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  • Major snowstorm pummels Colorado, closing roads

    Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Seidel reports.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 6:31 p.m. ET: A powerful storm walloped eastern Colorado and western Nebraska with the region's first heavy snow of the new year on Friday, closing schools, disrupting hundreds of flights at Denver International Airport and creating blizzard conditions on the High Plains.

    A foot of snow piled up in the Denver metropolitan area, with up to 2 feet reported in the foothills west of the city, said Frank Cooper, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.

    The storm also dumped heavy snow on parts of western Nebraska, with more than a foot measured on the ground in the Sand Hills region about 40 miles north of North Platte, the Weather Service reported.

    Nathan Armes / Reuters

    Hack Hyland, of Hyland Outdoor, shovels the sidewalk of a client whom he often helps during snowy weather, near downtown Denver on Friday.

    The state Legislature in Lincoln, canceled public hearings in anticipation of the storm, which interrupted an unusually snowless western Nebraska winter.

    "It's a pretty big system," weather forecaster Cory Van Pelt in North Platte told Reuters. "We've had some accidents that closed some roads."

    By the time the storm wraps up Saturday, Denver could see up to 2 feet in some areas, with up to 4 feet in some areas of the foothills, according to the Weather Service.

    The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel reports.

    "Roads across the entire Front Range, southwest Colorado and the central mountains are icy and snowpacked, and high winds are making travel and snow removal difficult," the Colorado Department of Transportation said in a media release, according to The Denver Post.

    The snowfall spread Friday afternoon to extreme northwestern Kansas, as forecasters predicted accumulations of 6 to 12 inches there through Saturday morning.

    Blizzard or winter storm warnings were posted for northwestern Kansas on Friday, but Weather Service meteorologist Mark Buller said forecasts of winds of 20 to 30 mph may be downgraded.

    Updated at 2:49 p.m. ET:  Airlines reported more than 600 flight cancellations Friday at Denver International Airport due to a powerful winter snowstorm that swept across Colorado as it headed east.

    The storm brought blizzard warnings to eastern Colorado and western Kansas, and storm warnings for southeast Wyoming and western Nebraska.

    The storm stretched as far south as New Mexico, where Department of Transportation reported difficult driving conditions on several state highways because of the winter weather, leaving highways snow packed and icy.

    Barry Guiterrez / EPA

    Arvada Firefighters Jeremy Gacceta, 34, left, and Tristan Exner, 34, right, clear snow from the front of Arvada Fire Station 7 in Denver.

    The Colorado Department of Transportation closed portions of Interstate 70 east of Denver International Airport to Limon, stranding truckers. Interstate 25 north and south reopened after numerous accidents were cleared.

    The National Weather Service said snow was falling at 2 inches an hour on the Eastern Plains, producing some blizzard conditions.

    According to The Weather Channel’s real-time updates, roughly 8 inches of snow had fallen at the Denver airport by early afternoon, with reports of 3 to 4 feet of snow in the foothills.

    Original story: DENVER-- A powerful winter storm swept across Colorado on Friday as it headed east, bringing blizzard warnings to eastern Colorado and western Kansas, and storm warnings for southeast Wyoming and western Nebraska.

    The storm stretched as far south as New Mexico, where Department of Transportation reported difficult driving conditions on several state highways because of the winter weather, leaving highways snow packed and icy.

    The Colorado Department of Transportation closed portions of Interstate 70 and Interstate 25, the two main arteries crisscrossing the state. The National Weather Service said snow was falling at 2 inches an hour on the Eastern Plains, producing blizzard conditions.

    According to The Weather Channel’s real-time updates, roughly 8 to 10 inches of snow has fallen in Denver with an additional 6 to 10 inches of snow expected.

    "Roads across the entire Front Range, southwest Colorado and the central mountains are icy and snowpacked and high winds are making travel and snow removal difficult," the Colorado Department of Transportation said in a media release.

    Colorado State Patrol spokesman Josh Lewis said non-essential staffers were told to come in at 10 a.m. and Gov. John Hickenlooper told state workers in the Denver metro area to stay home until 10 a.m. unless their jobs involved health and safety.

    Transportation spokeswoman Becky Navarro said Friday eastbound I-70 was closed from Aurora to Limon and a ramp was closed on Interstate 25 in Denver because of numerous accidents.

    One of the largest snow totals Friday morning was 18 inches in Pinecliff west of Denver, and snow totals were mounting rapidly along the Front Range and eastern Colorado. 

    The National Weather Service said snow will be moderate at times on Friday in Wyoming and Nebraska. However, winds could gust up to 35 mph and produce blowing snow from the southern Laramie Range to Sidney, Neb.

    Cities in the Front Range urban corridor from Colorado Springs in the south to Fort Collins and Greeley in the north were under a winter storm warning.

    ‘Hammered’
    The storm warnings prompted shoppers to stock up on food and liquor, while Colorado lawmakers canceled legislative work on Friday.

    Stores in Denver reported brisk business Thursday night.

    "The cheese wall is hammered, bread's kind of hammered, milk's kind of low," said Aaron McFadden, a manager at a King Soopers store.

    Ted Vaca at Argonaut Liquor said customers were snapping up all kinds of drink.

    "It was more like a Friday than a Thursday," he said.

    The storm forced the cancellation of hundreds of arriving and departing flights at the Denver airport that had been scheduled through Friday night.

    "Denver International Airport up to 505 cancellations. Average arrival delays at 1:49 according to the FAA," The Weather Channel's Mike Seidel posted to this Twitter feed Friday.

    A Learjet ran off a runway at the Pueblo airport as the storm moved in, but investigators hadn't determined if the weather was a factor. None of the 10 people aboard were injured, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

    Many school districts announced they would be closed on Friday, including the two largest, in Jefferson County and Denver.

    The storm could break into the top 10 list of the heaviest snowstorms in Denver history. The city's 10th biggest dumped 22.1 inches in 1912, NWS meteorologist Chad Gimmestad said.

    Denver's record is 45.7 inches from a five-day wallop in 1913.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • NBC: 2 Americans kidnapped in Egypt released, police say

    Two Americans who were taken hostage in Egypt have been released. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.

     

    By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 1:03 p.m. ET: CAIRO -- NBC's Charlene Gubash reports the three former hostages, including two American women, were released to military officials and not police because police are mistrusted by the Egyptian Bedouin tribesmen.

    The Governor of South Sinai has also invited the Americans for dinner, Gubash reports. Their itinerary includes Sharm, Cairo to visit pyramids and Alexandria.

    Updated at 10:37 a.m. ET:  CAIRO -- South Sinai Police Chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Naguib tells The Associated Press that he has sent a car to pick up the kidnapping Americans after the deal was made following negotiations with Egyptian Bedouin tribesmen.

     

    The two American women and one guide were seized Friday from a minivan that was returning them from the monastery to the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.  Naguib said earlier the kidnappers wanted the release of fellow tribesmen who were arrested but he isn't releasing details about the negotiations.

    NBC's Charlene Gubash says the tourists were on a tour with Seed-Faith Foundation, described online as faith-based travel. 

    Updated at 10:46 a.m. ET: Two American tourists kidnapped in Egypt on Friday have been released, local police tell NBC News.

    Updated at 10 a.m. ET: Egyptian generals are negotiating with Bedouin tribesmen thought to have kidnapped two Americans and their guides near a popular Red Sea resort on Friday, NBC News' Charlene Gubash reports from Cairo.

    Thousands of people poured into Cairo's Tahrir Square, where tear gas was used to disperse the crowd. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    The kidnappers are demanding the release of of 33 Bedouins detained last week, she says, adding that Egyptian police now know the whereabouts of the hostages.

    Updated at 9:10 a.m. ET: The U.S. State Department said it was working to confirm the citizenship of the two tourists who were kidnapped along with their guide in Egypt on Friday.

     

    The U.S. Embassy in Cairo released the following statement to NBC News:

    "Egyptian authorities have confirmed to us that two tourists, who they say are American citizens, have been kidnapped in Sinai. We are trying to confirm their citizenship and in the meantime are working closely with the Egyptian authorities to do everything possible to ensure the tourists' safety."

    Updated at 7:10 a.m. ET: Two American tourists and their guide have been kidnapped near a popular Red Sea resort in Egypt, South Sinai's chief of police confirmed to NBC News Friday.

    Egypt protesters besiege Cairo ministry

    The news came just days after Bedouin tribesmen released about two dozen Chinese cement factory workers taken hostage in the country last week.

    Egypt has faced deteriorating security and a surge in crime since the popular uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak nearly a year
    ago. Protesters accuse the military council that has assumed power and the police force of negligence.

    On Friday, the military and police officials told The Associated Press that abductors sped away in a sedan and a pickup truck after taking the Americans, leaving behind three other people who had been in the minivan. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information, did not know the nationalities of those left behind.

    The group had been traveling between St. Catherine's Monastery to the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

    Authorities said a search was under way.

    Chinese abducted
    On Saturday, 29 Chinese workers were captured by rebels in the Sudanese border state of South Kordofan. The 25 workers freed on Wednesday were in good condition, China's Xinhua news agency said, citing an embassy official there, Ma Jianchun.

    Analysis: Egyptians share blame in soccer tragedy

    Residents of Sinai say they are neglected by the central government in Cairo, and periodically attack police stations and block access to towns, villages and industrial sites to show their discontent.

    The isolated desert region has become more lawless since an uprising ousted president Hosni Mubarak a year ago and threw the security apparatus into disarray.

    Original post: Two American tourists in Egypt have been kidnapped, South Sinai's chief of police confirmed to NBC News on Friday.

    Five tourists were on their way from St. Catherine's Monastery to the very popular Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, the police told NBC News. He added that Bedouin tribesmen took two and an Egyptian guide and let the remaining three go with the car.

    The two are most likely being held to exchange for release of prisoners and land the Bedouin tribe want, NBC reported. They may have also been kidnapped in revenge for a recent crackdown by police.

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

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  • Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

    Alejandro Acosta / Reuters, file

    A soldier guards boilers at an outdoor clandestine methamphetamine laboratory discovered in Chiquilistlan, Mexico, on December 7.

    By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com

    The number of methamphetamine “super labs” seized by Mexican authorities has rocketed in the last five years but shipments of the drug across the border have also continued to grow, according to government statistics.

    The increase highlights how Mexico’s cartels have diversified beyond their traditional focus of exporting cocaine, heroin and marijuana by transforming their operations to also make methamphetamines on an industrial scale.

    The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has noted “a sustained upward trend in Mexican methamphetamine availability in U.S. markets.” Research by the U.S. government also shows that methamphetamine prices are falling and that the purity level of seizures is rising.

    According to information from Mexico’s Secretariat of National Defense, 22 methamphetamine labs were seized in 2007. That number increased to 206 in 2011.

    The vast majority of these were classed as super labs – in contrast to smaller operations that characterize much of the production in the United States, a secretariat official confirmed to msnbc.com.  The official asked for anonymity for security reasons.

    "Methamphetamine seizure rates inside the United States and along the U.S.-Mexico border have increased markedly since 2007," according to a U.S. Department of Justice report.

    'In the business of making money'
    U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials said they could not comment specifically on statistics released by the Mexican government, but acknowledge that the cartels have adapted and changed since President Felipe Calderon declared his war on drugs in December 2006.

    “There has been an evolution,” Special Agent Gary Boggs of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control told msnbc.com. “All of these drug trafficking groups, they are not in the business of drugs, they are in the business of making money.  So regardless of what the drug is, if there is a market for it they are going to try ways of making money out of it.”

    Methamphetamine, a white, odorless and bitter crystalline powder, dissolves in water or alcohol and can be taken orally, snorted, injected or smoked.  Known as meth, chalk, go-fast, zip, ice and crystal, among other names, it can be very addictive and lead to dramatic weight loss, dental problems, paranoia, hallucinations and extreme violence.

    The methamphetamine trade is only part of the drug problem confronting Mexico – the country’s cartels also produce or traffic large amounts of cocaine, heroin and marijuana, among other narcotics.  Since Calderon's war on drugs began, more than 47,500 people have been killed, according to the country's attorney general's office.  The worsening violence and continued flow of drugs has caused many to question whether Mexico’s militarized approach is the right way to stamp out the cartels.

    While most of the bloodshed in the war on drugs has been south of the border, the problem has had a direct impact on Americans.  Mexico is the primary source of methamphetamines consumed in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice’s National Drug Threat Assessment 2011. 

    “Methamphetamine production in Mexico is robust and stable, as evidenced by recent law enforcement reporting, laboratory seizure data, an increasing flow from Mexico, and a sustained upward trend in Mexican methamphetamine availability in U.S. markets,” according to the study, which bases its conclusions on data running through September 2010.  “Law enforcement and intelligence reporting, as well as seizure, price, and purity data, indicate that the availability of methamphetamine in general is increasing in every region of the (United States).”

    According to the Department of Justice report, from July 2007 through September 2010, the price per pure gram of methamphetamine decreased 60.9 percent, from $270.10 to $105.49. Purity increased 114.1 percent, from 39 percent to 83 percent.

    Booming business
    After declining sharply in 2007, methamphetamine seizures along the Mexico-U.S. border have increased every year. 

    The dramatic growth in operations targeting Mexican methamphetamine super labs from 2007 and 2011 is likely the result of the huge increase in military involvement during Calderon’s war on drugs, said Octavio Rodriguez, coordinator of the Justice in Mexico Project at the University of San Diego’s Trans-Border Institute.

    This jump in decommissions cannot be taken alone, however – falling prices also suggest that the trade in methamphetamines remains a booming business despite the enormous military deployment.

    “My impression is that this data shows a much greater effectiveness on the part of the army,” Rodriguez told msnbc.com.  “But what these numbers imply to me is that if lab seizures are growing and the price is falling is that the production is so high that it is not causing a serious impact. In other words, if seizures are not having a real effect on prices and the price continues to fall it means that the seizures aren’t even affecting the level of production.”

    Since 2007, Mexican spending on security, which includes the army, navy, federal police and attorney general's office, has almost doubled to reach more than $46 billion.

    The United States, the world’s largest consumer of illegal drugs, had spent around $1.4 billion since 2008 on the struggle against the cartels in Mexico and Central America as part of the so-called Merida Initiative.  Meanwhile, U.S. border patrols costing the United States $3 billion per year have helped make the nearly 2,000-mile-long boundary as fortified as it has been in 160 years, according to a report by the Council of Foreign Relations.

    But despite the billions spent and tens of thousands of lives lost, the organization thought to be controlling much of the methamphetamine trade as well as heroin and marijuana, the Sinaloa cartel, remains staggeringly powerful.  In January, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman,  at the helm of the group believed to control the methamphetamine trade and the drug’s key ingredients, earned the title of “world’s most powerful drug trafficker” from the U.S. Department of Treasury.

    Fugitive drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is believed to be a billionaire.

    Guzman has also appeared on Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People list since 2009, and is thought to be the world’s richest drug dealer, according to the magazine.

    Key chemicals
    Officials say key to stamping out the methamphetamine trade is interrupting the flow of chemicals needed to manufacture it, known as precursors.

    China and India are the main countries involved in the trafficking of key precursor chemicals to Mexico, the DEA’s Boggs said

    “We’ve … taken steps to work with our international partners to curb international chemical smuggling,” he added.

    Despite efforts by officials on both sides of the border, the trade in methamphetamines and precursors is likely spreading south.  According to The Associated Press, 1,600 tons of precursors were seized in Guatemala in 2011, up from 400 seized there in 2010.

    In December alone, 675 tons of precursors destined for Guatemala were seized in Mexico.  Most of it came from Shanghai, China, the AP reported.  At $100 per gram for the finished product, that would end up producing hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of drugs.

    Follow msnbc.com's F. Brinley Bruton on Twitter.

  • Police: Ex-Marine charged in killings of 4 homeless men linked to 2 more deaths

    By NbcLosAngeles.com and msnbc.com news services

    Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, who was caught Jan. 13 in Anaheim, Calif., and charged with killing four homeless men, is linked to two other slayings, police said Thursday.

    ANAHEIM, Calif. -- An ex-Marine charged with killing four homeless men in Southern California has been linked to the stabbing deaths of a woman and her son, police said Thursday at a news conference.

    Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, has been connected with Eder Herrera, the suspect in the Orange County stabbings in October, said Anaheim Lt. Julia Harvey of the Homeless Homicide Taskforce.

    Police would not comment on the connection between Ocampo and Herrera, but based on the location of the crime, the proximity to his residence and the modus operandi (MO), they are linking the two incidents previously thought to be separate, Harvey said.

    Raquel Estrada and her son Juan Herrera were killed in October in Yorba Linda, less than two miles from Ocampo's home. Eder Herrera is Raquel Estrada's 24-year-old son and was arrested soon after the two killings.

    Ocampo, an Iraq War veteran, was arrested Jan. 13 and charged with the murders of four homeless men in Orange County, including Anaheim, Placentia and Yorba Linda.

    Police at the time said they were "extremely confident" that they had taken into custody the man responsible for the slayings.

    Warrants: Man held in homeless killings said he stalked victim

    Shortly after his arrest, prosecutors said they would consider seeking the death penalty against him.

    "In each of these cases, the violence, the number of stab wounds increased," Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas told NBCLA.

    Authorities say Ocampo's killing spree targeted James Patrick McGillivray, 53, who was stabbed Dec. 20 near a shopping center in Placentia; Lloyd Middaugh, 42, who was found Dec. 28 near a riverbed trail in Anaheim; Paulus Smit, 57, who was stabbed to death outside a Yorba Linda library on Dec. 30; and John Berry, 64, who was stabbed to death on the day Ocampo was arrested.

    Each of the four men was stabbed more than 40 times with a weapon believed to be a 7-inch fixed-blade military-type knife, authorities said.

    Before Ocampo's Jan. 13 arrest, police had fanned out across the county better known as the home to Disneyland and multimillion-dollar beachfront homes to urge the homeless to be careful and seek shelter indoors.

    An arraignment for Ocampo scheduled for Jan. 18 was postponed to Feb. 17. He remains jailed without bail, NBCLA said.

    NBCLosAngeles.com and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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  • Controversial Georgia bishop crowned 'king' at church

    New Birth Missionary Baptis Church crowns Bishop Eddie Long king.

    By msnbc.com staff

    Bishop Eddie Long, the subject of sexual allegations made by male members of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, is making headlines again, theGrio.com reports.

    This time it's because video of one of his Lithonia, Ga., church services has gone viral.

    See the original story at theGrio.com

    On Sunday, the church televised a special edition of a worship service as a special guest, Rabbi Ralph Messer, crowned the bishop as king as he wrapped Long in what he said was a 312-year-old scroll recovered from Auschwitz after World War II.

    Long has recently started performing church services again after briefly stepping down as head pastor from the church because of the sex scandal and subsequent divorce from his wife.

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  • Mistakenly deported teen: 'I made a lot of horrible mistakes'

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 9:10 p.m. ET Feb. 3: The Associated Press reports that the Dallas teenager who was deported to South America under a false name never expressed concern during jailhouse phone calls that she was being misidentified as an illegal immigrant from Colombia. 

    More from the AP story:

    The more than two dozen recorded telephone calls reviewed by The Associated Press show 15-year-old Jakadrien Turner expected to be deported to Colombia yet did not complain of having no ties to the country.

    Instead, during several conversations she had with two men she identified herself as Tika Lanay Cortez and discussed renewing her green card and having her passport and Colombian identification card sent to authorities.

    Yet, Turner claimed in a recent TV interview that she repeatedly tried to convince authorities she had lied when she initially identified herself to Houston police as Cortez, a 21-year-old Colombian national, after being arrested for shoplifting.

    Original post: Jakadrien Turner has a message for other girls thinking about running away from home:  It’s just not worth it.

    Jakadrien Turner sasy she's glad to be back home in the U.S.

    The 15-year-old Texas girl, who left her family, got arrested for shoplifting and then was mistakenly deported to Colombia, admits her nightmarish ordeal was partially her own doing.

    "I made a lot of horrible mistakes, did a lot of things I'm not proud of," Jakadrien told Dallas TV station WFAA on Thursday.

    Jakadrien's saga began when she ran away from home more than a year ago. Houston police said the girl was arrested on April 2, 2011, for misdemeanor theft in that city and claimed to be Tika Lanay Cortez, a Colombian woman born in 1990.

    She was deported to Colombia in May and apparently spent eight months there before she was returned to her family in Texas.

    She says she tried to tell Houston police when she was in jail that she was really Jakadrien Turner, but they wouldn't believe her.

    "It's like the story of the boy that cried wolf. I've lied multiple times before. I've never been honest. I've made a lot of stories up. I made the name up 'Tika Cortez,'" Jadadrien told WFAA. "But at a certain point, I just gave up because I said it multiple times: 'I'm Jakadrien Turner, I'm 15 years old, and why am I here?'"

    The girl was given Colombian citizenship upon arriving in that country, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official has said.

    According to the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the girl was enrolled in the country's "Welcome Home" program after she arrived. She was given shelter, psychological assistance and a job at a call center, a statement from the agency said.

    Jakadrien was flown back to the U.S. and reunited with her family on Jan. 6.

    Jakadrien says she doesn’t want people to feel sorry for her. She just wants to share story in hopes of warning other girls of the dangers of running away.

    "Hopefully my story will help them to realize that they need to go back home,” she told WFAA.

    Watch  the full WFAA interview.

    The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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  • What's wrong with this picture? Inmate prank adds pig to Vermont police cruisers

    Toby Talbot / AP

    The state seal is seen on the side of a Vermont State Police cruiser on Feb. 2 in Middlesex, Vt. Some Vermont inmates have gotten the best of the state police by adding a pig to the state decal on their cruisers.

    Toby Talbot / AP

    The state seal is seen on the side of a Vermont State Police cruiser on Feb. 2 in Middlesex, Vt. One of the spots on the cow in the state crest has been changed to the shape of a pig, a derogatory term for police. The car decals are made by prisoners in St. Albans, who also make state stationary and license plates.

    --The Associated Press

    A Vermont prison inmate who makes stationery and license plates has gotten the best of the state police by adding the image of a pig to the state decal on their cruisers.

    One of the spots on the cow in the state crest has been changed to the shape of a pig, a derogatory term for police. The 16-inch car door decals are made by prisoners in Windsor.

    State police discovered the pig images Wednesday. They say they believe the decals have been added to about 30 cruisers in the past year. 

    According to the Burlington Free Press, who originally reported the story, Vermont Public Safety Commissioner Keith Flynn said the disclosure of the incident made him chuckle.

    "This is not as offensive as it would have been years ago. We can see the humor," Flynn said.

    He said the artist has talents that could be used elsewhere. "If that person had used some of that creativeness he or she would not have ended up inside."

    Who made the modification and when it happened is being reviewed by the Department of Corrections. Corrections Commissioner Andy Pallito said Thursday new decals will be made by Monday for about $800.

  • Too crazy to kill? Lawyers try to stop execution of inmate they say is mentally ill

    Lawyers for condemned inmate Edwin Hart Turner say it would be cruel and unusual punishment to execute someone who is mentaly ill.

    By James Eng, NBC News

    Edwin Hart Turner is no stranger to mental illness.

    According to his lawyer and acquaintances, his grandmother and great-grandmother were committed to state hospitals. His mother attempted suicide twice. His father was killed in a dynamite explosion that some believe was a suicide.

    At age 18, Turner tried to kill himself with a rifle but the barrel of the weapon slipped just enough to spare his life; the bullet that blasted through his face left him permanently disfigured. He was hospitalized five years later when he tried to slit his wrists in another suicide attempt.

    So when Turner robbed a gas station near Carrolton, Miss., early on Dec. 13, 1995, and fatally shot a clerk in the face and a customer in the head, his lawyers say, it’s almost certain that he was – and still is  – mentally unbalanced.

    For that reason, says Turner’s attorney, Jim Craig of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, Turner should not be put to death.

    Turner’s accomplice, Paul Murrell Stewart, pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced to life without parole. Turner was convicted at trial and sentenced to death by lethal injection.

    In what he hopes will be a precedent-setting case, Craig is appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court and to Mississippi’s new governor, Phil Bryant, to halt the scheduled Feb. 8 execution of the 38-year-old Turner.

    “The Supreme Court has not decided the question of whether a prisoner with a severe mental disorder or disability which significantly impairs that person’s ability to rationally process information, to make reasonable judgments and to control their impulses, whether people in that category can be executed,” Craig told msnbc.com in a telephone interview Thursday.

    “So we’re asking the Supreme Court to establish that it would be contrary to consensus of moral values, that it would be cruel and unusual punishment, to execute someone with severe mental illness.”

    The Supreme Court in 2002 banned the execution of mentally retarded criminals. In 2005, justices ruled that it was also unconstitutional to put to death juvenile criminals. But the circumstances regarding the execution of inmates who are mentally ill - but not insane - are less clear-cut, though previous high court rulings have held that the mere presence of mental illness doesn’t necessarily exempt someone from execution.

    Craig said he will also ask a federal judge on Friday to order the state to put the execution on hold so Turner can get a mental exam, including a modern type of neuroimaging scan that wasn’t available in 1995. Craig said he thinks the so-called “functional MRI” scan will show that the portion of Turner’s brain “that controls conduct that works for everyone else in this country just doesn’t work for him.”

    “It’s like expecting someone with a broken arm to quarterback the Super Bowl,” Craig said. “It’s just not fair.”

    Other rights groups are also backing Turner's cause.

    “We’ve come a long way in our understanding of mental illness and the deep and terrible pain it inflicts on sufferers – but not far enough, at least not in Mississippi,” wrote Denny LeBoeuf, the American Civil Liberties Union's Capital Punishment Project director, in a blog post titled "Too Crazy to Kill." 

     “Most mentally ill people are not violent. Those who are should not be executed."

    Gov. Bryant’s office and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood’s office did not immediately return telephone calls Thursday from msnbc.com for comment.

    On Wednesday, Hood told The Associated Press that Turner has been evaluated numerous times in the past.

    "He has raised the issue of mental health problems at every level and has been denied relief at every turn. We argue that his mental health claims have been fully addressed, and that this present action is nothing more than an attempt to re-litigate a claim that has been properly adjudicated at every turn," Hood said, according to the AP.

    Earlier, in asking the state to set the Feb. 8 execution date, Hood said in a press release that Turner has exhausted his state and federal appeals. “These crimes were brutal and nothing short of cowardly,” he said.

    Ann Dugger, executive director of the Justice Coalition, a victims' advocacy group, said mental illness in and of itself is not a reason to rule out execution.

    "What's cruel and unusual is that a perpetrator would have taken the life of someone else and murdered him," she said.

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  • Huguette Clark book coming from Random House

    Associated Press

    Huguette in her last published photograph, in 1930, on the day of her divorce in Reno, Nevada. The heir to a copper fortune died in 2011 at 104.

    A nonfiction book on the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark and her family is being written by an NBC News reporter and one of Clark's cousins.

    Ballantine Bantam Dell, a division of Random House Publishing Group, has acquired "Empty Mansions," by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr.

    Bill Dedman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for NBC News who introduced the public to heiress Huguette Clark and her empty mansions through his series of narratives on NBCNews.com and NBC's TODAY Show. He lives in suburban Connecticut, where he discovered the first of Clark's three vacant palaces. His narratives on the Clark family have been the most popular story in the history of NBCNews.com, topping 100 million page views. He received more than 1,000 letters and emails from readers of the Clark series, many of them confessing to an obsession with the mystery heiress. As a young woman in New York, actress Kimberly Belflower, explained to her Twitter followers: "Don't mind me, I'll just be reading about Huguette Clark for the rest of my life."

    Paul Clark Newell Jr., a grandnephew of W.A. Clark, has researched the family history for 20 years, gathering a unique collection of Clark family photographs, letters and memoirs. He shared many conversations with Huguette Clark about her life and family, and accepted her invitation for a rare private tour of Bellosguardo, her $100 million oceanfront estate in Santa Barbara, Calif. A grandson of W.A. Clark's sister, Newell is Huguette Clark's cousin, not a descendant of her father, and he therefore is not a party to the legal action by relatives to inherit her fortune. He lives in the mountains of San Diego County, Calif.

    Executive Editor Pamela Cannon made the deal for North American rights with agent Michael Carlisle of Inkwell Management.

    Though she inherited one of the great mining fortunes of the 19th century, Huguette Marcelle Clark lived quietly into the 21st century, secluded under fake names in hospital rooms for more than two decades. Intensely shy, she was almost entirely alone. One of her attorneys represented her for 20 years without meeting her face to face, instead talking to her through a closed door.

    Her father, William Andrews Clark, was one of the Copper Kings of Montana and a controversial U.S. senator, believed to be as wealthy as John D. Rockefeller in his day but largely forgotten since his death in 1925.

    His youngest daughter, the reclusive heiress Huguette, became a well-known name again in the last year of her life, after her three empty mansions and sales of her personal property drew the attention of investigative reporter Dedman. Clark soon became a subject of public fascination, a trending topic of searches on Google and Yahoo, with fan pages on Facebook, though the last published photograph of her was made in 1930.

    When she died in May 2011 at age 104, her obituary appeared on the front page of The New York Times. A legal battle has begun for her $400 million fortune, even as criminal investigations continue of the men who managed her money.

    Previous stories in the Huguette Clark mystery series on NBCNews.com:

    Archive of all stories, photos and videos

    Photo narrative, "The Clarks: An American story of wealth, scandal and mystery," Feb. 26, 2010.

    Printable version of the photo narrative, Feb. 26, 2010.

    Clark family notes and sources, Feb. 26, 2010.

    Investigative report, part one, "At 104, the mysterious heiress Huguette Clark is alone now: Relatives are kept away. Only her accountant and attorney visit. Who protects HuguetteClark, with 3 empty homes and no heirs?" Aug. 19, 2010.

    Investigative report, part two, "Who is watching Huguette Clark's millions? Reclusive heiress's assets are sold by two advisers, one an accountant with a felony conviction. Another elderly client signed over his property to the same accountant and attorney," Aug. 20, 2010.

    "Criminal probe begins into the finances of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark: Manhattan DA's Elder Abuse Unit is on the case. The same unit prosecuted the Brooke Astor case; Clark has about four times the wealth," Aug. 24, 2010.

    "Report sparks welfare check on heiress Huguette Clark," Aug. 25, 2010.

    "Generosity of an heiress: four homes for a nurse, gifts for attorney's family," Sept. 1, 2010.

    "Huguette Clark, the reclusive heiress, has signed a will, attorney says," Sept. 2, 2010.

    "Family of copper heiress asks court to protect her from attorney, accountant," Sept. 3, 2010.

    "Attorney for 104-year-old heiress defends his handling of her finances," Sept. 7, 2010.

    "Judge leaves pair under investigation in control of heiress Huguette Clark's fortune," Sept. 9, 2010.

    "Huguette Clark, the reclusive copper heiress, dies at 104," May 24, 2011.

    "Family excluded from Huguette Clark burial," May 26, 2011.

    "Heiress Huguette Clark's will leaves $1 million to advisers," June 22, 2011.

    "The 1 percent of the 1 percent: How Huguette Clark's millions were spent," Nov. 19, 2011.

    "A $400 miillion twist: Huguette Clark signed two wills, one to her family," Nov. 28, 2011.

    "Tax fraud alleged in estate of heiress Huguette Clark; accountant resigns," Dec. 21, 2011.

    "Nurse, in line to inherit millions, battles family of heiress Huguette Clark," Dec. 22, 2011.

    "Judge bounces attorney and accountant from estate of heiress Huguette Clark," Dec. 23, 2011.

  • School playground 'rape tag' sparks concern

    By Sylvia Wood, msnbc.com

    Freeze tag during recess seldom raises eyebrows, but a variation of the game known as “rape tag” among students at a Minnesota elementary school has alarmed administrators and parents.

    Principal Bill Sprung of Washington Elementary School in New Ulm sent a letter home this week to parents to alert them to the disturbing game, which was described as similar to freeze tag, "except that a person had to be humped to be unfrozen," the letter states. 

    Sprung found out about the game after being notified on Jan. 10 by a concerned parent.

    He told parents that students in two classrooms were primarily involved. The school, he said, immediately notified teachers and recess supervisors to talk to students about the matter and put an end to the game. "We addressed it as an inappropriate game," he told msnbc.com on Thursday.

    While there’s been no recurrence on the playground, Sprung said that he chose to send letters home to quell rumors and speculation apparently fueled by Facebook postings.

    He defended the school's handling of the matter: "I think in terms of extinguishing the game, the school and the staff did an excellent job."

    Since the letter went home, Sprung said, he's been contacted by about 15 to 20 parents, some of whom were upset about having to discuss the sensitive topic with their children.

    "Since the surge in facebook discussions, all staff at Washington has been notified of the game and will be watching for any incidents of the game," Spung said in his letter to parents.

    He told msnbc.com that the level of playground supervision has remained the same: "We have not needed to increase the monitors," he said.

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  • Mystery teen illness grows in upstate NY, more cases reported

    A 36-year-old is now experiencing the same odd verbal and motor tics first reported in teenage girls who live in LeRoy, N.Y. NBC's Amy Robach reports.

    By Amy Robach, Kevin Monahan and Christina Caron
    NBC News


    LeROY, N.Y. -- The mystery illness now producing Tourette’s-like symptoms in a more than a dozen girls from upstate New York is also affecting a 36-year-old who is experiencing the same tics as the teens.

    Nurse practitioner Marge Fitzsimmons, who has spent her whole life in LeRoy, N.Y., lives just a few miles from the school the teens attend.

    “It started out with sudden head jerks in the middle of October,” Fitzsimmons told NBC News, the tics occasionally interfering with her ability to talk.

    It got so bad she had to leave her job working with developmentally disabled patients until the tics subside.

    “The motor tics wouldn't stop, and the vocal tics started, and I went to one of the bosses and said I have to go.”  

    She hasn't been back to work in two months. On a good day, Fitzsimmons said, the tics are sporadic. On a bad day, she cannot control them. Extensive testing – including a CAT scan and blood work – didn’t provide any answers, the same frustration experienced by the teens.

    “When it first started I thought maybe I'm going crazy,” she said. “As an adult, I can't imagine these teenagers going through this and for anyone to think that they're faking it at all. Try living a day in their shoes.”

    Some neurologists, including Fitzsimmons’ doctors, have suggested the illness could be “conversion disorder,” or mass hysteria – something Fitzsimmons has accepted “because that's what gets me out of the bed every day. That is my answer.”

    According to Dr. Laszlo Mechtler, vice president of the Dent Neurological Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., the disorder “occurs in small groups, especially girls in schools in small towns.”

    “What happens is that one individual – the so-called index case – may have a neurological disorder,” Dr. Mechtler told NBC in January. “And then all of a sudden several other ladies have similar symptoms.”

    High school student Thera Sanchez, 17, and 14 others started experiencing the odd symptoms last fall, around the same time as Fitzsimmons: stammering, verbal outbursts and limb spasms.

    “I want an answer,” Sanchez told NBC in January, her words periodically punctuated with jerking motions and involuntary grunts. “I’ve had psychological treatment. They say this is stress induced. My psychological treatment …. That’s all they do is stress me out more.”

    The teens’ plight captured the attention of environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who began speaking out about a 1970 train accident that spilled cyanide and industrial solvent four miles from the teens’ school, LeRoy Junior-Senior High School. According to a 1999 Environmental Protection Agency report, approximately 35,000 gallons of TCE (trichloroethene) contaminated the area near the derailment.

    The EPA has been doing "routine maintenance" on the train derailment site in LeRoy, but said in a statement it “appears unrelated to the illness.” And after investigating the case for months, the New York State Health Department concluded the school grounds are not to blame for the girls’ symptoms. 

    “We have conclusively ruled out any form of infection or communicable disease and there’s no evidence of any environmental factor,’’ Dr. Gregory Young of the New York Department of Health told NBC News in January.

    Click here to read the full report from the Le Roy Central School District.

    Now Brockovich’s team is testing the area.

    Fitzsimmons told NBC News that when she was a teenager, she used to hang out in the same area where the train had derailed. And now she wants to know if her own hometown – rather than “conversion disorder” – could be the root of her symptoms.

    “This is really scary; it's like somebody came in and took home away. LeRoy has always been home for me,” Fitzsimmons said.  “At least somebody is trying to get answers.”

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  • Lesbian couple: Catholic college's alumni contest rejects love story

    Saint Joseph's University alumni Megan Edwards and Katie MacTurk claim the school's alumni association wouldn't accept their submission in a Valentine's Day contest because they are lesbians.

    By Dan Stamm, NBCPhiladelphia.com

    A Valentine’s Day contest by St. Joseph’s University’s Alumni Association to share the stories and photos of some alumni who met on Hawk Hill is finding the small Catholic university in the middle of a controversy that the school is discriminating against some alumni due to sexual orientation.

    Megan Edwards and Katie MacTurk say they entered their photo and story about how they met during their senior year at St. Joe’s in hopes that they would earn the most “Likes” by Feb. 14.

    They were hoping to win the "How I Met My Hawk Mate" contest and a $100 restaurant gift certificate to a restaurant of their choice.

     Read original story on NBCPhiladelphia.com

    They say they never got their chance. Edwards and MacTurk claim that the Jesuit school's alumni association refused to use their photo on the alumni group’s Facebook page because they are a lesbian couple and that, when pressed, the alumni association claimed the decision was made because the Catholic Church doesn’t recognize same-sex relationships.
    In a letter written by Edwards and posted to Facebook Wednesday, she shares the story about how she and MacTurk were recently engaged (they plan to wed next year) and decided to submit their photo on Jan. 26.

    After four days, Edwards claims she still didn’t see the photo posted to Facebook despite being advised it would be posted within 24 hours of the submission. Since other photos were being posted, Edwards decided to ask the alumni association why her and MacTurk’s photo still wasn’t posted. More days passed before they received a response.

    Per Edwards’ post:

    After getting called back, we learned that the Alumni Association had “discussed our submission,” and inevitably decided NOT to post our submission because “the Catholic Church does not recognize same-sex marriage.” Despite the ten years we (collectively) studied at Saint Joseph’s, the hundreds of thousands of dollars we’ve paid in tuition dollars over these ten years, and countless hours we have dedicated to SJU, our relationship does not seem to exist in the Alumni Association’s eyes. To them, we are not hawkmates.

    Once the couple’s story was shared on Facebook with a request that people let St. Joe's know that they considered this discrimination, the SJU Alumni Facebook page was quickly inundated with dozens of comments of people upset that the association doesn’t allegedly treat all graduates equally.

    The attention and support they got overwhelmed the couple, MacTurk told NBC10.

    The cause was quickly picked up by LGBT groups. Websites like Jezebel.com and others also shared the young couple’s story.

    “I'd be pretty surprised, for instance, if it started hosting gay marriages in its chapel. But an informal contest for alumni is a much lower-pressure event -- and the fact that the SJU alumni association picked dogma over freedom and human rights is a little disappointing,” wrote Anna North on Jezebel.com.

    NBC10 has asked both Saint Joe’s and the alumni association to comment. So far no one has replied.

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  • Complaint about accused ex-teacher made years ago

    A Los Angeles public school teacher accused of engaging in lewd acts with students, allegedly had questions raised about his behavior more than 20 years ago. KNBC's Robert Kovacik reports.

    By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

    LOS ANGELES -- A longtime Los Angeles teacher accused of bizarre acts of lewd conduct and taking photographs of children -- some blindfolded in a classroom with tape over their mouths -- was investigated in 1994 for allegedly trying to fondle a 10-year-old girl, according to authorities.

    The alleged act occurred in September 1993, but was not reported to officials at Miramonte Elementary School until the following January 1994, Lt. Carlos Marquez said. The girl claimed the former teacher, 61-year-old Mark Berndt, reached toward her genitals during class, but she pushed away his hands, according to the sheriff's department.

    The school notified the sheriff's department, which opened an investigation. Charges were not filed in that case.

    The school district has launched its own investigation into the current allegations against Berndt.

    Read original story on NBCLosAngeles

    Berndt, who worked at Miramonte for more than 30 years, is jailed on $23 million bond. He is accused of felony molestation involving 23 children, ages 6 to 10, between 2005 and 2010.

    He was arrested earlier this week after authorities were notified by a film processing technician of 40 photographs that depicted blindfolded children in a classroom with tape over their mouths. Some images showed the former teacher with his arm around the children or hand over their mouths, according to investigators.

    California State Penal Code requires film processors to report suspected child abuse.

    About 100 similar photos were found at Berndt's home, according to the sheriff's department. About 250 additional photos were recovered by Sheriff's Special Victims Bureau detectives from the film processing business.

    'Never talked about again'
    Meanwhile, two women who said they were former students of Berndt told the Los Angeles Times that complaints were made about Berndt's odd behavior as far back as 1990.

    Marlene Trujillo, a 30-year-old paralegal, said she and two other fourth-grade classmates spoke with a school counselor about Berndt. They told the counselor he often moved his hands under his desk, near his lap, at the front of the classroom. She and other students also had seen a jar of Vaseline in one of his desk compartments.

    “I didn’t say much during the meeting,” Trujillo told the Los Angeles Times. Finally, the counselor “just told us it’s not very good to make stories up. She said it was our imagination. It was never talked about again.”

    Trujillo's classmate, Nadine Martinez Rodriguez, said she also noticed Berndt's behavior. Martinez said she told her mother about it at the time but that her mother didn't take it seriously enough to report to school officials, according to the Times.

    School officials tried to determine how the alleged behavior went on unsuspected for so long.

    "How do I make sense out of the fact that this took place over a number of years and no one seemed to know about that?" Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. John Deasy told the Times. "I'm definitely trying to understand how someone could not have known."

    'Souvenir'
    Using a cheap camera, Berndt is suspected of snapping nearly 400 photographs of Miramonte students, some with a giant Madagascar cockroach from a classroom terrarium on their faces.

    Others were blindfolded or had clear tape over their mouths, and some were shown with a spoonful of milky liquid placed near their lips, sheriff's Sgt. Dan Scott said.

    The photo sessions were treated as a game and some children were given sperm-laced cookies to eat as treats, Scott said. Berndt didn't sell or share the photographs but did give copies to some children, Scott said.

    "It was like a souvenir," Scott said.

    NBCLosAngeles.com's Jonathan Lloyd and Jess Gary contributed to this report, as did The Associated Press and msnbc.com's Sevil Omer.

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  • Law schools face lawsuits over job-placement claims

    By Sylvia Wood, msnbc.com

    Updated at 1:35 p.m. ET on Feb. 3: In a statement sent Friday, a spokesperson for Brooklyn Law School said about the lawsuit:  “These claims are without merit and we will vigorously defend against them in court.”

    Original post: Adam Bevelacqua graduated from Brooklyn Law School last year with $100,000 in debt but high hopes for his future.

    He passed the bar on his first try in New York and had internships to highlight on his resume. And, according to his research, the school’s job placement rate for new graduates was between 90 to 95 percent.

    But Bevelacqua, 29, is no longer as optimistic.

    “I’ve been looking for work ever since,” Bevelacqua told msnbc.com. “The jobs aren’t really there.”

    On Wednesday, Bevelacqua joined 50 other law school graduates from across the country who sued their alma maters, alleging they were misled about job prospects and burdened with huge amounts of student debt.

    The 12 lawsuits mark the latest round of litigation against law schools for allegedly misrepresenting their employment data. Last year, similar lawsuits were filed against New York Law School, Thomas M. Cooley Law School and Thomas Jefferson School of Law.

    “We believe that some in the legal academy have done a disservice to the profession and the nation by saddling tens of thousands of young lawyers with massive debt for a degree worth far less than advertised,” said  David Anziska, a New York City attorney for the plaintiffs in three of the lawsuits filed.

    He said the goal was to get law schools “to take responsibility, provide compensation and commit to transparency.”

    The issue of transparency has gotten national attention beyond the lawsuits.

    Last year, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. , asked the Department of Education to investigate the “job placement rates of American law school graduates; indicating whether such jobs are full- or part-time positions, whether they require a law degree, and whether they were maintained a year after employment."  A call Thursday by msnbc.com to Sen. Boxer's office was not immediately returned.

    The American Bar Association has already taken some steps to improve accountability among the law schools it accredits. In January, an ABA committee approved rules that could force law schools to disclose more detailed information about graduate job placement.

    A call to the ABA by msnbc.com wasn’t immediately returned on Thursday.

    Bevelacqua, who lives in Long Island, said he decided to join the lawsuit against Brooklyn Law in hopes of pushing the schools to provide more accurate data, especially as they continue to increase their tuitions and enrollments. The current tuition at Brooklyn Law, not including housing and living expenses, is more than $48,000 annually. “Schools won’t take people seriously unless there is an economic threat,” he said. 

    Besides Brooklyn Law, the schools named in the latest round of lawsuits are Albany Law School, Albany, N.Y.; Hofstra Law School, Hempstead, N.Y.; California Western, San Diego, Calif., Golden Gate University, San Francisco;  Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles, Calif.; University of San Francisco School of Law, San Francisco; IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago; DePaul University College of Law, Chicago; The John Marshall Law School, Chicago; Florida Coastal School of Law, Jacksonville, Fla.; and Widener University School of Law, in Wilmington, Del.

    A spokeswoman at Brooklyn Law told msnbc.com that the school had just gotten the complaint and was unable to comment on it. She did point out employment statistics for the class of 2010, reflected on the school’s website, which showed an overall job placement rate of 88.1 percent.

    Bevelacqua hopes he’ll be sworn into the bar next month, when he plans to start taking cases as a solo practitioner. In the meantime, he’s been making ends meet with temporary jobs, including a babysitting job this week that promises to pay him $150.

    While he’s always wanted to be a lawyer, working on criminal and family court cases, he says he’d tell prospective students think twice before making that investment.

    “If they’re going to law school because they think it will open up a lot of employment doors for them, “ he said, “I’d tell them to forget it.”

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  • Gulf oil spill still leaking after 7 years subject of lawsuit

    Waterkeeper Alliance says this image was taken on Dec. 30, 2011, and shows an oil sheen from the Taylor Energy platform that was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Environmental groups on Thursday sued an oil company over the pace of its cleanup of a Gulf of Mexico spill that continues seven years after it was triggered by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

    "The plaintiffs filed suit to stop the spill and lift the veil of secrecy surrounding Taylor oil’s seven-year-long response and recovery operation," Marc Yaggi, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in New Orleans. "Neither the government nor Taylor will answer basic questions related to the spill response, citing privacy concerns."

    Justin Bloom, a Waterkeeper Alliance director, told msnbc.com that the group had made Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation "and ultimately the Coast Guard has refused to provide us documents citing the Privacy Act."

    The groups allege that Taylor Energy, based in New Orleans, has violated the Clean Water Act provisions that require public participation in any enforcement of the law.

    "Without details about Taylor’s response to this crisis," the lawsuit states, "it is impossible for members of the public to assess the risk that similar events will cause additional multi-year spills, including spills from higher-pressure wells in deeper water."

    Taylor Energy did not immediately return a msnbc.com call for comment, but it has acknoweldged the spill and has been working with the U.S. Coast Guard and federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to plug it.

    Three containment domes had "substantially reduced" sheening over time, it stated on June 8, 2010, after the BP spill drew attention to the area.

    The gulf is home to hundreds of oil wells and platforms, both active and capped, and some of which periodically leak. In addition, the gulf and other bodies of ocean regularly see natural oil seeps.

    Waterkeeper said it estimates that hundreds of gallons of oil have been leaking from the Taylor site each day for the last seven years.

    The Coast Guard, however, said the average amount of oil leaking from the site is 7.5 gallons per day. Oil sheens from the site have been "minimal" and have never made landfall, according to the Coast Guard, which says a total of 12,720 gallons of oil have been reported from daily observations since the spill started in 2004.

    "The sheen size of a few gallons (in volume as observed over the sheen dimensional area) has been too thin of an oil film to warrant offshore recovery operations," the Coast Guard said in a statement.

    The plaintiffs acknowledge that the spill is tiny next to the BP spill of 200 million gallons but, argued Bloom, the Taylor spill "is emblematic of a broken system, where oil production is prioritized over concerns for human health and the environment."

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Bone marrow donor case involving fashion models settled

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    BOSTON -- Massachusetts officials have announced an agreement that requires a bone marrow registry and medical laboratory agency that hired fashion models in short skirts to recruit donors to pay $520,000.

    Attorney General Martha Coakley said Caitlin Raymond International Registry and UMass Memorial Health Ventures Inc. engaged in improper marketing by paying models to attract potential donors at malls, festivals and sporting venues.

    A judgment filed in court by Coakley on Thursday alleges that they also improperly waived copayments and deductible amounts for the testing of potential donors.

    “Efforts to increase bone marrow donor registration cannot be built on unfair and deceptive practices that increase the cost of health care for all of us,” Coakley said in a statement. “No health care provider should be allowed to use gimmicks and free gifts to increase the volume of services covered by health plans for their own financial gain.”

    The Boston Globe reported that UMass Memorial had provided financial perks to those who enlisted the most donors with insurance.

    Under the agreement, they will pay restitution to Massachusetts consumers for out-of-pocket payments made for donor testing. They will also pay the state $500,000 for initiatives to improve health care services and to combat unlawful marketing practices.

    Officials in New Hampshire, where the models were also used, planned a news conference Thursday afternoon.

    “We accept full responsibility for the mistakes and errors in judgment that were made. We are pleased to have reached a resolution with the Massachusetts Attorney General that validates the important work of the Caitlin Raymond International Registry,” said John G. O'Brien, president and CEO of UMass Memorial Health Care.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News

     

  • TSA agent accused of plucking $5,000 from passenger's pocket

    By Harriet Baskas, NBC News contributor

    A Transportation Security Administration agent is accused of taking $5,000 in cash from a passenger’s jacket as it moved along the security checkpoint conveyor belt at JFK International Airport on the evening of Feb. 1.

    TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said the theft was first reported by another officer on duty at the checkpoint who witnessed the incident.

    “TSA notified local law enforcement, which arrested the officer, who has been a TSA employee for 4 ½ years,” said Farbstein in a statement.  


    A police spokesman told the Associated Press that a surveillance video shows the agent, Alexandra Schmid, wrapping the money in a plastic glove and taking it to a bathroom, where it may have been given to another person. The money has not yet been recovered. Schmid has been charged with grand larceny, according to NBC New York.

    Meanwhile, in Texas, the TSA has put one of its Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport employees on administrative leave for allegedly stealing iPads from travelers.

    WFAA.com reports that bag screener Clayton Keith Dovel, an employee in the behind-the-scenes "Resolution Room," where officers inspect checked bags by hand, is accused of stealing at least eight iPads from travelers.

    The thefts were linked to Dovel when a passenger tracked his missing iPad to Dovel’s home.

    Farbstein said TSA “aggressively investigates all allegations of misconduct and, when infractions are discovered, moves swiftly to end the federal careers of offenders.” In these and other cases of officer misconduct, though, the agency is quick to remind the public that “the actions of a few individuals in no way reflect on the outstanding job our 50,000 security officers do every day to ensure the security of the traveling public.”

    Still, TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez told msnbc.com there are some things passengers can do to try to insure the safety of their belongings at the airport.

    “When I get to the airport, I put my cell phone, my money clip, my keys and any other personal property into a zippered pocket inside my briefcase," said Melendez. “Then everything is in one place and not loose in the bins.”

    Melendez also reminds travelers not to put jewelry, iPads, laptops or other expensive items in checked luggage. “Carry them with you,” he said. “Besides the TSA, your checked bag could be handled four or five times by airlines and other entities and by up to 10 different people.”

    And don’t assume that if something goes missing it’s been stolen. “Sometimes other passengers pick up the wrong items at the checkpoints,” said Melendez. “And sometimes, in the resolution room, something gets taken out of a bag and someone forgets to put it back.”

    Melendez said clear identification on belongings, such as a business card taped to a laptop, goes a long way in helping travelers get their stuff back.  

    Do you make an effort to protect your belongings when going through an airport security checkpoint? Tell us on Facebook.   

    Related stories: 

    Find more by Harriet Baskas on Stuck at The Airport.com and follow her on Twitter.

  • Under fire, Komen CEO denies politics in Planned Parenthood cuts

    Ambassador Nancy Brinker of the Susan G. Komen Foundation explains the organization's choice to stop funding for Planned Parenthood.

    By JoNel Aleccia, Senior Writer, NBC News

    The founder and chief executive for Susan G. Komen for the Cure on Thursday flatly rejected accusations that the organization caved to political pressure in cutting ties to Planned Parenthood, a move that has ignited a firestorm of controversy.

    In one of her first live comments since the Tuesday announcement, Ambassador Nancy G. Brinker told NBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the decision was made to revamp and strengthen the way the organization makes grants.

    “This is not a political decision,” Brinker told Mitchell. “We operate from one set of standards every day."

    Brinker said Komen’s motivations had been “mischaracterized” and that they stemmed from an overhaul of criteria for awarding funds.

    “Many of the grants we were doing with Planned Parenthood do not meet the new standards,” Brinker said.

    Her comments were challenged by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who also appeared on the show. Boxer accused Brinker of trying to “change the story,” in which officials first said that Planned Parenthood funds were being cut because of pending investigations.

    “This is a complete revisionist comment she is making about why suddenly Planned Parenthood lost this funding,” Boxer said.

    Mitchell questioned Brinker about the apparent growing anger over the decision, including a huge swell of response on Facebook and Twitter in which long-time supporters say they’re cutting up pink ribbons, a longtime symbol of the Komen group.

    However, Brinker said she’s heard from many who back the decision.

    “The responses that we are getting are really, really favorable,” Brinker said.

    Planned Parenthood provides abortion, birth control and other health services to women. It had received about $700,000 annually from Komen to provide access to mammograms for low income women. The grants provided screening services to about 170,000 women in the past five years, Boxer said.
     
    The Komen foundation, known for its Race for the Cure fundraisers, has collected more than $1.9 billion for breast cancer research and programs. It has affiliates in more than 100 U.S. cities and 50 countries.

  • $1 million lottery winner won't quit waitress job

    By msnbc.com staff

    Alexandra Chaar.

    One 21-year-old Florida waitress has no plans to quit her day job – even after winning a $1 million lottery prize.

    "No way," Alexandra Chaar told Florida Lottery officials on Wednesday. "I love where I work."

    Chaar, who works at a Mexican restaurant in Clearwater Beach, Fla., said she bought her ticket in the state's $1 million Monopoly Scratch-Off Game at a local food mart.

    "I kept going back to the same store to buy them; the people who work there got to know me," Chaar told the lottery commission. "They said that up to this point, their store had never had any big winners, but I just had this lucky feeling."

    Chaar chose the one-time, lump-sum payment for her winnings in the amount of $700,000.

    According to Tampa Bay Online, Chaar told lottery officials she was a straight-A student at St. Petersburg College and planned to use the money to pay for college.

    Until then, she’ll keep working for tips.

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  • Searchers scour Ore. river site for 3 missing mushroom pickers

    Courtesy Curry County Sheriff's Office

    Belinda and Daniel Conne.

    By msnbc.com staff

    Searchers on Thursday resumed scouring an area in southwestern Oregon near the Rogue River where a couple and their adult son went missing while on a mushroom-picking trip.

    Belinda and Daniel Conne, both 47, and their 25-year-old son, Michael, were last seen about noon Sunday at their campsite in Huntley Park on the Rogue River. They apparently headed to Saunders Creek to pick mushrooms, leaving their two dogs behind in a camping trailer.

    On Wednesday, Curry County sheriff’s deputies found the family’s unattended SUV off a U.S. Forest Service road and later came upon some clothes and muchroom-piking gear a distance away, Curry County Sheriff John Bishop told The Oregonian.

    Curry County officials then asked several nearby counties in Oregon and California to help with the search.

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  • House panel to Holder: Give us 'Fast and Furious' documents

    Attorney General Eric Holder is facing heated questioning for the government's role in a gun-smuggling program called Fast and Furious, which some argue is related to a U.S. border agent's death. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell reports from Capitol Hill.

    By msnbc.com news services

    WASHINGTON - Attorney General Eric Holder squared off Thursday with Republicans on a House committee who are demanding that the Justice Department turn over documents about its handling of congressional inquiries into a flawed gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.

    At the start of a hearing, chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will do what is necessary to force the Justice Department to produce the information.

    The attorney general said he will consider Issa's demand.

    "I think you're hiding behind something here," Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., told Holder. "You ought to give us the documents. ... It appears we're being stonewalled."

    Burton, a former chairman of the committee, said he would urge Issa to seek a contempt of Congress citation if the Justice Department does not produce the congressionally subpoenaed documents.

    Issa has already threatened to seek a contempt ruling against Holder for failing to turn over the documents. The lawmaker alleges the Justice Department is engaging in a cover-up.

    Before the hearing started, Issa introduced Holder to federal agent John Dodson, one of the whistleblowers in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who first told Congress a year ago about the use of a tactic known as gun-walking in the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious investigation.

    The tactic involves allowing suspected "straw buyers" of weapons to walk away from gun stores with their illicit purchases, rather than arresting them there. Instead, agents tried to track the low-level buyers and the guns to smuggling ringleaders and financiers, including Mexican drug gang leaders, who have long eluded prosecution for their role in the flow of guns into Mexico.

    ATF's Phoenix division has tried this tactic, with minor variations, in at least four investigations beginning in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration. It began three such probes, including one called "Wide Receiver," under Bush before launching Fast and Furious under Obama. All of the probes encountered problems.

    Problems recognized after agent's death
    In Fast and Furious, which ran from 2009 until early 2011, agents lost track of nearly 1,400 of the more than 2,000 guns purchased by suspected straw buyers. Some 700 guns connected to suspects in the operation have been recovered in Mexico and the U.S., some at crime scenes, including the one near Nogales, Ariz., where border agent Brian Terry was murdered in December 2010. A month after Terry's death, Congress began hearing of problems with the probe.

    Parents of slain border agent seek $25 million from Fast and Furious agency

    Issa, who issued a memorandum detailing the operations before Terry was killed, and other Republicans on the panel said Thursday at the hearing that senior Justice Department officials should have also known that guns were trafficked without surveillance from wiretap applications and details about "Wide Receiver."

    "All of those people should be ashamed that Brian Terry is dead because they didn't do as good of a job as they should," Issa said during the hearing.

    Lawmakers want to know "how you'll ensure for the American people that this will not happen again," he said.

    Holder has said he and other senior Justice Department officials and its ATF were left in the dark about Fast and Furious until the controversy erupted.

    "It's unacceptable, it's stupid, it's dangerous, and not something that this Department of Justice can ever do," Holder told the panel Thursday about the tactics.

    He said two senior aides who knew that guns were allowed to be trafficked during the Bush administration regretted not making the connection to "Fast and Furious".

    Holder raised questions about whether the wiretap applications did in fact discuss the tactics and said talking about those documents publicly could violate court orders.

    Holder said he expected to hold people accountable in a court of law, with maximum criminal charges, for Terry's murder within six months and possibly by the end of March. He also said whoever authorized the tactics would likely be fired.

    Republicans expressed frustration that it was taking so long for disciplinary action.

    "You told people that you were mad, you were upset. That to me is silly. You've not taken action, you've not fired anybody," said Representative Patrick McHenry of North Carolina.

    Holder said he had moved ATF personnel around and barred the use of gun walking. Further action against those responsible would have to wait for the Justice Department's inspector general to finish her investigation and report, he said.

    "To the extent that we find out who precisely was involved in this or who gave that order, I can assure you that unless there is some truly compelling circumstance, that person, those people, will be removed from federal service," Holder said.

    On Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the department will provide documents created after Feb. 4, 2011, the day the department gave incorrect information to Congress about Fast and Furious.

    Cole said the department had made an exception to longstanding policy in order to provide material on how the erroneous Feb. 4 letter was created, but he said other documents about the congressional inquiries on Fast and Furious would not be turned over.

    Holder said Thursday that prior administrations have recognized that robust internal communications would be chilled, and the executive branch's ability to respond to such requests impeded, if internal communications concerning responses to congressional oversight were disclosed to Congress.

    Memo details concerns
    Issa's memo questioned why federal agents allowed the probe to go on for over a year.

    Intercepts from a Drug Enforcement Administration wiretap on one of the suspects provided probable cause for federal agents to make arrests, or at the very least supplied the basis to seize the weapons, the Republican staff memo said. The memo said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives did not act on this information.

    Agents could have arrested one of the suspects in December 2009 and used his arrest to work their way up the ladder to the two cartel associates, the staff memo said.

    "Instead, ATF wanted to get its own federal wiretaps and create its own big case," said the GOP memo. "This decision ensured that Fast and Furious lasted nearly a year longer, with 1,500 more guns being purchased — including the guns bought by another of the suspects in January 2010" found at the Terry murder scene.

    Democrats on the committee have pointed out that agents in the case testified that stronger US laws are needed against straw buyers, because cases get thrown out of court, or prison sentences are too short, to persuade the low-level buyers to turn on their bosses.

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Bald suspect wanted for stealing Rogaine from NY pharmacy

    By NBCNewYork.com

    Police released this image of one of the suspects wanted for stealing Rogaine from a Long Island pharmacy.

    Police are looking for two men, one of whom is bald, caught on surveillance cameras stealing Rogaine from a CVS Pharmacy on Long Island.

    Authorities say the men walked into the CVS in Sayville on Dec. 17, placed three boxes of Rogaine in a gift bag and left without paying.

    Read original story on NBCNewYork.com

    The stolen Rogaine is worth about $150.

    Suffolk County Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.

    Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-220-TIPS.

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  • Fla. teenage crash survivor won't be deported

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 5:30 p.m. ET

    Immigration officials say the lone survivor of a family killed in a mile-long pileup along Interstate 75 on Sunday south of Gainesville, Fla., will not be deported.

    Relatives who want Lidiane Carmo, 15, to live with them in the United States feared she may be deported. The Carmo family moved to the U.S. from Brazil 12 years ago, NBC station WXIA reported. They were undocumented, WXIA said.

    U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said the high school freshman will not be forced to return to Brazil.

    "Our thoughts and prayers are with Miss Lidiane Carmo as she deals with the tragic loss of her family," Gonzalez said in a written statement reported by several media outlets. "ICE's stated priorities include convicted criminals, immigration fugitives, repeat immigration law violators and recent border crossers."

    Lidiane Carmo, 15, a ninth-grader at Sprayberry High School in Marietta, Ga., was part of a group of 15 from the International Church of the Restoration in Marietta. They were returning home after a three-day religious conference in Orlando, Fla.

    A mix of fog and smoke from a nearby brush fire made visibility difficult on six-lane I-75 on Sunday when at least a dozen cars, six tractor-trailers and a motor-home collided. Wreckage was so bad that it took more than two days to find the accident's 11th victim, who was in a pickup truck where two bodies were discovered earlier, officials said Wednesday.

    Jose Carmo Jr., 43, a founding pastor of the church, his wife, Adriana, 39 and their oldest daughter, Leticia, 17 died in the crash. Lidiane Carmo's uncle, Edsom, 38, and his girlfriend, Rose DeSilva, 41, also died. The teen is hospitalized in Gainesville with serious injuries. She was told Tuesday her family had died.

    A Georgia teen who lost her entire family in a Florida interstate crash now faces deportation. WXIA's Jon Shirek reports.

    At a church meeting Tuesday night, Brazil's deputy consul general in Atlanta, Ana Rodrigues, offered the government's condolences, but could not promise any help or hope.

    "Immigration issues are a matter of the American government," Rodrigues said.

    And she was not able to say whether the Brazilian government would be able to consider the family's request for financial help to fly the bodies back to Marietta for the funerals, and to Brazil for the burials.

    "I can't say yes or no. It's impossible, because I can't make this decision," she told the congregation.

    Lidiane Carmo now faces the prospect of a long hospital recovery without health insurance. She has already undergone surgery for injuries sustained in the crash and could face further operations, the Daily Mail of London reported Thursday.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Snow heading for central US, but not areas north

    By msnbc.com staff

    One of the few snowy stormfronts so far this winter is about to hit the central U.S., but snow-starved areas in the north -- from Minnesota to New England -- won't be getting any.

    The Denver area should see snow start by Thursday night and into Friday for a total of up to 14 inches, NBC affiliate KUSA-TV reported.

    Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming will also feel the system, weather.com reported.

    Much of the United States has been enjoying unseasonably warm weather, and it has many people asking whatever happened to winter? NBC's Anne Thompson looks at the "why" behind the wacky winter weather.

    "If you have travel plans along I-80, I-70 and I-25 from late Thursday through Friday night across the states mentioned above, you may want to hold off. The combination of snow and gusty winds will make travel dangerous," wrote weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce. "Blizzard conditions are expected Thursday night through Friday night or early Saturday in parts of eastern Colorado, northwest Kansas, western and central Nebraska!"

    Drought-hit Texas and Oklahoma can expect rain from the system, Dolce added.

    The storm will slowly move east into the weekend, with rain in the South and Ohio Valley and some snow in a few Midwest areas.

    PhotoBlog: Snow AWOL across continental US

    But the Northern Plains and the Northeast won't see much, if any, impact.

    How snow-impaired are some cities in those regions? Weather.com noted these stats for seasonal snow-to-date:

    • Cincinnati has had 2 inches -- 17 percent of average;
    • Boston got 7.8 inches -- 34 percent of average;
    • Syracuse got 31.8 inches -- 42 percent of average;
    • Minneapolis got 14.9 inches -- 44 percent of average;
    • New York City got just 7.2 inches -- 60 percent of average;
    • Chicago got 13.9 inches -- 67 percent of average.

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  • Washington State Senate approves same-sex marriage bill

    Senators in Washington state voted 28-21 Wednesday to legalize same-sex marriage, with four Republicans crossing party lines to approve the bill.

    By msnbc.com staff, King5.com and the Associated Press

     

    Senators voted 28-21 to approve a bill to legalize gay marriage in the state. Four Republicans crossed party lines and voted with majority Democrats for the measure. Three Democrats voted against it.

    The measure now moves to the House, where there is enough support for the bill to pass. Gov. Chris Gregoire says she will sign the bill if it makes it to her desk, Seattle TV station King 5 reported.

    Legislators debated the measure for two hours Wednesday night at the capitol in Olympia before voting.

    The Senate adopted a series of amendments intended to clarify religious exemptions in the legislation, the Seattle Times reported.

    Opponents promise a referendum in November if the bill is signed into law.

    Any challenge to the bill can't be filed until after it is passed by the full Legislature and signed into law by Gregoire. Opponents then must turn in 120,577 signatures by June 6.

    If opponents aren't able to collect enough signatures, gay and lesbian couples would be able to be wed starting in June. Otherwise, they would have to wait until the results of a November election.

    Before last week, it wasn't certain the Senate would have the support to pass the measure, as a handful of Democrats remained undecided.

    But after the first public hearing on the issue Jan. 23, a previously undecided Democratic senator, Mary Margaret Haugen of Camano Island, said she would be the 25th and deciding vote in support of the bill, all but ensuring its passage.

    Elaine Thompson / AP

    Members of the gallery applaud as the Washington state Senate passes a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, Feb. 1, in Olympia, Wash. The measure now heads to the House, which is expected to approve it.

    PhotoBlog: Washington State clears gay marriage bill hurdle

    Same-sex marriage is legal in New York, Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

    Lawmakers in New Jersey and Maryland are expected to debate gay marriage this year, and Maine could see a gay marriage proposal on the November ballot.

    The debate over same-sex marriage in Washington state has changed significantly since lawmakers passed Washington's Defense of Marriage Act in 1998, which banned gay marriage. The constitutionality of DOMA was ultimately upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2006, but earlier that year, a gay civil rights measure passed after nearly 30 years of failure.

    The quick progression of domestic partnership laws in the state came soon after, with a domestic partnership law in 2007, and two years of expansion that culminated in 2009 with the so-called "everything but marriage law" that was upheld by voters after opponents filed a referendum to challenge it.

    Under the measure that passed Wednesday, the more than 9,300 couples currently registered in domestic partnerships would have two years to either dissolve their relationship or get married. Domestic partnerships that aren't ended prior to June 30, 2014, would automatically become marriages.

    Domestic partnerships would remain for senior couples where at least one partner is 62 years old or older. That provision was included to help seniors who don't remarry out of fear they could lose certain pension or Social Security benefits.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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