Updated Wednesday at 10:25 a.m. ET: Here is the full statement from Franklin Graham apologizing for remarks he made questioning the faith of President Barack Obama:

I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama. The president has said he is a Christian and I accept that (and have said so publicly on many occasions). I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election—for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate.

 

In fact, Article VI of our Constitution strictly prohibits any religious test for public office. I believe we should consider a candidate’s values and competence above anything else when considering whom to support for public office. I even reject the idea that we should only vote for a candidate of our own particular faith, for oftentimes that is not an available option.

My objection to President Obama is built on his policy positions on a number of important moral issues, and not on his religion or faith. For example, I believe his positions on abortion and on traditional marriage are in direct conflict with God’s standards as set forth in Scripture. I have determined I cannot and will not vote for him or any candidate in either party whose policy positions on such critical issues violate biblical truths and standards.

My views here are not biased according to political party or religion. For example, I would support a pro-life Democrat over a pro-choice Republican at any level. I would support a Mormon or a Jew who supported the defense of marriage defined as being between a man and a woman over a Southern Baptist or Presbyterian who did not.

In this election season and challenging economic time I am praying for our country and for those who lead it—for we are commanded in Scripture to do so. I am also praying that our nation will return to the God of our fathers and will look to His Son, Jesus Christ as the only real answer to life’s problems and hurts.

Previous story: The Rev. Franklin Graham, the son of evangelist Billy Graham, on Tuesday apologized to President Barack Obama for questioning his Christian faith, Religion News Service reported.

"I regret any comments I have ever made which may have cast any doubt on the personal faith of our president, Mr. Obama," Graham said in a statement, according to Religion News Service.

"I apologize to him and to any I have offended for not better articulating my reason for not supporting him in this election -- for his faith has nothing to do with my consideration of him as a candidate."

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Graham, a prominent evangelical leader in his own right and CEO of the international relief organization Samaritan’s Purse, had taken heat from black religious leaders and others for saying he did not know whether Obama is a Christian.

On a panel on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show on Feb. 21, Graham was asked if he believes Obama is a Christian.

“I think you have to ask President Obama,” Graham responded.

“You have to ask him. I cannot answer that question for anybody. All I know is that I’m a sinner, and that God has forgiven me of my sins because I’ve put my faith in … Jesus Christ," Graham said.

He added that because Obama's father was a Muslim, "under Islamic law, the Muslim world sees Barack Obama as a Muslim." And he said that he was confident that Republican Rick Santorum is a Christian.

The NAACP accused Graham of trying to “use faith as a political weapon.”

“Rev. Graham also seemed to imply that the president may be a Muslim, despite the fact that the president has repeatedly expressed his faith and belief in Jesus Christ,” the NAACP said. “By his statements, Rev. Graham seems to be aligning himself with those who use faith as a weapon of political division. These kinds of comments could have enormous negative effects for America and are especially harmful to the Christian witness."

You can read the full Religion News Service story here. And our previous story on Graham's comments on Obama is here.

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BOSTON -- Harvard University says it will not award posthumous degrees to seven students expelled from the Ivy League school in 1920 because they were gay or perceived to be gay.

"Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences does not award posthumous degrees except in the rare case of a student who completes all academic requirements for the degree but dies before the degree has been conferred," the university said in a statement.

"In 2002 the University expressed its deep regret for the way the situation was handled as well as for the anguish experienced by the students and their families almost a century ago."

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A group of student and faculty had urged the university to award the posthumous degrees. The group planned a rally Wednesday during a campus visit by Lady Gaga, who will be at Harvard to launch her Born This Way anti-bullying foundation. The singer has been a strong activist for the gay community.

The group says it wants Harvard to formally abolish its so-called "secret court," a tribunal of administrators that investigated charges of homosexual activity among students in 1920. The tribunal remained a secret for decades, only becoming public in 2002 after a student reporter at Harvard searching the school's archive came across a file labeled "secret court" and reported on the school's expulsion of the students.

Lady Gaga's new foundation, named after her 2011 hit song and album, will address issues such as self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying and mentoring through research, education and advocacy. The pop sensation is expected to be joined by Oprah Winfrey, spiritual leader Deepak Chopra and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a kickoff event Wednesday on the Harvard campus.

"Given the Born This Way Foundation's commitment to this mission and their choice to launch their foundation at Harvard, we felt like this was an opportunity to ask for their support and would hope they would join us in asking Harvard to do the right thing here and help seek justice for these students," said Kaia Stern, a visiting faculty member at Harvard who plans to attend the rally.

Harvard administrators apologized for the secret court in 2002.

Former Harvard President Lawrence Summers called the episode "abhorrent and an affront to the values of our university."

"I want to express our deep regret for the way this situation was handled, as well as the anguish the students and their families must have experienced eight decades ago," Summers said in a 2002 statement to The Harvard Crimson newspaper.

The Associated Press and msnbc.com's James Eng contributed to this story.

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A White House dinner to honor Iraq war veterans is no substitute for a national day when all Americans can welcome home returning troops, a veterans group said Tuesday.

“We certainly appreciate that the president is holding this dinner. At the same time, the rest of the American public really wants to do something to welcome home our vets and to support them going forward,” Jason Hansman, an Iraq vet and membership director of the Iraqi and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told msnbc.com.

An event some have called a state dinner for the troops is scheduled for Wednesday in the East Room of the White House. Saying it the beginning of a "thank you," it will express the nation’s gratitude to American service members who served in the nine-year Iraq war, according to Douglas Wilson, the Pentagon's public affairs chief.

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A hand-picked number of service members, veterans and their families will attend representing every state and territory, the District of Columbia as well as variety of ranks as well as all branches of the military.

Remains recovered of last GI missing in Iraq

The dinner, with an estimated 200 attendees, will include fewer than 80 combat veterans.

Hosted by President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey and the chiefs of the five services and National Guard and Reserve are expected to attend.

A larger group of military leaders, Iraq war veterans and their families will take part in a reception sponsored by the Defense Department at a Washington hotel before the White House dinner, however.

First wounded in Iraq
Among those attending the dinner is Eric Alva, a former Marine who became the first person wounded in the Iraq war when he stepped on a landmine in Basra in 2003. His leg had to be amputated after the injury. He later went on to graduate from college and crusade against the ‘don’t ask don’t tell policy’ on gays in the military.

Alva was present when Obama repealed the ban on gays serving in the armed forces last year.

Since Obama announced last December the end to the war in Iraq in which 1.5 million Americans fought, there has been increased debate over how little fanfare has been afforded the returning troops.

Some grassroots organizers even took matters into their hands. A parade for returning veterans in St. Louis last month drew some 100,000 people and 20,000 participants. Several other cities, including Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Tucson, Ariz., Nashville, Tenn., Greensboro, N.C., and Clinton, Iowa have expressed interest in such a celebration.

Veterans groups and others want a ticker tape parade in New York City to honor returning vets. Military leaders, however, have said such a large scale national tribute was inappropriate considering nearly 90,000 U.S. troops are still fighting in Afghanistan.

Now the Iraqi and Afghanistan Veterans Association, which has 140,000 members, is calling for a national day of action for veterans. The day would be both a celebration and an awareness campaign to help vets find jobs and connect them with other resources.

'Connecting' vets
 “It’s not just about a day, it’s not just about a parade or an event or even a White House dinner,” said the IAVA's Hansman, who will attend the White House event. “It’s about ultimately connecting vets with resources. We know that they’re struggling with employment, with suicide, and they’re going back to school in record numbers so it’s about connecting them with resources and helping them transition.”

Unemployment for post-9-11 veterans soared into double digits in recent years but dipped to 9.3 percent in December 2011. That’s still higher than the national jobless rate of 8.3 percent.

To be sure, the White House has made getting war veterans back to work a priority. Earlier this month, Obama announced measures to hire Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to restore national parks and work as police and firefighters. And Michelle Obama has worked to support military families by calling for changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act to protect jobs when service members are away or become injured.

Nearly 4,500 Americans were killed in Iraq, and more than 32,000 were wounded, according to the Pentagon.

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The Texas Highway Patrol, which works alongside the U.S. Border Patrol to stop illegal drug smuggling from Mexico, is getting new means to chase down the black hats: six 34-foot gunboats, outfitted with automatic weapons and bulletproof shielding, according to a report by KHOU television in Houston.

The vessels, which are similar to U.S. Navy gunboats used in rivers during the Vietnam War and are capable of operating in as little as 2 feet of water, are scheduled to launch in March.

Officials quoted in the story said that drug cartels increasingly were using the river to smuggle drugs into the United States, or fleeing safely back to Mexico if detected.

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The new vessels, emblazoned with "Texas Highway Patrol" logos, are part of a growing presence on the border by the Texas Department of Public Safety, which also has a $4 million reconnaissance helicopter which was purchased with seized drug money, according to KHOU.

"It sends a message," Jose Rodriguez, Texas DPS Regional Commander told the station. "Don't mess with Texas."

The boats -- costing about $3.5 million -- were funded with a combination of Texas legislative money and federal grants, according to DPS spokesman Tom Vinger. They will operate on the Rio Grande and lakes that feed it as well as on the Intercoastal Waterway, a narrow channel between the coast of Texas and South Padre Island.

He said they were in part a response to the "splashdown" strategy that drug traffickers have used in recent years to avoid arrest and confiscation of the drugs. When pursued, some smugglers drive into the river where they are met by boats that take the people and cargo back to the Mexico side of the border river.

"Just like any patrol unit, the (gunboat) patrols give higher visibility to deter and, if necessary, to interdict," said Vinger.

The nonprofit Texas Border Coalition said resources to stop drug smuggling and other illicit activities -- including smuggling of illegal immigrants -- would be more effectively utilized by investing in legal border crossings.

The border checkpoints are "woefully lacking" in technology and personnel, said Julie Hillrichs, spokeswoman for the organization, which studies a range of issues that affect border communities. The result is not only continued smuggling, but hours-long wait times for legitimate commerce, she said.

In a recent report, the coalition said an estimated 90 percent of the cocaine, marijuana, heroin, methamphetamine and MDMA smuggled across the border comes through checkpoints alongside legal commerce.

"We're not suggesting that these vessels would not be needed," said Hillrichs. "We’re just saying that we have identified what we believe to be a weaker link. Drug cartels don’t send drugs through the river; they smuggle it through the border crossings," she said.

The federal government has spent more than $90 billion over the last decade to secure the U.S.-Mexico border — a significant portion of which has funded use of the U.S. military, including the National Guard, to bolster U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection forces, the coalition said.

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The high school shooting in Chardon, Ohio, that left three students dead culminated a month of bloody gun violence in America’s schools, but experts say it’s not necessarily indicative of a troubling trend.

At least four shootings of students have occurred in February in schools across the country. That spate may be mere coincidence. Research indicates killings on school grounds remain rare, and overall violence in schools has been declining in recent years.

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The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics last week released a study that says school-related violent deaths are at an all-time low since it began tracking such deaths in 1992, The Christian Science Monitor reported.   

The study, “Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2011,” reported 33 such deaths for the 2009-10 school year; of those, there were 17 homicides and one suicide of students ages 5-18. That translates to a rate of approximately one homicide or suicide of a school-aged youth at school per 2.7 million students enrolled, according to the study.

“Over all available survey years, the percentage of youth homicides occurring at school remained less than 2 percent of the total number of youth homicides, and the percentage of youth suicides occurring at school remained at less than 1 percent of the total number of youth suicides,” the study noted.

The study doesn’t shed much light specifically on school shootings, and there doesn’t seem to be a central, authoritative national clearinghouse for such data.

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Washington Ceasefire, a gun prohibition organization, says it has tracked more than 375 school shootings in the past 20 years on its SchoolShooting.org website. The vast majority of these have been nonfatal.

Ralph Fascitelli, the group’s board president, says although school shootings can happen anywhere they’re more likely to happen “if there are guns in the home.”

“If your kids don’t have access to guns then they can’t act on their impulse,” he told msnbc.com.

But Dave Workman, who edits the Second Amendment Foundation's Gun Week magazine, says it would be a fallacy to link home gun ownership to school shootings.

“We have 90 million people in the country who own 230 million firearms and yet school shootings are a relatively rare event. That doesn’t dismiss the fact that they are horrible, terrible tragedies but the fact that so many children grow up in homes where firearms are present tends to refute the claim that having a gun in house is going to contribute to school shootings,” he told msnbc.com.

Both sides agree that school shootings aren't bound by geography and can happen anywhere in the country. Chardon School Superintendent Joseph Bergant II echoed that sentiment.

“We’re not just any old place, Chardon,” Bergant said. “This is every place. As you’ve seen in the past, this can happen anywhere, proof of what we had yesterday.”

Other school shootings in February:

• A 9-year-old girl at an elementary school in Bremerton, Wash., is killed seriously wounded after a .45-caliber handgun fired accidentally from a backpack carried by a 9-year-old boy.
• A 14-year-old boy at an elementary school in Walpole, N.H., was hospitalized after shooting himself in the cafeteria
• Two teens wielding guns shot at a group of kids at a Murfreesboro, Tenn. , school. A 14-year-old was hit twice in the leg.

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DALLAS — The owner of a Texas-based medical service provider is among seven people indicted in what authorities say is the largest health care fraud scheme in U.S. history, bilking Medicare and Medicaid of nearly $375 million.

The federal indictment alleges Dr. Jacque Roy, who owns Medistat Group Associates in DeSoto, of leading a scheme that billed Medicare for home health services that were not medically necessary or were not done.

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The indictment alleges that from January 2006 through November 2011, Roy or others in the scheme certified more Medicare beneficiaries for home health services and had more patients than any other medical practice in the U.S.

Roy, 54, and the other defendants, who have been taken into custody, were expected to appear Tuesday afternoon before a judge in Dallas federal court. Others charged in the scheme include owners and employees of health care businesses.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services also announced the suspension of an additional 78 home health agencies associated with Roy based on credible allegations of fraud against them.

U.S. Attorney Sarah Saldana said that Roy used the home health agencies as "his soldiers on the ground to go door to door to recruit Medicare beneficiaries."

“Dr. Roy and his co-conspirators, for years, ran a well-oiled fraudulent enterprise in the Dallas area, making millions by recruiting thousands of patients for unnecessary services and billing Medicare for those services,” according to the indictment. “One defendant allegedly paid recruiters $50 for each beneficiary the recruiters could deliver from a Dallas-area homeless shelter.”

A person answering calls at Medistat in DeSoto declined to speak with msnbc.com.

Health care fraud is estimated to cost the government at least $60 billion a year, mainly in losses to Medicare and Medicaid.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Updated at 8:38 p.m ET: For the first time, the Defense Department acknowledged Tuesday that some cremated remains of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were dumped in a landfill, conduct the White House called "unacceptable."

The disclosure is just two paragraphs in an 86-page report released Tuesday by an independent task force reviewing operations at the military's mortuary at Dover, Del.

In a contentious briefing for reporters at the Pentagon, retired Army Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the panel, tried to keep the focus on steps the military was taking going forward, saying the 9/11 findings were only a minor part of the task force's work.

Asked repeatedly for more information, he said, "We did not spend a great deal of time and effort and energy" on the matter, adding forcefully: "It's my report, but it's not the focus of the report."

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta formed the task force in December after an investigation by the Air Force, which runs the facility, found that some remains of U.S. military personnel weren't handled "in accordance with procedures."

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The Air Force acknowledged that it had disposed of the incinerated remains of at least 274 service members in the landfill before it ended the practice in 2008. At the time, officials said records went back only to 2003.

But the independent panel found that the practice went back at least to 2001, and it discovered that "several portions of remains" recovered from the 9/11 attacks at the Pentagon and at Shanksville, Pa., also ended up in a landfill:

Prior to 2008, portions of remains that could neither be tested nor identified, and portions of remains later identified that the [family or other representative] requested not to be notified of (requesting that they be appropriately disposed of) were cremated under contract at a civilian crematory and returned to [Dover]. This policy began shortly after September 11, 2001, when several portions of remains from the Pentagon attack and the Shanksville, Pennsylvania, crash site could not be tested or identified.

These cremated portions were then placed in sealed containers that were provided to a biomedical waste disposal contractor. Per the biomedical waste contract at that time, the contractor then transported these containers and incinerated them. The assumption on the part of [Dover] was that after final incineration nothing remained. A [Dover] management query found that there was some residual material following incineration and that the contractor was disposing of it in a landfill. The landfill disposition was not disclosed in the contractual disposal agreement.

Read the full report (.pdf)

Air Force Secretary Michael Donley and the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. Norton Schwartz, said they hadn't yet had a chance to review the entire report. 

"This is new information to me," Donley acknowledged when asked about the 9/11 victims by NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski. Schwartz, asked the same question, replied, "That's what I'm saying."

In a statement Tuesday night, the White House said President Barack Obama had been briefed on the findings and was determined that "these types of incidents never happen again."

Calling the report's details "unacceptable," the White House said, "The United States has a solemn obligation to compassionately and professionally care for fallen service members and their families, and those we tragically lost on 9/11."

Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., who has sought answers to what happened at Dover since last year, said the report bore out what he believed all along.

"I suspected, as Gen. Abizaid's panel has now confirmed, that these practices had been going on for many years. Even remains from the 9/11 terrorist attacks were treated in this way," Holt said in a statement to msnbc.com.

"The Department of Defense needs to engage in some real soul-searching," Holt said. "How is it possible that, for years or even decades, no one at Dover recognized how profoundly inappropriate these practices were?"

'Commanders in name only'
Abizaid told reporters that the Air Force's complex command structure led to the problems by creating "commanders in name only."

But "this was not just an Air Force problem," he said, adding that the entire U.S. military "needs to understand this is a 100 percent no-fail mission."

For one thing, he said, the Dover facility should no longer cremate fallen troops, because "we think it's a bad idea for DoD to be in the cremation business" in the first place.

The Dover facility is the first point of entry for U.S. service members who are killed or die overseas. It first came under investigation in 2010 after employees complained about how some cases were handled.

Investigators said last year that they had found no evidence that anyone intentionally mishandled the remains, but they concluded that the mortuary staff failed to "maintain accountability" with some remains.

"The standard is 100 percent accountability in every instance of this important mission," Schwartz said at the time. 

"We can, and will, do better, and as a result of the allegations and investigation, our ability to care for our fallen warriors is now stronger,” he said.

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Authorities say South Carolina Hospitality Association president Tom Sponseller killed himself in the parking garage of his office building.

Columbia Police Chief Randy Scott said Sponseller's body was found around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday in a room in the garage, which had been searched three times in the 10 days since the 61-year-old lobbyist was reported missing.

Scott says a note found Tuesday in Sponseller's office referred to a federal investigation into the association's finances, but Scott would not give additional details.

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Scott says Sponseller was behind two locked doors in a room where people frequently took smoke breaks. Officers hadn't had the keys for the room before Tuesday. Sponseller was reported missing Feb. 18.

Richland County Coroner Gary Watts says it appears Sponseller shot himself in the head.

On Monday, federal officials confirmed to The Associated Press that they were investigating the disappearance of several hundred thousand dollars from the group, which lobbies for South Carolina's $14 billion tourism industry.

U.S. Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Michael Williams said agents began looking into the group's books several months ago but Sponseller had not been investigated specifically.

Instead, Williams said, agents were focusing on Rachel Duncan, who has served as an accounting director for the association. There was no answer Tuesday at a number listed for Duncan. Her attorney has declined to comment on the investigation but said Duncan had been cooperating with the investigation into Sponseller's disappearance.

Court records show Duncan is fighting foreclosure on a Lexington County property and in October was ordered by a judge to pay a bank nearly $4,000.

Rick Erwin, the association's interim director, has hired an accounting firm to do an audit of its finances to assure the association's 2,000 members that their financial contributions are secure in Sponseller's absence, according to Bob McAlister, a consultant for the group.

Sponseller, head of the association for more than 20 years, was a well-known fixture at the Statehouse representing the tourism industry. On Tuesday, House lawmakers held a moment of silence after learning of his death.

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A Kansas artist says she’ll change her plan to publicly slaughter chickens as part of an art installation after city officials told her the plan would violate local ordinances and could result in a $1,000 fine.

Lawrence city officials said that Amber Hansen’s project, “The Story of Chickens: A Revolution,” would amount to animal cruelty, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.

Hansen had planned to display chicken coops across the eastern Kansas city with volunteers helping to care for the birds. The exhibit was to end with the birds being killed and served as a meal, the AP reported. Hansen wanted to draw attention to the process of slaughtering animals.

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“If people choose to eat meat, it is an important process to witness and be mindful of,” Hansen told the Lawrence Journal-World. “It is a process that takes place on a mass scale every day, and we aren’t really allowed to see it.”

Assistant City Attorney Chad Sublet told the newspaper that the public slaughter of chickens would be a violation of the city’s animal cruelty code.

“I think one could argue there is a freedom of expression interest here, but I think under our obligations to protect the health, safety and public welfare it is an activity we can regulate,” he told the Lawrence Journal-World.

Hansen told the newspaper on Monday her project will move forward but in a way that complies with city code. Details of what that new installation would include were still being worked out, she said.

An email to Hansen on Tuesday by msnbc.com was not immediately returned.

The original proposal sparked criticism from Lawrence’s Compassion for All Animals Group and United Poultry Concerns, the newspaper reported.

“There has been a lot of feedback,” Hansen told the newspaper. “There has been a lot of meaningful dialogue and discussion and that is good. The project will move forward to accommodate that discussion, but it will abide by the city’s codes.”

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Two dating websites are being sued for allegedly using a fallen soldier's photo in their ads for "Military Man Searching for Love."

Army Lt. Peter Burks' parents have sued PlentyofFish.com and True.com. They say his photo was used in ads without their permission.

"The implication is that, if you click here, this is one of our members. This is somebody you'll meet -- and people like him -- when this fallen hero has been dead three or four years," said attorney Rogge Dunn, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Burks' parents.

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Ruben Buell, True.com president, told NBC 5 on Monday that the company is taking the allegation very seriously and is investigating the matter.

"Our hearts go out to the family of Lt. Burks for their loss," he said. "We assure the family that we will fully investigate this matter and take appropriate action once we have the full details of the matter. Management of TRUE.com would never knowingly use a photo of a fallen soldier to promote our business and looks forward to getting the necessary details in order to take appropriate action."

Read the original story on NBCDFW.com

The parents' attorney said Burks' photo was taken days before he was killed in Iraq in 2007. It's on another website that provides supplies to troops.

Burks' photo apparently was removed from the dating ads recently. But the lawsuit said the companies misled customers and commercially benefited while hurting his family.

"It's just as wrong as it can be on so many different levels," said Alan Burks, the soldier's father.

"To trade on the courage of young men and women that volunteer to serve our country and wear that uniform and for somebody to take advantage of that and use that for commercial gain -- it doesn't get any lower than that," he said.

Vancouver-based Plenty Of Fish told NBC 5 on Monday that it did no online advertising in December 2011 and that "hundreds of thousands of third parties advertise via POF.com every month, the majority coming through networks such as Google AdSense and ad exchanges. Third parties control the content of ads run on POF.com."

Additionally, POF.com said it dealt with the photo issue a month ago and that the ad has been blocked from appearing on its website in accordance with DMCA Safe Harbor provisions.

Burks' parents filed the lawsuit Monday in Dallas, where True.com is based.

See a copy of the lawsuit here.

NBC 5's Ellen Goldberg contributed to this report.

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Up to a foot of snow was expected across the Upper Midwest on Tuesday, while severe weather in the central Plains could whip up some tornadoes.

Midwest cities expecting the most snow include Fargo, N.D., and Duluth, Minn.

Near-blizzard conditions are possible in parts of Minnesota and the Dakotas, weather.com reported, and Interstates 94, 90, 35, 29 and 39 could be affected

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By Wednesday, that system will dump snow in parts of New England, upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania.
Snow estimates for the region were less certain due to the possibility of a second system on Thursday that could compound the snowfall, weather.com stated in a separate report.

"The two days combined could deliver up to a foot of snow to northern New York and northern portions of New England," weather.com reported. "For the Boston metro area, several inches of snow are possible. To date, the city has only seen 7.8 inches for the season! This is more than two feet below average. Last season at this time, Boston had seen more than 70 inches."

New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., won't see much if any snow, weather.com stated, but they will get rain.

Tornadoes and other severe weather are forecast this week starting Tuesday in Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and the middle Mississippi Valley, weather.com reported.

On Wednesday, the "severe thunderstorm threat shifts east from the upper-Ohio Valley into portions of the South," weather.com added. "Damaging winds are the main concern, however isolated tornadoes are also possible."

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Updated at 1:58 p.m. ET: NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- A former Rutgers University student told jurors Tuesday she was “sad, overwhelmed” when police told her that Tyler Clementi had gone missing and might have committed suicide after she had watched his intimate encounter with another man via webcam.

"I was sad, overwhelmed. I felt very bad if anything had happened," Molly Wei said. "I just was overwhelmed with emotions of sadness. I just felt so bad for what happened."

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Wei told jurors that while she viewed live images of Clementi's encounter, she neither recorded nor broadcast that video.

Wei was on the stand for the second day in the bias intimidation and invasion of privacy trial of former student Dharun Ravi.

Clementi, who was Ravi's roommate, committed suicide days after the spying in September 2010.

Ravi faces 15 criminal charges, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation.

Wei entered a program to keep her record clean if she complies with a list of conditions, including truthful testimony.

On Tuesday, Wei detailed her statements to police.

She said campus police called her, then picked her up in an unmarked car after class on Sept. 23, 2010 — after Clementi went missing.

At first, she said, she was nervous about being told to get into a beige Cadillac and texted her boyfriend at another school to get in touch with police if he didn't hear from her within several hours.

She said that what she learned there rattled her so much that she had her parents take her home for the night.

"At the end of the conversation, the police officers told me that Tyler was missing and that he had possibly committed suicide," she said.

She said that a few days later, she contacted authorities after learning that Ravi had sent Twitter messages telling followers to video chat with him when Clementi wanted the room to himself again.

She said she gave a brief statement about that, then was arrested and charged with invasion of privacy.

'It felt wrong'
On Monday, Wei said she and Ravi watched the streaming images from his computer after Clementi asked to have the dorm room to himself so he could have company.

"First of all, it was shocking. It felt wrong. We didn't expect to see that. And now that what we did, it was like we shouldn't have seen it," Wei said in testimony Monday. "We didn't want people to know what had happened."

But, Wei testified, within minutes, she and Ravi were online chatting with friends about seeing two men kissing. And within the hour, Wei said, she agreed to show a few seconds of the video stream to four other women who visited her dorm room. Still, she said, Ravi didn't seem to intend to humiliate or intimidate Clementi.

That could be a key issue because to convict Ravi of bias intimidation, a hate crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors will have to convince the jury that Ravi acted out of bias toward gays.

Both times she saw the stream, Wei said, Clementi and another man were standing in front of Clementi's desk kissing. And both times, she said, she saw only seconds.

"It was the exact same image except that they had taken their tops off," she said of the second viewing, which she said was done at the request of one of several other students who visited her room. "As soon as they saw it, I turned it off."

On cross-examination from Ravi's lawyer, she said that there was no plan to humiliate or intimidate Clementi.

Also expected to testify on Tuesday is the student resident assistant whom Clementi told about the alleged spying.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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MERIDEN, Conn. -- A Connecticut family has a big mess to clean up after a car crashed into their bedroom while they were away.

The Scalzos were caught off-guard on Sunday night when they drove up to their home on Round Hill Road in Meriden, Conn., after a weekend away in Pennsylvania.

“I saw all the flashing lights and the fire engines… At first we thought it was a fire or something,” said Nick Scalzo. 

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For more, visit NBCConnecticut.com

When he and his family took a closer look, they couldn’t miss the car on its side that had flipped into their bedroom.

“Sure enough, there was a car up against the house and chaos,” Scalzo added.

Police told NBC Connecticut that the driver swerved to avoid hitting an animal, then lost control before he crashed into the home and caused thousands of dollars worth of damage.

“Just a complete disaster,” said Scalzo — both on the outside and on the inside. 

Scalzo’s bedroom was a shambles right after the fact, and roughly 24 hours later, it looked more like a construction zone. The walls were still boarded up and it was filled with rubble.

“It will be a mess for a while,” Scalzo said.

The crash happened 20 minutes before the family came home from their vacation. Despite the damage, the family said they were fortunate they weren’t in the bedroom, because someone could have been seriously hurt or even killed.

“We could have been in there unpacking,” Nick Scalzo said.

Related: Instant garage? No, car took wrong turn

On Monday, Meriden police were still investigating the crash and didn’t know if alcohol could have been a factor. The driver was rushed to the hospital with minor injuries.

“They wheeled him away. They asked if he was speeding; he said he wasn't,” Scalzo said. 

Police told NBC Connecticut they questioned whether that was true and said the driver could have been going well over the 30 mph speed limit. Police have not released the name of the driver.

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Updated at 5:25 p.m. ET

CHARDON, Ohio -- The death toll in an Ohio high school shooting rose to three students Tuesday as the suspect, 17-year-old T.J. Lane, appeared at a preliminary hearing where a prosecutor said Lane had confessed to investigators and that he said he fired at students randomly.

A Cleveland hospital spokesperson said Demetrius Hewlin, who had been in critical condition, died Tuesday morning. That news came shortly after Chardon Police Chief Tim McKenna said Russell King Jr. was declared brain dead. Both were 17.

Another student, 16-year-old Daniel Parmertor, died hours after the Monday shooting, which sent Chardon High School students screaming through the halls and led teachers to lock down classrooms as they had practiced doing so many times during drills.

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King and Parmertor were students at the nearby Auburn Career Center, a vocational school, and were waiting for a bus for their daily 15-minute ride when they were shot.

Lane on Tuesday appeared briefly before a juvenile court judge who ordered that he remain detained for at least 15 days and noted that prosecutors have until next Monday to charge the teen.

A prosecutor who spoke briefly before the judge said Lane had admitted firing 10 shots and that he said he did not know the victims and fired randomly. Two other teens were wounded; one remains hospitalized and the other was released on Tuesday.

When Lane exited in custody of police, he turned to his two aunts and his grandfather, who is his legal guardian, and said with emotion "I'm sorry I'm so sorry" as he clenched his jaw, appearing to hold back tears.

At a press conference after the hearing, Prosecutor David Joyce described Lane as "someone who's not well."

"This is not about bullying," he added. "This is not about drugs."

Monday night, Lane's family issued a statement through lawyer Bob Farinacci. "The family wanted me to convey to the citizens of Geauga County and Northeastern Ohio that the family is devastated by this most recent event," Farinacci said. "This is something that could never have been predicted. T.J.'s family has asked for some privacy while they try to understand how such a tragedy could have occurred and while they mourn this terrible loss for their community."

Shaken residents offered condolences and prayers to the families of those killed and wounded at 1,100-student Chardon High School in a suburb of Cleveland.

"This gets more tragic, the whole area is suffering, our prayers go up to God to give all strength, healing and closure," said one of hundreds of Facebook postings on a memorial page.

Meanwhile, the community offered grief counseling to students, staff and others at area schools.

"We're not just any old place, Chardon," Chardon School Superintendent Joseph Bergant II said. "This is every place. As you've seen in the past, this can happen anywhere, proof of what we had yesterday."

The police chief would shed no light on a motive.

"I feel sorry not only for that family but all the families that are affected by this," McKenna said. Characterizing himself as a "hometown boy," he added: "Chardon will take care of Chardon."

Danielle Samples, 16, a Chardon High student who was in the cafeteria at the time, told Reuters she heard a series of "pops" and someone yelled to run down the hallway into a classroom. While Samples was in the hall, she heard another round of pops.

A student who saw the attack up close said it appeared that the gunman targeted a group of students sitting together and that one of those killed was gunned down while trying to duck under the cafeteria table.

Lane did not go to Chardon High, instead attending nearby Lake Academy, which is for students with academic or behavioral problems.

Danielle, the 16-year-old student, said Lane had been at Chardon's cafeteria waiting for a bus. She said he lived with his grandparents and sister.

Report: Teen suspect in Ohio shooting from violent family

Student in school shooting: ‘I went into panic mode’ 

Slideshow: Photos from Ohio school shooting

Fifteen-year-old Danny Komertz, who witnessed the shooting, said Lane was known as an outcast who had apparently been bullied. But others disputed that.

"Even though he was quiet, he still had friends," said Tyler Lillash, 16. "He was not bullied."

Farinacci, representing Lane and his family, told WKYC that Lane "pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about."

He added, "His grades are pretty impressive... He's a sophomore. He's been doubling up on his classes with the intent of graduating this May."

The entire school district was closed Monday and Tuesday.

"We want them to stay home and spend some time reflecting on family," an emotional Joseph Bergant, superintendent of Chardon schools, told a news conference.

He urged parents to hug and kiss their children, and he praised the actions of teachers, who had been through disaster training and acted quickly to protect the students.

The students who were shot were found at three different locations throughout the school.

Scene reportedly caught on tape
The chaos, which started in Chardon High School's cafeteria, was captured by school surveillance video, reported cleveland.com. According to a source who saw the video, Lane sat down at an empty table around 7:30 a.m. while students were studying and eating breakfast, and moments later, pulled out a .22-caliber handgun from a bag.

The video shows Lane walking from his table over to another table where King, Hewlin, and Nick Walczak, all juniors, were seated, reported cleveland.com. The video shows Lane raising his gun and shooting, reported cleveland.com. He then ran out the cafeteria door.

Frank Hall, an assistant football coach inside the cafeteria at the time, chased after him as students raced for shelter, reported cleveland.com. The video does not show Lane shooting his other victims.

Long before official word came of the attack, parents learned of the bloodshed from students via text message and cellphone and thronged the streets around the school, anxiously awaiting word on their children.

Chardon freshman Sofia Larkins, 14, was sitting with Lane's sister when the shooting began. "She didn't know anything," said Larkins. "She was surprised as anyone."

The two girls fled to a teachers' lounge when the shooting erupted, and began hearing talk that Lane was the shooter, Larkins said. His sister began crying. Larkins said school officials came to the lounge and took the sister away.

The mother of a student in Chardon, who asked not to be identified, said her son knew the accused gunman.

"My son's reaction was 'this doesn't surprise me.' T.J. was a nice sweet kid who was misunderstood and he probably cracked from being different," she said.

Chardon, the seat of Geauga County, is a town about 35 miles from Cleveland with a population of about 5,000, according to the U.S. Census and Chardon's website. The town, which describes itself as the center of the state's maple syrup industry, contains neatly restored brick buildings downtown.

The high school has about 1,100 students. 

The deadliest school shooting in the United States was a 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech that left 33 people dead. The worst high school shooting was a 1999 attack at Columbine High School in Colorado that killed 12 students and a teacher.

NBC News, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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RICHMOND, Va. -- A suburban Richmond woman was fined $100 after admitting she faked cancer to raise money.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch said that Martha Ann Nicholas pleaded guilty on Monday to two misdemeanor charges of obtaining money by false pretenses. Besides the fine, she was ordered by a judge to not take part in any charitable causes and placed on five years' probation.

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A 12-month jail sentence was suspended, the newspaper reported.

The Mechanicsville woman had claimed at rallies that she was a cancer victim.

Her attorney, Sam Simpson, said Nicholas has made restitution of $1,700, the total she had collected for herself.

Nicholas had been suffering from a psychosomatic condition that made her believe she had a cancer-like illness, Simpson said.

Her family said she is receiving counseling and told the Times-Dispatch that they were relieved she was not going to jail.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The teen who authorities believe was behind a deadly shooting Monday in Chardon, Ohio, had violence in his life from early on, Cleveland's Plain Dealer newspaper reported.

Court records showed that Thomas Lane Jr., the father of suspect T.J. Lane, had been arrested several times for abusing women he had children with, including the teen's mother, the newspaper reported. The father had been warned to stay away from the teen's mother at least once, records reportedly showed.

Thomas Lane filed for divorce from the teen's mother in 2002 and later that year was charged with attempted murder, felonious assault and kidnapping, WKYC-TV cited court records as showing. He was convicted of felonious assault and sentenced to 5 years probation. It was not immediately clear what the charges stemmed from.

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A juvenile court judge on Tuesday ordered that the teen be held for at least 15 days while prosecutors prepare to file charges.

It was not clear whether the teen and his father had any contact recently, the newspaper reported.

The suspect's family said through attorney Bob Farinacci Monday night that they were struggling to comprehend what had happened a day after the worst U.S. high school shooting in nearly a year.

"This is something that could never have been predicted. T.J.'s family has asked for some privacy while they try to understand how such a tragedy could have occurred and while they mourn this terrible loss for their community," the statement read.

Students at the high school outside of Cleveland were told to stay home Tuesday.

Officials believe Lane opened fire inside a high school cafeteria at the start of the classes on Monday, hitting five students. 

A prosecutor on Tuesday said Lane had confessed to the shootings and that he had aimed randomly.

Daniel Parmertor was killed instantly and on Tuesday officials said Demetrius Hewlin had died while Russell King Jr. was declared brain dead. Two others remain hospitalized.

"He had no emotion on his face, he was just shooting," a Chardon student told WKYC.

Travis Carver, another student present in the cafeteria at the time said the expression on the gunman's face was "straight determination."

The suspect was taken into custody near his car a half-mile from the suburban Cleveland school after football coach Frank Hall chased him from the building, according to FBI officials.

The motive for the shooting, which took place while students were studying and eating breakfast, remains a mystery. Fellow students told local media the suspect was a quiet loner who may have been bullied.

Lane was not a student at Chardon High School. He attended the nearby alternative school Lake Academy in Willoughby, which serves at-risk students. Students may have been referred to the school because of academic or behavioral problems.

'Good kid'
When asked about the suspect, his family's lawyer called him a "good kid."

"By all accounts T.J. is a fairly quiet and good kid. His grades are pretty impressive," Farinacci said. "He's a sophomore. He's been doubling up on his classes with the intent of graduating this May. He pretty much sticks to himself but does have some friends and has never been in trouble over anything that we know about."

Student in school shooting: ‘I went into panic mode’

Some fellow students called the 17-year-old quiet and sweet, although others said he had a temper, the Plain Dealer reported.

"He would never really talk about his family," Haley Kovacik said. "But you can always tell he had a very sad look in his eyes all the time. He usually just kept to himself."

Kovacik said she never saw him get bullied, but said it could have happened, as he was "very quiet."

"He never really stood up for himself very much," she said.

His now-deleted Facebook page showed one picture of him bare-chested and glaring at the camera and another behind a huge teddy bear that bore a heart and the words "Be Mine," according to the newspaper.

He listed "primitive hunting" among his interests, the newspaper reported.

The suspect's family said they were struggling to comprehend what had happened.

"The family wanted me to convey to the citizens of Geauga County and Northeastern Ohio that the family is devastated," Farinacci said in the statement late Monday. "They want to give their most heartfelt and sincere condolences to the family of the young man who passed and their continuing prayers are with all those who were injured."

Slideshow: Deathly school shooting in Ohio

The mother of a student in Chardon, who asked not to be identified, said her son knew the accused gunman.

"My son's reaction was 'this doesn't surprise me.' T.J. (Lane) was a nice sweet kid who was misunderstood and he probably cracked from being different," she said.

NBC News, Reuters The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Inspired by McDonald's, the sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County on Monday had a sign made that touts the fact that more than 430,000 inmates have been "served" by his controversial "Tent City" jail.

"Why would anyone call for an end to this program and the closure of Tent City?" Sheriff Joe Arpaio said in a statement announcing the sign. "Tent City makes room for inmates who otherwise might be released to the streets due to overcrowded jails. It’s one of the best things to have happened in the local criminal justice system."

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The sheriff's department described Tent City, which is nearing its 19th year, as "the nation’s largest canvas incarceration compound".

"Borrowing from the world’s most renowned fast food chain," the department added, the sign will be updated monthly with the latest number of inmates "Served".

Arpaio, renowned for his tough stand on illegal immigrants, had the sign built "to underscore that Tent City remains an excellent facility to safely and cost effectively house inmates," the department stated. It’s such an efficient program, Arpaio points out, that it has been visited by four U.S. presidential candidates and a number of senators from several states.

More than 430,000 inmates have "served" their time in Tent City, which began in 1993 and is made up of Korean War tents, the department said.

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A 20-year-old South Florida man was arrested for threatening the president of the United States during President Barack Obama’s trip to Miami, authorities said.

On Thursday federal agents raided the west Miami-Dade home of Joaquin Amador Serrapio Jr., at 236 SW 136th Place. He was taken into custody before he could make any attempt to harm the president, authorities said.

They said Serrapio was arrested for making threats against the president, a federal felony that could bring a five-year prison term if he is convicted.

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Serrapio pleaded not guilty before a federal magistrate, who set his cash bond at $20,000, in addition to a $50,000 personal surety bond that his parents signed, according to court records.

Neighbors said Serrapio’s street was full of federal agents and county police Thursday – the day that Obama made a big policy speech on energy at the University of Miami and held two fundraisers in the area.

Secret Service and FBI agents working with White House advance teams keep close tabs on anyone who they believe could be a credible threat to the president, and federal agents were evidently concerned enough about Serrapio to take him off the streets and into custody. It is unclear what the exact threats that he allegedly made are.

No one has answered the door or the phone Monday afternoon at the home where neighbors say Serrapio lives. County property records indicate that his parents own the residence.

Serrapio is due to be arraigned in federal court on March 9.

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CHEYENNE – Fearing an economic and political collapse nationwide, Wyoming lawmakers are moving ahead with legislation to deal with a doomsday scenario -- complete with plans to create a state currency.

“Things happen quickly sometimes — look at Libya, look at Egypt, look at those situations,” the bill’s GOP sponsor State Rep. David Miller told the Star-Tribune in Casper. “We wouldn’t have time to meet as a Legislature or even in special session to do anything to respond.”

According to the Star-Tribune, House Bill 85 would create a state-run “government continuity task force,” to prepare Wyoming for potential disruptions in food and energy to a complete breakdown of the federal government.

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Miller is also asking for the task force to look into creating its own state currency in the event the dollar loses value entirely.

The Wyoming House of Representatives advanced the legislation on Monday, but eliminated language calling for plans to implement its own military draft, army and acquire an aircraft carrier.

The bill now must pass two more House votes before it would head to the Senate for consideration.

“I don’t represent people in Illinois or New Jersey. I represent people in Wyoming,” Miller said. “And I want them to be protected from any catastrophic events that may beset the rest of the country.”

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A New Jersey man who skipped town after he was accused of bilking money from nuns was captured in Las Vegas on Monday, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.

In November, Adriano Sotomayor, 54, was indicted by federal prosecutors on 13 counts of mail fraud. He allegedly scammed more than $439,000 from the Dominican Sisters of the Rosary of Fatima and others between May 2009 and June 2011 through a bogus will scheme, according to the FBI.

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The Dominican Sisters of the Rosary of Fatima operates out of Puerto Rico and has members in cities in the Philadelphia-South Jersey area.

Sotomayor allegedly persuaded an elderly nun that she had been named a beneficiary in a will of an estate estimated at $2.1 million, the indictment said.

He reportedly was able to lure the nun by telling her the man notifying her of the will was a priest, and the person leaving the will was a parishioner.

Sotomayor, according to prosecutors, induced the nun to send him $255,379 from May 30, 2009 to February 4, 2010 by telling her she needed to pay taxes and other fees associated with the bogus will.

He also allegedly targeted other victims as well with a similar scam. Some of the money was sent by wire transfers to Atlantic City casinos, according to prosecutors.

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A student who was nicked in the ear Monday during a shooting in a high school cafeteria in Chardon, Ohio, has identified the teen gunman as a fellow student who had “got into a gothic phase” in recent years.

Nate Mueller, a student at Chardon High School, told NBC affiliate WKYC.com that he was sitting in the cafeteria at a table with three of the victims and was grazed in the ear by one of the bullets as he turned away from the gunman. He said he was friends with the suspect until the end of eighth grade.

“He kind of got into the gothic phase and kind of silenced himself from his friends,” Mueller said. “But I mean, he still had friends. He was still a nice kid … I don’t think anybody really ever expected it to be him. We didn’t think he would hurt anybody.”

Police have not formally identified the gunman, who is a juvenile, but students, parents of students and local media said his name was T.J. Lane, which was confirmed by NBC News.

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Other students and a parent, reacting to reports identifying the alleged shooter, described him as an “outcast,” a victim of bullying and being from a "broken home."

“He was not like a jock, a popular kid,"’ Evan Erasmus, an 18-year-old high school senior, told Channel 5. “He has friends, but he would be considered the outcast type."

Official: 1 dead, 4 wounded in Ohio school shooting

In a separate interview with CNN, Erasmus said, “He just came from a really broken down home and he was living with his grandparents. He was more of a quiet type of kid. He was really nice, though, if you did talk to him.”

Mueller, the student who was in the cafeteria when the gunfire erupted, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer that one of the friends he was sitting with was dating the suspect's ex-girlfriend.

Another student, freshman Danny Komertz, told The Associated Press that the gunman was an outcast who had been apparently bullied.

Greg Fletcher, a parent who said his son, a 10th grader, was about 15 feet from the shooter in the cafeteria, told Fox8.com that his son did not know the suspect but other students had told him he was “kind of shady and possibly suicidal.”

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Investigators say an important elevator safety mechanism was apparently turned off when an advertising executive was crushed to death at a Manhattan office building.

A mechanic overrode the mechanism, a safety circuit that normally prevents elevators from moving with their doors open, to enable work on the midtown Manhattan elevator about a half-hour before an elevator did just that and killed Suzanne Hart on Dec. 14, the city Department of Investigation and Department of Buildings found.

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The mechanic insisted he'd put the safety system back online by the time Hart tried to step into the car, but they concluded the mechanism "was apparently bypassed at the time of the fatal incident, thereby allowing the car to move with its doors open," the investigation agency said.

Read NBCNewYork.com's complete coverage on elevator tragedy

The Buildings Department, meanwhile, suspended the elevator repair company owner's license. He failed to notify the agency and get an OK to put the car back in service after the repairs that day, among other missteps.

"The investigation starkly showed elevator safety protocols were ignored," Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said in a statement.

The Manhattan District Attorney has received the report and is reviewing it, a spokeswoman said.

A lawyer for the owner of the elevator repair company, Transel Elevator Inc., was in an unrelated trial and didn't immediately respond to a text message and email Monday. A lawyer for the mechanic didn't immediately return telephone and email messages.

Hart, 41, was heading to her office at the advertising agency Y&R, formerly known as Young & Rubicam, when she tried to get into one of several elevators in the lobby of the 27-story tower built in 1926. Two other people were already in the elevator, called car 9 in the report.

As they looked on in horror, it started rising with the doors still open, dragging Hart between the car and the wall. It got stuck between the first and second floors.

"These workers and their supervisors failed to follow the most basic safety procedures, and their carelessness cost a woman her life," Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri said in a statement. Besides putting the elevator back into service without proper clearance, workers didn't follow simple precautions such as strapping caution tape across the elevator door, the agency said.

"If these safety measures were in place, this tragedy would have been prevented," LiMandri added. His agency already has cited Transel with 23 violations carrying a minimum penalty of $117,000.

The Department of Investigation said "the investigation found that the only condition in which elevator number 9 could have moved during the incident is if the elevator was on 'automatic' and the safety circuit was fully closed (bypassed )."

Mechanic Michael Hill initially told investigators he had no idea why the elevator might have moved with the doors open. Weeks later, he told them under oath that he had temporarily hooked up a wire on the elevator control panel to bypass the safety circuit earlier that morning, the report said.

The procedure, known as jumping, is often done during repairs so that workers can position a car between floors, open the doors to the elevator shaft, and step onto the top of the car to work.

Hill was adamant that he had not accidentally left the jumping wire connected to the control panel once the elevator was in position, DOI said. He said the wire had never left his hand, and he later gave investigators the wire he said he had used.

That wire didn't look as though it had been used for jumping the safety circuit, however — and in the interim, some wire "consistent with" wires used for jumping was found under the metal-grate floor by the control panel, the report said.

Copyright Associated Press / NBC New York

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