Marco Ugarte / AP

Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan, wave upon their arrival in Mexico City on Tuesday. Xi was in Mexico for a three-day visit before heading to California to meet President Barack Obama.

BEIJING — When Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Barack Obama meet Friday at Sunnylands, a desert retreat in California, the largely informal and unscripted summit is expected to be groundbreaking in U.S.-China relations. While previous official visits between Chinese and U.S. leaders have frequently been bogged down by stifling issues of protocol, they are meant to be largely absent this time.

In China, Xi's willingness to forgo the formality of a state visit is being interpreted as a sign of his confidence and a more relaxed style, which he's adopted since becoming head of state in March (he was selected head of the Communist Party, a more powerful job, in November) — a marked contrast to his rather stiff and wooden predecessor, Hu Jintao, whose handlers obsessed over every minutia of summit diplomacy.

The two leaders are expected to discuss a wide range of issues — from cyberspying to North Korea, with China looking to take credit for an apparent lowering of the rhetoric from Pyongyang — as well as territorial disputes in the South China Sea and the Middle East, human rights and the global economy. With an open agenda, the talks could range anywhere — and may be dominated by cybersecurity issues.

But the goal of the two-day summit at the glamorous estate built by Walter H. Annenberg in Rancho Mirage is essentially about building what Chinese officials are describing as a "new type of great power relationship."

Glam first lady
Xi's more assertive and warm public attitude has been greatly aided by a glamorous and high-profile wife, Peng Liyuan.

First ladies have never been prominent in China, kept in the shadows if seen at all. But before Xi became the Communist Party leader, his wife, a folk singer, was probably more famous. Some have dubbed her the "Carla Bruni of the East.”

Her style and dress have become the talk of the media here and have sparked a frenzy online.

"As a woman to represent Chinese women, people do feel quite pleased," Angelica Cheung, editor-in-chief of Vogue China, told NBC News. "I feel that way, too. Her tastes, particularly her clothes, have really won her a lot of new fans."

Given the sensitivity around the wealth of China's elites, however, Peng seems to have shunned foreign luxury brands in favor of domestic designers. And China's censors have even been trying to contain discussion of her clothing on social media sites, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Reed Saxon / AP

The Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, a conference center and desert garden adjacent to the Annenberg's Sunnylands mansion, that will host President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping on June 7 and 8.

Over the last few days, the media in China have been full of Peng with her husband on a charm offensive through Mexico and the Caribbean — joining a steel band in Port of Spain as it struck up one of her signature folk tunes about happy farmers.

She's also being seen as the face of China's "soft power."

She'll be with Xi in California, and there has been much anticipation here about her first encounter with Michelle Obama, although that will have to wait, since America's first lady will be staying in Washington — a decision that's provoked some groaning in China's social media.

China on cybercrime: 'We're victims, too'
With cyberspying expected to be at the top of the agenda, China has been rolling out hitherto obscure, unheard of or possibly nonexistent organizations to show that they is not the perpetrator of cybercrime, but rather "we're victims, too."

On Thursday, it was the turn of one Qin An, described as a director of the China Institute of Cyberspace Strategy, who declared in the state-run Global Times that the two countries face a common threat.

Earlier, in the China Daily, Huang Chengqing, director of the rather awkwardly named National Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China (CNCERT), declared that China has "mountains of data" on cyberattacks coming from the U.S.

While CNCERT appears to be a bona fide organization, it has operated largely in the shadows, does not have a listed address and did not respond to emailed requests for an interview.

And a trawl through English and Chinese search engines finds no reference to An's institute whatsoever — apart from  the bylines for four articles he has written in the Global Times since April, one of them alleging a big U.S. conspiracy in cyberspace.  

Phantoms or not, at least Beijing appears to have awakened to the seriousness with which Washington is taking the cybersecurity issue.

But while there is no doubting there's a world of budding hackers out there threatening us all, Beijing has largely ducked the central U.S. accusation: that China has an official, organized and concerted cyberspying strategy aimed (and apparently quite successful) at stealing U.S. military and commercial secrets. 

In an interview with NBC News, Gregory Gilligan, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said more than a quarter of his members reported cyber-intrusion or other data theft.

"It's quite possible it's the tip of the iceberg," he said. And most of the targets are in areas identified by Beijing as strategically important industries.

Accusations of currency manipulation by China, which have dominated previous U.S.-China summits, have suddenly fallen far down on the agenda. The U.S. economy is on the rebound, and it's China that's now slowing.

Gilligan calls cybersecurity "the new currency," taking over from the currency issue as the biggest point of contention between the two countries. He's worried it might drown out a host of other concerns and issues — and he may well be right.

Related: 

• New US law would punish hackers backed by China or other countries
• At least 119 dead in China poultry slaughterhouse fire
• China's strength could become its weakness
• NBC's complete coverage of China in Behind the Wall

Three people were killed when a medical helicopter crashed in Kentucky late Thursday night, officials said.

The Air Evac Lifeteam aircraft crashed in the parking lot of an elementary school at about 11:30 p.m. ET in Clay County shortly after transferring a patient to a hospital in Laurel County, NBC station WLEX-TV reported.

The school was not damaged, but a power line was hit. Witnesses said there was fog in the area at the time.

Air Evac confirmed the fatalities in a statement on its Facebook page.

“We are devastated at the loss of these crew members who we consider family,” it said.

“We have no details regarding the cause of the accident but will be working with the NTSB in coming days as they conduct their investigation,” it added.

The crew members were based in Manchester, Ky.

Related:

• 3 dead after medical helicopter crashes in Rochelle, Ill.
• Cancer patient missing, presumed dead after NY plane crash

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before their meeting Friday, June 7, in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

President Barack Obama sidestepped questions about cyberespionage linked to China, telling reporters Friday after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that accusations against Beijing need further investigation.

On a day when he had to defend his own government's collection of cyberdata, Obama said he and Xi had had a "very constructive conversation" on the first day of their weekend summit in Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Earlier in the day, Obama defended the U.S. National Security Agency's collection of so-called metadata from telephone and Internet companies from strongly worded accusations that it amounted to unconstitutional secret spying on U.S. citizens.

That made for a delicate situation Friday night as Obama spoke to reporters after an evening meeting with Xi.

Obama said he and Xi agreed that it was important for China and the U.S. to come up with common rules on cybersecurity. But when asked about reports linking cyberattacks back to hackers associated with the government in Beijing, he said caution was needed because hacking often involved "non-state actors."

Speaking through an interpreter, Xi said China also had major concerns over cybersecurity and had itself been the victim of hacking.

Before the meeting, Obama insisted that addressing difficult issues like cyberespionage wouldn't scuttle a "new model of cooperation" between Washington and Beijing.

Obama cited human rights and cyberespionage as "inevitable" areas of tension, but he said he hoped the casual setting under the desert palo verde trees at Sunnylands — the 200-acre estate built by late billionaire Walter Annenberg in Rancho Mirage — would foster an informal and "extensive" dialogue.

While it is the leaders' first big meet and greet, it won't be all desert strolls and pink sunsets. Plenty of weighty issues are to be addressed over the two-day summit. Here's a guide:

Cyber warfare
Neither China nor the United States wants to get entangled in a computer-powered showdown, and either world leader might want to bring up some strategies to civilize the online battlegrounds of the future. The two countries have gone back and forth, each accusing the other of being the worst offender when it comes to digital misdeeds, and media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, have run extensive reports on attacks against their publications that they say came from hackers in China.

The head of China's Internet security agency said recently that he has "mountains of data" to demonstrate that hackers in the U.S. have targeted his country, Reuters reported. Blaming the government in Washington would not help resolve the issue, he said. The same week as Xi's visit, three members of Congress said they would introduce a bill to punish hackers who received support from the government of China or other foreign countries, like Russia.

Any comparison made between activity by the U.S. and Chinese government in cyberspace is "nuts," said Tim Junio, a cybersecurity fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. "The main issue is China doesn't really acknowledge all the intellectual property theft as well as espionage that's happening from Chinese territory."

North Korea
Xi and Obama might be able to find some common ground on North Korea. Neither country has much to gain from rookie dictator Kim Jong Un's saber-rattling, like when he said he'd "settle accounts" with the U.S. and put rockets on standby in March.

"For the first time, the areas of common interest between the U.S. and China are much more evident in China's declarations," said Orville Schell, director of the U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society. "They're fed up. And they don't want some tin-pot dictator across their border messing life up for them, and they're now beginning to make utterances to that effect."

North Korea has long depended on friendly relations with China, from whom it gets crucial food and other supplies. There may be limits to how far China will bend for its neighbor to the south, however.

"We do not want to see chaos and conflict on China's doorstep," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in an April interview with NBC News.

Trade
The proposed $4.6 billion purchase of Smithfield Foods, a U.S. pork producer, by the Chinese company Shuanghui International raised some consumers' eyebrows recently, though officials from the company, which was founded in Virginia in 1936, said the acquisition won't affect the quality of the bacon on stateside breakfast tables.

When it comes to trade and investment between the two countries, overreaction may be the worst possible response.

"The biggest new challenge is Chinese investment in America. They have the money, and we need it," Schell said. "We are traditionally the most open economy in the world, and I think it's emphatically in our interest to welcome Chinese investment."

Better trade relations between the two countries might also have positive effects for people of Chinese descent in the U.S. who may feel discriminated against because of China's growing influence in the global market.

"A lot of people regard China as a threat or a potential competitor," Yong Chen, associate professor of Asian American studies at the University of California, Irvine, told The Associated Press. "Many people want China and the United States to have good relations so that Chinese-Americans will not be treated in a hostile manner."

Reuters contributed to this report.

Related:

• Chinese hacked Obama, McCain campaigns, took internal documents, officials say
• China labels US the 'real hacking empire' after Pentagon report
• China says it has 'mountains of data' pointing to US hacking

This story was originally published on Fri Jun 7, 2013 3:42 AM EDT

U.S. intelligence agencies have a direct tap into the servers of the U.S.'s largest Internet companies where agents can troll for suspicious activity, sources confirmed to NBC News on Thursday.

The highly classified program, designed to look at international communications and run by the National Security Agency and the FBI, can peek at video, audio, photos, emails and other documents, including connection logs that let the government track people, according to the sources, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity.

Intelligence officials disputed reports that the program was engaged in "data mining" and instead described the activities as "data collection." It was unclear what the distinction is in practical terms.

The program, code-named PRISM, was first publicly exposed Thursday evening by The Washington Post and The Guardian.

According to the Post, which reported that it had obtained an internal NSA presentation on the PRISM operation, the tool was so successful that it was the top contributor to President Barack Obama's daily intelligency brief — with 1,477 articles last year.

The participating technology companies were a virtual "Who's Who" of Silicon Valley, including Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube and Apple,  the Post said.

Companies contacted by NBC denied knowledge of the PRISM operation, which has been described as a "partnership" with the technology industry.

"Google does not have a 'back door' for the government to access private user data," Google spokesman Chris Gaither said. 

"We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers," Facebook's chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said in a statement.

"We have never heard of PRISM," an Apple spokesman told CNBC. "We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers, and any government agency requesting customer data must get a court order."

Microsoft and Yahoo also denied to NBC News knowledge of the program, saying they only comply with legal requests for information on specific individuals.

According to the NBC News sources, PRISM works in tandem with another program, code-named BLARNEY, which collects "metadata" — Internet addresses, device signatures and such — as the data streams past intersections on the Internet backbone.

Disclosure of the PRISM program comes a day after the Guardian reported that the U.S. government had compelled telephone giant Verizon to turn over phone records of millions of U.S. customers.

Intelligence officials were reeling over the leak about PRISM on Thursday night, sources told NBC News.

The groundwork for doing such widespread monitoring appeared to be first laid in 2007 in the hastily passed "Protect America Act."

Thursday's revelations are believed to be the first publicly released results of the law.

Kurt Upsahl, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the digital civil rights organization "has been saying for some time that there has been a warrantless surveillance program going on" for the collection of electronic content.

"It allegedly has the cooperation of nine very prominent Internet companies, from which we're seeing a slew of denials," he told NBC News. "Denials that are designed to leave the impression that the companies are not participating."

At "minimum," he said, "Congress should start holding some hearings and get to the bottom of what's going on."

The American Civil Liberties Union also was quick to offer its concerns about what was reportedly a court-approved program that had the consent of Congress.

"These revelations are a reminder that Congress has given the government far too much power to invade individual privacy, that existing civil liberties safeguards are grossly inadequate," Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director, said in a statement, adding that "powers exercised entirely in secret, without public accountability of any kind, will certainly be abused."

However, James R. Clapper, Obama's director of national intelligence, said in a statement that the Post and The Guardian articles contained "numerous inaccuracies" in reference to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 

Section 702, he said, is designed to help acquire foreign intelligence for non-U.S. persons outside the country and can't be used to target Americans or others within the U.S.

He said all activities authorized by Section 702 are subject to oversight by a special court, the executive branch and Congress and must follow "extensive procedures" to "ensure only non-U.S. persons outside the U.S. are targeted."

Clapper stressed that the program "does not allow the Government to listen in on anyone's phone calls" and that "the information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the identity of any subscriber."

"The unauthorized disclosure of information about this important and entirely legal program is reprehensible and risks important protections for the security of Americans," he said.

Pete Williams, Suzanne Choney and Bob Sullivan of NBC News contributed to this report.

Related:

NSA snooping has foiled multiple terror plots: Feinstein

Public wrestles with what's most important

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 10:48 PM EDT

ATLANTA — A gay man will be allowed to order a vanity license plate that describes his sexual orientation, but Georgians' car tags must not refer to sex acts, weapons, drugs and much else under new rules issued by the state.

The regulations are part of a settlement on Wednesday between the state and Atlanta resident James Cyrus Gilbert, who sued Georgia after officials denied his request for a personalized plate that would read GAYGUY, 4GAYLIB or GAYPWR.

All three phrases sought by Gilbert were on the state's "bad tag" list, said the lawsuit, which claimed Georgia had violated his First Amendment right to free speech.

In settling the suit, the state allowed Gilbert to pick any of the three choices that were refused in January, said his attorney, Cynthia Counts.

He has chosen GAYPWR, she said.

"He got the regulation changed, at least on the use of the word 'gay,'" Counts said on Thursday. "That to him is a victory. It was a good decision by the state to resolve that lawsuit."

The state agreed to pay $24,000 for Gilbert's legal fees.

The emergency regulation clarifies the standards for vanity tags in Georgia. It will expire in 120 days, and the state will hold public hearings on making the changes permanent, said Rick Gardner, supervisor of the Georgia Department of Revenue's tax policy office.

License plates can mention a sexual orientation but cannot disparage it or any religious beliefs, ethnicity, race or gender, according to the rules.

"Special prestige license plates will not be issued for letter/number combinations" that refer to sexual acts or body parts, bodily fluids, profanity, weapons, drugs, criminal activity and alcohol. The words "hate" and "suck" are also banned. 

Joe Burbank / Getty Images file

George Zimmerman at a pretrial hearing April 30.

A pre-trial hearing in the George Zimmerman case got heated Thursday as defense lawyers charged that Florida prosecutors have withheld photos of guns taken from Trayvon Martin’s phone.

"We caught you hiding the information and confronted you about it and you never gave it to us," Zimmerman attorney Don West, testifying on the witness stand, told Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda.

De la Rionda had just laced into West, asking why a report from a defense expert was delayed. “Should we be asking for sanctions for you all?” he demanded.

The defense team wants the court to punish the State Attorney’s Office, but the judge put the matter on hold until after Zimmerman is tried for second-degree murder in the Feb. 2012 shooting death of Martin in Sanford, Fla., a suburb of Orlando.

Earlier, Zimmerman’s team questioned the state office’s information technology officer, Ben Kruidbos, who came forward with his concern that prosecutors did not turn over everything from the 17-year-old’s cellphone – including pictures of a hand holding a gun and a gun on a bed.

He said he found the photos after using software to analyze the raw data from the phone, put it all in a report and turned it over to de la Rionda – who, he said, gave him mixed signals about whether he intended to pass it onto the Zimmerman’s lawyers.

Kruidbos said that in May he took his concerns to an ex-prosecutor, Wesley White, who contacted the defense.

“I think all of the information being shared in the process is important to make sure it’s a fair trial,” Kruidbos testified.

West testified that he received the numerical raw data from the phone in February but did not get Kruidbos’ more useful analysis until a few days ago.

“We still don’t know completely what is on the phone,” West said, complaining that the defense wasted time and money trying to perform its own analysis.

The questioning was testy at times: At one point, de la Rionda grilled White, his former colleague, about whether he had an ax to grind and had contacted the defense out of revenge.

“Do you have problems remembering things or do you have a vivid recollection of things?” de la Rionda asked.

“I remember a lot of things, sir. I remember those things that I believe I need to remember ... After 33 years you learn to, sort of, box off things that need to be remembered and others that you can let go,” White replied.

“Unpleasant things you kind of want to put to the side,” de la Rionda pressed.

“Not necessarily unpleasant things, sir. I remember you...” White said to laughter.

The daylong hearing focused on two other pre-trial matters:

• Judge Debra Nelson rejected a defense request to shield the identities of as many as seven witnesses, including one who saw the altercation between Zimmerman and Martin. Defense lawyer Mark O’Mara cited  “personal concerns for their safety” and suggested they testify behind a screen, in view of jurors but not of reporters. The prosecution and a media representative objected.

• The court also began hearing testimony about voice-comparison technology that experts have used to analyze a 911 call from the night of the shooting. Screams and a gunshot can be heard on a recording of the call, which was played in court while Zimmerman listened in court.

The defense called FBI scientist Hirotaka Nakasone, who detailed the limitations and pitfalls of the technology, including whether experts could match screams to someone’s spoken voice.

“I doubt that very much,” he said.

Nakasone submitted a report last year that concluded the quality and length of the sound on the tape was insufficient to determine who was screaming. One of the prosecution’s experts has said the screams came from Martin.

Zimmerman, who has pleaded not guilty, is a former neighborhood watch volunteer. He has claimed that he shot Martin in self-defense after Martin attacked him. Jury selection begins Monday.

Additional reporting by Tracy Connor and Erin McClam

Editor’s Note: Zimmerman has sued NBCUniversal for defamation in civil court, and the company has strongly denied his allegations.

Steve Cannon / AP

Powerball winner Gloria C. MacKenzie, 84, left, leaves the lottery office escorted by her son, Scott Mackenzie, after claiming a single lump-sum payment of about $370.9 million before taxes on June 5, in Tallahassee, Fla.

Before lottery regret and mathematical misunderstanding puts another dent in civility everywhere, know this: It's OK to let a senior citizen step in front of you when buying a ticket. Please, continue being polite to older folks.

When Gloria MacKenzie purchased her $590 million lottery ticket in Florida last month, a much younger woman allowed her to cut in line, according to published reports. Many of those indicated that the woman's random act of kindness cost her $590 million. It didn't. 

Before lottery ticket buyers start boxing out little old ladies at convenience stores everywhere, let's examine this issue from a mathematics point of view. Could letting someone cut in line at the lottery counter hurt your odds of winning? To use the language of statistics, let’s call this the "risk of being nice."

It would feel strange — wistful, certainly — to learn that someone purchased the winning lottery ticket at your store. (It coulda been me!) It would probably plunge you into full-fledged regret to learn the winner was right in front of you, had taken your place in line, and had purchased the same kind of Quick Pick machine-generated lottery ticket you did. (It shoulda been me!) But random acts of kindness are indeed safe, because random numbers don't work that way.

Random means random
Some lottery ticket buyers arrive with a pre-determined set of numbers in their heads — their children's birth dates, perhaps — and purchase tickets with those fixed numbers. Others let the lottery machine generate numbers, called "Quick Pick" in many states.

Even so, Quick Pick numbers could theoretically be generated in batches of, say, 10 million at time, by a central computer, and then doled out to local machines. Or maybe they could be generated 25 at a time in convenience stores, then handed out. If either were true, your place in line certainly would matter.

But it’s not true. Computers are particularly good at generating random numbers, which have been important to computing since the very beginning. Random numbers are needed any time a programmer wants to surprise a user, such as in video games. Even the most basic computing machines have a built-in ability to create fairly random numbers, often utilizing their internal clocks to make them even more random. So every millisecond matters to a random number generator.

In other words, there is no "risk of being nice." Stopping to sneeze before buying a Quick Pick ticket could just as easily cost someone a winning number as trading places in line. 

What's more, every number generated is independent of every number before it. There are no numbers ticked off a master list, leaving you with more limited possibilities. If the odds are 1 in 100,000,001 when you step in line, your odds remain 1 in 100,000,001 when you let someone else step in front of you.

Naturally, lottery administrators don't advertise precisely how their machines work — random number generators aren't perfect, and lotto machines are a constant target for attackers — so we must engage in a little speculation. But plenty of descriptions can be found that suggest that this is the way they work. For example, here's a description from the Texas Lottery's FAQ. 

"The Quick Pick random number generator for our online games has no built-in memory. Once a set of numbers is picked in one play, the random number process starts fresh for the next play. The fact that a number is picked in one play has no influence on the chances of it getting picked in following plays. Each set of numbers generated by the Quick Pick feature is unrelated to any other Quick Pick selection."

(You can almost feel the frustrated mathematician behind this repetitive explanation, no?)

Of course, other factors make the "risk of being nice" flawed logic. People were buying lottery tickets at locations all around the country. In the time it would take to push a little old lady out of line, thousands of people in other locations would "step in front of you."

Powerball isn't a raffle
One can conjure up a game of chance where the "cost of being nice" could be real. A church raffle that sold tickets with sequential numbers might seem to qualify. Imagine you let a senior cut in line, and he bought winning ticket number 1065, leaving you with a worthless 1066 ticket. Of course, if the winning number was truly picked at random, that wouldn't matter, either, but it certainly would "feel" bad. (Note: feelings and mathematics rarely get along very well).

On the other hand, imagine a church raffle with a finite number of tickets, where this little old man bought five, and you could only buy four tickets because the supply was exhausted. By limiting your chances of winning, you have a true "risk of being nice."

Sadly, Powerball has an unlimited supply of tickets for fools with money, so that scenario doesn’t apply.

Lotteries have often been called a tax on the mathematically disinclined, so it's no surprise that math logic can be in short supply when discussing lotteries. After all, anyone using logic would take their investment in lottery tickets and put it to good use — betting on this weekend's Belmont Stakes, for example.

But here's a happy thought. Because both the winning numbers and the Quick Pick numbers are randomly generated, the "reward of being nice" is of equal value to the "risk." That is, you are equally likely to end up with a winning ticket because you let someone step in front of you. Think about that the next time you consider being polite ... doing so could win you $590 million!

Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook or Twitter.

Public reaction was decidedly mixed Thursday to a highly classified court order that revealed the U.S. government is gathering the phone data of Verizon customers.

While many people raised concerns about privacy and government overreach, others said national security was most important.

Sophia Rosenbaum / NBC News

Randy Edwards, right, and Dwayne Dohmann, left, stand with their daughters on Rockefeller Plaza on Thursday. Edwards defended the government's collection of phone data, but Dohmann worried about an invasion of privacy.

“I didn’t like it at first because of privacy,” said Randy Edwards, 52, of Texas, as he visited Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, “but this is a scary world and if it helps find terrorists or helps combat the war against terrorism, then it’s OK.”

Edwards has two daughters and said he wants the world to be a safe place for them, and if this is what is necessary to achieve that, then so be it.

But Edwards’ friend Dwayne Dohmann, who is also visiting New York from Texas, said he feels unsettled to know that as a Verizon customer, the government likely has records of his phone calls.

“If it’s individuals they’re suspicious of, then it’s fine, but a blatant just ‘get all the records’ is just not right because of individual privacy,” Dohmann said.

He added that he may be “blissfully ignorant,” but he likes to think there is still some privacy in today’s modern era.

Administration defends seizure of phone records

Sophia Rosenbaum / NBC News

Karen Handley, a psychologist from Orange County, California, has no qualms with the Obama administration doing what it needs to do to keep American citizens safe.

The order, obtained and published by the British newspaper The Guardian, does not collect financial information, names or addresses. It does look into the phone numbers that make and receive phone calls as well as the duration and time of the call.

News of the records collection comes on the heels of the American public's learning that federal government secretly obtained phone records from reporters at The Associated Press.

For Bonnie Thomas, a flight attendant for Delta from Michigan, the records seizures are invasions of privacy and a lack of transparency by the Obama administration.

“They are not open books like they said they would be,” Thomas said. “They didn’t use this information successfully in the Boston bombing and they knew about this man and couldn’t stop it.”

But Karen Handley, a psychologist from California, has no qualms with the administration doing what it needs to do to keep American citizens safe.

“My national security is more important than whether I made a phone call to somebody,” she said. “If you have nothing to hide, you probably don’t care.”

Two men whom the New York Post labeled as "Bag Men" in a front-page photo shortly after April's fatal Boston Marathon bomb attack have sued the newspaper for libel. 

The Post reported three days after the bombing that federal investigators were seeking the pair, 16-year-old Salaheddin Barhoum and 24-year-old Yassine Zaimi. The story ran just hours before the FBI released photos of the actual suspects they were pursuing. 

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday, names the Post and five of its journalists, and seeks unspecified monetary damages. Post officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Barhoum and Zaimi, both avid runners, had gone to watch the finish of the April 15 marathon, which attracts thousands of spectators to downtown Boston. They left shortly after the winners crossed the finish line and about two hours before a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs exploded, killing three people and injuring more than 260. 

A massive investigation followed the blasts, the largest attack on U.S. soil since hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Police and FBI investigators called on witnesses from the packed scene to submit photos of the area before the bombs detonated, and early on said they believed the bombs had been carried to the site in bags. 

Two days after the blast, Barhoum and Zaimi learned that a photo showing them near the site had been circulated on social media websites, according to the lawsuit. Each man went separately to his local police department to explain his presence at the finish of the race. 

After questioning, police released each man in the early morning of April 18 after telling them they were not suspects, the lawsuit said. 

Later that morning, each was stunned to see his image on the cover of the News Corp paper under the headline "Bag Men: Feds seek this duo pictured at Boston Marathon," according to their lawsuit filed in Suffolk County Superior Court. 

Zaimi, the older of the pair, first saw the paper when he arrived at work. 

"He immediately started shaking, his mouth went dry, and he felt as though he was having a panic attack," according to the lawsuit. 
Barhoum was on vacation from school that week and learned of the newspaper article when he returned from a track meet to find a large crowd of media at his home. 

"The plaintiffs were not suspects and were not being sought by law enforcement," the lawsuit contends. "The Post had no basis whatsoever to suggest that they were, especially in light of a warning on Wednesday to news media, by federal authorities, to exercise caution in reporting about this very matter." 

The Post's editor in April defended the cover, saying it identified two men police were seeking. "We did not identify them as suspects," said the editor, Col Allan. 

Hours after the Post published the photo and article, the FBI released pictures of two other men later identified as ethnic Chechen brothers Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, whom it named as suspects in the bombing. 

The two are suspected of having killed a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and engaging in a gun battle with police in Watertown, Massachusetts, that night. Tamerlan, 26, died in the fight, while Dzhokhar, 19, was arrested on April 19 after a day-long manhunt that locked down much of the Boston area. 

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is in a prison hospital west of Boston, awaiting trial on charges that carry the threat of the death penalty. 

Ian Horn / for NBC News

New York National Guard Spc. Kyle Chen, center, meets potential employer Amrit Singh during the Hiring Our Heroes military job fair held in March in New York City.

Younger veterans who served during the recent wartime era posted a 7.3 percent unemployment rate in May — down from the 12.7 percent rate recorded during the same month in 2012 — better news for a group that has struggled to find work since coming home, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. 

"This is an extremely positive step," said Tom Tarantino, chief policy officer for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), which has more than 200,000 members. "It's the result of a lot of hard work by a lot of people both in and out of the government. But this isn't the time to take our eye off the ball." 

The promising May figures follow a federal report that showed the April jobless rate among post-9/11 veterans stood at a 7.5 percent — down from the 9.2 percent rate that group posted in April 2012.

And far more telling: two straight months of welcome workforce news for younger veterans come on the heels of a comprehensive annual assessment by the Labor Department, released in March, that showed a steady downward dip in the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans between 2011 (12.1 percent) and 2012 (9.9 percent). 

When viewed in sum, experts say, the chronically icy job market for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan finally may be showing signs of a thaw. Overall, the pace of younger veterans on the job trail remained only slightly higher than the 7.0 percent unemployment rate in May for non-veterans, according to the latest labor figures. 

"The good news is corporate America is improving its effort to educate itself. Businesses are training their hiring managers how to read a military resume. They're consulting veterans who are already on staff about hiring new veterans," Tarantino said.

"This just reinforces that with a little bit of concerted effort by the public sector and private sector, we can fix the immediate problem," he added. "But it's going to take a much larger effort to solve all the structural problems that caused this in the first place: We still have to shore up how to translate military skills (into civilian jobs), and we still have to make sure that we're training veterans to enter the workforce properly."

Ian Horn / for NBC News

Ruty Rutenberg, a former U.S. Army medic, has two part-time jobs to pay the bills as he searches for his "mainstay career."

A warmer reception among U.S. hiring managers coincides with a bevy of aggressive, veteran-employment initiatives launched during recent years within the private sector, the nonprofit world, and at the federal level. That includes first lady Michelle Obama's "Joining Forces" campaign, which has helped escort nearly 300,000 ex-military members from careers in uniform to civilian jobs, the White House reported April 30.

"This is good. It's a positive trend," said Kevin M. Schmiegel, founder and executive director of the Hiring Our Heroes program at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Through hundreds of jobs fairs, that push has helped more than 18,400 veterans and military spouses find work. Schmiegel also lauds both Joining Forces and the JPMorgan Chase "100,000 Jobs Mission" for helping reduce the number of unemployed veterans. 

"We have had a positive effect over the last couple of years. People should emphasize that," added Schmiegel, who served 20 years in the Marine Corps, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. 

But winning the job war at home remains far from a rout for tens of thousands of veterans, especially for many who served in combat zones — like Ruty Rutenberg, an Army medic in Iraq. He's been searching for his "mainstay" career for about a year.

Presently, Rutenberg fills his workweeks through a pair of part-time jobs: one hosting media events, the other doing outreach through a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs program called "Make the Connection", which encourages veterans who need mental-health care to come forward and get it. 

"I've got multiple outlets of part-time work that's helping me pay the bills but still nothing permanent," Rutenberg said. 

"I do know a lot of veterans I've talked to are having a hard time getting work, especially if there's any type of medical situation attached," he added. "Even if it's a small injury. Or, let's say it's (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) but it's a manageable amount: Employers are still afraid to take the initiative to hire those people. PTSD is very manageable if the veteran is actively getting counseling, taking meds, or if it's just not that high an amount (of anxiety symptoms)."

Among veterans who served during the post-9/11 era and who have a service-connected disability, the unemployment during 2012 was 8.0 percent, the Labor Department reported in March. 

But the veteran group scuffling hardest to land steady paychecks: men and women between the ages of 18 and 24 who, during 2012, posted an unemployment rate of 20.4 percent, according to federal figures. 

And their ranks are about to swell exponentially, particularly as American troops exit Afghanistan by 2014. 

"The fact is there are another million service members and their families who are getting ready to leave the armed forces over the next five years," Schmiegel said. "Many of them are going to be 24 and under, and many of them will have military spouses who also face high unemployment.

"So even though we see positive trends year to year, we need to remain vigilant," he added. "We really need to push the programs that are working."

Related:

• White House-backed jobs-for-vets program crushes goals
• Unemployment among post-9/11 veterans still running heavy
• Companies honored for hiring and supporting veterans
• Pentagon looks to cut up to 50,000 civilians over 5 years
• Hiring Our Heroes job fair part of week-long, national hiring push

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 12:01 PM EDT

A homeless man with a history of playing an evil version of the "Sesame Street" character Elmo from coast to coast was charged Wednesday with trying to extort $2 million from the Girl Scouts. 

Dan Sandler, arraigned on attempted grand larceny and other charges, pleaded not guilty, and a judge ordered him held on $200,000 bail. 

Prosecutors in Manhattan alleged that the defendant, who also goes by the name Adam Sandler, last year began sending and leaving harassing emails and voice mails for a Girl Scouts supervisor he met while working a temp job at the nonprofit. They said that when the supervisor told him to stop contacting her, he threatened to spread false rumors about sex abuse in the organization unless it gave him a high-paying position or made him a millionaire. 

San Francisco Police Dept. via AP

Dan Sandler, who also goes by the name Adam Sandler, is seen in a May 10, 2013 booking photo.

"I want a telecommute job from home of life at 150K," prosecutors say he wrote in one of several rambling emails. "Or a two million dollar cash settlement. As you know, the newspapers like to cover my evil Elmo scenario." 

Sandler also cautioned, "How you treat me as a person will go a long way in regards to how I treat the Girl Scouts in the press, on the Internet and on u-tube," authorities said. Attached to another email was a photo of an Elmo costume stuffed in the trunk of a car, titled "Interstate Kidnapping of Elmo." 

The emails "became increasingly alarming and bizarre," said Assistant District Attorney Lauren Littman. 

Defense attorney Lawrence Gerzog, arguing for lower bail, told the judge that his client has "mental health issues" and that his rants were never a real threat. 

There was no immediate response to a message left Wednesday with the Girl Scouts. 

Sandler, 49, was accused last year of going on an anti-Semitic tirade while in a furry red Elmo costume in Times Square, where hustlers often dress up as pop culture characters and try to make a few bucks posing for photos with tourists. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to two days of community service. 

He left New York and took his Elmo act to San Francisco, where he lived in a car, authorities said. He was arrested there on a warrant in the New York extortion case on May 9. 

He told an investigator following his arrest that he was being followed by the State Department, authorities said. 

Tropical Storm Andrea — the first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season — weakened considerably as it made landfall Thursday night, but it still packed enough punch to drench Florida and was expected to bring heavy rain to much of the East Coast through Saturday.

Tropical storm warnings remained in effect for coastal areas from Flagler, Fla., to Cape Charles Light in Virginia, but they were canceled for inland areas and Florida's Gulf Coast, the National Weather Service said early Friday. Maximum sustained winds — which hit 65 mph at landfall near the "Big Bend" area, about 35 miles northwest of Cedar Key, Fla. — dropped to 45 mph as the storm moved inland.

The waning storm was forecast to lose its tropical characteristics as early as Friday night as it moved across northern Florida on a path toward southeastern Georgia and the Carolinas before heading north. It was still expected to be a strong conventional storm system, however. 

Andrea's outer bands still carried very heavy rain, which caused flooding across South Florida.

More from weather.com

By later Friday, the storm was expected to affect major inland cities, including Washington and Philadelphia, bringing rain that could produce flooding, the National Weather Service said.

Heavily populated cities lie in the warning area that remains: the Tampa Bay area and Jacksonville in Florida; Charleston and tourist-packed Myrtle Beach in South Carolina; Wilmington and the heavily visited Outer Banks in North Carolina; and Norfolk, Virginia Beach and Newport News, Va.

New York activated its flash flood plan — with possible alerts via mobile phone — and issued a hazardous travel advisory as moderate to heavy rain was expected through early Saturday.

The Weather Channel

The latest forecast path and wind speeds from the National Hurricane Center, with the projected path of Tropical Storm Andrea.

At least six possible tornadoes were reported Thursday in Florida, said Greg Forbes, a severe weather specialist for The Weather Channel. 

A tornado that ripped through Loxahatchee, Fla., damaging homes and tossing an 88-year-old woman from her bed. The fall broke both her legs, her son, Tim Kepler, told NBC station WPTV of West Palm Beach.

"A large oak tree twisted up like popsicle sticks," Kepler said. "It was just complete devastation."

Kepler's mother underwent surgery Thursday night and was expected to recover," Kepler said.

"It's always somebody else. It's always them," he said. "Well, today it's us," he said.

In the Acreage area of Palm Beach County, Lacey Mitten and her children, Sage, 11 and Hannah, 8, huddled in a bathtub as a probable tornado roared through her neighborhood, damaging her home.

"My sister and I just looked at each other. It sounded like a freight train," Mitten told NBCMiami.com. "We just got in the bathtub and held on."

M. Alex Johnson of NBC News contributed to this report.

Related:

• Andrea lifts the curtain on Atlantic hurricane season
• Storms, flash floods, twister danger in Plains
• More weather coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 6:30 AM EDT

A secret National Security Agency program to collect vast amounts of phone records has foiled multiple attempted terrorist attacks inside the United States, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee told reporters on Thursday. 

Sen. Dianne Feinstein did not specify how many attempted attacks had been prevented, or the nature of the threats, but the California Democrat said there had been more than one. 

The remarks were made to reporters following a meeting with senators who were concerned over a report in a British newspaper that the NSA had requested phone records from a division of telecommunications giant Verizon. According to Feinstein, 27 senators attended the meeting and voiced concerns about the policy. 

"We are always open to changes. But that doesn't mean there will be any. It does mean that we will look at any ideas, any thoughts, and we do this on everything," she said. 

Earlier in the day Feinstein defended the surveillance as a legal and long-standing government program. 

“It began in 2009 – what appeared in the Guardian today, as I understand it, is simply a court reauthorization of a program. The court is required to look at it every three months,” she said.

And while Republican Senator Rand Paul called the surveillance of Verizon phone records described in the report “an astounding assault on the constitution,” other GOP lawmakers including Senator Lindsey Graham disagreed.

“I have no problem. I am a Verizon customer. You can have my phone number, and put it in a database,” Graham said. “If they get a hit between me and some guy from Waziristan,” officials should investigate, he said.

House Speaker John Boehner said President Obama should “explain to the American people why the administration considers this a critical tool in protecting our nation from the threats of a terrorist attack.”

The practice was first revealed by the British newspaper The Guardian on Wednesday, which obtained and published a highly classified court order that requires the production of “telephony metadata” by the telecommunications giant.

The order, marked "Top Secret" and issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, instructs Verizon Business  Network Services, a subsidiary that provides internet and telecommunications services for corporations, to hand over data including all calling records on an "ongoing, daily basis.”

“On its face, the order reprinted in the article does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls,” the official said.

The NSA, Department of Justice, and Federal Bureau of Investigation have issued no formal comment on the report or purported practices described in it.

While declining to say how long the particular order referenced in the Guardian article has been in place, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that a “robust legal regime” reviews government powers under the Patriot Act “to ensure that they comply with the Constitution.”

“This strict regime reflects the president’s desire to strike the right balance between protecting our national security and protecting constitutional rights and civil liberties,” Earnest said.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he could not discuss the report regarding NSA information gathering today while appearing in a previously scheduled open budget hearing. Members of Congress have been “fully briefed” on the issue, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid urged caution, saying the program “isn’t anything that’s brand new.”

“It’s gone on for some 7 years,” Reid said. “We’ve tried often to make it better and make it work.”

Signed by Judge Roger Vinson of the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in April, the order requires the “production of certain call detail records,” and is set to expire on the evening of July 19, 2013. The order pertains to information including the phone numbers making and receiving the call, as well as the time the call was made and how long it lasts. It does not include the “name, address, or financial information of a subscriber or customer,” according to the order.

The order “does not require Verizon to produce telephony metadata for communications wholly originating and terminating in foreign countries,” according to the document.

Earlier on Wednesday, an Obama administration official defended the policy of gathering phone records from American citizens while neither confirming nor denying a report that the National Security Agency is collecting information regarding communications by Verizon customers.

Such information has been “a critical tool in protecting the nation from terrorist threats,” the senior Obama administration official said.

Getty Images file

This undated photo provided by the National Security Agency (NSA) shows its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland.

While not confirming any particulars of the report, the administration official said that data such as that described in the article “allows counterterrorism personnel to discover whether known or suspected terrorists have been in contact with other persons who may be engaged in terrorist activities, particularly people located inside the United States.”

Verizon said it had no comment Wednesday on the accuracy of the story published by the Guardian or the document the report was based on, the company’s chief counsel Randy Milch said in note sent to the company’s employees.

“Verizon continually takes steps to safeguard its customers’ privacy,” Milch said in the note. “Nevertheless, the law authorizes the federal courts to order a company to provide information in certain circumstances, and if Verizon were to receive such an order, we would be required to comply.”

The disclosure of the order, which has not been independently verified by NBC News, comes after the Obama administration has taken fire for a Justice Department subpoena of Associated Press phone records.

Holder told NBC News Wednesday that he has no intention of stepping down from his job despite calls by some congressional Republicans for his resignation, citing the AP seizure.

Senator Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from Oregon, called the collection of call data as described in the Guardian report “an outrageous breach of Americans’ privacy” in a news release Thursday. “This bulk data collection is being done under interpretations of the law that have been kept secret from the public. Significant FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court opinions that determine the scope of our laws should be declassified.”

Verizon had 98.9 million wireless customers at the end of the first quarter this year, according to an earnings report released in April, as well as about 11.7 million residential and 10 million commercial lines. It is not clear whether other parts of Verizon might have received similar orders. The order explicitly prohibits any person from disclosing that the NSA or FBI Investigation has sought records under the order.

“Now that this unconstitutional surveillance effort has been revealed, the government should end it and disclose its full scope, and Congress should initiate an investigation,” Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. “This disclosure also highlights the growing gap between the public’s and the government’s understandings of the many sweeping surveillance authorities enacted by Congress.”

The law on which the order explicitly relies is the "business records" provision of the USA Patriot Act.

Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, both Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a March 2012 letter to Attorney General Eric Holder that most Americans would “stunned to learn the details of how these secret court opinions have interpreted section 215 of the Patriot Act.”

“As we see it, there is now a significant gap between what most Americans think the law allows and what the government secretly claims the law allows,” the senators wrote in the letter. “This is a problem, because it is impossible to have an informed public debate about what the law should say when the public doesn’t know what its government thinks the law says.”

Former vice president Al Gore called the practices described in the order “obscenely outrageous” in a message posted on Twitter Wednesday night. “In digital era, privacy must be a priority,” Gore wrote. “Is it just me, or is secret blanket surveillance obscenely outrageous.”

The order is the first concrete evidence that U.S. intelligence officials are continuing a broad campaign of domestic surveillance that began under President George W. Bush and caused great controversy when it was first exposed, according to Reuters.

NBC News' Chuck Todd, Peter Alexander, Andrew Rafferty Alastair Jamieson and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Related:

• A new controversy facing the Obama administration
• Holder says he has no intention of stepping down
• Holder undergoes marathon House grilling on IRS and leaks probe

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 6:23 AM EDT

A woman was found alive in the rubble 13 hours after a building collapsed in Center City and killed at least six people.

The collapse at 2140 Market Street happened around 10:40 a.m. when a four-story building came down on top of a two-story building, which housed a Salvation Army Thrift Store. Early reports from Philadelphia Police indicate that the collapse may have been the result of an industrial accident, as construction crews were working on the nearby structure.

NBC Philadelphia: Philly building collapse: 6 dead, search continues

One woman was found dead and 13 people were rescued from the rubble during the day. Crews continued to dig with the help of search dogs to see if anyone else remained trapped beneath the rubble. They found five more bodies in the rubble Wednesday night but have not yet revealed their identities.

Crews also found 61-year-old Myra Plekam alive in the rubble around 11:30 p.m., making her the 14th person rescued. She was taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where she is in stable condition.

Mayor Nutter said the woman who died was 35 years old and that her family didn't want any more information about her to be discussed publicly. Sources close to the investigation say the woman was a cashier at the thrift store and that Wednesday was her first day on the job.

"I ask all Philadelphians and all who care to keep that Philadelphia woman and her family in your prayers," Nutter said.

One of the victims rescued during the day, a woman, was found after being buried for two hours, according to Mayor Michael Nutter. She was able to walk and was waving and alert when paramedics took her away on a gurney.

Four hours into the rescue effort, Ayers brought in new rescue members and two search dogs. He said they were setting up to continue work for the next 12 to 24 hours.

"This is still an active search and rescue scene," he said.

Wednesday night, Mayor Nutter confirmed that five more people were found dead in the rubble. Accorrding to officials, all six victims were inside the store at the time of the collapse.

Nutter said the search is still active and will continue until crews are absolutely certain no one else is inside the rubble.

Fire Commissioner Ayers said in a late afternoon news conference that rescuers were focusing their search on a few areas that the search dogs were hovering over. But rescuers are not sure exactly what that means because Ayers said some of those areas are also where earlier rescues took place and that may be what the dogs are picking up.

According to Ayers, 125 people were working to locate survivors and they were using 35 different pieces of equipment in the search.

"There are firemen, police, construction guys digging out, because I believe people are down there," said Corey Vey who works nearby. "It's crazy right now."

Thirteen of those rescued were taken to local hospitals. Most of the injuries are minor. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania treated five of the 13 victims. A spokeswoman from the hospital says all five are in stable condition. Two of those victims have been released while the other three will stay overnight for observation.

Rescue crews could be seen digging through the debris and have brought in at least two pieces of  heavy machinery to help move debris.

"I've never encountered anything like this before anytime in my life, and I don't want to see it again,"  said Vey, who was driving down 22nd Street right before Market and saw the building come down. "I feel really lucky. That brick landed in my passenger seat. Lucky for the rainguard on my window that saved me from getting hit."

Ordinary people took part in the rescue efforts as well. Roofers from a nearby building hustled over after the collapse and started pulling people out of the basement.

"They were pretty banged up," one of the roofers said.

The Salvation Army sent its own disaster response team to the site to help survivors and first responders. The organization sent out a statement saying, "Our number one concern is for the safety of our customers and the employees who were involved."

Market Street is closed from 18th to 30th Street right now.

Fire officials say the building next door to the collapse was under demolition. According to the demolition permit from Philadelphia's Licenses and Inspections, that building was a four-story structure. The demolition contractor is Griffin-Campbell Construction.

A man, who did not want to be identified, recorded video of the demolition of the building on Sunday and sent it to NBC10.com.

OSHA officials said they were aware of the incident and would be launching an investigation. The Department of Labor is also investigating.

This story was originally published on Thu Jun 6, 2013 12:28 AM EDT

A U.S. soldier pleaded guilty Wednesday to executing 16 Afghan civilians  — many of them women and children — and said he couldn't explain why he did it.

"I've asked that question a million times since then, and there's not a good reason in the world for why I did the horrible things I did," Staff Sgt. Robert Bales told a military judge.

Bales, who struck a deal with prosecutors to avoid the death penalty, admitted he aimed to kill during two rogue raids on family compounds in Kandahar province in March 2012.

"I formed the intent as I raised my weapon," he said.

He recounted grappling with an older woman as he entered one compound.

"Upon completion of that struggle, I did form the intent to kill anyone in that compound," he said.

Asked whether the woman was armed in way way, Bales replied, "No, sir, she was not.'

Bales spoke in a clear, emotionless voice as he went through each of the 16 killings, describing how he left his base, went to the village and systematically gunned down defenseless civilians with an M4 military assault rifle and 9mm handgun.

He ended each chilling confession with the statement, "This act was without legal justification."

He said he did not remember setting a compound on fire, but did not dispute it.

"There was a kerosene lantern in the room, and based on the evidence ... that lantern was used to set those people on fire," he said.

"I remember there being a lantern in the room, remember there being a fire, remember there were matches in my pocket," he added.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP, file

Mohammed Wazir, seen here with his only surviving son, Habib Shahin, 3, lost 11 family members in the attacks by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, who pleaded guilty on Wednesday.

"But to say I remember throwing it on those people, I don't recall that. But I have seen pictures and it's the only thing that makes sense, sir."

The judge, Col. Jefferey Nance, asked if Bales believed he was "authorized or justified or acting in self defense" when he shot and burned the civilians.

"No, sir," he replied.

"Do you believe you conduct was wrong?" Nance asked.

"Yes, sir," Bales replied.

His recounting of the atrocities in a military courtroom in Washington state came after he pleaded guilty to premeditated murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault. He pleaded not guilty to a charge that involved a stolen laptop.

In August, a jury will determine if his life sentence will include the possibility of parole. Bales requested that one-third of the panel be comprised of enlisted members, not just officers.

Bales' lawyers have said the married father of two suffered from PTSD and brain injury after four combat deployments and was under the influence of drugs and alcohol the night of the raids on family compounds in Kandahar province.

Prosecutors have said the massacre was preplanned and that Bales was angry about a bomb blast near his outpost that wounded a fellow soldier.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 5, 2013 8:41 PM EDT

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Reuters

Tropical Storm Andrea is the first storm of what's predicted to be a busy 2013 Atlantic hurricane season.

Most of Florida's Gulf Coast was under the first tropical storm warning of the year Wednesday as a storm named Andrea debuted the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season.

The warning extended all the way up the state, from Boca Grande off the southern tip of the Florida peninsula to the Ochlockonee River in the panhandle. A less urgent tropical storm watch was in effect up the rest of the East Coast from Flagler, Fla., to Surf City, N.C.

A tropical storm warning means that tropical storm conditions are likely in the next 36 hours; a watch means they're possible in the next 48 hours.

Andrea was parked in the Gulf of Mexico about 300 miles southwest of Tampa, Fla., creeping along at 3 to 5 mph with maximum winds of 40 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Tropical storm force winds extended outward up to 140 miles.

The center of the storm was expected to reach the Big Bend — the sharp left turn where the peninsula turns into the panhandle — sometime Thursday afternoon or evening.

Andrea's then expected to wash over southeastern Georgia and eastern South Carolina this weekend.

Forecasters for The Weather Channel said a combination of wind shear in the upper atmosphere and dry air on the west side of the system was trapping the heaviest winds on Andrea's east side. That means the main concern will be very heavy rainfall through Friday.

Full coverage of Andrea on Weather.com

Several inches of rain could cause localized flooding across the Florida peninsula, with a chance of isolated tornadoes if the right conditions develop, forecasters said. Along the Alabama coast, swimmers were told to be on the lookout for dangerous rip currents.

Related:

• Hurricane season likely to be 'extremely active,' say meteorologists

Damian Dovarganes / AFP file

Corrections officer Sandra Fuentes (L) assists inmate Leslie Van Houten (R) as arrives for her parole hearing before members of the Board of Prison Terms 28 June 2002 at the California Institution for Women in Corona, California.

CHINO, Calif. — Former Charles Manson follower Leslie Van Houten told a parole board on Wednesday, in unprecedented detail, how committed she was to the murders Manson ordered — but insisted that she has changed and is trying to live a life for healing.

The 63-year-old Van Houten addressed the board during her 20th parole hearing. Hours later the California parole board announced they had denied Houten’s release.

"I know I did something that is unforgiveable, but I can create a world where I make amends," Van Houten said. "I'm trying to be someone who lives a life for healing rather than destruction."

Van Houten was convicted of murder and conspiracy for her role in the slayings of wealthy Los Angeles grocers Leno and Rosemary La Bianca. They were stabbed to death in August 1969, one night after Manson's followers killed actress Sharon Tate and four others, including celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, filmmaker Voityck Frykowksi and Steven Parent, a friend of the Tate estate's caretaker.

Van Houten did not participate in the Tate killings but went along the next night when the La Biancas were slain in their home. During the penalty phase of her trial she confessed to joining in stabbing Mrs. La Bianca after she was dead.

With survivors of the LaBiancas sitting behind her at the California Institution for Women, Van Houten admitted she participated in the killings ordered by Manson.

"He could never have done what he did without people like me," said Van Houten, who has been in custody for 44 years.

After years of therapy and self-examination, she said, she realizes that what she did was "like a pebble falling in a pond which affected so many people."

"Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca died the worst possible deaths a human being can," she said. "It affected their families. It affected the community of Los Angeles, which lived in fear. And it destroyed the peace movement going on at the time, and tainted everything from 1969 on."

Van Houten was portrayed at trial by her defense lawyers as the youngest and least culpable of those convicted with Manson, a young woman from a good family who had been a homecoming princess and showed promise until she became involved with drugs and was recruited into Manson's murderous cult.

Now deeply wrinkled with long gray hair tied back in a ponytail, Van Houten at times seemed near tears but did not break down at the Wednesday hearing.

She said in strong terms that she had never resisted Manson's call to participate in fomenting a race-based revolution.

She said that when she heard the Manson family had killed Tate and others, she felt left out and asked to go along the second night.

Parole board commissioner Jeffrey Ferguson asked her, "You felt left out and you wanted to be included the next time, is that correct?"

"Yes," Van Houten said, adding that another of the women tried with Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, had been like a sister to her and she knew that Krenwinkel had participated in the first round of killing.

"She had crossed the line in her commitment to the race war and I wanted to cross the line, too. ... It was something that had to be done," she said.

Van Houten said she was heavily into drugs at that time, using everything from marijuana to LSD and methamphetamines. But she said on the night the La Biancas were slain she was not on drugs.

Ferguson asked if she had any moral compunction about what she was doing.

She said she did not.

"I twisted myself to the point where I thought this had to be done and I participated," she said.

Asked if she would have done the same had children been involved, she answered, "I can't say I wouldn't have done that. I'd like to say I wouldn't, but I don't know."

Asked to explain her actions, she said, "I feel that at that point I had really lost my humanity and I can't know how far I would have gone. I had no regard for life and no measurement of my limitations."

Van Houten has previously been commended for her work helping elderly women inmates at the California Institution for Women where she and other Manson women have been incarcerated. She earned two college degrees while in custody.

If paroled, she would be reversing a trend. Other members of Manson's murderous "family" have lost bids for parole.

One former Manson follower, Bruce Davis, actually was approved for parole last year only to have Gov. Jerry Brown veto the plan in March, saying he wanted the 70-year-old Davis to reveal more details about the killings of a stunt man and a musician. Davis was not involved in the slayings of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

She was convicted along with Manson, Susan Atkins and Krenwinkel. Van Houten was sentenced to death along with them but their sentences were reduced to life in prison with the possibility of parole when the death penalty was briefly outlawed in the 1970s.

Manson himself, now 78, has stopped coming to parole hearings, sending word to officials that prison is his home and he wants to stay there. 

Pool / Pool / Reuters

George Zimmerman, seen here during a hearing in April, goes on trial this month. Jurors will be identified by number but will not be sequestered.

Prosecutors in the Trayvon Martin shooting case have informed the court of a new exhibit that they claim shows defendant George Zimmerman once applied to become a police officer.

A filing by prosecutors this week included a description of an application from Zimmerman and a rejection letter from the Prince William County Police Department, but no explanation of what they plan to do with it.

NBC has not confirmed that the description is accurate. The filing said the police department was in Maryland, though Prince William County is in Virginia. The police department in Virginia could not immediately confirm Zimmerman had applied for a position there.

The new filings also suggest that the prosecution plans to make an issue out of Zimmerman's membership at a Florida martial arts gym, which bills itself as "the most complete fight gym in the world."

It's unclear how prosecutors plan to use that against the neighborhood watch volunteer, who says he was defending himself when he shot 17-year-old Martin on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla.

Zimmerman, 29, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and his trial begins with jury selection on Monday.

In other filings this week, the defense asked Judge Debra Nelson to restrict prosecutors from using certain terms, such as "vigilante" and "wannabe cop."

The defense also want limits on the use of the phrase "profiled." Prosecutors have alleged that Zimmerman, who is white of Hispanic descent, profiled the black teen before the deadly confrontation.

The judge has not ruled on the motion. She did, however, agree with the defense that jurors names should be kept private, known only to the court and the lawyers and referred to by number in public.

The defense also wanted the jury pool to be sequestered, but Nelson ruled that "such drastic measures are unnecessary."

Editor's note: George Zimmerman has sued NBCUniversal for defamation in civil court, and the company has strongly denied his allegations.

David J. Phillip / AP

Houston Fire Department Chief Terry Garrison, right, presents a flag to the parents of fallen firefighter Anne Sullivan, Mary, left, and Jack Sullivan, during a memorial service for fallen Houston firefighters Wednesday in Houston.

Thousands of first-responders gathered in Houston on Wednesday for an emotional tribute to four firefighters killed in a deadly blaze last week.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Houston Mayor Annise Parker and 15,000 mourners assembled in Reliant Stadium to praise the heroism of victims Robert Bebee, Matthew Renaud, Anne Sullivan and Robert Garner, who died Friday -- the deadliest day in the Houston First Department's 118-year history. Thirteen other firefighters were injured.

Victims' families entered the memorial as firefighters stood and saluted them. Pictures of the fallen men and women were displayed on screens throughout the stadium, which is the home to the NFL's Houston Texans.

"When the Mayday sounded last Friday here in Houston, I truly believe our members left this earthly place and immediately stood at attention on the row call in Heaven," said Houston Fire Chief Terry Garrison.

After his remarks, Garrison knelt in front of each of the families and presented them with a flag.

Along with the thousands of first-responders in attendance, thousands more around Texas and the country watched the service remotely. Firefighters from the Dallas Fire Department and across the state helped back-fill in Houston as colleagues of the four attended the service, The Houston Chronicle reported.

"These are hard days. It is a painful day. But it's also a necessary day. It is our duty to honor these four individuals represented here. Four people who sacrificed everything in the service of their community," said Perry.

Following the Texas governor, representatives from each of the families delivered moving tributes to their loved ones.

Nicole Garner, sister to Robert Garner, said just weeks before he died that her brother told her that being a firefighter was what he needed to do with his life. "My brother died fulfilling his dream," she said.

Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the fatal blaze at a motel in Houston. When first-responders attempted to rescue motel guests, the building collapsed on them and they became trapped, fire department officials said.

"It is always too soon to say gooodbye to another fallen hero. It breaks our hearts to say goodbye to four," said Parker. "The oath that they and all firefighters swear isn't to come when it's convenient, isn't to come when it's safe; it is to come and serve."

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Steve Cannon / AP

Powerball winner Gloria C. Mackenzie, 84, left, leaves the lottery office escorted by her son, Scott Mackenzie, after claiming a single lump-sum payment of about $370.9 million before taxes on June 5, in Tallahassee, Fla.

When Gloria C. MacKenzie went to a Florida supermarket near Tampa last month to buy a Powerball ticket, another person in line did something nice for the 84-year-old widow. 

"While in line at Publix, another lottery player was kind enough to let me go ahead of them in line to purchase the winning Quick Pick ticket," she said in a statement Wednesday. 

The nice gesture turned out to be a life-changing one for MacKenzie and her family. She came forward Wednesday to claim the biggest undivided lottery jackpot in history, $590 million. 

Those polite people in line with MacKenzie turn out to be Mindy Crandell and her 10-year-old daughter, fellow residents of Zephyrhills, Fla., WFTV reports.  

"It was our turn, and the lady turned and looked at me, and I said, 'Go ahead. You can get your ticket. No big deal,'" Crandell told WFTV.

Crandell remembered the exchange in line when a friend texted her McKenzie's photo Wednesday.

"'My daughter said, 'Mom, look, it's the lady that went in front of us,'" said Crandell.

McKenzie is a retiree from Maine and a mother of four who lives in a modest, tin-roof house in Zephyrhills, where the lone winning ticket in the May 18 drawing was sold. She took her prize in a lump sum of just over $370 million. After federal taxes, she is getting about $278 million, lottery officials said. 

Wearing large sunglasses and dressed in a pink sweater and white pants, she clasped her son's arm after visiting the lottery offices as they made their way to a silver Ford Focus and left quickly. She did not speak to a crowd of reporters outside the building. She was accompanied at the lottery offices by two unidentified attorneys. 

MacKenzie bought the winning ticket at a Publix supermarket in the town of about 13,300, which is 30 miles northeast of Tampa. It is best known for the bottled spring water that bears its name — and now, for one of the biggest lottery winners of all time. 
The $590 million was the second-largest lottery jackpot in history, behind a $656 million Mega Millions prize in March 2012, but that sum was split, with three winning tickets. 

MacKenzie let the lottery computers generate the numbers at random. She said she had previously bought four other tickets for the drawing. 

"We are grateful with this blessing of winning the Florida Lottery Powerball jackpot," she said in a statement read by lottery officials.

"We hope that everyone would give us the opportunity to maintain our privacy for our family's benefit." 

The winner had 60 days to claim the prize. Lottery spokesman David Bishop said MacKenzie, her lawyers and her financial adviser spent about two hours going through the necessary paperwork. 

"They had clearly been preparing for this. They took all this time to get everything in order," Bishop said. 

Minutes after the announcement, a dozen reporters in Zephyrhills were camped outside MacKenzie's gray duplex, which backs up to a dirt alley and is across from a cow pasture. 

Neighbors were surprised by her good fortune. 

"She didn't say anything about it. She's so quiet and secluded. She's usually in the house," said James Hill. "I'm very happy for her. It couldn't have happened to a nicer person. She was always pleasant and smiling." 

Another neighbor, Don Cecil, joked, "I hope she gets a better place to live." 

MacKenzie's neighbors offered few details about her life. They said she mostly kept to herself, but they'd seen her take short walks along the street and exchanged pleasantries with her. 

Her house, situated among mostly mobile homes and pre-fabricated houses, has a chain-link fence with a sheet-metal roof and an old TV antenna. 

MacKenzie retired to Zephyrhills more than a decade ago from rural Maine with her husband, Ralph, who died in 2005. 

Back in her hometown of East Millinocket, Maine, relatives and friends were surprised to hear of her good fortune. 

Robert MacKenzie, Ralph's brother, said the couple met just after World War II after Ralph got out of the Navy. He went to work in the town's paper mill, laboring as a technician for almost four decades. 

He said the couple raised four children in East Millinocket, a town of less than 2,000 people in northern Maine. A daughter and son still live in East Millinocket, another son lives in Florida and another daughter lives out of state, possibly in Massachusetts, he said. 
Robert MacKenzie said he didn't know his sister-in-law had won until a reporter called him. 

"Holy mackerel," he said when told of her winnings. He added: "It hasn't soaked in, but I'm happy for her. That would be great because she's a widow and she can have a nice home now." 

One of the MacKenzies' daughters, Melinda "Mindy" MacKenzie, a high school teacher, still lives in the family home in East Millinocket in a quiet middle-class neighborhood of white clapboard houses. 

Ralph MacKenzie enjoyed snowmobiling, hunting and fishing, said Andrew Hopkins, a retired high school teacher and assistant principal who taught some of the MacKenzie children. 

"They were good people. That's about all I can tell you," said Hopkins, who lives across the street. 

Related:

• Winning ticket for huge Powerball jackpot sold in Florida
• Florida city still wondering: Who won the $590m lottery jackpot
• What could happen to you: Tales of big lottery winners

AP file

A Powerball jackpot ticket worth an estimated $590.5 million was sold at this Zephyrhills, Fla., Publix supermarket seen on May 19.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 5, 2013 3:40 PM EDT