A Homestead, Fla., man is facing DUI and reckless driving charges after authorities said he was clocked driving 127 mph with three small children in his car Saturday night in the Florida Keys.

Robert Rioseco, 46, is facing three counts of DUI with someone under 18 in the car, three counts of cruelty toward a child, one count of reckless driving and refusing to submit to a DUI test, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office said.

Rioseco's maroon Mitsubishi was first spotted by a deputy driving 87 mph in a 55 mph zone near Mile Marker 7 of the Overseas Highway around 11 p.m., the MCSO said.

Cops: Man stabs mother, aunt and uncle in Plantation Key

The car reached 127 mph as the deputy radioed ahead for deputies south of him to keep an eye out for it. The vehicle was finally stopped at the 5.5 Mile Marker on Stock Island, authorities said.

When Rioseco got out of the car, he seemed impaired, smelled of alcohol and his behavior was "extremely erratic," the MCSO said. He was calm at times and at other times became agitated.

Rioseco was arrested and taken to jail. Once he got there, he appeared to have trouble walking and loudly refused to participate in sobriety exercises, swearing at the officers, the MCSO said.

Rioseco was being held without bond Sunday and it was unknown whether he has an attorney. The children were turned over to their mother, the MCSO said.

Red-light camera tickets may be returning to a stop light near you with a reduced fine, and a likelihood that you pay no matter what if Assembly Bill 666 is approved in California.

AB 666 -- also known as the “Devil’s Bill” by the opposition -- was introduced by Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski in Sacramento early February, and would make the process of settling a red light camera ticket a civil process rather than criminal, meaning a driver wouldn’t have the right to a trial.

Last July, the red light camera ticket program through which tickets could get as high as $500 was shut down. Payment of the violations was already voluntary as of 2011. 

With the new bill, a judge would not oversee the case, and the owner of the car would be responsible to pay the ticket regardless of whether the owner was driving or not.

“The problem is you don’t have the same right in an administrative hearing as you would in a court of law,” said Jay Beeber, an opponent of the bill and founder of the website www.StopAB666.com. “The ticket is the only evidence that has to be presented against you.”

Supporters of the bill, however, argued that the objective is not to punish drivers, but to stop motorists from running red lights.

“Last year in California, probably 600 pedestrians were killed in traffic accidents,” said David Grant, of California Walks, an organization that advocates for safer walking communities. “Half those people would be alive today if we actually enforced the laws we’ve got.”

Less than 40 percent of red light camera photos result in citations, Grant said.

Nick Ut / AP, file

A red-light camera setup is shown in Los Angeles in 2010.

“The current system just doesn’t work,” Grant said.

Another issue the bill would change is the current “snitch” ticket. As current law stands, a notice, not a ticket, is sent out to the owner of the car if the camera could not determine if the owner was driving. The owner of the car can inform on the person driving or simply ignore the citation, making it more difficult to collect a fine.

AB666 would change this provision, and the owner would have to snitch or pay, making someone responsible regardless of who was driving.

“You can make the owner of the car responsible for anything that happens in their car no matter what,” Beeber said.

But supporters of the bill said the bill would make the red light camera ticket the same as a parking ticket. The owner of the car must pay, regardless if the owner -- or a friend -- parked the car illegally.

“But a parking ticket doesn’t result in a point on your record,” Beeber said.

Grant said that the problem is running red lights and committing “rolling stops.”

“Two thirds of pedestrians hit are people hit in crosswalks,” Grant said. “We want to cut the cost in half, increase the number of people who have to pay, and discourage people from running red lights.”

NBC4's Conan Nolan contributed to this report.

Related story: Resistance builds against red-light traffic cameras

An Alaska State Troopers helicopter with three people on board crashed while on a night rescue mission and no survivors were found, authorities said Sunday.

About 10 p.m. Saturday, the helicopter, carrying a pilot and a trooper, picked up a snowmobiler who had been reported stranded near Talkeetna north of Anchorage, the State Troopers said in a dispatch. 

The pilot radioed that the copter was en route to meet medics, but it didn't arrive, the dispatch said. A search aircraft found the crash site about 9:30 a.m. Sunday but the dispatch said there were no survivors.

Identities of the dead were being withheld while authorities contacted family members, NBC station KTUU of Anchorage reported. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

"This tragedy is going to have a very profound effect on all the employees of the Department of Public Safety, the Alaska State Troopers, [and] the search and rescue community, " troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters told KTUU. "Helo-1 is our main helicopter that goes out, and Helo-1 has pulled so many people from the Alaska wilderness."

The snowmobiler had been stranded near Larson Lake, which is east of Talkeetna, about 90 miles north of Anchorage.

The helicopter was a Eurocopter AS350, built by Aerospatiale. Versions of the AS350 have been used in high-altitude rescues in the Himalaya, and one was able to touch down on the summit of Mount Everest in 2005.  

San Jose Fire Department

This car drove into a San Joes, California WalMart Sunday morning, according to police. The driver then got out of the car and beat four customers with a blunt object.

A man drove a car into a San Jose Walmart, then grabbed a blunt object and began beating customers Sunday morning, police said.

Police said they received word that a car had driven into the Walmart at 777 Story Road at 11:15 a.m. on Sunday.

They said the driver then got out of the car, grabbed a blunt object from inside the store and began hitting people with it.

Four people were injured, one of them seriously.

Sources say a pregnant woman may be among the injured, all of whom were taken to the hospital.

The man accused of driving the car and assaulting the people was booked into county jail.

Three people were killed and more that 20 injured in a massive series of pile-ups involving 95 cars on Interstate 77 near the Virginia and North Carolina state line Sunday afternoon, according to authorities.

The crashes began around 1 p.m. in the southbound lanes in Carroll County, Virginia, according to Virginia State Police. Excessive fog in the Fancy Gap Mountain area is being blamed for the massive accident.

A state police statement said that there were 17 separate crashes involving 95 vehicles within a one-mile span of the southbound lanes. Three people were killed and about 25 injured, the statement said.

Southbound and northbound lanes were closed for hours, but northbound lanes were reopened about 7 p.m., and it had been hoped that southbound lanes could be reopened about 9 p.m.

Motorists were encouraged to avoid the area. The state police said that overhead message boards had been warning motorists since 5:47 a.m. to slow because of the fog.

WXII via Reuters

Rescue workers look over the scene on I-77 where 95 vehicles were involved in an accident in Carroll County, Virginia near the North Carolina state line on Sunday.

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 31, 2013 4:29 PM EDT

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia were found shot to death inside their Forney home Saturday, nearly two months to the day after his top assistant was gunned down on his way to work earlier this year.

Kaufman County Sheriff's Department investigators confirmed the deaths to NBC 5 Saturday evening, but officials have had little else to say about the investigation since. Sources close to the investigation told NBC 5 Saturday evening that McLelland and his wife were found at about 4 p.m. that day by a concerned relative or friend who had gone to the house after being unable to reach the couple. Other sources told NBC 5 that the McLelland's front door had been forced open and that gunshots had been fired and that an assault rifle was used in the murders.

On Sunday afternoon, Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes spoke with the media, but offered little on the investigation thus far and wouldn't confirm details released by sources. Byrnes also wouldn't speculate on whether the murders are connected to the Jan. 31 slaying of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse saying, "there is nothing to indicate that, for sure."

While there remains no immediate, confirmed link between Saturday's murders and Hasse's murder, the similarities between the cases prompted county officials to conduct welfare checks on all employees in the district attorney's office Saturday. All were OK, though one former Kaufman County prosecutor was "in hiding" Saturday evening and said others were as well.

Meanwhile, as a connection between the Hasse and McLelland murders is explored, investigators continue to search for possible connections between Hasse's murder, the slaying of Colorado prison official Tom Clements and the shooting of Montague County Sheriff's Deputy James Boyd that sparked a wild car chase that ended with the fatal shooting of Evan Ebel last week in Wise County.

Kaufman County

Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland

Byrnes also refused to comment on whether security measures have been put in place for the staff of the district attorney's office other than to say they are taking precautions. Byrnes did say that there would be an increased and visible security presence at the Kaufman County Courthouse on Monday.

"It's unnerving to the law enforcement community and the community at large.  That's why we're striving to assure the community that we are still providing public safety and will be able to do that," Byrnes said, about the McLelland murders.

A tip line has been set up for the investigation and anyone with information to share with investigators is asked to call 1-877-847-7522.

McLelland Vowed to Catch Hasse's Killer

While police officers are frequently the target of violence while trying to apprehend criminals, attacks on prosecutors are extremely rare, though not unheard of.  McLelland said as much in January when speaking about his slain friend when he said Hasse was aware of the dangers associated with being a prosecutor.

At the time, he described Hasse as a really, really good man that was an excellent friend and a spectacular prosecutor who wouldn't be easily replaced. He also vowed to catch Hasse's killers saying, "I hope that the people that did this are watching. Because we're very confident that we're going to find you, pull you out of whatever hole you're in, bring you back and let the people of Kaufman County prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law."

FBI agents and Texas Rangers, who were still investigating the unsolved slaying of Hasse, are now leading the investigation into Saturday's murders, according to a federal law enforcement source.

McLelland and his wife, Cynthia Woodward McLelland, have five children including two daughters and three sons.  One of the sons is a Dallas police officer.

NBC 5's Ray Villeda and Scott Gordon contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Sun Mar 31, 2013 3:22 PM EDT

U.S. Navy Historical Center

The USS Akron crashed off the coast of New Jersey on April 4, 1933 killing all but three men on board

History buffs will gather this week near the New Jersey coast to commemorate a major airship disaster.

No, not that one.

Newsreel footage and radio announcer Herbert Morrison's plaintive cry, "Oh, the humanity!" made the 1937 explosion of the Hindenburg at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station probably the best-known crash of an airship.

But just four years earlier, a U.S. Navy airship seemingly jinxed from the start and later celebrated in song crashed only about 40 miles away, claiming more than twice as many lives.

The USS Akron, a 785-foot dirigible, was in its third year of flight when a violent storm sent it plunging tail-first into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight on April 4, 1933.

"No broadcasters, no photographers, no big balls of fire, so who knew?" said Nick Rakoncza, a member of the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society. "Everybody thinks that the Hindenburg was the world's greatest (airship) disaster. It was not."

A ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the crash, the deadliest airship disaster on record, is being held Thursday at a veterans park where there is a tiny plaque dedicated to the victims. Below it is a small piece of metal from the airship.

Few in the area seemed to know about the disaster, let alone the memorial plaque; even a Navy officer sent on an underwater mission to explore the wreckage many years later had not heard of the Akron.

Mel Evans / AP

In this Thursday, March 21, 2013 photograph, a monument and canons are seen at a small veteran's memorial park in a neighborhood in Manchester Township, N.J. On the center column is a small plaque to the USS Akron airship that went down in a violent storm off the New Jersey coast. The disaster claimed 73 lives, more than twice as many as the crash of the Hindenburg four years later. The USS Akron, a 785-foot dirigible, was in its third year of flight when a violent storm sent it crashing tail-first into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after midnight on April 4, 1933.

"It's almost a forgotten accident," said Rick Zitarosa, historian for the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society. "The Akron deserves to be remembered."

The Akron crashed off the community of Barnegat Light just a few hours after taking off from Lakehurst, killing 73 of the 76 men aboard, largely because the ship had no life vests and only one rubber raft, according to Navy records and the Navy Lakehurst Historical Society. They had been moved to another airship and were never replaced.

Lt. Cmdr. Herbert Wiley, Moody Erwin and Richard Deal were pulled from the frigid waters by a German tanker that had been nearby.

Erwin and Deal had been hanging on a fuel tank. Wiley was clinging to a board, according to an account he gave to a newspaper the next day.

In a newsreel interview, Wiley, standing next to the other survivors, said he was in the control car just before the crash. He said crew members could not see the ocean until they were about 300 feet above the water.

"The order was given to stand by for a crash," Wiley said. "The ship hit the water within 30 seconds of that order and most of us, I believe, we catapulted into the water."

Among the casualties was Rear Adm. William Moffett, the first chief of the Bureau of Navy Aeronautics.

When the wreckage was found, Zitarosa said, the airship had collapsed to about 25 feet in height. It had originally stood at about 150 feet.

"It was a catastrophic disintegration of the ship once it hit the water," Zitarosa said.

Part of the wreckage was lifted from the sea a few weeks after the accident.

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio, had been awarded a Navy contract in 1928 to build the Akron and a second rigid airship, the Macon. Construction of the Akron by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corp. was completed in 1931.

It was plagued by problems from the start.

It was involved in three accidents before its final flight, including one in which its tail slammed into the ground several times. Another accident killed two sailors.

Some men who died in the Akron had survived the airship crash of the USS Shenandoah less than a year before.

A day after the Akron disaster, a blimp sent out to look for bodies malfunctioned and crashed in Barnegat Light, killing two more crew members.

A year later, Wiley was the commanding officer on the USS Macon when it was lost in a storm off of Port Sur, Calif., also killing two crew members. Wiley survived, but that was it for him and airships.

In June 2002, the Navy ordered a mission to explore the wreckage of the Akron. The NR-1 explored several hundred feet of debris 120 feet deep.

The officer of the NR-1 at the time, Dennis McKelvey, said that they could not see much of the wreckage through murky waters, but that some metal along the ocean floor resembled "ribs sticking out of the mud."

Even McKelvey, now a retired Navy captain, had not heard of the Akron disaster before he was dispatched to view the site.

"I had to go do my own research," McKelvey said. "I thought I would have learned about it at some point."

Credit: Lou Perrotti / Roger Williams Park Zoo

A cottontail, not Peter.

The grass is not that green for the New England cottontail rabbit anymore, as its habitat is disappearing — and if there is no intervention the Massachusetts famous rabbit could become extinct, experts warn.

This rabbit species was once so popular that it inspired Peter Cottontail, Thornton Burgess children’s story character, a century ago, as well as songs, comic strips, movies and television specials.

The song “Here comes Peter Cottontail” was composed in 1950 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, and a Gene Autry recording later rose to the top of the U.S. Billboards charts and has become one of the most popular Easter songs of all time.

But over the last 50 years, the New England cottontail lost more than 80 percent of its habitat, according to the Wildlife Management Institute, a non-profit conservationist organization. The rabbit is restricted to parts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeastern New York.

Land that was once used for agriculture has become mature forest causing the rabbit’s population to thin.

This rabbit needs densely growing young trees, shrubs and brush — what is described as young forest. And as an added bonus, restoring some of this habitat would also benefit the American woodcock, the golden-winged warbler, the brown thrasher, the indigo bunting, the black racer and the wood turtle, among other native species, conservationists note.

But the New England cottontail rabbit is not yet listed as an endangered species, and conservationists are trying to prevent that from happening. State agencies and private organizations have partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services to restore this rabbit’s natural habitat and shrub lands across the Northeast.

"We're making headway, putting habitat on the ground in some really key places," said Anthony Tur, an endangered species specialist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the Associated Press. "It's encouraging."

In Rhode Island, the Roger Williams Park Zoo began breeding the New England cottontail in captivity two years ago and they have already released 38 rabbits into restored habitats. They expect to release 100 more rabbits this year.

There are some farmers in the region, like Tom McAvoy, that are trying to help this rabbit by restoring its habitat and creating Cottontail Farms.

"My brother and sons have been involved in the project," McAvoy said to the Associated Press. "It's important for me to teach my grandchildren as well, and keeping them active and involved in the stewardship of the land."

On Saturday, the North Texas man who was one of the first Americans to receive a full face transplant married another burn patient he met at a support group.

Dallas Wiens, of Fort Worth, was severely injured in a bizarre construction accident in 2008 when he came in contact with a high-voltage power line.

See a gallery of photos of their wedding at NBCDFW.com

Jamie Nash, of Garland, nearly died in a car crash in Ennis in 2010. Her car erupted in flames, and she was trapped. She was severely burned on her hands, back and legs.

The couple became engaged last fall.

Wiens and Nash exchanged vows Saturday morning at the Fort Worth church where Wiens was working when he was injured.

The couple celebrated with a reception in downtown Fort Worth. They invited their doctors and nurses.

Relationship built on hope
The couple met in a support group at Parkland Hospital, where both were being treated.

"I was drawn to him. I just had to meet him," Nash said in November. "I just looked at him from across the room, and there was something about him."

See original report at NBCDFW.com

Wiens said he wasn't interested -- at first.

"I had sworn off love and relationships," he said. "I had no desire to be in one whatsoever."

Then, on Christmas Eve, they talked all night and set up a date.

"We went to dinner and a movie, and that's all she wrote," he said.

The two said they have been together every day since.

"I told him it's got to be love, because I'm not sick of you," Nash joked. "I know I've never felt more real than this."

The couple plans to put their pasts behind them.

"There's no reason to dwell on the past," he said.

"It's dead and gone," she added. "It burned in the fire."

They said they make the perfect couple and help balance each other.

Her hands, for example, were severely injured in her accident. His are fine.

She can see. He lost his eyesight in the accident.

"It's a story of hope, a story of true survivors," Nash said. "I mean, if we can do it, I guarantee you, anybody out there -- we all have a story. We're all going through something. And I want to give everybody hope."

Investigators named a 30-year-old parolee as wanted in the case of a missing 10-year-old Northridge girl, who turned up barefoot and wounded in Woodland Hills last week.

Tobias Dustin Summers, who has a distinct tattoo on his right arm (pictured below), is wanted in connection with the girl's abduction, LAPD Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said at a Saturday afternoon news conference.

Summers has a lengthy criminal history dating back to 2002, Albanese said. He was released from prison in July 2012 under California’s AB 109, an initiative aimed at easing prison overcrowding, and was on "post-supervised release," Albanese said.

Probation officials believe the 30-year-old is a transient known to frequent the North Hollywood and Devonshire areas. Summers is about 6 feet tall, 160 pounds, with blue eyes and cropped blond hair. He not a registered sex offender and authorities said there is no indication that the victim or her family knows the suspect.

"We really need the public's help to take this guy into custody. If they see him, we can't emphasize enough, call 911," LAPD Cmdr. Andrew Smith said.

Investigators said Summers is the only person they are looking for right now, though the victim told detectives that two men took her from her bedroom, police said last week.

Detectives from LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division are petitioning the court for an arrest warrant.

The FBI is assisting in the investigation. Federal authorities said they are prepared to issue a federal warrant for Summers' arrest if he leaves California.

"Should he leave the state, we will have multitude of resources throughout the United States and international, if necessary, to take him into custody," Bill Lewis, of the FBI’s Los Angeles division, said.

The case involves a 10-year-old girl who was kidnapped from her home March 27 between 1 and 3:30 a.m.

She was taken to an abandoned home near a storage facility in Chatsworth before being dropped off at a Kaiser hospital in Woodland Hills.

She walked about a mile to a Starbucks where a passerby recognized her from media reports and alerted police.

She was found barefoot and with bruises and cuts on her face at 3 p.m. the same day she went missing, police said.

Since the girl has been found, NBC4 is no longer identifying the girl by name or in images that had been released by authorities.

The girl told investigators two men she did not know took her from her home and held her for more than 10 hours before dropping her off.

She said she rode in a black pickup truck, which police found during a search of a Bekins A-1 Moving Solutions yard in Chatsworth, police said.

Police were searching for a second vehicle they believe was used in the case.

Police -- working with the FBI -- fanned out across the San Fernando Valley, to conduct interviews and search locations where the girl said she believed she was taken with the hope of finding the men responsible.

As many as 20 detectives were believed to be working on the case. Police established a tipline for people to provide information about the investigation: 213-486-6890.

Related:

• LAPD hunts two men wanted in girl's mysterious abduction