Sneed said.
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Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(TEMPE, Ariz.) -- Tuesday night Arizona police were considering conducting a sonar search of the bottom of a community lake for the body of a Tempe college student whose car was found with two punctured tires, according to police."Unfortunately, we have been down this road too many times before, where we have found bodies of young people in the lake. Nothing indicates that she is down there, but we are trying to eliminate everything we can," Sgt. Mike Pooley of the Tempe Police Department told ABC News.Divers Monday night searched for clues in the man-made reservoir but found nothing. They are hoping that a search using sonar equipment will prove more fruitful.Adrienne Salinas, 19, was reported missing by her father, Rick Salinas, on Father's Day, according to police."We got the call from her father on Sunday afternoon," Pooley said.Salinas was last seen on Friday night at her home near Gateway Community College, where she is a student."She was seen early Saturday morning by her roommate. Salinas told her roommate she was going to her boyfriend's house. She had taken a change of clothes with her," said Pooley.Salinas never made it to her boyfriend's house."We got a call at 3:44 in the morning about a car accident almost a mile away from her house," Pooley said."A vehicle had hit the median and then sped away. By the time we found the car, it was was a block away from Salinas' house with two flat tires."Police believe Salinas was driving the vehicle."We think that when Salinas hit the median on her way to her boyfriend's house, she turned around to drive back home. She couldn't go all the way, because her two tires were punctured, so she got out of the car," said Pooley.That is when police believe the woman disappeared."The last text Salinas sent was to her boyfriend at 4:43 Saturday morning. She told him she was on her way," said Pooley. "Her phone went dead at 5:07 later that morning."Investigators have interviewed Salinas' boyfriend, roommates, family members and classmates."We have done a pretty large canvas of the entire neighborhood," Pooley said. "Detectives are following up and looking at her cellphone records, emails and social media accounts."Pooley would not get into specific details regarding the case but told ABC News the police had no leads. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Frontier Airlines(DENVER) -- Charges have been filed against a Colorado man accused of making threats onboard a Frontier Airlines flight last weekend.Mark Bote, 23, of Thornton, Colo., is accused of claiming he had a bomb in his backpack when he was aboard Frontier Airlines flight 601 from Knoxville, Tenn., to Denver on June 14.The plane was evacuated when it landed in Denver.
An investigation failed to turn up a bomb.Bote faces a federal charge of false information and threats. If he's found guilty, he could get five years in federal prison and up to a $250,000 fine. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The last time you wanted to vent about your family or co-workers within the space of 140 characters, you didn’t “submit a post to the microblogging service known as Twitter.” You tweeted.These days, pop culture associates the act of tweeting less with chirping birds and more with social networking. Now the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) will officially recognize the word “tweet” in its June 2013 update.John Simpson, chief editor of the OED, made the announcement on the dictionary’s website. He says that including the new definition of tweet “breaks at least one OED rule, namely that a new word needs to be current for 10 years before consideration for inclusion.”The OED attributes the first use of “tweeting” back to 2007. On March 15, 2007 on the now defunct blog NevOn, the blogger posted, “Not much chance to tweet on Twitter, especially since it seems that SMS posting from my mobile phone doesn’t work.” It was the land before smartphones, when Twitter users had to rely on text messaging to broadcast their thoughts.This isn’t Twitter’s first appearance in the OED; “retweet” was added to the dictionary in 2011. The OED is a bit behind competitor the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which added the word “tweet” in August 2011.Other words that have made their way into the OED’s latest update? “Flash mob,” “geekery,” “live-blogging,” and “e-reader.”
Check out the full list of new words here.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
FBI(NEW YORK) -- Federal authorities announced Tuesday a new push to track down the man or woman who used a bicycle for their getaway when they tried to blow up a military recruiting station in New York's Times Square five years ago, fearing the suspect may be a serial bike bomber."Someone, somewhere, knows something about a bomber who's still on the run," said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos.The FBI said they believe the March 6, 2008 blast at the Armed Forces Career Center is likely linked to two earlier blasts at the consulates of foreign nations in New York -- the U.K.'s in 2005 and Mexico's in 2007.
The bureau also announced a reward of $65,000 for information on the case, the first time there has been a reward associated with the case.The device in Times Square was made from an ammunition can and described at the time as unsophisticated. The FBI now believes it was more powerful than the pair of bombs detonated at the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three and injuring more than 260 others.In the case of the bicycle bomber, the Times Square bomb exploded at 3:45 a.m., when few people were around. The blast caused minor damage to the landmark military recruiting station."While published reports have repeatedly cited the early morning time of the attack and the lack of casualties, the fact is the bomber narrowly missed killing or injuring passers-by who can be seen clearly in the vicinity, moments before the blast," said New York City Police Department Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. "The distance between polemics by bombing and the murdering of innocents is short, indeed."Ten minutes of newly-released surveillance images show the bomb detonating in Times Square and the bike bomber riding through the streets of New York."Today we're asking for the public's assistance in finding those responsible and encouraging the public to look closely at these photos and video, which could be the key to breaking the case," Venizelos said.The suspect on the bicycle was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt and pants of an unknown color. The height, weight, age, sex and race of the suspect are unknown.Anyone with information on any of the three bombings is encouraged to call the FBI at 212-384-1000. Tipsters may remain anonymous. The FBI and the NYPD will be using the hash tag #BikeBomber to disseminate information about the attacks and to solicit information. The photos and video are also being displayed on digital billboards throughout the northeast, including in Times Square.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- In a few years women could be in training to become Army Rangers and Navy SEALs under plans to be announced Tuesday by the military services for integrating women into combat units.Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last January lifted the 1994 Combat Exclusion Rule that restricted women from serving in frontline infantry, armor and special operations units and set a January 2016 compliance deadline. The concept of a frontline became blurred in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as women serving in other units also became the targets of roadside bombs and attacks. To date, almost 150 military women have died in those wars.The services have varying numbers of jobs that have remained closed to women as a result of the Combat Exclusion Rule. While the Navy has 88 percent of its jobs open for women, the Air Force has for years had 99 percent of its positions open to women. Among the jobs closed to women in the Air Force are positions in combat control, tactical air command and control, pararescue and special-operations weather positions.The stated goal of the lifting of the ban was to open all combat jobs to women, but the services were given the option of requesting an exception that would have to be approved by the Defense secretary. Though tentative in nature and many details still have to be reviewed, the timelines reflect the goal of including women in all combat units.The plans to be presented Tuesday will include timelines for integrating women into most combat roles. Defense officials say they will also include timelines that would allow women to enter the Army's elite Ranger School by the spring of 2015 and Navy SEALS training in early 2016.When the ban was lifted, the military services said they would develop new job-specific standards for men and women serving in combat units that would be "gender neutral." Many of those standards remain to be developed, though Defense officials say that elite Special Operation Forces will retain the current physical and psychological standards used on potential candidates wishing to join their ranks.Some gender-neutral standards have already been developed for certain frontline jobs and will open up to women fairly quickly. For example, as early as next month, female sailors will be allowed to train to join the Navy's Riverine force that provides security operations in river and coastal areas.But other combat jobs will still require longer study and review for not only developing the new standards but more mundane things like new lodging and privacy needs that would be necessitated by allowing women into the units.While the Army has tentatively set plans to allow women to enter Army Ranger School to earn the "Ranger Tab," it does not mean that female graduates will automatically get to serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Like their male peers, they will have to successfully meet the unit's own selective standards.
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Sandra Schorken(OAKLAND, Calif.) -- Two men and a woman dove in to a California estuary on Sunday to rescue a family, including two children, trapped in a vehicle about to submerge.Andy Goodwin, Erik Schorken and Schorken’s family were driving along the estuary in Oakland, Calif., on their way back from a Father’s Day lunch, when they noticed a woman frantically waving her hands and pointing towards the water.“I said to my wife, ‘I think someone might have gone into the water,’” Schorken told ABC News. “But no one was stopping.”Then they saw an ambulance, so Schorken decided to pull over and see what was going on.It turned out the ambulance was there for another matter, but the car’s occupants noticed people were trapped in the water, so Schorken, Goodwin and Tracey McCormick, who was also driving by the estuary at the time, jumped in and swam out to the scene.“This car was 60 degrees up in the air; it was going nose down into the water,” Schorken said. “I just kept swimming out there.”The mission soon appeared hopeless. Because the car’s doors were locked, the would-be rescuers had no way of accessing the victims. Halfway towards the car, Goodwin swam back to the shore.“I swam about halfway out and I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do much,” Goodwin told ABC News.McCormick said that when she reached the vehicle, the victims’ hands “were on the windows screaming to get us out.”One of the paramedics had an emergency pocket knife designed to break through glass. She handed Goodwin the pocket knife. Goodwin subsequently gave it to McCormick, who gave it to Schorken after she had trouble with it. Schorken broke through the window, and he and McCormick took the family -- a mother, a father, and two kids Schorken guessed were between the ages of 7 and 10 -- 20 feet to shore.As soon as they reached the land, the car completely submerged into the water.“I looked behind me and the car was gone. I couldn’t believe how fast it sunk,” said McCormick.The family was fine and was not taken to the hospital, the Oakland Police Department told ABC News.ABC News affiliate KGO-TV reported the rescue on Sunday, referring to Goodwin and Schorken as “good Samaritans.”
Although Schorken did not know the name of the family he rescued, he had their phone number and was planning on inviting them over for dinner.Calls to the number Schorken provided went unanswered.Johnna Watson of the Oakland Police Department said the family likely would not have survived without the help.“Time is of the essence in a situation like this,” she told ABC News. “By the time we arrived on scene the occupants were taken out. This made the difference between life and death.”Watson said there will be an investigation into the cause of the accident.
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The Guardian via Getty Images(LONDON) -- Using the British newspaper The Guardian as a mouthpiece, contractor-turned-leaker Edward Snowden responded Monday to allegations made by U.S. political figures, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, that he is a traitor for uncovering surveillance programs operated by the National Security Agency.Snowden, who has taken refuge in Hong Kong, answered online questions posed by The Guardian, writing, "Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American."Cheney, who was interviewed on Fox News Sunday, also suggested that the 29-year-old former Maryland resident may be spying for the Chinese, an accusation Snowden said he found laughable.Snowden told The Guardian, "If I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn't I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now."He said that any assertion that he was conducting espionage for China is a "smear" tactic, meant to distract the public's attention away from what Snowden asserts are the illegal activities of the U.S. government in collecting the phone records of virtually all Americans.As far as what might ultimately happen to him, Snowden mused, "All I can say right now is the U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me. Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped."He added that he's also opposed to collecting data about non-Americans as well, writing, "Suspicionless surveillance does not become okay simply because it's only victimizing 95 percent of the world instead of 100 percent."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Comstock/Thinkstock(ANNAPOLIS, Md.) -- The U.S. Naval Academy says it has plans to charge three football players in connection with the rape of a female midshipman that allegedly took place in April 2012.After a lengthy investigation, the school's superintendent has referred the case for the military's equivalent of a grand jury, known as Article 32."The initial NCIS investigation has been completed and reviewed. The superintendent has decided to send this case to Article 32 proceedings," U.S. Naval Academy spokesman John Schofield said Monday.The accuser, who has not been named, reported the sexual assault after attending an off-campus party at a location known as the "football house," according to Military.com. She said she was informed by friends and though social media that she had been sexually assaulted while incapacitated at the party.All three football players, who have also not been named, remain at the Naval Academy, where one senior was kept from graduating on May 24, the site reports.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Julia Di Sieno(SANTA BARBARA, Calif.) -- A 3-week-old kitten survived a 1,000-mile trip across two states inside the engine of a Honda Fit and is expected to make a full recovery.“I was concerned about this kitten because it had been in the car engine for two to three days,” Julia Di Sieno, executive director and co-founder of Animal Rescue Team, Inc., told ABC News. “I put on latex gloves, and I managed to get my hands in there until I had a little kitten and wiggled it through.”Late last week, an owner of a silver Honda Fit heard meowing coming from her car before a journey from Oregon to Santa Barbara, Calif., Di Sieno said.“She heard the kitten crying before she departed and there was nothing she could do. She tried to find the kitten,” said Di Sieno. “So they continued on their journey, driving south.”The next day, Di Sieno received a call from the car owner with concerns that a kitten was trapped somewhere inside her car. Di Sieno was as much as 45 miles away, so she asked the car owner to call the Santa Barbara police department and request that they summon animal control.“Animal control was dispatched, an officer showed up, and he thought perhaps the kitten was no longer in the compartment,” Di Sieno said.That afternoon, Di Sieno received a second phone call from the owner saying there were still cries from a cat inside the engine compartment.“I had to go do something,” Di Sieno said.Di Sieno arrived at the scene and had a difficult time locating the cat. After assessing the situation, she decided to call a tow truck for some extra help.“They needed to get underneath the car to find it,” Chuck Love of Love’s Towing told ABC News. “We lifted up the car, and she still couldn’t find it.”With Love holding a flashlight and Di Sieno feeling around for the kitten, the duo spotted the scared feline shifting around the engine. Di Sieno was able to use a “jab stick” to administer sedation, and finally was able to get the kitten to an accessible spot.“It took a half an hour, at least, to get it out, and after getting it out it was so cute and so small,” said Love. “Lucky it was small, because then [otherwise] we wouldn’t have been able to get it out. Of course, if it wasn’t that small it would’ve never been able to get in there.”The short-haired, grey, male kitten meowed as it was pulled out of the engine in frail condition. Di Sieno took him home, started immediate care and found the 3- to 4-week-old kitten was dehydrated and had an infected eye. Now just a couple of a days later, the kitten is recovering and expected to make a full recovery.“He is very tame now, purring, and finally eating. We’ve been treating him with antibiotics,” said Di Sieno.Di Sieno has been saving animals for more than 29 years at Animal Rescue Team, Inc., sustained solely by donations. She’s rescued lions, bears and other large mammals, but she said this was the first time she’s rescued a kitten from an engine.“It was refreshing for me because I’m passionate about this work and saving animals,” she said. “The moment I pulled him up, it was so exhilarating.”She added that, for a lost kitten, an engine is a perfect small, tight compartment to seek warmth, especially if it was in a climate such as Oregon.Di Sieno said she couldn’t have done the rescue without Love’s help.She said she appreciated “having someone step up like that without asking for money. … He was determined to help me and get that cat out of that engine. I thought we’d name him ‘Love’ for now.”
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- Just how many unregistered or stolen guns are available on the streets? A new report by the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives finds the numbers are staggering. According to the report, the result of an audit ordered by President Obama following the Newtown shootings, more than 191,000 guns were lost or stolen in the United States in 2012. The government says more than 16,000 of those guns disappeared from licensed gun dealers. Pistols were the most common firearm stolen, the report says, and gun dealers reported more than 4,000 rifles were simply lost. And these numbers only represent the missing guns reported to the National Crime Information Center. ATF spokesman Charles Mulham points out that in many states it's not even mandatory to report stolen firearms.Still, UCLA Public Policy expert Mark Kleiman says the number of lost or stolen firearms seems low, given the 300 million firearms in private hands in the U.S."The bigger issue than stolen guns is the easy availability of guns to people who aren't legally possessed through the private sale loophole," Kleiman says.The ATF report also shows Texas is the top state for total firearms reported lost and stolen in 2012. Kleiman explains that people with stolen firearms might be more likely to commit violent crimes."In some cases, gun dealers, federal firearms licensees, falsely report a theft as a way of concealing an illegal sale," say Kleiman.As for owners of legally registered guns, Mulham says they should be taking steps to safeguard firearms in their possession."You need to [be responsible] in keeping that weapon not only out of the hands of criminals if you were robbed or if your house was to be burglarized, but also out of the hands of children," he says.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Siri Stafford/Thinkstock(CHICAGO) -- The family of a University of Chicago student who vanished during a powerful storm last week was intending on Monday to review surveillance videos from restaurants, bars and shops near Lake Michigan, hoping for a glimpse of the missing man.Austin Hudson-LaPore, 20, a third-year biochemistry major from New Mexico, was last seen by his roommate a little after 8 p.m. on Wednesday night. He had not taken his wallet or phone, according to a website set up by the Hudson-LaPore family, www.findaustinhudson.com.The website was updated on Sunday to say that the Chicago Police Department has sent divers and a sonar boat to investigate a portion of Lake Michigan near Hudson-LaPore’s apartment. The police have not released the results of that search.“In the end, we had no news so we assume they found nothing,” the family wrote.The family said on its website that they are doing their own search and sought out commercial surveillance cameras on the route they believe Hudson-LaPore may have taken that night.“We found several of these cameras with some at restaurants with outdoor seating, at dive bars, at liquor stores and at high-end condo buildings. Everyone we approached were very welcoming and eager to help. So, tomorrow morning we’ll head out early to start watching security tapes to see if we can get a glimpse of Austin. That will establish time and direction of travel for him,” they wrote Sunday.They also appealed for help from anyone who may have seen Hudson-LaPore that night.“We love Austin very much. He is a smart, happy and outgoing young man who is fully engaged in the community and we’d like your help in getting him safely back to his family,” the family said in a statement.The family believe Hudson-LaPore went for a walk Wednesday night to observe unusually severe weather over Lake Michigan.“We think that because of Austin’s fascination with weather, that he set out to walk to the lake to watch the storm from there, leaving his cell phone and wallet behind so they wouldn’t get wet,” the family said.Weather reports from Wednesday night show that Hudson-LaPore would have likely faced powerful winds and heavy rain as a massive storm system made its way through the Midwest.“In walking to the lake, he probably walked along either 53rd Street or 55th Street. We believe that during his walk to the lake, something went wrong,” the family continued.The family is asking anybody with information to contact the Chicago Police Department. They are using social media sites like Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter to gain national attention.“We are appealing to the community that if anyone saw anything unusual along those routes, that they please contact the Chicago Police Department immediately,” the family said.Hudson-LaPore was last seen wearing black gym shoes and blue jeans. He is 5-foot-7, weighs 110 pounds and has blonde hair and blue eyes.A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department told ABC News that the investigation is ongoing. Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(SURFSIDE BEACH, Texas) -- A 15-year-old boy was recovering after he was attacked by a shark earlier Monday at Surfside Beach in Texas.The teen suffered non-threatening lacerations on his hand and leg, first responders told ABC News, and was in stable condition when he was airlifted to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston.The victim's name and his current condition have not been released.Officials said it was the first shark bite in 25 years on Surfside Beach, a popular swimming spot situated on the Gulf of Mexico.As the temperatures heat up and more swimmers hit the water, shark sightings have rattled nerves.A pair of great white shark sightings off the coast of Cape Cod in recent days had swimmers heading for the safety of the beach.The ominous dorsal fin lurking off Nauset Beach in Orleans, Mass., was enough for officials to temporarily close the popular swim spot on Sunday, just days after another great white shark sighting in the Cape Cod area."It was reported to me that our senior lifeguard had spotted a dorsal fin about 150 yards east of the public bathing beach. He estimated it to be 12 to 13 feet in length," Dawson Farber, harbormaster in Orleans, told ABC News.Lifeguards ordered swimmers out of the water at 10:15 a.m. and cordoned off a quarter-mile swath of the beach, Farber said. The waters were reopened to the public an hour later, he said, after there were no additional sightings in the area."We had a number of sightings last year, some confirmed, some unconfirmed," Farber said. "We are operating under the assumption these animals are here to stay."Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
Jared Marcum, 14, was arrested after a confrontation with the school's band teacher over his NRA T-shirt, which bears the organization's logo and a hunting rifle. (Cabelas.com)(LOGAN, W. Va.) -- A West Virginia judge has ruled that an eighth grader who was arrested after wearing an NRA T-shirt to school will stand trial for obstructing an officer, a crime that can carry up to a year in jail and $500 fine.Jared Marcum, 14, was charged last week after wearing the shirt to school in April. The shirt included the logo of the National Rifle Association, an image of a rifle, and words “protect your right.”Jared was asked to remove the shirt or turn it inside out by a secretary and then a teacher at Logan Middle School in Logan, W.Va. When he refused to do so he was brought to the principal, who called police.The boy said that when police arrived at the school, they told him “sit down and shut up” and threatened to charge him with making terroristic threats when he tried to explain his side of the story.Jared said he was detained in a room with the principal and two officers. He was unarmed and presented no threat to the officers or students, according to his lawyer.He received just one day of suspension from school.Jared’s attorney on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case. A hearing on that motion will take place on July 11.The law allows persons under arrest to question police and tell their side of a story, said his lawyer, Ben White.“Case law says you can question police and you can talk to police – you just can’t use foul language, or insult them,” said White.Calls to the school district and Logan County prosecutor were not returned. The police would not comment.Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
John Foxx/Thinkstock(NEWARK, N.J.) -- Passengers aboard United flight 116 bound for the U.S. from Hong Kong were finally able to leave a Newark Liberty International Airport terminal late Monday afternoon after a flier was taken into custody and hospitalized after allegedly demanding that the plane be diverted to Canada.An official with the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force said the man -- identified as Daniel Morgan Perry and reportedly in his 30s and American -- had been transported to Newark's University Hospital for observation.During the flight, which landed around 1:40 p.m., the man was restrained by passengers. The official said there were no air marshals on the flight."It's apparently an unstable person who is controlled by his medication and maybe he didn't take it," the official said.Jacques Roizen, who was one of the passengers who restrained Perry, said nearly 10 hours into the 16-hour flight, a man six rows in front of him started screaming out of nowhere. Roizen said that he had not seen the man drinking."[He was] screaming stuff about national security advisers, the CIA, saying names of people [he claimed were] working for the CIA," Roizen told ABC News. "[He was saying] that we couldn't land the plane, we had to divert the plane. He couldn't land in the U.S."Roizen said Perry was afraid of being poisoned by one of the passengers."He saw everybody as a threat," Roizen said. "He thought everyone was working for the FBI, the CIA....He was drawing a parallel between [National Security Agency leaker] Edward Snowden and himself....He was convinced he was going to die before this flight landed."Within minutes, about five passengers had restrained the man with plastic handcuffs from the flight crew.Florida resident Paula Shea said the staff handled the situation "perfectly" and that she had not gotten scared."They did everything that you should do," she said. "It was a person that was trying to...divert to Canada."Roizen said he and another passenger sat by Perry for the remaining six hours trying to calm him by talking about their families, Father's Day and their children.He said the man started to cry after a passenger told him that his actions had scared the children aboard."He seemed to react to that," Roizen said. "At one point, he started crying because he said, 'I don't want to hurt the children.' He asked both of us to put him under arrest, asked us to read him his rights."Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio