A controversy between Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama stemming from her confrontation of the president on an airport tarmac stretched into another day, after Brewer released on Friday a copy of the letter she handed to the president in Phoenix.

"We were at the bottom of the list in job creation. Today, we have a balanced budget and were in the top 10 for job creation. I'm proud of that hard-won recovery -- the result of many tough decisions, courage and perserverance," Brewer wrote. "My hope is that while you are here, you will have a chance to see our tremendous results first hand."

RELATED: Arizona governor, Obama in 'tense' exchange over book

The confrontation on Wednesday got wide media coverage, especially for the Arizona governor's wag of her finger at the president, captured in a photo. Brewer said after the encounter that Obama seemed tense and "thin-skinned," which she attributed to criticism of his record in her book.

Obama dismissed the encounter as being "blown out of proportion" in an interview Thursday with ABC News.

"I think it’s always good publicity for a Republican if they’re in an argument with me,” he said. “But this was really not a big deal."

Al Behrman / AP

Workers and officials inspect the collapse at the Horseshoe Casino under construction on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, in Cincinnati. Authorities say at least 11 people have been taken to hospitals with minor injuries, non life-threatening.

A partial collapse at a casino construction site early Friday in Cincinnati injured at least 11 people, according to news reports.

Ten of the injured were taken to University Hospital, none with life-threatening injuries, a hospital spokeswoman told NBC News. Most of the victims, between the ages of 30 and 40, were expected to be discharged later Friday.

Authorities reported differing numbers of injured, with fire officials saying 13 people were hospitalized and police saying at least 11 were.

Workers were pouring concrete on the structure's second floor when a metal beam in the middle of the section fell, making the second floor buckle, authorities said. No one was caught beneath the collapsed material, Fire Chief Dick Braun told The Cincinnati Enquirer.

Muddy conditions forced firefighters to craft a makeshift bridge to move the injured workers.

Rock Gaming is developing the casino in partnership with Caesar's Entertainment.

A partial collapse of a garage at another Ohio casino under construction -- and also being developed by the Rock Gaming-Caesar's partnership -- occurred last month. No one was injured in that incident, according to The Associated Press.

The Associated Press and NBC News services contributed to this report.

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Jessica Hill / AP

Dixon Jimenez, right, delivers tacos to East Haven, Conn. Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr., Jan. 26. Maturo has expressed remorse for saying he "might have tacos" to do something for his town's besieged Latino community - but he has no plans to step down.

A Connecticut mayor who sparked a firestorm of criticism for quipping “I might have tacos” when interviewed by a TV reporter about the arrest of four town police officers accused of racially profiling and bullying Latino residents got more than he bargained for.

More than 2,000 tacos were delivered to the office of East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo on Thursday, ordered by people who found his comments insensitive racially offensive. The send-the-mayor-a-taco campaign, which took off via tweets, cellphone texts and social-media shares, was organized by Reform Immigration for America, a group that advocates comprehensive immigration reform.

A bulk order of 500 tacos was hand-delivered to the mayor’s office by members of Junta for Progressive Action, a Latino nonprofit in New Haven, Conn. Others texted in individual orders.

In a letter accompanying the bulk delivery, Junta for Progressive Action said:

“These are serious allegations against the state of civic affairs in your community – yet when asked what you personally would be doing to address racial discrimination in East Haven, you made a mockery of the crisis by suggesting that eating tacos is enough to help the Latino community in the wake of this tragedy.

Your subsequent apology isn’t enough to make up for allowing institutionalized racism in a police force and city government.”

Maturo wasn’t in the office when the delivery was made, the group said.

facebook.com/pages/Joe-Maturo-Jr

East Haven Mayor Joe Maturo

Maturo issued a statement later Thursday saying the taco bonanza will be donated to local soup kitchens.

“The abundance of tacos that we received today underscores the importance of the issues currently facing the town of East Haven and highlights the need for the town to continue the process of healing and reform…” he said.

The events of the past few days have focused our town, and my administration, on the need to deal sensitively and compassionately with the challenges currently facing our town.  We will continue to address those challenges while also striving to provide the services our residents have come to expect.”

Reform Immigration for America said it had already planned to donate the tacos to local soup kitchens and claimed the mayor falsely took credit for the idea.

• Previous story: Mayor's 'tacos' comment in Latino profiling case draws outrage

The mayor's woes began Tuesday with the announcement that  the FBI had arrested four East Haven police officers on charges that they conspired to deprive Latinos and other residents of their constitutional rights. The charges include multiple counts of excessive force, false arrest, obstruction and conspiracy.

WPIX reporter Mario Diaz interviewed the mayor later Tuesday about the arrests and how he would respond to the fallout.

At one point in the exchange, Diaz asked Maturo: “What are you doing for the Latino community today?”

The mayor replied on camera: “I might have tacos when I go home. I’m not quite sure yet.”

Maturo backtracked on Wednesday, issuing a public statement apologizing to the town of East Haven and to the Latino community for what he called an “insensitive and off-color comment.”

“Unfortunately, I let the stress of the situation get the best of me and inflamed what is already a serious and unfortunate situation. I regret my insensitive comment and realize that it is my job to lead by example. “

An attack with a fake syringe on a Spanish-language talk show Wednesday night was just the latest chapter in the South Florida "bad butt" injection drama.

Corey Eubank, 40, was appearing on Telemundo's "Cristina" show at the Blue Dolphin Studios in Doral when he was hit above his left eye by a prop syringe thrown by a woman, a Doral Police report released Thursday said.

'I’m not doing well at all. I am agitated. This is beginning to be life-threatening," Eubank told NBC Miami. "It’s gone way too far. This is really frustrating me.”

See video, read original story at NBCMiami.com

Police say Eubank is a man, but attorney Jim Lewis says she presents herself as a woman.

Eubank and 30-year-old Oneal Ron Morris were arrested in November and charged with practicing medicine without a license after victims alleged Morris had injected their legs and buttocks with a mixture that included Fix-a-Flat, cement and super glue.

Police say Eubank was Morris' accomplice, though she denies that claim.

According to the police report, Eubank said the show was taping when she was attacked by Brunetta Brown, the mother of Shaquanda Brown, one of Morris' and Eubank's alleged victims.

Video footage showed Eubank sitting on a chair before a member of the audience made her way to the stage. Security guards quickly moved in to separate Eubank from her alleged attackers as all hell broke loose.

Eubank told police Brunetta Brown threw the syringe – which didn't have a needle in it – at her, hitting her in the forehead, the report said.

Brown denied throwing the syringe at Eubank but admitted to getting into an altercation with Eubank, the report said.

No arrests were made but the incident remains under investigation, the report said.

Eubank's attorney Gabriela Novo, who was on stage translating for her, said the show assured them beforehand that "they would be ready – this will not get out of hand."

But it did, and the syringe, after hitting Eubank across the eyebrow, hit Novo on her neck, she said.

"They just came at us. They just wanted to fight," Novo said. "When they stampeded onto the stage, they just grabbed all the props on the table and threw it at Corey and me.”

Lewis said "the victim began referring to my client as a faggot," and that things disintegrated when she stood up aggressively and approached Eubank.

“For about a minute and a half, it was a very scary situation, to the point the victim and families came at Ms. Novo and I. We felt very threatened," Lewis said.

He said the show did not provide enough security and that he would be filing a restraining order against both Browns.

Both Morris and Eubank are out on bond and have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

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Updated at 9:45 p.m. ET: The Associated Press reported that the Iowa Lottery said it had learned that Crawford Shaw, an attorney who said he represents a trust that owned a winning Iowa Lottery jackpot, was "associated with criminal proceedings and bankruptcy filings in New York and Delaware."

The AP said Shaw is the former chief executive officer of Industrial Enterprises of America Inc., a bankrupt public company that the Manhattan District Attorney's office said was looted in a $100 million securities fraud scheme.

Updated 5:45 p.m. ET: Crawford Shaw, an attorney who said he represents a trust that owned a winning Iowa Lottery jackpot ticket, confirmed to the Des Moines Register that the claim has been withdrawn and that his client was in Belize.

Shaw referred a reporter to a statement issued by a Des Moines law firm that had worked on the trust’s behalf. The statement said the identity of the buyer or buyers of the ticket were unknown even to Shaw, the Register reported.

The statement also said the trust offered to authorize the Iowa Lottery to pay the winnings, after taxes, to charities, but lottery officials declined, saying no payments would be made until the identities of the buyers were known.

Meanwhile, the Iowa Attorney General’s Office and the state Division of Criminal Investigation announced a criminal probe into the matter.

The Iowa Lottery has confirmed that the winning ticket is authentic.

Original post: Iowa Lottery officials say an attorney that claimed to have the winning ticket in a $14.3 million jackpot has abandoned his claim.

Attorney Crawford Shaw abandoned the claim on Thursday, Iowa lottery spokeswoman Mary Neubauer told The Associated Press.

The ticket was claimed under mysterious circumstances.

Iowa Lottery sets deadline in mysterious jackpot case

The winning ticket was bought at Des Moines convenience store in December 2010, then went unclaimed for nearly a year before attorneys brought the ticket to lottery officials less than two hours before it was to expire.

According to the Des Moines Register, the ticket was signed by Shaw on behalf of an company called Hexham Investments Trust. The name Hexham, however, was misspelled on the signature.

Iowa Lottery officials gave the winners until 3 p..m. Friday to reveal themselves or forfeit the prize.

Lottery officials scheduled a news conference on Thursday night to offer more details.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney among Republicans, but he is the weakest of the Republican candidates tested against President Obama, according to an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday evening.

Gingrich leads Romney 37 percent to 28 percent nationally among registered Republicans likely to vote in the primaries; Rick Santorum is in third with 18 percent, and Ron Paul is fourth with 12 percent.

Gingrich has built its advantage by consolidating the heart and soul of the Republican Party: very conservative voters, the South and the Tea Party.

Though Gingrich is the preferred candidate of GOP primary voters, he performs the worst of all Republican candidates tested against Obama, including Santorum.

"Gingrich is Goldwater," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "In the general election, Gingrich not only takes down his ship, he takes down the whole flotilla."

Read the full poll results here (.pdf)

The GOP race
Gingrich leads Romney in a four-way matchup, including Santorum and Paul, with “very conservatives” (47 percent to 17 percent), Tea Party supporters (46 percent to 21 percent), and in the South (45 percent to 21 percent). Those numbers gets even bigger in a two-way matchup. For example, in the South, one-on-one with Romney, Gingrich leads 65 percent to 28 percent.

Romney leads in the Northeast (38 percent to 32 percent), and is statistically tied with Gingrich in all other regions: in the Midwest (Gingrich leads 32-29 percent) and West (Gingrich 33-32 percent).

In December, the last time the poll was conducted, Gingrich also led (40 percent to 23 percent), but much has changed since then, including two fourth place finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire for Gingrich, and his decisive victory in South Carolina. The poll, conducted Sunday through Tuesday, went into the field the day after Gingrich’s victory there.

Gingrich is also viewed as the most electable candidate by GOP primary voters. He leads Romney 2-to-1 among those who picked electability as mattering most to them in a candidate. He holds a narrow lead, 46-44 percent, among those say views on issues matter most.

By a nine-point margin, Republicans said a candidate who “comes closest to your views on issues” is preferable to a candidate who has the best chance to beat President Obama.

Gingrich weakest against Obama
Romney fares best against the president, trailing Obama by six points among registered voters, 49 percent to 43 percent. That’s a four-point improvement for the president from a month ago.

Obama, however, beats Gingrich by a whopping 18 points, 55-37 percent, expanding the president’s 11-point lead a month ago.

Santorum also loses to Obama, but by a narrower margin, 53-38 percent, than Gingrich.

“More than his mojo, he’s getting back the middle of the electorate,” Hart said. But Hart warns, whether it’s the Republican race or the uptick in Obama’s ratings and standing, “I look at these results, and they have all the permanence of skywriting -- looks bold, but disappears in seconds.”

Obama, however, is still below 40 percent approval with white voters, and McInturff points out that number and the direction of the country still would indicate "The incumbent president is going to have a difficult re-election. Many of these are still problematic numbers -- as improved as they are."

Gingrich’s problems – women, independents, ‘personal standards’
Gingrich particularly struggles with women and independents. Women say they would vote for Obama over Gingrich by a wide 60-31 percent gap, far wider than the 54-38 percent difference by which Obama beats Romney.

With independents, Gingrich gets just 28 percent against Obama, who wins with 52 percent. By contrast, Obama narrowly edges Romney with independents, 44 percent to 36 percent.

Asked if the candidate has “high personal standards that set the proper tone for the country,” Romney gets a 67 percent positive score, Gingrich checks in at 32 percent.

Issues of character for Gingrich haven’t “been put to rest,” Hart said. “It may have been a great debate point last week, but there is still uncertainty among all voters.”

Challenges for Romney, too
Romney’s strength as a candidate is thought to be his business experience, as it relates to the economy. But GOP primary voters call it a “draw” between Gingrich and Romney when it comes to economic expertise, Hart said.

Sixty-one percent of GOP primary voters rate Romney's ability to deal with the economy positively, surpassed slightly by Gingrich, whom 63 percent of Republicans believe is well-equipped to handle the economy.

“If that’s the ace card for Romney,” Hart said, “it hasn’t materialized at the moment.”

Gingrich beats Romney on sharing your position on the issues by a wide margin, 56 percent to 43 percent.

But on the issue of whether Republican voters would be “comfortable” with Romney as their candidate, he gets a higher score than Gingrich – 75 percent say they would be comfortable with him versus 61 percent who say the same of Gingrich.

GOP brand problem

There’s also evidence in the poll of a Republican brand problem.

All of the GOP candidates are a net-negative in favorability ratings, with Santorum getting the best marks -- 26 percent positive, 27 percent negative.

Gingrich gets the worst -- 26-48.

Romney scores 31-36, and it’s worth noting that Bob Dole, John McCain, and George W. Bush were all net-positives at the same time in their fights for the nomination. The exception of a recent major party nominee being a net-negative at this point -- John Kerry, who was 22-26 in January 2004.

“Romney’s numbers are net-negative, which is unusual,” McInturff said.

Hart added, “It’s hard to make the case that anything but injury has come off the Republican brand off Congress and electorate.”

The congressional approval rating is near record lows of 13 percent, and more people say the GOP has brought the wrong kind of change (31 percent) in Congress than the right kind (12 percent). That represents a drop for the Republicans from a year ago, right after they took control of the House as a result of the sweeping 2010 elections. In January 2011, 25 percent thought Republicans would bring the right kind of change versus 20 percent who thought they would bring the wrong kind.

Those attitudes are also far worse than right after Democrats took control of the House in 2006 (42-15 percent) and Republicans regained a majority in 1994 (37-11 percent).

Additionally, Democrats lead in who people prefer to control Congress, the so-called congressional ballot, 47-41 percent. It’s the fourth consecutive month Democrats have led on the question and it has expanded from their two-point lead a month ago.

McInturff points out there is a “pretty significant gap” between the optimism primary voters -- 80 percent of whom believe a Republican will defeat President Obama -- and reality.

Republicans are “not going to win by simply being the option against the president,” McInturff said, adding, “The entire national environment isn’t going to do the entire job for the party.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misreported the margin President Obama wins women against Newt Gingrich as 69-21. It is 60-31, as noted above.

While some Republican lawmakers are criticizing the Obama administration's plan to cut the Pentagon budget, and thousands of soldiers will be forced to leave the ranks, defense industry analysts say the move isn't likely to put big defense contractors out of business.

"Our military industrial complex will survive," Kevin Ryan, a retired Army officer and executive director at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, told National Defense magazine, an industry publication. 

"We are still spending a huge amount,” Ryan said. "Panetta [has made it clear] he will try to protect the military industrial base. … You won’t see [top tier contractors] Raytheon or Lockheed closing."

Industry analyst say defense company's have already cut jobs and become more efficient in anticipation of fewer military dollars.

"We could see the writing on the wall,”  David Melcher, CEO of ITT Exelis, told National Defense. "We anticipated the top line was going to come down."

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Photos by Lucy Nicholson / Reuters

Lilly Earp, 8, changes the diaper of her five-week-old sister Emily, Jan. 25, 2012, in their apartment at Hope Gardens Family Center, a homeless shelter for women and children, run by Union Rescue Mission on 77 acres of countryside on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Calif.

By Lucy Nicholson, Reuters photojournalist

Lilly Earp changes the diaper on her 5-week-old baby sister Emily with the confidence another child would have cradling a doll. She's only 8, but she already shows the street smarts of an older child as she helps her mother. It helps to be resourceful when you're homeless.

Her mother, Doreen Earp, 38, who is originally from Germany, and her three children ended up on the street after her relationship with Emily’s father fell apart. They stayed in a hotel for a month, then with people from their church and eventually ended up with no roof over their heads.

Children attend an after-school class at Hope Gardens Family Center. One in 45 children, totalling 1.6 million, is homeless, the highest number in United States' history, according to a 2011 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness.

A child's drawing is seen on the wall of the center.

Today, they're lucky to be among the 150 or so homeless women and children living at Hope Gardens on the outskirts of LA. It's a place where those at the end of the line are given a life line.

The shelter for families is an oasis compared to where most of LA's massive street population lives on a grim patch of downtown's Skid Row. While homeless services are concentrated downtown, it's no place for a child.

Doreen Earp, 38, of Germany looks at her five-week-old daughter Emily in their apartment at Hope Gardens Family Center.

The number of homeless children is at an all-time high in the United States. One in 45 children, totaling 1.6 million, is currently homeless, according to a 2011 study by the National Center on Family Homelessness. California is ranked the fifth highest state in the nation for its percentage of homeless children. An increasing number of children are dependent on poverty-stricken single moms.

The Earps are amongst 45 mothers, 96 children, and 24 elderly women being helped by Hope Gardens, a homeless shelter for women and children, run by Union Rescue Mission on 77 acres (0.31 square km) of countryside on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Elizabeth Lepe, 26, (left to right) Nancy Jimenez, 35, and Sheriill Stubblefield, 31, laugh during a therapy session at Hope Gardens Family Center.

The mothers are given therapy, and classes in life skills, parenting, financial planning, and encouraged to apply for further education, so they can get more than minimum wage jobs. They can stay at the center for up to three years if they’re in college.

All the children attend after-school classes, and the teenagers are taught about domestic violence, job interviews, how to have healthy relationships, and how to communicate better.

Kids grow up fast when they lose the safety and comforts of home.

Earp's 10-year-old daughter Lindzy overhears a woman telling her mother that she is going to an NA (Narcotics Anonymous) meeting. Lindzy persists in quizzing her mother about what that means. After hearing her explain it as simply a class, the girl retorts: “I know what NA is. I just wanted to see what you would say.”

These moments of maturity are eclipsed by the normal trappings of childhood at the shelter – the games and toys that replace those the children lost with their homes.

Doreen nurses her newborn as her older daughters run and shriek in the playground with other children. Birds chirp in the surrounding pine trees. A stream gurgles into a koi pond.

“They’re able to be kids here,” she says.

Lindzy Earp (2nd right), 10, plays in the playground at Hope Gardens Family Center.

See more of Lucy Nicholson's picture story about Hope Gardens and an earlier set of photos of an after-school tuition program for homeless kids.

Follow @msnbc_pictures

A lot of rhetoric is being thrown about in discussing the Pentagon budget. Reporter R. Jeffrey Smith from the Center for Public Integrity takes a look at what's actually been proposed by President Obama, in his explainer, "Puncturing the hot air balloons on defense spending: A reader's guide to the debate in 2012." The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative reporting group in Washington.

Smith's takeaway summary:

Obama’s national security spending plan does not cut the defense budget. Even if his proposal is enacted, U.S. defense spending will continue to dwarf the rest of the world’s. The new U.S. military strategy was concocted to accommodate the proposed budget trims, not vice versa. Sequestration is a threat, not a promise. And no matter what politicians say or do this year, U.S. defense spending will remain vulnerable to real cuts. The important question in the years ahead is, which military programs will survive and which will go away.

Read the full story here from the Center for Public Integrity.

A man suspected of killing a jeweler in the tony town of Westport, Conn., last month and stealing $300,000-worth of diamonds has killed himself in a Spanish prison, according to The Hartford Courant.

Andrew Robert Levene, 41, of West Haven had been arrested in Spain and charged with shooting and killing 65-year-old Yekutiel Zeevi at Zeevi’s office in a shopping center on Dec. 8, after pretending to buy several diamonds.

Levene fled the U.S. on a flight from Philadelphia to the Netherlands and then went on to Spain, authorities alleged.  He was arrested by Spanish national police on Monday, NBC News reported. 

According to The Hartford Courant, a source said law enforcement officials in Connecticut were notified Thursday that the 41-year-old former Army Ranger had committed suicide. Authorities were trying to determine the cause of death.

Levene had training in the use of weapons, according to an affidavit and had family members in Connecticut and New York, NBCConnecticut.com reported.

Read the original story by NBCConnecticut.com 

Earlier story: Spanish police arrest suspect in shooting of Conn. jeweler

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In the Wild West of the ongoing mortgage mess, there’s a new sheriff in town. And he’s not handing "Get Out of Jail Free" cards in return for a $25 billion check.

The appointment of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to head a special task force that will investigate mortgage fraud marks a turning point in a year-long effort to resolve a wave of legal challenges to abusive and illegal foreclosure practices.

After a year of talks aimed at a settlement with five big banks — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) — attorneys general in all 50 states this week have been poring over the 100-page draft of a proposed $25 billion deal requiring bankers to commit to modify problem loans that they have been slow to do. Under the proposed terms, the banks would also agree to follow strict foreclosure guidelines and procedures and contribute as much as $5 billion to foreclosure relief programs.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama tapped Schneiderman to co-chair a joint federal-state task force to pursue criminal charges related to abusive mortgages and the bundling of those loans into investments. Some observers suggested the appointment was intended to blunt Schneiderman’s opposition to the multistate settlement.  Schneiderman has said he's not about to let bankers off the hook.

"My concern ... has always been to make sure that we're not releasing claims that obviously now are even more important to me because I'm investigating them," he told reporters Wednesday.

From the beginning of the settlement talks, the five big banks have been holding out for a blanket waiver of legal liability to protect them from future lawsuits or prosecution. The creation of Schneiderman’s task force makes that blanket waiver extremely unlikely. It may even collapse the deal, JP Morgan Chase Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon, told CNBC.

“My own read is (the creation of the new task force) has a pretty good chance of derailing it,” said Dimon.

The proposed settlement was also dealt a major blow Wednesday when California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said its terms would limit her ability to bring civil charges against mortgage lenders that wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners.

"We've reviewed the details of the latest settlement proposal from the banks, and we believe it is inadequate for California," said Shum Preston, a spokesman for Harris

As ground zero for the mortgage meltdown, California is critical to the approval of any settlement. Roughly one in four of all foreclosures are happening in the state and ten of the top 20 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates in 2011 are there according to RealtyTrac.

From the early stages of the talks, Schneiderman and a handful of other state AGs have resisted any deal that would let banks off the hook for a variety of claims by homeowners and investors who bought bonds backed by home mortgages. In August, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who is leading the state group, booted Schneiderman from the executive committee of federal and state officials because he steadfastly opposed any deals that would end investigations into mortgage fraud.

Schneiderman holds several powerful legal cards that the other 49 AGs don’t. New York’s anti-fraud Martin Act gives him broad subpoena powers other state prosecutors lack. Some New York state securities laws apply to Wall Street firms based in the state. Many of the pools of mortgages that were chopped up into bonds are held in trusts registered in New York.

Delaware, another AG holdout, has securities laws that apply to the corporate registrations of many of entities involved the mortgage mess. Massachusetts has successfully sued other smaller players in the mortgage mess. In September, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley broke with the talks to file her own lawsuit against the five banks.

From the beginning, critics have argued that the White House has been too eager to see a settlement and too willing to help the five big banks get the immunity they’re seeking.

“The Obama administration has been more concerned with settling quickly than with settling in a way that moves the ball forward for homeowners,” said Diane Thomsen, an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center.

It remains to be seen whether the new mortgage fraud task force will produce results. The Obama administration already created a Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force in November of 2009 that tapped 20 federal agencies, 94 U.S. Attorneys offices and state and local partners. Though the group has won a number of cases against smaller players, it has yet to win any high-profile convictions.

In June, Sen. Charles Greassley (D- Iowa) described the task force as “a press release collection agency utilized by the Justice Department to collect examples of investigations of prosecutions that would otherwise have been brought.”

Neil Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor who served as the special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program and worked with the 2009 task force, shared those doubts.

“I'm a little puzzled by it," he told Reuters. "Here we are three years later, launching what seems like a very similar effort, except now co-headed by a state attorney general."

"Does it mean they haven't really been working on investigating the causes of the financial crisis for the last three years?" he said. "Or is it a statement that the last three years of investigating done by the Department of Justice has been ineffectual and needs to be reworked?"

Related:

Proposed mortgage settlement offers little relief for homeowners  
Obama: New push to aid homeowners

A man arrested for driving while intoxicated and then forced into solitary confinement for two years tried to get help by writing to the jail's nurse, but the only response he got was a dose of sedatives, his lawyer said.

Stephen Slevin, 57, was arrested in August 2005 in New Mexico’s Dona Ana County, charged with aggravated driving while under the influence and possession of a stolen vehicle, although Slevin maintains the car was lent to him by a friend. On Tuesday, a federal jury in Sante Fe awarded him $22 million in damages for enduring inhumane conditions in the Dona Ana County jail, which he emerged from "hollow," Matt Coyte, his lawyer, told msnbc.com on Wednesday.

Slevin had one medical examination after being arrested and was labeled suicidal, his lawyer said. He was jailed in lieu of posting a $40,000 bond.

“They put him in a padded cell for three days, but they never give him any treatment; their policy is to then just put them in solitary” if there are mental health issues, Coyte told msnbc.com Wednesday.

• Man spends 2 years in solitary after DWI arrest

Coyte described Slevin in court documents as suffering with lifelong mental illness. He told msnbc.com that at the time of his arrest, Slevin had been depressed, and was borrowing a friend’s car because he wanted to get out of Las Cruces, N.M., where he had been living at the time.

He was physically healthy, but desperate to get treatment for his depression that he had been suffering with prior to being in solitary confinement - a cell with no natural light that prisoners are in 23 hours a day, although often times, guards failed to even grant Slevin his one hour of daily recreation time, his lawyer told msnbc.com.

Slevin sent more than a dozen letters to the jail nurse starting days after he was arrested, NBC affiliate KOB.com reported.

“I have not slept in days,” says one letter from Sept. 4, 2005, a couple weeks into solitary confinement. “I’m in a deep depression.” The letter also mentions his lack of appetite.

His mental decline
Two months later, KOB.com reported, Slevin wrote a letter again pleading for help, saying, “My dreams have been both weird and bizarre.”

By the end of November 2005, he wrote, “I’m afraid to close my eyes.”

Coyte, his lawyer, told KOB that if Slevin got any response at all, it was just to up his sedatives.

“He referred to a ‘Dr. Don’ [in the letters],” Coyte told KOB.com. “There was no doctor looking after him. There was a nurse, the nurse practitioner.”

But the so-called nurse practitioner only had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and no actual medical qualifications, KOB reported.

After a few months, Slevin gave up, writing: “I don’t know how much longer I can go on.”

“That was when he fell into a delirium,” Coyte told KOB.com.

Meanwhile, correspondence with the outside world tapered off as well, Coyte told msnbc.com on Thursday.

“His sister was writing him letters and sending him money,” Coyte said. “She thought he would get out soon enough; she would send him small amounts of money every few weeks.”

But when she didn’t hear back from Slevin, she became concerned. She called the jail, Coyte said, but was not given much information.

“She had no idea the condition he was in,” he said. “She is on the other side of the country with limited means. She wrote letters and he responded at the beginning, but then he lost touch with her. If your family member doesn’t write back, you may feel like they don’t want to talk you anymore; it wouldn’t cross your mind that something like this was happening.”

It wouldn’t be until months later that Slevin’s sister, whose name and location Coyte did not give, found out what her brother was going through: Forced to pull out his own tooth because he was denied access to a dentist, he told reporters on Tuesday. Toenails curling around his foot because they were so long. Basically forgotten about in his dark cell for more than 22 months.

"[Jail guards were] walking by me every day, watching me deteriorate," Slevin told KOB.com. "Day after day after day, they did nothing, nothing at all, to get me any help."

Slevin’s sister and other family members actively fought for his release near the end of his detainment once they became aware of his plight, Coyte told msnbc.com Thursday.

“It was her and his aunt and various other family members who were calling legislators, calling county commissioners, saying, ‘Where’s my brother?’” he said.

'Deplorable' conditions
The answer, for most of his 22-month detainment, was that he was in “deplorable” conditions of his solitary “pod,” court documents state, except for a 14-day period in May 2007, when he was sent to New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas, N.M., for a psychiatric review. He had lost a third of his body weight by that point, documents say, and had bed sores and a fungal infection on his skin.

“As your insanity builds, some people holler or throw feces out their cell doors,” Coyte said Wednesday. “Others rock back and forth under a blanket for a year or more, which is what my client did.”

At the Behavioral Health Institute, Slevin was able to shower and to shave his beard, which had grown long and scraggly during his time in solitary, Coyte said. His mood improved. But after two weeks there, he was sent back to his solitary pod in jail for another month, at which point his mental state deteriorated to the point where he was deemed unfit to participate in his defense, and all charges against him were ultimately dismissed. He was released on June 25, 2007.

It's not clear why he was sent back to solitary after his stint in the mental health institute.

Dona Ana County officials were tight-lipped about the case, refusing to answer questions about whether any jail employees were reprimanded or fired over Slevin's treatment.

"We do not discuss personnel issues," Jess Williams, Dona Ana County's public information director, told msnbc.com on Wednesday.

Williams also wouldn't comment on whether the $22 million the county was ordered to pay would come from taxpayer money, saying only, "Dona Ana County will appeal the verdict." 

Coyte sued the Dona Ana County Board of County Commissioners, the County Detention Center, and the jail director and former medical director in December 2008. According to court documents, the county jail’s former medical director, Daniel Zemek prescribed “complicated psychotropic medications” to Slevin without ever seeing him, and renewed prescriptions for him for at least 10 months without an in-person visit. Zemek left the county jail but an adequate replacement for him wasn’t provided, the court documents allege, so jail director Chris Barela continued to have Zemek prescribe medication to Slevin, despite not treating him.

John W. Caldwell, the defendants’ attorney, did not return a phone call from msnbc.com on Thursday.

Coyte, Slevin’s attorney, said greed on the county’s part was partially to blame.

“Talk to the [Dona Ana] County Commissioners who were around in 2000 to 2004 who knew this stuff was going on, and didn’t care,” he said. “Another side to this case is this jail was built to make money housing federal detainees. This is a border town. There are a lot of federal detainees from immigration issues, and the jail charges the federal government a particular amount of money for each detainee.”

Slevin was a county inmate.

“Federal inmates got better care than state inmates,” he said. “There would be better psychiatric care for the federal inmates than for the state or county inmates.”

Slevin will take lifelong medication for his PTSD, although he continues to have support from his sister, Coyte said. Court records show he now lives in Virginia Beach, Va.

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A former Los Angeles traffic officer said he was “totally unaware” when he was asked to appear in a porn movie while on duty and in uniform last year and now wants his job back.

“I was caught totally unaware, by surprise,” John Dancler said during his appeal to the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission on Wednesday.

Dancler was fired in July 2011 in the wake of an NBC4 investigation, which showed him and another traffic officer in a porn movie while on duty and in uniform, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

View NBCLosAngeles.com's video of commission proceedings

“I could not believe what was going on, it was really surreal,” Dancler said during the hearing.

The NBC4 porn investigation went viral around the world last spring. The NBC4 team also uncovered a longstanding pattern of traffic officers who were convicted of crimes on the job, including soliciting prostitutes and shoplifting, but none had ever been disciplined, as recommended by city policy.

Read original investigation by NBCLosAngeles.com

Dancler said he was responding to a call for backup help in 2008 when a porn actress and her crew approached him, asking him to engage in lewd acts with the blonde woman.

Dancler admitted under questioning he had made a mistake.

"It wasn’t the best thing that I had ever done," Dancler said.

When asked if he informed others about the exchange on the streets, Dancler said “No.”

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Jessica Wilcox thinks her in-laws still view her ideas about childbirth as kind of out there, but it’s hard to argue with success: In the last five years or so, Wilcox has given birth to two boys and two girls -- each weighing more than 10 pounds -- at her northern Virginia home. And she hopes to do it again one or two more times.

Wilcox is part of a small but growing trend. While home births are still rare in the United States, they've posted a surprising climb in recent years, according to a government report out Thursday.

Courtesy Julia Chemotti

Jessica Wilcox has given birth to her two sons and two daughters at their northern Virginia home.

After declining from 1990 to 2004, the percentage of U.S. births that occurred at home jumped 29 percent from 2004 to 2009, when it hit the highest level since researchers began collecting data 20 years earlier.

Non-Hispanic white women were most likely to give birth at home in 2009, with one in every 90 births, or about 1.1 percent, in that group taking place at home. That represents an increase of 36 percent over 2004.

Still, Wilcox’s children represent only a tiny minority. In 2009, 29,650 U.S. births, or .72 percent of total births, occurred at home. Compare that to, say, 1940, when 40 percent of births took place at home.  

Home births today tend to be more common among women 35 and older and among women with several previous children, according to the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. They're most common in states with renegade reputations, such as Montana, which had the highest percentage of home births, nearly 2.6 percent, followed by Oregon and Vermont, with nearly 2 percent each.

“It’s women who are consciously rejecting the system,” says coauthor Eugene Declercq, professor of community health sciences at Boston University.

Although she's not older, that would describe Wilcox. Now 30, she delivered a baby in a hospital when she was 17 and gave him up for adoption. “It was a great hospital, but it was not a positive birth experience,” Wilcox says.

She didn’t like getting an epidural or an IV. She didn’t like all the poking and prodding by the nurses. And she didn’t like the fact she never saw the same doctor twice for her prenatal care. “I really wanted that personalized care that a midwife provides,” Wilcox says.

Her husband, Jeremy, 34, needed some convincing that it was safe to give birth at home, she says. “He was raised the same way I was: You get pregnant, you go to the hospital to have the baby.”

But now her husband likes to point out that he’s in good company: The son of Super Bowl-bound Tom Brady, New England Patriots’ quarterback, and his wife Gisele Bunchen, was born at home in 2010.

While the risk of death for a baby in a planned home birth is low, the scientific literature suggests it is two or three times higher than that for a newborn in a planned hospital birth, notes an opinion paper published last year by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Obstetric Practice.

Home births actually had a lower risk profile than hospital births in 2009, though, according to Declercq and his coauthors. Hospital births were twice as likely to be low birth weight or preterm babies as home births. And just under 1 percent of home births involved more than one baby, compared with 3.5 percent of hospital births. In addition, women who opt for home births are less likely to be teenagers or unmarried. This all suggests that midwives who attend home births select low-risk women as candidates, the authors write.

“Home birth isn’t for anybody who walks in the door,” says Marsha Jackson, the certified nurse midwife who attended Wilcox’s first home birth. For example, Jackson says, her practice rarely accepts women who want to have a vaginal birth after a C-section, or VBAC, at home because of their elevated risk of a uterine tear.

Jackson cofounded BirthCare, a certified nurse midwife practice, back in 1987. Today, Jackson says, the group’s six midwives attend 25 to 30 births a month. About 60 percent are home births, while the rest are in BirthCare’s freestanding birth center in Alexandria, Va.

“The babies that we caught are now having babies with us,” she says. “That is wonderful. When we opened our practice, we never imagined that.”

Do you think home births are dangerous? Would you do it? Share with us on Facebook

The mother who lost her three daughters and parents in a Christmas Day fire in Connecticut has tried to take her own life, the New York Daily News reported.

According to the newspaper, Madonna Badger, one of only two survivors of the fire at her home in Stamford, was hospitalized last week after injuring herself in an attempt to kill herself, a relative confirmed to the Daily News.

Eduardo Munoz / Reuters, file

Matthew and Madonna Badger cry as they await the arrival of their daughters' caskets for their funeral service at Saint Thomas Church in New York on Jan. 5, 2012. A raging Christmas-morning house fire that killed Madonna Badger's elderly parents and her three young daughters appears to have been caused by embers from a fireplace.

The suicide attempt was first reported by CBS 2 Wednesday night. According to the report, Badger “is now in a safe place, surrounded by family and long-time friends.”

Authorities established that embers in a bag of discarded ashes started the blaze in Stamford a month ago, killing 10-year-old Lilly and 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah and their grandparents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson.

More than 500 mourners joined the grieving mother about three weeks ago at St. Thomas Church in Manhattan for a somber funeral.

"My girls are in my heart," Badger said. "They're right here. And that's where they live now."

Badger and her boyfriend, Michael Borcina, the contractor who was renovating the Stamford home, escaped the blaze without serious injury.

According to CBS 2, construction workers told police the alarms and extinguishers had been taken out of the house and stored in the garage, as painters began working on the interior.

Matthew Badger, the girls’ father, hired private investigators to look into the circumstances surrounding the fatal blaze, CBS 2 reported.

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