The FBI has called off the dig for Jimmy Hoffa in a suburban Detroit field where a tipster insisted he was buried alive.

No human remains were found during three days of excavation on the one-acre parcel, officials said.

"We're disappointed," said Robert Foley, head of the FBI's Detroit office.

The feds were led to the site by Tony Zerilli, who claims he was told the Teamsters Boss was whacked with a shovel and then entombed beneath concrete slabs in a barn.

"I know he's there," Tony Zerilli told NBC News before the search ended. "I'm not wrong."

Since Hoffa vanished in 1975, authorities have searched dozens of spots for his body. Informants have claimed he was dumped at Giants Stadium, fed to the alligators in the Everglades and shipped to Japan in a compacted car.

Investigators took Zerilli's claim seriously because he's alleged to be the former underboss of a Detroit crime family. Zerilli denies he was in the Mafia or involved in Hoffa's disappearance from a Detroit area restaurant.

Workers did find concrete slabs on property in Oakland Township, lending Zerilli's story some credibility. But backhoes and cadaver dogs failed to unearth anything to solve one of the country's most enduring mysteries.

The FBI said it deployed 40 agents for the search but did not say how much it cost.

"We do not have a profit margin as a bottom line," Foley said.

Carlos Osorio / AP

Law enforcement officials from the Michigan State Police help search the area in Oakland Township, Mich., Tuesday, June 18, 2013 where officials continue the search for the remains of Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa who disappeared from a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:35 AM EDT

A missing elderly Kansas couple who set out on an eight-hour trip from Kansas to Illinois to visit family on Monday afternoon was found Wednesday afternoon in Mio, Mich., – about 400 miles from their original destination.

“They took a wrong turn,” Garnett Police Chief Kevin Pekarek said.

Vernon Hunt, 92, and his wife Goldie, 81, of Garnett, Kan., were reported missing by their son Jay Selanders Monday afternoon. The couple left their house early Monday morning to visit Goldie’s twin sister in Dwight, Ill., but they never arrived.

Pekarek said law enforcement agencies across three states – Kansas, Missouri and Illinois – are looking for the couple, NBC affiliate KSHB reported. A Silver Alert, which notifies the public of missing elderly individuals with mental disabilities, was not issued because they do not fit the criteria.

Pekarek said a few people reported seeing the couple’s car, a black 2005 Chrysler 300 with a Kansas license plate 473 FNM, in parts of Missouri and Kansas on Tuesday.

After police notified Selanders that his parents were found in Michigan, he and his wife went to go pick them up. 

As for the trip to see Goldie’s sister, Pekarek said, “they probably won’t be going by themselves anymore.”

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:30 AM EDT

Michael Dwyer / AP file

The New England Patriots' Aaron Hernandez kneels on the field during practice in May.

Police returned Wednesday to the home of star New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, about a mile away from an industrial park where a body two nights earlier.

There was no answer at the door, and police declined to say what was in papers they were carrying, NBC affiliate WHDH in Boston reported.

Police also visited the house Tuesday night. Sports Illustrated, citing an unnamed source, reported that Hernandez was not being questioned as a suspect in the death but that an SUV rented in his name was a key piece of evidence in the investigation.

The magazine posted photos of police at the door of Hernandez’s sprawling home in North Attleborough, about 15 homes from Foxborough, where the Patriots play home games.

A jogger found the body of a 27-year-old Boston man on Monday in a clearing, the magazine reported.

The Boston Globe reported that state police could be seen taking pictures inside the house. Two men left the house, got into a car and tried to drive away, were stopped by state troopers and later were driven off in police cruisers, the newspaper reported.

State police referred a call from NBC News on Wednesday to the district attorney’s office. A spokeswoman there, asked about Hernandez, would confirm only that a body had been found Monday night. An NFL spokesman told NFL.com that the league would have no comment.

Hernandez, 23, was drafted by the Patriots out of the University of Florida in 2010. He caught 51 passes last year for 483 yards and scored five touchdowns.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 9:43 AM EDT

President Barack Obama proposed reducing the American nuclear arsenal by as much as a third on Wednesday, directing the Defense Department to align the United States with what the administration says are the more credible threats of the 21st century.

The proposal outlined by Obama in a speech in Berlin includes the maintenance of a “strong and credible strategic deterrent,” and will instruct the Defense Department to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear attacks on the U.S.

“We may no longer live in fear of global annihilation, but so long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not truly safe,” Obama said. The U.S. will seek cooperation with Russia for further cuts “to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures,” he said.

The announcement came in the middle of a sweeping speech that drew on Berlin’s history while evoking the ongoing unrest in countries like Afghanistan and Burma.

The U.S. will host a summit in 2016 to address the international flow of nuclear weapons and material, and Obama’s administration will push for domestic support to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, Obama said.

The president delivered his speech at the historic Brandenburg Gate, the one-time boundary between East and West Germany where President John F. Kennedy spoke fifty years ago. Six thousand tickets had been distributed, according to the German government.

“While I am not the first American president to come to this gate, I am proud to stand on its eastern side to pay tribute to its past,” Obama said.

Obama tries for repeat performance in Berlin

The nuclear defense plan laid out by Obama is separate from American weapons deployed in support of NATO, and Obama underscored the importance of the relationship between the United States and its European allies in an earlier appearance with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday.

“In both conversations with Chancellor Merkel and earlier with your president I reminded them that from our perspective the relationship with Europe remains the cornerstone of our freedom and security,” Obama said. “Europe is our partner in almost everything that we do.”

In a 2009 speech in Prague, Obama said that it must be a priority for all the world’s countries to check the flow of nuclear weapons, calling the continued existence of aging nuclear stockpiles “the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War.”

“Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked — that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction,” Obama said in the Prague speech. “Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable.”

The changes come after the release of a 2010 review of the nation’s nuclear defense posture, as well as the ratification of the New START treaty, an agreement with Russia for each country to reduce its stockpiles of nuclear weapons over the next five years to 1,550 weapons each.The proposed reductions would take the U.S. further below that number.

An aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday before Obama’s speech that other countries as well as Russia and the U.S. should be involved in further decisions about nuclear cuts.

“It’s necessary to bring other countries that possess nuclear weapons into the process,” foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov said, according to Reuters.

Obama made passing reference to the threat of nuclear weapons in his February State of the Union address, saying that the U.S. would “do what is necessary” to prevent a nuclear Iran, as well as check the global flow of nuclear weapons.

“At the same time, we’ll engage Russia to seek further reductions in our nuclear arsenals, and continue leading the global effort to secure nuclear materials that could fall into the wrong hands – because our ability to influence others depends on our willingness to lead and meet our obligations,” Obama said.

Related:

• Obama, Putin to sign new deal on reducing nuclear threat
• Obama and Putin at the G-8: So little time, so much to discuss
• 50 years after iconic JFK speech, Obama honors 'magic' moment in Berlin

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 8:39 AM EDT

FBI via AP

The FBI had offered a $100,000 reward for information leading directly to the arrest of Walter Lee Williams, 65.

CANCUN, Mexico -- Mexican authorities arrested a former University of Southern California professor who faces sex crimes charges in the Philippines on Tuesday, just hours after he was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list.

Walter Lee Williams, 64, was arrested in the southern beach resort of Playa del Carmen. The FBI said he was an anthropology and gender studies professor at the University of Southern California until 2011.

Using academic research as a guise, Williams traveled in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia to have sex with underage boys, according to the FBI. The bureau said it had identified 10 victims between ages 9 and 17.

The Quintana Roo state attorney general's office said police found Williams at a cafe on Tuesday night in Playa Del Carmen, a short drive from Cancun.

"He was sitting in a cafe," said state attorney general Armando Garcia. "It's not known what he was up to but he had a home in Cancun."

The FBI added Williams to its most-wanted list on Monday. The bureau was offering a $100,000 reward for information leading directly to his arrest.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:29 AM EDT

Breakaway Brazil via EPA

Richard Swanson of Seattle died May 14 when he was struck by a car alongside Highway 101 in Oregon.

The driver Oregon police say fatally struck a man trying to dribble a soccer ball 10,000 miles from Seattle to Brazil for the World Cup has been arrested. 

Scott Van Hiatt, of Neskowin, Ore., was arrested Monday on a charge of criminally negligent homicide, said Lincoln City Police Chief Keith Kilian. 

Lincoln County Jail

Scott Van Hiatt of Neskowin was arrested on a charge of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Richard Swanson.

Richard Swanson, of Seattle, planned to dribble the ball for more than a year through 11 countries before reaching Sao Paolo, Brazil, where the opener of the World Cup soccer tournament will be played June 12, 2014. 

He was hit from behind by a pickup while walking south along busy U.S. 101 on May 14, just a few days shy of his 43rd birthday. Hiatt stayed at the scene and has been cooperative with the investigation, police said. 

Soccer lover's fundraising trek ends in tragedy

Hiatt was indicted by a Lincoln County grand jury last week. He is jailed on $50,000 bail pending arraignment Tuesday, said Lincoln County District Attorney Rob Bovett. 

Swanson began his intercontinental journey in Seattle on May 1. He was partly promoting the Berkeley, Calif.-based One World Futbol Project, which donates durable blue balls to people in developing countries. 

The day of his death, Swanson posted a video on his Facebook page that shows him walking along the beach, kicking his blue soccer ball. He said he was looking forward to his journey south along U.S. 101. 

"Very exciting moment today," he said. "I'm going to be on the ocean for thousands of miles. This is my first taste of it and I'm very excited about this." 

In an earlier interview with a Seattle TV station, Swanson joked that he hoped he wouldn't be run over on the coastal road. 

"I'll be on Highway 101, but I'll also try to utilize any of the trails that run along the coast, just trying to get off the beaten path, there's a lot of cars and just not get run over," he told Q13 FOX News. 

Kilian said police do not believe Swanson was dribbling the ball at the time he was hit. He declined to elaborate on the circumstances that led to the crash. 

Hundreds of people were evacuated in Arizona on Tuesday after a wind-whipped wildfire spread across 5,000 acres in just seven hours.

More than 300 firefighters, along with multiple helicopters and aircraft, moved in to tackle the “extreme” blaze which started in “remote, rugged terrain” on the east side of Granite Mountain near Prescott, Arizona, officials said.

Authorities told The Associated Press that the fire was man-made and under investigation.

Jeff Andrews, deputy fire staff officer for Prescott National Forest, said that short- and long-terms models were being used in a bid to predict how the fire might spread.

However, he warned that hot and windy conditions could make containing it more difficult.

In the space of just an hour yesterday, gusts of up to 22 mph pushed the pushed the fire from 20 acres to almost 200 acres.

Slideshow: Western wildfires

Felicia Fonseca / AP

Dry conditions fuel blazes in the U.S.

Launch slideshow

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:41 AM EDT

Michael Hastings, the journalist best known for the 2010 Rolling Stone story that led to the resignation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, died Tuesday in a car crash in Los Angeles, his employers at BuzzFeed and Rolling Stone announced.

He was 33.

"We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone," BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith said in a statement Tuesday evening. "Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians."

Fellow reporters and others Hastings came across throughout his career took to Twitter to pay respects and remember the man known for his confident and fearless style.

Three years ago, Hasting's work became the focal point of Washington when Rolling Stone published his piece "Runaway General," which featured McChrystal, then head of the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan, critiquing how President Obama and his administration were conducting the war.

Days after the article was published McChrystal went to the White House to hand the president his resignation.

Hastings also wrote two books, "The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan," which was based on his time with McChrystal and military leaders in Afghanistan, and "I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story," the story of how his then-fiance was killed by a car bombing while serving as an aide worker in Iraq.

He is survived by his wife, Elise.

John T. Greilick / AP

Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley stands in Judge Cynthia Hathaway's courtroom at the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit, Michigan on Tuesday, June 18, 2013 as the judge instructs jurors to continue to work toward a verdict after they sent her a note saying they are "stuck". The judge declared a mistrial Tuesday after jurors failed to reach a verdict in the trial.

The jury hearing the case of a Detroit police officer accused of involuntary manslaughter for the death of a 7-year-old girl failed to reach a verdict on Tuesday, prompting a judge to declare a mistrial.

The jury sent a note to Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway saying little progress had been made during the three days of deliberations over the fate of Officer Joseph Weekley, who faced charges of felony involuntary manslaughter and careless discharge of a firearm causing death.

Hathaway asked the 12 jurors if any of them thought there was a chance they could reach a verdict, and only one juror responded yes.

"One out of twelve probably won't be enough," she said before declaring a mistrial and setting a new pretrial hearing date of July 25, 2013.

Anonymous / AP

Aiyana Stanley-Jones was shot in 2010 during a police raid.

Weekley had admitted to accidentally firing his gun during a raid on May 16, 2010, killing Aiyana Stanley-Jones.

He testified that Aiyana's grandmother, Mertilla Jones, hit his weapon, causing it to fire. Jones denied Weekley's claims.

Jones said outside the courthouse, "She's going to get justice because I believe in the next jury."

Throughout the case, advocates for Aiyana's family criticized the makeup of the jury, which consisted of 11 whites and only one African-American.

"From the start, the Justice for Aiyana Jones Committee (JAJC) had no confidence in this jury that had only one African-American juror from a county that is over 42 percent African-American," the JAJC said in a statement following the hung jury.

The possibilities when it comes to marketing meat made from marijuana-fed animals are close to endless, but the man who came up with the idea has decided to simply call them “Pot Pigs.”

William von Scheneidau, owner and founder of BB Ranch in Seattle, didn’t come up with the idea to feed pigs and other animals weed while sitting around a bong in the basement with his buddies.

In fact, he doesn’t even smoke, he said.

Von Scheneidau said the notion came to him when he met the owners of a weed dispensary who told him that, ever since marijuana was legalized in Washington via popular vote last year, they've had extra stems, stalks, and leaves to get rid of.

He simply asked them if he could take what they were planning to throw out, as he once did with a farmer's rotting cantaloupes.

Von Scheneidau said he has always experimented with what he fed his animals and is even currently adding beer and vodka to their troughs.

The marijuana remnants are mostly fed to pigs, but because the farms von Scheneidau works with are free-range, other animals have access to the weed feed as well, giving a new meaning to the phrase “party animals.”

Whenever von Scheneidau introduces a new substance to animals’ diets, he makes sure to have a control group of animals that eat normally from the same family.

He said that the pigs that are fed the marijuana just lie around and barely lift their heads.

“I name all my pigs,” said von Scheneidau “and Ted told Tim they shouldn’t tell me,” whether or not they’re high.

The pigs’ laziness might contribute to the fact that those who eat the weed gain weight 20 percent faster than those who don’t, as one would expect, even though von Scheneidau said the pot pigs don’t actually consume any extra food.

The weight gain contributes to the marbled, fattier texture of the pork that is eventually processed and made into bacon, prosciutto, sausage, pork chops and pulled pork.

Von Scheneidau says that beyond a difference in consistency, people have described the weed-infused meat as “more savory” in “blind bacon tests.”

"The flavor of the fat is extraordinary, [customers] love the marbling of the fat," said von Scheneidau.

And while customers haven’t reported getting high while eating or cooking the pork, von Scheneidau said BB Ranch sells out of the pot pig meat before batches are even processed.

He said the laws are a little complicated right now, but once the dispensaries are able to sell more marijuana, he’ll have more access to what the customers — and the pigs — want.

The National Security Agency surveillance programs made public this month have helped foil more than 50 terrorist plots since Sept. 11, including one to blow up the New York Stock Exchange, top intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday.

The officials appeared before the House Intelligence Committee and answered mostly friendly questions to defend the programs, which collect phone records inside the United States and monitor Internet communications overseas.

“I would much rather be here today debating this point than trying to explain how we failed to prevent another 9/11,” said Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director.

At least 10 of the foiled plots were “homeland-based threats,” he said.

Details of the surveillance programs became public after Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor, provided documents about them to The Guardian and The Washington Post. Public officials have since called for his prosecution.

Alexander said he would provide details of all the foiled plots to the committee in secret Wednesday. Attempting to make a case that the surveillance programs are critical to protect Americans, however, the officials described several in public Tuesday.

In the stock exchange plot, the NSA used Internet surveillance to find an extremist in Yemen who was in contact with an operative in the United States, said Sean Joyce, deputy director of the FBI.

He said that intelligence agents were able to detect “nascent plotting” to bomb the exchange.

Joyce also said that NSA phone surveillance had led intelligence agents to someone in San Diego who was providing financial support to a terrorist group in Somalia. Joyce appeared reluctant to provide further details of that case.

The FBI official said that NSA surveillance helped stop a plot to bomb the New York subway system, a justification that public officials have previously used to defend the surveillance programs.

In that plot, Joyce said, the NSA intercepted an email from a terrorist in Pakistan in 2009 who was talking with someone in the United States about perfecting a recipe for explosives.

Joyce said that person turned out to be Najibullah Zazi, who later pleaded guilty in the plot and is in federal prison.

The programs also linked an American citizen in Chicago to the 2008 terror attacks on hotels in India and to a plot to bomb the offices of a Danish newspaper that published a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, Joyce said.

The American citizen in Chicago was David Headley, who earlier this year was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Headley had cooperated with U.S. investigators and foreign intelligence agencies.

Joyce said, however, that he could not pinpoint how important the surveillance programs were to stopping the plots.

“I think you ask an almost impossible question, to say how important each dot was,” he told one congressman.

Both officials insisted that the programs are critical to protecting the country, are limited and subject to rigorous oversight, and carefully protect the civil liberties of Americans. They stressed that intelligence agents do not listen to Americans’ phone calls or read Americans’ email unless they have a warrant, and said the secret court that monitors surveillance operations was not a rubber stamp.

President Barack Obama defended the programs in an interview with Charlie Rose of PBS on Monday. He stressed that it was important to him to set up checks on the system.

“On this telephone program, you’ve got a federal court with independent federal judges overseeing the entire program,” he said, adding that “all of Congress had available to it before the last reauthorization exactly how this program works.”

Asked how Americans can be sure that the NSA can’t simply “flip a switch” and listen to a phone call, as opposed to gathering information about the length and phone numbers involved, Alexander said it was the NSA’s intention to “do this exactly right.”

“We have not seen one of our analysts willfully do something wrong,” he said.

In introducing Alexander, the committee chairman, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said that Americans’ trust in government to protect the country has been damaged by “inaccuracies, half-truths and outright lies” about intelligence programs.

“It is at times like these when our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside,” Rogers said.

Alexander said that Snowden’s disclosures would have a “long and irreversible impact” on the security of the United States and its allies.

“This is significant,” he said.

Snowden, who left the country for Hong Kong before he revealed himself as the source of the leaks, said Monday in an Internet chat that the U.S. government could not cover up its actions by “jailing or murdering him.”

“Truth is coming, and it cannot be stopped,” he said.

Joyce, the FBI official, was asked by Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., what was next for Snowden. After a pause, he said: “Justice.”

This story was originally published on Tue Jun 18, 2013 8:11 PM EDT