The HSUS

Pregnant hogs are seen in small stalls in a photo provided by The Humane Society of the United States to back up its allegations that Smithfield Foods was abusing the animals. The group said the photo was taken at a Smithfield plant in Waverly, Va., in November 2010.

Two years after shelving a pledge to phase out its practice of confining pregnant hogs in small, metal stalls, the world's largest pork producer on Thursday said it was ready to recommit. That was welcome news to the Humane Society of the United States, which had filed a complaint against the practice, and it urged Smithfield Foods' competitors to follow suit.

"(Our customers) want us to do that, and we've heard them loud and clear," Smithfield CEO Larry Pope said in a conference call with investors. "This company is going to do what's in the best interest of the business and the best interest of our customers."

Pregnant pigs are kept in gestation stalls where they stay during their four-month pregnancies. Afterward, they are moved for about three weeks to a stall large enough to nurse their piglets before being artificially inseminated and placed back into the stall for another round of breeding.

By the end of 2011, Smithfield said, 30 percent of its sows will be in group housing rather than in the stalls, and a complete phase-out should be done by 2017 -- the date initially set by the company in 2007 but then shelved in 2009.

Pope said the company "took a two-year holiday" from that conversion in order to deal with the economic downturn.

Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle didn't focus on the two-year delay, instead welcoming the move. "We recognize Smithfield's recommitment as progress," he said in a statement, "and urge its competitors such as Tyson, Hormel, Triumph, Prestage, Seaboard, and others to stop lagging behind and follow suit by adopting similar policies."

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Smithfield produces about 17 million market hogs a year at about 460 hog farms in the U.S. It also partners with more than 2,100 independent hog farmers and contract growers in the U.S.

The move comes a month after the Humane Society filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleging that Smithfield was misleading investors and consumers by suggesting it does not abuse pigs.

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A year ago, the group released photos and video showing about 1,000 large female pigs crammed into gestation stalls at a Smithfield facility in Virginia. The undercover operation also revealed other alleged abuses, including a pig being shot with a stun gun and tossed into a trash bin while still alive and prematurely born piglets falling through gestation stall grates and dying in manure pits.

Msnbc.com's Miguel Llanos and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Jacquelyn Martin / AP file

Richard Cordray.

Will Americans believe President Barack Obama was fighting for their consumer rights by trying to force a vote on Consumer Financial Protection Bureau nominee Richard Cordray, or will they believe Senate Republicans were fighting to prevent creation of an unwieldy new government agency with unchecked powers?

We're about to find out.

Thursday morning brought congressional theatre that ended with the Senate effectively rejecting Obama's nominee to head the newly formed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  There was little mystery to the vote --  44 Republicans pledged in May to block his nomination, and only 41 were needed to spike it. The final tally was 53-45, with Republican Olympia Snowe  of Maine voting "present." Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, facing the bureau's inventor Elizabeth Warren, was the lone dissenting GOP vote.

The only mystery is, who will Americans blame now?

RELATED: Details of the vote from NBC's First Read

“Now he’s suddenly making a push to confirm his nominee — because it fits into some picture he wants to paint about who the good guys and the bad guys are in Washington,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. “... So once again he's going to use the Senate floor this week to stage a little political theater. He’s setting up a vote he knows will fail so he can show up afterward and say he’s shocked.”

Speaking in Kansas on Tuesday, Obama argued that Republicans are simply being obstinate. 

"Nobody claims (Cordray's) not qualified,” he said in a speech about the economy. “But the Republicans in the Senate refuse to confirm him for the job; they refuse to let him do his job. Why? Does anybody here think that the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors?”  

Political considerations aren't far behind, however, as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Republicans who vote against Cordray will have to "to explain to their constituents why they did not support common sense reforms," according to the Wall Street Journal.

As a practical matter, Thursday's cloture vote prevented Democrats from ending debate on the Cordray nomination, thus preventing an actual vote on his nomination.  It doesn't mean Cordray has no shot to run the agency, however.  The administration could still attempt a recess appointment, and some observers speculate that the Senate vote is merely a step along that path.

Such a move could threaten the legitimacy of the entire agency, however, and would undoubtedly lead to accusations foul play from Republicans, and perhaps trigger litigation from banks the agency would try to regulate. 

But without a director, the bureau is already hamstrung on a number of fronts. Many of the bureau's regulatory powers don't kick in until a director is named.  It can't supervise so-called non-bank banks, like payday lenders, for example.

“The list of financial tricks and traps that consumers are forced to deal with keeps growing,” said Travis Plunkett, legislative director of the Consumer Federation of America, an advocacy group. “Fourteen months after Congress created the CFPB, the agency needs a permanent leader so it is not fighting financial abuses with one arm tied behind its back.”

The nascent bureau has begun to take on some less controversial tasks during this start-up phase. Last week it announced results of a story of credit card complaints; this week it released a new, simplified model credit card agreement that cuts down verbiage from 5,000 to 1,100 words.

Still, Republicans held firm, because they say the new consumer bureau would have too much power as currently constructed.  Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking committee, went so far as to call it "a monster, as far as future regulation."

Five Republican Senators, including moderate Susan Collins of Maine, attended a public event on Tuesday to reiterate their view that the bureau shouldn't fully open for business unless dramatic changes are made.

“It is inconceivable that in this time of tight budgets that we would create a new agency that is completely unaccountable in terms of its budget,” Collins said.

 Among their demands: the bureau should be led by a commission, not an individual; it should be not have its own source of funding from the Federal Reserve; and it should be subject to Senate committee oversight.

So far, Democrats haven't budged on any of those demands -- setting up a fight over public opinion that Obama didn't shy away from at his speech in Kansas,

"Every day we go without a consumer watchdog is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or a member of our armed forces … could be tricked into a loan that they can't afford -- something that happens all the time," he said. "And the fact is that financial institutions have plenty of lobbyists looking out for their interests. Consumers deserve to have someone whose job it is to look out for them. And I intend to make sure they do. And I want you to hear me, Kansas: I will veto any effort to delay or defund or dismantle the new rules that we put in place."

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A "soaking and snowy" storm that hit the Northeast could cause flight delays Thursday, weather.com reported.

According to meteorologist Tim Ballisty, "gusty winds will continue over the Northeast, particularly early in the day." He said the impact was likely to be felt at major airports across the region.

"Some snow and coastal rain will linger in Maine early before precipitation comes to an end later Thursday morning," Ballisty added.

NBC New York reported early Thursday that "flood advisories were in effect for most of the tri-state area."

The storm slammed Texas on Tuesday, hit parts of the South on Wednesday before bringing heavy rain and then snow to the Northeast.

In Tennessee on Wednesday, some school systems closed early as the storm left as much as four inches of snow in the western and southern parts of the state.

Forecasters Weather Underground reported that "more precipitation is expected in the northeastern corner of the nation on Thursday as the storm system in the Mid-Atlantic lifts northeastward along the New England coast."

"Moisture spreading across the area combined with a cold airmass near the Appalachians will support another shot of heavy snow showers in northeastern Pennsylvania and the Northeast from Wednesday night into Thursday morning," Weather Underground added. "New snow amounts in the mountains are expected to range from 6 to 12 inches, while 3 to 6 inches are expected in the foothills. Snow activity will taper down from west to east by the mid-morning. Near the coast, most of the precipitation associated with this storm will fall in the form of rain."

• 12 billion-dollar disasters in '11

Weather Underground also predicted "periods of heavy rain" from central Virginia through the coastal areas of New England.

"Behind this activity, cold westerly winds spreading across the northern Great Lakes will kick up lake effect snow downwind of Lake Huron and Lake Superior," it added. "Michigan's Upper Peninsula may experience locally heavy accumulations."

Msnbc.com staff, Weather.com, NBC New York and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON - In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect.

For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed "Bright Light" — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There it held al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison before they were ultimately transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

The existence of a CIA prison in Romania has been widely reported, but its location has never been made public. The Associated Press and German public television ARD located the former prison and learned details of the facility where harsh interrogation tactics were used. ARD's program on the CIA prison is set to air Thursday.

The Romanian prison was part of a network of so-called black sites that the CIA operated and controlled overseas in Thailand, Lithuania and Poland. All the prisons were closed by May 2006, and the CIA's detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.  

 Unlike the CIA's facility in Lithuania's countryside or the one hidden in a Polish military installation, the CIA's prison in Romania was not in a remote location. It was hidden in plain sight, a couple blocks off a major boulevard on a street lined with trees and homes, along busy train tracks.

• Excerpt: 'Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaida'

The building is used as the National Registry Office for Classified Information, which is also known as ORNISS. Classified information from NATO and the European Union is stored there. Former intelligence officials both described the location of the prison and identified pictures of the building.

In an interview at the building in November, senior ORNISS official Adrian Camarasan said the basement is one of the most secure rooms in all of Romania. But he said Americans never ran a prison there.

"No, no. Impossible, impossible," he said in an ARD interview for its "Panorama" news broadcast, as a security official monitored the interview.

The CIA prison opened for business in the fall of 2003, after the CIA decided to empty the black site in Poland, according to former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the detention program with reporters.

Shuttling detainees into the facility without being seen was relatively easy. After flying into Bucharest, the detainees were brought to the site in vans. CIA operatives then drove down a side road and entered the compound through a rear gate that led to the actual prison.

The detainees could then be unloaded and whisked into the ground floor of the prison and into the basement.

Imported Halal meat
The basement consisted of six prefabricated cells, each with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca, the officials said. The cells were on springs, keeping them slightly off balance and causing disorientation among some detainees.

The CIA declined to comment on the prison.

During the first month of their detention, the detainees endured sleep deprivation and were doused with water, slapped or forced to stand in painful positions, several former officials said. Waterboarding, the notorious interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was not performed in Romania, they said.

• Video: Report: CIA spied on bin Laden for months

After the initial interrogations, the detainees were treated with care, the officials said. The prisoners received regular dental and medical checkups. The CIA shipped in Halal food to the site from Frankfurt, Germany, the agency's European center for operations. Halal meat is prepared under religious rules similar to kosher food.

Former U.S. officials said that because the building was a government installation, it provided excellent cover. The prison didn't need heavy security because area residents knew it was owned by the government. People wouldn't be inclined to snoop in post-communist Romania, with its extensive security apparatus known for spying on the country's own citizens.

Human rights activists have urged the Eastern European countries to investigate the roles their governments played in hosting the prisons in which interrogation techniques such as waterboarding were used. Officials from these countries continue to deny these prisons ever existed.

"We know of the criticism, but we have no knowledge of this subject," Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a September interview with AP.

The CIA has tried to close the book on the detention program, which President Barack Obama ended shortly after taking office.

"That controversy has largely subsided," the CIA's top lawyer, Stephen Preston, said at a conference this month.

'Years of official denials'
But details of the prison network continue to trickle out through investigations by international bodies, reporters and human rights groups. "There have been years of official denials," said Dick Marty, a Swiss lawmaker who led an investigation into the CIA secret prisons for the Council of Europe. "We are at last beginning to learn what really happened in Bucharest."

During the Council of Europe's investigation, Romania's foreign affairs minister assured investigators in a written report that, "No public official or other person acting in an official capacity has been involved in the unacknowledged deprivation of any individual, or transport of any individual while so deprived of their liberty." That report also described several other government investigations into reports of a secret CIA prison in Romania and said: "No such activities took place on Romanian territory."

Reporters and human rights investigators have previously used flight records to tie Romania to the secret prison program. Flight records for a Boeing 737 known to be used by the CIA showed a flight from Poland to Bucharest in September 2003. Among the prisoners on board, according to former CIA officials, were Mohammed and Walid bin Attash, who has been implicated in the bombing of the USS Cole.

• Video: Report: CIA lacks accountability

Later, other detainees — Ramzi Binalshibh, Abd al-Nashiri and Abu Faraj al-Libi — were also moved to Romania. A deceptive al-Libi, who was taken to the prison in June 2005, provided information that would later help the CIA identify Osama bin Laden's trusted courier, a man who unwittingly led them the CIA to bin Laden himself.

 Court documents recently discovered in a lawsuit have also added to the body of evidence pointing to a CIA prison in Romania. The files show CIA contractor Richmor Aviation Inc., a New York-based charter company, operated flights to and from Romania along with other locations including Morocco and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

For the CIA officers working at the secret prison, the assignment wasn't glamorous. The officers served 90-day tours, slept on the compound and ate their meals there, too. Officers were prevented from the leaving the base after their presence in the neighborhood stoked suspicion. One former officer complained that the CIA spent most of its time baby-sitting detainees like Binalshibh and Mohammed whose intelligence value diminished as the years passed.

The Romanian and Lithuanian sites were eventually closed in the first half of 2006 before CIA Director Porter Goss left the job. Some of the detainees were taken to Kabul, where the CIA could legally hold them before they were sent to Guantanamo. Others were sent back to their native countries.

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The incinerated partial remains of at least 274 American troops were dumped in a Virginia landfill, according to government records, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Air Force officials said that the dumping was hidden from families who had given authorization for the remains to be disposed of in a respectful and dignified manner, according to the newspaper.

There were no plans to inform families, officials told the newspaper.

New information revealed that the practice, exposed by The Washington Post in November, had become very widespread until it was halted in 2008, the newspaper reported. 

Last month, Pentagon and Air Force officials said that figuring out how many remains were sent to the King George County, Va., landfill would take combing through the records of more than 6,300 troops.

Full story in the Washington Post: Air Force dumped more ashes than acknowledged

"It would require a massive effort and time to recall records and research individually," Jo Ann Rooney, the Pentagon's acting undersecretary for personnel, said in a Nov. 22 letter to Rep. Rush Holt (Dem.-N.J.), who has pressured the Pentagon for information on the issue on behalf of one of his constituents, according to the newspaper.

Steve Ruark / AP file

An Army carry team moves a transfer case containing the remains of a soldier on Oct. 15, 2011 at Dover Air Force Base, Del.

Holt reacted angrily to the news, the newspaper reported.

"What the hell?" he told the Post. "We spent millions, tens of millions, to find any trace of soldiers killed, and they're concerned about a 'massive' effort to go back and pull out the files and find out how many soldiers were disrespected this way?"

"They just don't want to ask questions or look very hard," he added, according to the newspaper. 

• Video: Panetta orders review of Dover morgue

According to records the military gave The Post, between 2003 and 2008, 976 fragments from 274 personnel were cremated, incinerated and dumped in the landfill. An additional 1,762 remains, which could not be DNA tested because of damage from explosions, were gathered from the battlefield and dumped in a similar manner, the Air Force told the newspaper. 

The widow of an Army sergeant killed in Iraq told the newspaper she was furious when she was told how some of her husband's remains were dumped in the landfill.

"They have known that they were doing something disgusting, and they were doing everything they could to keep it from us," Gari-Lynn Smith told the newspaper. She had been pressing the military for information on the subject for four years — ever since she got a report on her husband's autopsy and learned that some of the remains had not been put in the casket for his funeral, according to The Post.

Changes in disposal policies came about after an in-depth review at Dover was ordered in 2008 by then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

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Narong Sangnak / EPA

Joe Gordon, 55, looks on from inside a cell at the criminal court in Bangkok, Thailand, on Thursday.

BANGKOK - A court in Thailand sentenced a U.S. citizen to two-and-a-half years in prison Thursday for defaming the country's royal family by translating excerpts of a locally banned biography of the king and posting them online.

The verdict is the latest so-called lese majeste punishment handed down in the Southeast Asian kingdom, which has come under increasing pressure at home and abroad to reform harsh legislation that critics say is an affront to freedom of expression.

The 55-year-old Thai-born American, Joe Gordon — also known as Lerpong Wichaikhammat — stood calmly with his ankles shackled in an orange prison uniform as the sentence was read out at a Bangkok criminal court.

"The defendant is found guilty ... The court sentenced him to five years in prison. But he pleaded guilty. That makes the case easier, so the court decided to cut it in half to 2 years and six months," a judge said at the criminal court in Bangkok.

• Story: Thais divided by anti-free speech crackdown

The sentence was relatively light compared to other recent cases. In November, 61-year-old Amphon Tangnoppakul was sentenced to 20 years in jail for sending four text messages deemed offensive to the crown.

Gordon's lawyer, Anon Nampa, said there would be no appeal against the verdict. "One month from now, we'll submit a request for a royal pardon," he added.

Gordon posted links the to banned biography of King Bhumibol Adulyadej several years ago while living in the U.S. state of Colorado, and his case has raised questions about the applicability of Thai law to acts committed by foreigners outside Thailand.

Speaking after the verdict, Gordon said, "I am an American citizen, and what happened was in America." 

'This is just the system'
He also said he had no expectation of being let off easy. "This is just the system in Thailand," he said. Speaking later in Thai, he added: "In Thailand, they put people in prison even if they don't have proof."

Gordon had lived in the U.S. for about 30 years. He was detained in late May during a visit to his native country to seek treatment for arthritis and high blood pressure. After being repeatedly denied bail, he pleaded guilty in October in hopes of obtaining a lenient sentence.

Thailand's lese majeste laws are the harshest in the world. They mandate that people found guilty of defaming the monarchy — including the king, the queen and the heir to the throne — face three to 15 years behind bars. The nation's 2007 Computer Crimes Act also contains provisions that have enabled prosecutors to increase lese majeste sentences.

• Story: Man sentenced to 20 years for insulting Thai queen

The U.S. Embassy's consul general, Elizabeth Pratt, told reporters in Bangkok after the ruling that Washington considered Gordon's punishment "severe because he has been sentenced for his right to freedom of expression."

Opponents of the laws say that while the royal family should be protected from defamation, lese majeste laws have often been abused to punish political rivals. That is especially true since the nation suffered a 2006 military coup.

Asked if he would stay in Thailand after serving his time, Gordon said: "I would like to stay and see some positive Thailand. I want to see the real, amazing Thailand, not the messy Thailand."

• Photoblog: Prime minister bows to royalty

Many had hoped that the administration of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, which has some prominent supporters who have been accused of lese majeste, would reform the laws. The issue remains highly sensitive, however, and Yingluck's government has been as aggressive in pursuing the cases as its predecessors.

Last weekend, New York-based Human Rights Watch urged authorities to amend the laws, saying the penalties being meted out were "shocking."

More targets online
The rise of the Internet in recent years has given Thai authorities many more targets to pursue. Last month, Information Minister Anudith Nakornthap said Facebook users who "share" or "like" content that insults the Thai monarchy are committing a crime. Anudith said Thai authorities asked Facebook to remove 86,000 pages between August and November because of alleged lese majeste content.

The Bangkok Post reported that the Thai government said Wednesday it had set up a committee to seek out and clamp down on websites that publish content considered insulting or offensive to the monarchy.

• Story: 'Witch hunt'? Thailand cracks down on king's online critics

Gordon, a former car salesman, is accused of having translated excerpts from the unauthorized biography "The King Never Smiles," published by Yale University Press, into the Thai language and publishing them in a blog. He also provided links to the translation to other two Web forums, prosecutors say.

In the banned book, author Paul M. Handley retraces the king's life, alleging that he has been a major stumbling block to the progress of democracy in Thailand as he consolidated royal power over his long reign.

Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch, is profoundly revered in Thailand and is widely seen as a stabilizing force. He was feted Monday on his 84th birthday, during which he called on his countrymen to unite in response to the worst floods in more than half a century.

The king is frail and has stayed at a Bangkok hospital for more than two years.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Southern Baptist Convention

Southern Baptist Convention President Bryant Wright appointed a task force in September to study whether the church's name was hurting its mission.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination and spiritual home to two living former presidents of the United States, is researching whether to change its name because of the public's negative associations with the church.

The news is mixed, at best: Forty percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of Southern Baptists, according to survey results released Wednesday by LifeWay Research, the SBC's research foundation.

The survey was conducted after the church's leadership appointed a task force earlier this year to consider the impact of the convention's name on  the denomination, which has been associated with such polarizing political figures as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, convicted Watergate conspirator-turned-Baptist minister Charles Colson and television evangelist Pat Robertson. 

(An earlier version of this story inaccurately referred to a Kentucky church whose pastor overturned the congregation's vote to ban interracial couples as being affiliated with the SBC. It is a Free Will Baptist church.)

When he appointed the naming task force in September, SBC President Bryant Wright said the church's name might be too "regional." But he also said the name might be limiting the church's ability to "maximize our effectiveness in reaching North America for Jesus Christ in the 21st century."

The task force hasn't issued any recommendations yet, but the survey results are likely to add urgency to its deliberations.

LifeWay President Ed Stetzer noted Wednesday that a majority of Americans (53 percent) still view the church favorably. But the survey found that 35 percent "strongly assume" the church isn't for them. Meanwhile, negativity ratings were highest among the so-called unchurched — a serious problem for a denomination that places a premium on renewing its membership through proselytization (that is, recruiting new members) and missionary work.

Read the full survey (.pdf)

"On one hand it does look like the SBC has higher negatives than other faith groups — and the unchurched numbers are particularly disconcerting," Stetzer said in a report on the LifeWay website. "But on the other, most people don't seem to be concerned either way because there is a level of indifference to denominations or religion in general."

In the survey, which was conducted in September, respondents were asked to react to the names of five denominations. Southern Baptists finished in the middle of the pack in favorability, behind United Methodists (59 percent) and Roman Catholics (53 percent). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — also known as the Mormons — trailed Baptists, with 37 percent, and Muslims fell last, at 28 percent.

Asked whether knowing that a church was affiliated with the Southern Baptist convention would affect their decision whether or not to join it, 44 percent said they would be less likely to join. Only 10 percent said it would affect their decision positively; the rest had no opinion.

The survey of 2,114 U.S. adults reported a margin of sampling error of 2.2 percentage points.

Stetzer cautioned that the survey didn't explore why people held the views they held. But "the negative impact numbers concern me most," he said. "Knowing a church is SBC would make four out of 10 Americans less likely to visit and join."

LifeWay said it plans further research on Southern Baptists' image, focusing on the views of pastors.

Unlike other denominations, local Southern Baptist churches are operationally independent, meaning they could decide not to follow along if the denomination changes its name. 

Some prominent Baptists, notably Jimmy Carter — who, like Bill Clinton, is one of two former presidents who have worshiped in the church — have broken with the SBC to join a rival leadership group, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which promotes positions more moderate than those espoused by the deeply conservative SBC.

Carter left the SBC in 2000 over what he called the "increasingly rigid SBC creed" and joined the fellowship, which was founded 20 years ago and now has 1,800 affiliated churches and 15 seminaries teaching its view of Baptist theology.

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Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

Saying it has lost "significant financial support," The Second Mile — the children's charity founded by former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky — announced that it was laying off some of its staff Wednesday.

In a statement on its website, the nonprofit group said it was letting an unspecified number of people go "to put the organization in a better position to preserve programs."

The organization was founded 34 years ago by Sandusky, who has been charged sexually assaulting 10 boys, all of whom he first met through The Second Mile. Two of the cases were announced Wednesday.

Alleged victim says cries for help from Sandusky basement went unheeded

Sandusky retired from The Second Mile last year. Chief Executive Jack Raykovitz resigned last month.

Full statement from The Second Mile:

In the wake of the tragic events that have come to light over the last several weeks, The Second Mile has lost significant financial support. Therefore, The Second Mile will implement a reduction in staff to put the organization in a better position to preserve programs. Earlier today, some Second Mile employees received notice that their employment will end over the next several months in an orderly phase-out.

We at The Second Mile are saddened by the need to make these cutbacks; however, our foremost concerns reside with the victims of the horrific abuse reported by the Attorney General and with the children we serve. We continue to seek preservation of key programs that the staff and volunteers at The Second Mile worked tirelessly to create. Scheduled programs will continue as planned.

In the meantime, The Second Mile is continuing to cooperate fully with the Attorney General's investigation and will adhere to its legal responsibilities throughout this process.

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Chandler Police Department

Dana and Elizabeth Davis

CHANDLER, Ariz. --  Arizona police said Wednesday an elderly New Mexico couple reported missing this week have been located in a rural area of eastern Arizona.

Dana Davis, 86, was found disoriented but alive. His wife, Elizabeth, 82, was found dead.

"We are sad to report Elizabeth Davis has been found deceased by Gila County Sheriff's Deputies," read a news release from Chandler police. "Mrs. Davis apparently suffered a medical condition while attempting to walk back with her husband towards the highway."

Read the original report from KOB-TV

The couple had been driving from Chandler, Ariz., to their home in Albuquerque when they failed to arrive as planned on Dec. 1. Friends and family notified police when the couple didn't return home.

They said the couple wanted to stop in Socorro, N.M., to visit a national wildlife refuge and planned on driving Arizona Highway 60 through Globe into Eagar, then into New Mexico.

According to the Glendale police press release:

The following details were provided by Mr. Davis.

Mr. and Mrs. Davis left Globe on Thursday, December 1st with the intent on traveling on US 60 to Socorro, New Mexico.

Upon leaving Globe the Davis' inadvertently ended up on US70.

After looking at a map the Davis' located a forest road that connected with US60. They began driving on this road with the intent on reaching US60.

About six to 10 miles on the forest road the vehicle became disabled.

During this time two winter storms moved into the southwest bring snow, and very cold temperatures to this portion of Arizona.

The couple survived in the vehicle until Tuesday, December 6th when the vehicle ran out of gas.

The Davis' decided to try and reach the highway on foot. Not long into their hike Mrs. Davis collapsed and died.

After trying to revive his wife, Mr. Davis continued walking along the road through the evening where he took shelter under a tree.

This morning Mr. Davis continued walking where he was contacted by an officer from the Arizona Game & Fish Department near US60.

The Arizona Civil Air Patrol then located the Davis' vehicle shortly thereafter.

Next of kin have been notified, police said.

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