It took 11 days and the help of dozens of strangers, but police, with the help of amateur sleuths, have located the family of the reclusive twin sisters who were found dead in their California home last month.

NBCBayArea reported that the burst of publicity when the story surfaced helped officials locate cousins of Patricia and Joan Miller. Det. Matt Harwood, of the El Dorado County sheriff's office, said the twins have two cousins in Portland and also a cousin in the Bay Area.

The Millers lived for nearly 40 years in South Lake Tahoe but often shunned their neighbors. Their shared life ended in a mysterious double death. Police found one sister in a bedroom and the other in a hallway during a routine welfare check on Feb. 26. They were 73.

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Police usually do not release the names of the dead without first informing their relatives, but the sisters' shrouded lives made that impossible, said Harwood. With little information about the twins' personal lives to work from, investigators issued a public plea this week asking for help in notifying the sisters' next of kin.

The response was overwhelming. Emails and phone calls poured in and with the help of amateur genealogists who read media accounts of the sisters' deaths, investigators tracked down a first cousin and two second cousins late Wednesday.

The cousins hadn't heard from the sisters in years.

"They confirmed pretty much what everyone else told me," Harwood said. "They were pretty reclusive and no one really knows why."

Harwood said the cousins told him they had lost touch with the sisters through the years as other family members passed away.

"They were just sort of the twins that no one had heard from in a long time," he said.

See the full report on the twins from NBCBayArea

Different names
The cousins don't share the Miller sisters' last name, which might be why police had such a hard time finding them. They were tracked down by at-home sleuths, who passed on the family members' contact information to police. In one case, someone called one of the cousins to confirm their blood line before giving the name to Harwood.

Harwood said the sisters deserved to have their family know about their death, and he was pleased to complete that mission with help from "people from across the country, just your Average Joe wanting to try their hand on genealogy," he said.

"There's no way we could have done it without you guys in the press and literally hundreds of people just calling to help put the pieces together," Harwood said.

One of the second cousins lives in the San Francisco Bay area, and the two other cousins live in Portland, Ore., where the twins grew up.

Harwood said he has yet to find a will but plans to give some of the twins' personal items, including their mother's furniture and family photo albums, to the cousins.

The discovery of next of kin provides some answers to the twins' mysterious end, but their puzzle is far from solved.

Medical investigators have not been able to determine how or when the women died, but their decomposed bodies suggest they had been dead for at least several weeks when they were found, Harwood said. Toxicology reports likely won't be available for at least two more months.

There was no blood or signs of struggle. The sisters' longtime home was not unkempt and they didn't have a history of severe health problems, Harwood said.

"My perception is one died and the other couldn't handle it," he said this week. "It appears purely natural, but we are still trying to piece it all together."

Investigators hope to soon narrow down when the sisters died. It's unlikely their killer was carbon monoxide poisoning, a common danger in the winter, because a window had been left open and the house was well ventilated.

A neighbor spotted an ambulance at their house about a year ago and assumed the sisters had fallen ill. Someone asked police to check regularly on the house. When officers arrived Feb. 25 for a routine check, no one answered the door. The next day, police forced their way in and found the bodies.

The twins were the daughters of Fay Lang and Elmon Gordon Miller, who went by the name "Bud" and was born in 1895 in Bremen, Ky., Harwood said. Their father was a dairy salesman in Oakland, Calif., at one point, Harwood said.

The sisters were never married and didn't have children or pets. They seemed to prefer only each other's company. They purchased their four-bedroom home together in 1976 and may have been each other's only close friend.

Joan Miller was a senior accounting clerk in the payroll department at the Lake Tahoe Unified School District from 1979 to 1984. Patricia Miller, who drove a white convertible with red upholstery, worked in the El Dorado County's social services office during that same time.

When people called, the sisters came up with excuses to get off the phone. Without explanation, they stopped sending birthday cards to a childhood friend about a year ago. And on the rare occasion when they left their home, the two women didn't chat up the neighbors.

As news of the deaths spread, former South Lake Tahoe residents called police to report that they had lived near the sisters for decades, in some cases, and had hardly seen them. One sent in a postcard that claimed the sisters were the only remaining members of their family after their mother's death and their brother died at war.

Their secluded lives in their final years stand in contrast to a youth full of glamour and entertainment.

When the twins did talk to outsiders, they often spoke of the singing career they had shared in their younger years. The women briefly appeared on a 1950s television show called the "The Hoffman Hayride" and posed for a picture with Bing Crosby as children. The twins also entertained troops at military bases, a childhood friend told Harwood.

They appear young, beautiful and elegant in matching off-the-shoulder gowns in a picture released by police.

But the twins never seemed interested in dating or expanding their social spheres. They listed each other as their next of kin, Harwood said.

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• Cops, amateur sleuths find relatives of mysterious twins
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• How do people survive getting sucked into tornadoes?
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A massive earthquake like the one that unleashed a giant tsunami and killed nearly 16,000 people in Japan a year ago not only could happen here in the U.S., but probably will — and relatively soon in terms of seismological history.

The Tohoku earthquake was the most closely monitored in history, yielding an unprecedented breadth of data, geophysicists and seismologists say. And for residents of the Pacific Northwest, the new data should be worrisome.

"It's just like Japan, only a mirror image," said Gerard Fryer, a geophysicist at the University of Hawaii and the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The disaster in Japan occurred because of stress from the Pacific tectonic plate sliding below Japan, according to new research discussed last month at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver, British Columbia.

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The lead researcher, John Anderson, a geophysicist at the University of Nevada-Reno, said the plates locked together, slowly pushing Japan westward.

The plates released catastrophically on March 11, 2011, creating a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and tsunami waves that topped 100 feet, said Anderson, who spent most of the past year in Japan as a visiting research professor in Tokyo.

While most Americans probably think the San Andreas fault running through California poses the greatest threat of unleashing a killer mega-quake, data from the Japanese quake indicate that the distinction actually belongs to the Cascadia fault line, which runs through southern Canada, Washington and Oregon to Northern California, Anderson said at the conference.

USGS earthquake information by state

Like Fryer, he called the Pacific Northwest trench a "mirror image" of the Japanese trench — except potentially even more dangerous.

"In this mirror image, one can see that if the same earthquake occurred in Cascadia, the fault would rupture to a significant distance inland, since the Cascadia trench sits much closer to the coastline than the trench off the coast of Japan," Anderson said.

While some probability models predict that a Cascadia earthquake wouldn't rupture so far under the land, "if it does, the data from the Tohoku earthquake predict stronger ground motions along our West Coast than those seen in Japan," he said.

In layman's terms, what's happening is that the region "is being deformed because the plates are locked together, and the shoreline is sinking and the rest of the thing is being bent," Fryer said in an interview with NBC station KHNL of Honolulu.

Fryer said the big question is not whether a Japan-like quake will happen, but when.

"Where are we here? Are we close or are we not close?" he asked. "I think the suspicion is that it could be sooner rather than later."

Anderson's research supports that conclusion.

Experts generally agree that last great Cascadia earthquake happened on Jan. 26, 1700. It generated tsunami waves that indicated that its magnitude was also about 9.0.

"Earthquakes of this size in the past may have recurred with intervals of as small as about 300 years," Anderson said at the AAAS conference last month. "So it would not be a scientific surprise if such an event were to occur in the near future. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, look at the videos of Tohoku as a reminder to be prepared."

The warnings come as the White House is proposing a 2013 budget that would cut $4.6 million from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's tsunami programs. Much of that would come from the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, which funds evacuation maps, training and education efforts — important services given how deeply the Japanese quake and tsunami transformed the science of seismology.

"The Japan earthquake told us that a lot of what we understand about how earthquakes work is wrong," Fryer said. "Do we now have to go back and look at all of our evacuation maps and make sure that they're right? That's a question that's still unanswered, and that question would be answered with tsunami hazard mitigation program funds."

More on the Japan Quake-Tsunami from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Prediction lessons from the Japan quake
• One year after Fukushima, Japanese town is frozen in time
• Japanese tsunami survivor, 79, looks ahead
• Tsunami Survivors: Struggling to live on, alone
• Japan Red Cross: Whole year wasted after tsunami
• Cosmic Log: Hear the soundtrack of a super-quake
• Nuke pill frenzy fizzles in U.S. as Fukushima fades
• Photo Blog: Panoramic images, then and now
• Japan disaster snarls U.S. nuke plant plans

YELM, Wash. -- A theft in Yelm, Wash., has robbed a man of a possession he relies on: his prosthetic running foot.

Zac Vawter's wife, Jen, returned home on Wednesday afternoon after Bible study and noticed she couldn't find her computer, according to police reports.

"Kind of dawned on me someone had been in the house," she said.

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In the small community, located 20 miles outside Olympia, Wash., Jen says they never lock their doors. In all, the thieves had taken the family's computer, a gun, and a camera -- but the most valuable item stolen from them, the family said, was the prosthetic foot.

"I don't care about all the electronics things. They're easy to replace. But that is fairly expensive to replace," said Zac.

Vawter lost his leg two years ago in a motorcycle crash, and his prosthetic foot has helped him come to terms with it.

"I ran in high school, college...it's a freeing feeling to get out and run," said Zac.

The foot is custom-made for him and isn't worth much to anyone else.

"Can I have it back, please?" he said.

The Vawters say they just put their house up for sale on Craigslist and wonder if that made them a target.  Police are investigating.

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• Quake catastrophe like Japan's could hit Pacific Northwest
• How do people survive getting sucked into tornadoes?
• Racist? Texas high school apologizes for fans' 'USA!' chant

Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook

What would you do if you found a smartphone on the subway or at a coffee shop? If you're like most Americans, you'd rummage through the phone looking for photos, emails and even private banking information. And the chances are only 50-50 that you would try to return the phone.

Computer security firm Symantec Corp. recently conducted an elaborate, first-of-its-kind study on lost smartphones and shared the results exclusively with TODAY and msnbc.com. The company set a trap for human nature, then sat back and watched. The results were not pretty.  

Symantec researchers intentionally lost 50 smartphones in cities around the U.S. and in Canada. They were left on newspaper boxes, park benches, elevators and other places that passers-by would quickly spot them. But these weren't just any phones -- they were loaded with tracking and logging software so Symantec employees could physically track them and keep track of everything the finders did with the gadgets.

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To spice up the test, the phones had an obvious file named "contacts," making it easy for any finder to connect with the phone's rightful owner.   But the phones also offered tempting files, with names like "banking information," and "HR files."  

 

Some 43 percent of finders clicked on an app labeled "online banking." And 53 percent clicked on a filed named "HR salaries." A file named "saved passwords" was opened by 57 percent of finders. Social networking tools and personal e-mail were checked by 60 percent. And a folder labeled "private photos" tempted 72 percent.

Collectively, 89 percent of finders clicked on something they probably shouldn't have.

Meanwhile, only 50 percent of finders offered to return the gadgets, even though the owner’s name was listed clearly within the contacts file.

"I wasn't surprised, but I wish I had been,” Kevin Haley, director at Symantec’s security response team, said of the unscientific test. “At the end of the day people’s curiosity is so strong, if you present them with the opportunity, they will do it. You would have hoped most people would have made every effort to return the phone."

It's important to note that most, if not all, of the finders weren’t criminals and did not wake up the day they found the lost phones with the intention of rummaging through someone else's personal information. But the temptation created by finding such a device was apparently too much for most of them -- even for some Good Samaritans who tried to return the phone. The story of one lost phone illustrates this point.

On Feb. 2 at 3:05 p.m., Symantec “lost” a phone in a bathroom at Santa Monica Pier in California. A finder tried to access the phone's contacts application 18 minutes later. Moments later, the finder accessed files labeled “passwords,” “cloud-based docs” and “social networking.”

GPS data indicates the finder moved the phone into a nearby restaurant, then into a mall, and an hour later, to a dog park.  At around 5 p.m., the finder opened the Contacts application three times, even there were only two entries listed in it – and one, clearly including an e-mail address and phone number for the owner.

Then the finder continued rummaging around the device, started the File Manager application, and explored files on the gadget's SD card. 

The phone then made its way through downtown Los Angeles, eventually settling in East L.A., where the finder opened the passwords file three times.  Then, online banking, social networking, contacts, private pix, remote admin and other files were opened in rapid succession. Soon after, the device was plugged into a computer for recharging, and then finally reset to original factory settings, wiping all the logging software off the gadget.

But a guilty conscience eventually won out with this finder. On Wednesday, Feb. 8, nearly a week after the gadget was lost, the finder wrote an e-mail to the  supposed owner. It read:

"Hi. I found your phone at the Santa Monica Pier last Thursday (Feb. 2). I used it for like a week but now I feel bad and want to return it. I'm really sorry. :/  What do you want me to do to return it to you?"

Some might consider the 50 percent return rate a victory for humanity, but that wasn't really the point of Symantec's project. The firm wanted to see if -- even among what seem to be honest people -- the urge to peek into someone's personal data was just too strong to resist.  It was.

"The most stunning thing to me were the people that attempted to open bank account information -  four out of 10 finders. That's, a lot," Haley said.

Another tale of a phone lost near Rockefeller Center in New York City at 4 p.m. on Feb. 2 illustrates this point well.

The finder moved the phone some six blocks north, then repeatedly opened and closed the contacts application, again containing only two entries. One can imagine the finder struggling with his or her conscience like the “Lord of the Rings” character, Gollum, deciding what to do.  Between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m., the finder opened most of the other applications, and took many more glimpses into the “contacts” file. At 10:30, activity on the phone stopped.

Suddenly, at 4:03 a.m., the phone was used again by its finder -- this time to peek a view of the “HR salaries” file.

"It's like they woke up out of a deep sleep and said, 'Hey there's salary information on that phone. Let me see if I can access it,'” said Haley.  

At 6:30 a.m., the finder opened the calendar, private pix, social networking, online banking, HR salaries, remote admin, corporate e-mail and passwords. For the rest of the day, there was near continuous rummaging through the phone, including the eventual launch of File Manager to see the entire phone's contents. 

"It's relentless. He can't get into online banking so he goes back to the file that has passwords in it, checks the passwords again and tries again,” Haley said. “He tries to log in remotely to the computer, can't get on so he goes to password to get the password and tries again."

By nightfall, activity on the phone stopped, and it remained relative dormant until it was moved to New York City's Chinatown area at 5:35 a.m. Feb. 9 -- one week after it was lost -- and wiped clean, probably for sale on the black market.

Scott Wright, president of Security Perspectives Inc, helped design the research for Symantec.  One statistically insignificant finding he called attention to: the return rate in Ottawa was 70 percent, highest in the study. The lowest return rate – 30 percent – was in New York City.

“Curiosity is a very powerful thing, especially on a mobile,” he said. “The most surprising thing is how obsessed people became with finding personal information off the phones, with accessing e-mail, accessing social network, private pictures. … People didn't give up. They just kept trying again and again over the course of a week to get access to this data and that really surprised me.”

RED TAPE WRESTLING TIPS

The lesson here is obvious: studies show that half to three-fourths of smartphone users don’t password-protect their phones.  That’s an invitation to disaster. While most corporations force users to password-protect their phone, many personal users think entering a password is a hassle that interrupts their texting habits. 

One lost phone would quickly change that perspective.

After the steady drumbeat of identity theft and lost privacy stories, why would consumers still choose to put their smartphones at risk?

“People haven't thought it through,” Haley said. “Maybe before they had a smartphone, losing an old cell phone was devastating but there wasn't much information on it.  Maybe it’s like the frog in a pot of cold water that’s eventually boiled –  it wasn’t that bad losing their old phone, so people haven't thought through how much information is now on their smart phones and what could happen if they lost it. We hope this research shows what could happen and sticks out in people's minds.”

Even if you are glass-half-full person, and think a lost phone would find its way back to you, if you don’t use a password you’re still putting your data at great risk.

“The moral of the story is that people may offer to give you your device back, but you shouldn't assume they haven't accessed any of their personal or corporate information on the device,” Wright said.

Of course, PIN-protecting your phone may prevent a Good Samaritan finder using “contacts” to find you. So Haley recommends placing contact information on the outside of the phone, perhaps on the case.

Also, consider technology that allows you to wipe the smartphone’s memory clean in case it’s lost. There are also services like Apple’s MobileMe, which let you locate the phone through a Web page; several commercial services offer similar products. 

If you find a phone, the best thing to do is quickly turn it in to the nearest authority – a police officer or the lost & found at the mall, for example. If you really want to gain good gadget karma, and you can determine the service provider, walk it into a nearby Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint or AT&T store and turn it in there. It’s easy for stores to look up the phone’s serial number and get contact information for the rightful owner.

You might look up the owner on the gadget and send him or her an email. But be realistic about your own human nature. If you don’t think you could resist taking a peek at personal information on the phone, you are probably best handing it off to someone else instead.

*Follow Bob Sullivan on Facebook     
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UPDATED at 9:12 a.m. ET: A 23-year-old man was arrested Wednesday after he opened fire outside the Tulsa County Courthouse, police said. A sheriff's deputy and a bystander were injured, and the gunman was in critical condition after being shot by police.

Police said the man, identified as Andrew Joseph Dennehy, walked into the plaza outside the courthouse and Tulsa City-County Library and began firing into the air.

He then sat on a cement bench at the plaza, according to local NBC station KJRH. Three deputies reportedly arrived moments later and exchanged fire with Dennehy.

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One deputy was shot in the hand, Sgt. Dave Walker of the Tulsa Police Department told KJRH. The deputy is in serious condition with non-life-threatening injuries.

Deputies fired a total of five rounds at Dennehy, striking him in the face and body, KJRH reported. He was taken into surgery and was in critical condition as of Wednesday night.

It is not clear if a bullet from the gunman or from police struck the bystander, who is in fair condition. A woman, who was not hit by gunfire, was "shaken up" and treated at the scene.

Police spokesman Leland Ashley said Dennehy was considered to be in police custody but hadn't been formally charged.

The sheriff's office told the local FOX23 station that their security procedure was carried out exactly as planned, and that the police officers reacted very quickly.

The courthouse was set to be open as usual Thursday, FOX23 reported.

'Everybody was running'
The Tulsa World reported that a wedding ceremony had just taken place in the plaza when the gunfire erupted.

"The shooter was about 20 feet away from me," Angela Reudelhuger, who had conducted the ceremony, told the Tulsa World. She said the bride and groom's 6-month-old baby was among the wedding guests.

"We just jumped inside [the courthouse], and I yelled at the deputy, 'Somebody's shooting!'" she said.

Glyn Roe, a heating and air conditioning worker from Tulsa who was visiting the library Wednesday, said he saw all the events unfold.

"Everybody was running," Roe said. "I was watching it to make sure he wasn't coming into the library, or I would have started running, too."

Virginia Jones, owner of Downtown Tulsa Tag Agency, where people can update their car licenses, said she and her son were leaving to pick up another child from school when they heard gunfire.

Police officers crouched behind giant planters that dot the plaza when more gunfire erupted.

"It wasn't long after that that police just started coming from everywhere," she said.

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Msnbc.com staff and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

SUNLAND PARK, New Mexico - A man facing extortion charges involving a stripper, and who is forbidden from entering City Hall, has been elected mayor of Sunland Park, New Mexico.

Daniel Salinas was accused of trying to blackmail a mayoral opponent, Gerardo Hernandez, to drop out of the race with a tape showing Hernandez receiving a lap dance from a topless stripper, New Mexico State Police spokesman Robert McDonald said.

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He was arrested in late February for extortion, McDonald said. Salinas was later released on $50,000 cash bond on condition he not enter City Hall or contact city workers.

But his name remained on the ballot. On Tuesday, he won the election with an unofficial tally of 637 votes for Salinas and 553 for Hernandez.

"My attorney is looking into changing some of those restrictions so I can go back to work," Salinas told the Las Cruces Sun-News."I am very grateful and very happy for this support."

Setup or sleaze? Would-be mayor of Sunland Park, NM, caught with lap dancer

It is not clear what will happen to mayor-elect Salinas, as an investigation is under way of voter fraud, in addition to the pending charges. If Salinas is convicted of a felony, he cannot hold public office.

"They're still arresting people for voter fraud so it's all ongoing, rolling into one big investigation," McDonald said.

City Manager Jaime Aguilera was arrested along with Salinas and both men are charged with extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion, tampering with evidence and alleged blackmail of Hernandez.

The election on Tuesday was to replace former mayor Martin Resendiz, who resigned last year after admitting to signing contracts while drunk.

Speaking to the Sun-News, Hernandez said that Salinas should resign.

"Ethically, there is not an option to run City Hall from the outside," he said. "If I were in his place, I would step down."

Salinas told the newspaper that he had no plans to quit.

Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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• When rumor, the Internet and school violence fears collide
• Cops, amateur sleuths find relatives of mysterious twins
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• How do people survive getting sucked into tornadoes?
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SYDNEY, Australia - An Australian investment banker pleaded guilty Thursday to chaining a fake bomb to a young woman's neck in a bizarre extortion bid, before fleeing to the United States.

Paul Peters' lawyer Kathy Crittenden pleaded guilty on his behalf in a Sydney courtroom to a charge of aggravated break and enter and committing a serious indictable offense by knowingly detaining Madeleine Pulver, 18.

 

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Pulver was alone studying in her family's Sydney mansion on Aug. 3 when the 50-year-old Peters, wearing a ski mask and wielding a baseball bat, tethered a bomb-like device around her neck. It took bomb squad officers 10 hours to remove it. The device contained no explosives and Pulver was not injured.

 

The man left behind a note demanding money, along with an email address. New South Wales state police have said surveillance footage showed Peters in several locations where they believe he accessed the email account.

Sydney to Kentucky: Cracking the 'collar bomb' case

Peters, who traveled frequently between the United States and Australia on business, was arrested at his former wife's home in Louisville, Kentucky, about two weeks after the crime. He was extradited in September to Australia, where he has remained in custody.

Peters appeared in court by video from prison Thursday. He showed no reaction when his lawyer entered the guilty plea.

Outside court, his lawyer Kathy Crittenden told reporters Peters was "profoundly sorry" to the Pulver family.

Why Peters targeted Pulver is unclear. U.S. federal court documents show Peters once worked for a company with links to her family, but the Pulvers have repeatedly said they don't know him.

At his U.S. extradition hearing in August, court documents from Australian police said a note attached to the chain attached to Pulver read:"Powerful new technology plastic explosives are located inside the small black combination case delivered to you. The case is booby trapped. It can ONLY be opened safely, if you follow the instructions and comply with its terms and conditions."

After X-raying the box several times and conducting other tests, bomb technicians determined it was harmless and removed it. 

'Wrong place at the wrong time'
Pulver, who has graduated from high school since the attack, and her parents were in court to hear the plea.

Her father, Bill, thanked police, prosecutors and members of the public for their support, and said the attack remains as mysterious and as "random to us in our minds as it did back on Aug. 3."

 "We are incredibly pleased with today's outcome," Bill Pulver told reporters after the hearing. "It is great comfort knowing Maddie won't have to endure the stress and anxiety of reliving the events of that terrible night.

"Today's guilty plea brings closure to a crime that remains a mystery and as random to us in our mind as it did back on August 3."

Pulver said his daughter was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"A poor decision by one man has prompted a truly extraordinary and inspiring response from many thousands of people and we will be forever grateful," he added.

Bill Pulver was once the president and CEO of NetRankings, a pioneer in tracking online exposure and readership for companies advertising on the Internet. He left after the firm was sold to ratings giant Nielsen in 2007. He is now CEO of Appen Butler Hill, a company that provides language and voice-recognition software and services.

Peters will appear in court next on March 16 for a pre-sentencing hearing. He faces a potential maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

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

 

“He’d be the type to bring a gun to school.”

These words – or something close – were allegedly uttered by a female student in a high school classroom last Friday in Girard, Pa., about one hour’s drive from Chardon, Ohio. The object of the comment was Austin Carner, a 17-year-old junior and outsider at the school who has had minor brushes with the law.

By Sunday night, those words had morphed via social media and text messages into an explicit threat that Carner was planning to come to Girard High School the next day – the one-week anniversary of the Chardon shooting in which three students died – with a gun.

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Police went to his house Sunday afternoon, questioned him and searched his room, and school administrators fielded hundreds of phone calls from concerned parents on Monday. About half of Carner’s classmates decided not to risk it and either stayed home or left school early.

But when police left Carner’s house hours later, they weren’t toting weapons or leading the teen away in cuffs. They found nothing suspicious in their search and, after questioning Carner and his parents, decided that concerns that he was planning violence were false.

“It was a rumor run wild … that’s what social media does these days,” Girard School District Superintendent James Tracy told msnbc.com on Wednesday. “Nothing was actually said. … It’s like that old post office game, you know, where you tell a secret and by the 12th person it’s totally different. Magnify that times literally … thousands of people on social media, it really gets messed up.”

The cloud of suspicion that swept over Carner is the product of two strong currents sweeping through schools around the nation, experts say: heightened sensitivity over school violence and the impulse that leads teenagers and children to gossip or make insinuations about fellow students online without considering the real world consequences.

Carner’s mother, Yvette, said her son and daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, had hateful messages posted to their Facebook walls. They printed copies for authorities but by Monday afternoon the posters had removed their comments. Other parents even posted on social media sites about whether she and her husband had adequate parenting skills, she said.

Hannah Pierce, who penned supportive posts on Sarah’s Facebook wall, wrote early Monday: “Hey girl, I hope you're okay. and your family. I don't know if you've been reading lately, but you're [sic] brother is hated by ALL of Girard. I'm absolutely sick of it.”

Bullied, teased
School officials and police were in contact as soon as they learned of the supposed threat.

“We received a call that there was a gun threat, a kid was going to bring a gun to school on Monday and shoot the place up,” said local Police Chief Nicholas VanDamia. “The boy denied making any of those threats. We searched his room, we searched the house. There was no weapon nor was there anything available for him to use as a weapon. … There was never a real threat, it was all fictitious.”

Austin Carner was unaware of the firestorm erupting on social media over the weekend, since he was away doing community service. He only learned about it when the police showed up at his door.

Carner said he has been bullied since the family moved to Girard from Michigan in 2006, with students calling him “retarded” (he has a learning disability due to apraxia), “ugly” and “ginger” because of his red hair.

Partly because it had gotten so bad, that Monday was meant to be his last day at Girard. He was already in the process of transferring to an alternative education program for students with behavioral issues where his educational needs could be better addressed.

“School has been rough. I get picked on every day, you know, a lot,” he told msnbc.com. “Sometimes, I just don’t want to go.”

But the cruel teasing didn’t prepare him for the shocking posts he saw when he logged onto Facebook, which included many variations of this message: “I’ve heard you’re going to bring a gun to school and shoot everyone.”

Despite Ohio shooting, school violent deaths down

Tracy, the school superintendent, said school officials “always start off taking it (a threat) extremely seriously until you know. It’s always best to err on the side of caution.”

Though the Internet is a good teaching tool that young people respond well to, it created a “real problem” in this instance, Tracy said.

“Unfortunately, when … kids – and also adults – sit in front of the computer, they don’t think the responsibility is there because they’re not talking to somebody,” he added. “They’re putting it down on the screen and pushing a button. I think it becomes a little easier for people to say things they normally wouldn’t say.”

Tracy said the school’s principal disciplined two students – the girl who made the comment and a boy – for their interaction on Friday with Carner, who did not receive any sort of reprimand. The girl made an “off-the-wall comment,” though it’s not clear what role the boy played, Tracy said. (Attempts by msnbc.com to reach the pair were not successful).

“I think that caused them to get onto the social network and say certain things; and then other kids read it and then they added to it, and then pretty soon somebody else added to it,” he said.

Tracy said school officials don’t know how the girl’s initial comment was twisted by others into an explicit threat, but indicated the district would pursue charges – if the source can be determined – to send a clear message. 

“Some of the things that were out there were really outlandish,” he said, adding that word normally spreads fast in the borough of about 4,000, but “not this fast. This is even faster than the local news.”

Carner’s father, Tracy Carner, said his son was just trying to survive high school and he was not perfect – he got into a fight with some boys last summer who were harassing him. He said that after the boys beat Austin up, his son chased them with a utility knife, telling them never to touch him again. He later owned up to the incident, which was why he was doing community service, the elder Carner said. 

“In the game of real life, he’s become the victim,” said Carner, 51, who works in flooring construction. “And in general, the whole family is in jeopardy.”

Superintendent Tracy said an announcement was made Monday morning to students about the rumor and its consequences. He said the school will add lessons on cyberbullying to other programs it has introduced to stem bullying, including the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program and Rachel’s Challenge.

'He's just not the same'
Schools around the nation are dealing with similar issues involving social media, said Dr. Melissa Reeves, a school psychologist and chair of the National Association of School Psychologists’ Prepare School Crisis Prevention and Intervention Workgroup.

“What this school district is dealing with is what many school districts are trying to deal with and … often times the schools are the last ones to find out,” she said.

Reeves said her group was working with schools to train parents, students and staff about social media and cyberbullying as well as early warning signs of potential threats or suicidal behavior.

She recommended that districts have clear social media policies in place, including punishment for violators, and that schools and parents have access to social networking sites and maintain good collaboration with law enforcement so that tips can be quickly investigated and dispelled if they have no merit.

Many districts are trying to be proactive about school violence by creating anonymous phone lines, websites and text message drops where people can share tips about possible threats.

“School districts are definitely trying to problem-solve,” she said. “… The challenge is that the technology is ever-evolving and to be honest with you, we have a generation of adults that didn’t grow up with this and then we have kids that are growing up (with it), and the kids are more sophisticated than many of the adults.”

Facebook also has built ways to help minors have a safe experience online, including a “Social Reporting” tool that allows youths to contact the site or trusted adults about harassment or threatening content. The site works with law enforcement in some cases, too.

None of that is much comfort to Tracy Carner. He said he has contacted police about filing charges. He also is temporarily out of work because he felt that he had to stay home to help support his family in the aftermath of the incident.

But his wife Yvette said life was still difficult for the Carner family.

“We can’t go out in public without getting whispers and harassed,” she said Wednesday. “Austin went out today for a walk with his friends and this town has judged him even though it has been proven that he had nothing to do with it. People are calling him names, yelling things at him.

“… It’s really tough on Austin right now. He is very quiet,” she added. “He’s just not the same.”

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The election of President Barack Obama in 2008 triggered an explosion in the number of militias and so-called patriot groups in the United States, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported in its annual tally of such anti-government organizations.

There were 149 militias and patriot groups when Obama took office, compared to more than 1,200 today — an increase of 755 percent, the nonprofit civil rights organization reported.

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"The increase has just been astounding," said Mark Potok, editor-in-chief of the SPLC report. "The reality is that many of these groups are becoming more and more fearful that Barack Obama will win the re-election. You can see the anger rising along with that fear."

The SPLC defines the "patriot" movement as made up of conspiracy-minded individuals who see the federal government as their primary enemy. The movement includes paramilitary militias as well as groups of "sovereign citizens," who believe they are not subject to federal or state laws, nor obligated to pay federal taxes, according to SPLC.

The center also reports a steady rise in the number of hate groups in America — from 604 in 2000, to more than 1,000 last year. Those include anti-gay groups, anti-Muslim groups, black separatists and "Christian Identity" groups, which hold racist and anti-Semitic views that overlap with neo-Nazi beliefs.

The spike in these groups can be attributed to a combination of factors, including the sluggish economy, radical propaganda and anxiety over the election of a black president, Potok said.

Potok said although many individuals involved in patriot militias are not criminals, a handful of these groups have been responsible for a significant amount of violence in recent years.

Government employees targeted
SPLC provides one of the few annual reports on militia or anti-government groups. The Federal Bureau of Investigation does not track militia groups unless they are alerted to violent or extremist activity, according to an agency spokesman.

"Some of these groups veer into violent extremism," said Frank Harrill, special agent in charge of the FBI’s office in Spokane, Wash., and spokesman for the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force. "Where hate and ignorance and violence collide, that is where our interests lie."

Two militia groups have made headlines in recent years for allegedly hatching violent plots to target government employees.

Seven people from the Michigan-based Hutaree Christian militia are on trial for allegedly conspiring to ambush and kill a police officer. They allegedly plotted to follow up the ambush with an attack on the officer’s funeral procession in the hope of killing more officers, and thus sparking a revolt against the U.S. government. Recent evidence presented in trial included a recording made by an undercover FBI agent in which the militia’s leader, David Stone, 47, says he is going to "start huntin'" police soon. The seven have pleaded innocent, and argue that the "plot" was nothing but talk, protected by the First Amendment.

And in November four members of a Georgia-based militia, all in their 60s and 70s, were charged with plotting to buy explosives and the ingredients to make a deadly toxin to attack government officials. They are in custody awaiting trial.

But members of other militias say that exercising their constitutional right to bear arms does not mean they are committed to revolution.

Spokane-based militia member Ed LeStage, 59, denied that his group, the 63^rd Battalion of Lightfoot Militia, which was listed on as an active militia group in the SPLC’s report, was a danger — unless, he said, "you're a communist or socialist who attacks us."

LeStage, a veteran to the patriot movement, said he believes the increased number of militias comes from U.S. citizens’ desire to restore the country to its constitutional roots. He also said that what he called President Obama’s intrusion on personal liberties also has driven growth in the movement.

"He’s been after our guns," LeStage said. "Obama’s been the best gun salesman there ever was."

From his home in eastern Washington, LeStage broadcasts weekly training videos to militia members across the country. Those videos — which include instruction on such things as drinking one’s own urine and scavenging for food — are meant to help members survive anarchy or economic collapse.

LeStage said he has been involved in militias and related groups for more than 20 years, including the Idaho Mountain Boys, a member of which was arrested in September 2002 for plotting to kill a federal judge and a police officer.

That member, Larry Raugust, served 77 months for possession and production of pipe bombs. Today, Raugust has a member profile on LeStage’s militia website, which has added more than 1,000 members since its launch last fall.

"(Raugust) is just a friend," LeStage said. "He doesn’t belong to our unit. He is a convicted felon."

LeStage explained that his militia requires each member to obtain a concealed weapons permit. As a felon, Raugust is not allowed to carry weapons, LeStage said.

The patriot movement first peaked in 1994, said Potok, the author of the SPLC report, in the aftermath of deadly confrontations at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and Waco, Texas in 1993, where anti-government groups came under siege by federal authorities.

Membership then dropped sharply during President George W. Bush’s two terms before rebounding in late 2008 after the election of Obama, which created a backlash that included "several plots to murder Obama," according to SPLC.

The numbers of those groups have continued to grow, jumping from 824 in 2010 to 1274 this year, the SPLC said.

'Sovereign citizen' movement
The ailing economy also helped fuel a huge expansion in a subset of the larger Patriot movement — the so-called "sovereign citizens" movement. Followers generally believe they do not have to pay federal taxes or follow most laws. The SPLC estimates some 300,000 Americans are involved in the movement.

In September, the FBI issued a bulletin to law enforcement officials that called "sovereign citizens" a growing domestic threat due to some members’ belief that they can use armed force to resist police.

The bulletin noted that sovereigns have killed six law officers since 2000. In one of the more deadly clashes, a shootout in West Memphis, Ark., in 2010 left four people dead including two officers. Terry Nichols, convicted as a conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing, was a sovereign citizen.

In 2010, a shootout with a member of the group in West Memphis, Arkansas ended with four people dead, including two policemen.

Last month, a Texas man who said he was a sovereign citizen was sentenced to 35 years in prison for repeatedly firing at a police officer trying to arrest him.

A Washington state man, David R. Myrland, was sentenced in December to 40 months in prison for threatening to "arrest" the mayor of Kirkland and other local officials "with deadly force."

Investigators said Myrland sent an e-mail to the mayor warning that "50 or more concerned Citizens will enter your home and arrest you.  Do not resist, as these Citizens will be heavily armed."

"As sovereign citizens' numbers grow, so do the chances of contact with law enforcement and, thus, the risks that incidents will end in violence," the FBI said at the time.

From LeStage’s point of view, though, the risk comes from the top of government.

If Obama is re-elected this year, "we will probably lose our republic," he said. "We will probably turn into another socialist country."

On his website www.modernmilitiamovement.com, some forum members have raised even more dire concerns about the fall's elections.

"Nov. the 8th should be the start of the next civil war," a member with the username "Thunder" wrote in January. "May GOD guide us safely."

The Murrow News Service is provides local, regional and statewide stories reported and written by journalism students at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication at Washington State University. Msnbc.com’s James Eng and Kari Huus, and NBC's Pete Williams contributed to this report.

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A big-game hunting ranch in Texas faced a stampede of criticism this week when Lakota Indians noticed that the business was offering a White Buffalo Hunting Package for $13,500, Indian Country Today Media reported.

White buffalo are considered sacred among the Sioux and some other Native American tribes and feature in their stories of creation.

"We’re outraged,” James Swan, a Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member, told the news site. “We don’t have a problem with people having [white buffalo]. We just have a problem with people making big bucks killing them."

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The article that exposed the hunting package includes a picture from the website of the Texas Hunt Lodge that shows a man in a 10-gallon hat posed with his white buffalo trophy kill. The site promised: "Your white buffalo trophy will be huge!" according to Indian Country.

After readers bombarded the Texas Hunt Lodge with complaints, the business pulled white buffalo from its list of big game offerings. There appear to be no remaining references to this package on the site.

The ad had been around for three years before it apparently attracted the attention of the tribe, ranch owner Aaron Bulkley told Indian Country Today Media.

"I’m not saying I disagree with it or agree with it, but I am going to take it off the website," he was quoted as saying. When asked if white buffalo hunts would be offered, he reportedly said: "Not for white buffalo."

The Texas Hunt Lodge did not respond to msnbc.com phone calls in time for publication.

The photo and the angry response can be seen on Indian Country’s Facebook page.

"Pure evil," commented reader Ally Wilkin.

"There are no words for such a thing … I grieve," said Susan Gale.

"The white man’s nature is to destroy himself," wrote Steven Medina. "No one can change this. The sooner the better."

"I've already said prayers for this white man and his white family," wrote Carmelita Quena. "It’s a shame but what goes around comes around."

White buffalo occur extremely rarely in nature, according to a biologist quoted in the story. He said they are less rare in modern times because people breed them for the recessive trait that produces the white coat.

But the significance of the white buffalo has endured.

The most recent white (non-albino) male buffalo calf celebrated by Native Americans as a sacred gift was born on a Greenville, Texas, ranch in May 2011. The calf was named Lightning Medicine Cloud in a large two-day ceremony in June that drew thousands of people.

The Lakota Ranch described the significance of the birth, quoting Floyd Hand, a Native American medicine man from South Dakota.

"It will bring about purity of mind, body and spirit," he said. It will "unify all nations — black, red, yellow, and white."

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Federal authorities have charged a 71-year-old Korean man with trafficking $700,000 worth of counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills into the United States through Los Angeles International Airport.

The man, Kil Jun Lee, a former Korean law enforcement officer who lives in Los Angeles, was arrested upon returning from a trip to Korea with nearly 40,000 pills wrapped in aluminum packets and tucked away in his golf bag and luggage. The pills were counterfeit Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.

When customs agents asked Lee if the pills were for personal use, he said he would die if he took them all because he has a heart condition.

---

The Viagra site says that its counterfeit counterpart may contain blue printer ink, speed and drywall.

The case is being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

In a separate case, another man, Barry Ronnel Johnson, 38, pleaded guilty Wednesday to using Craigslist to sell counterfeit erectile dysfunction pills. Johnson admitted that he was importing the pills, blue-diamond shaped tablets labeled “Filagra,” from China and India.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations reported they made nearly 25,000 seizures of pirated items in 2011, a 24 percent increase over 2010.

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A Uganda native who rose from poverty because of luck in the form of a goat her family received when she was 9 looks forward to International Women’s Day on Thursday as an opportunity to say don’t stop investing in girls’ education and resources.

Beatrice Biira’s early story was chronicled in the best-selling children’s book “Beatrice’s Goat,” which propelled Biira into the international spotlight when first published in 2001.

“I connect my story by connecting goals of how much more work needs to be done,” Biira told msnbc.com in a telephone interview from Heifer International’s Overlook Farm in Rutland, Mass., where she is in training with her new employer – the same charitable organization that gave her family the goat, named Mugisa, or Luck, in the Lukonzo language.

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Biira, now 28, sold milk from the goat’s offspring and saved enough money to get an education, moving from her village, Kisinga, to Uganda’s capital, Kampala, for high school. She graduated from Connecticut College in 2008 and got her master’s in public service in 2010 from the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service.

As noted by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in 2008 and by CBS’ “60 Minutes” in 2009, Biira is seen as an emblem of well-directed aid.

Biira said International Women’s Day is a symbolic time to celebrate women’s achievements socially, politically, and economically and to remember how much more needs to be done, especially in providing education. The theme this year is “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures.”

“In my own culture, Uganda, women don’t have the same opportunities as boys and men,” a situation she said is too common around the world, particularly where people are impoverished.

“Most of it is as a result of a lack of education and a lack of resources,” she said. “Providing women with resources so they can contribute toward involvement, there is an undebatable return on the investment and how much they bring.”

Biira is one of 10 women Heifer is honoring for their achievements on International Women’s Day. And Heifer is just one of thousands of organizations, celebrities and individuals globally marking the day.

President Barack Obama plans to issue a statement about International Women's Day on Thursday, the White House told msnbc.com

Organizers of the 101st International Women's Day said U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will issue a proclamation supporting the day and that British Prime Minister David Cameron will call for elimination of violence against women and girls. Celebrity supporters include Reese Witherspoon through Avon and OXFAM supporters Helena Christensen and Kristen Davis. Marches and other gatherings are planned.

The day can be followed on Twitter with the hashtags #womensday and #IWD, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Follow Jim Gold on Facebook here.

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An Ohio school district has hired a collection agency to prove to students and their parents that there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

The Columbus City Schools hope to recover an estimated $900,000 in unpaid lunch money from almost 6,000 students. The district loses roughly $2,622 every school day in unpaid lunches, according to a report on NBC4i.com. Most of the delinquent accounts average between $150 and $170, according to Meade and Associates, the collection agency in Westerville hired by the district to collect the money.

 “Our goal is to recover the balance in full,” Sean Meade, client relations manager, told msnbc.com. But he added, “we’re here to help,” so if “payment arrangements are needed, we’ll work with the family.”

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Columbus City Schools did not return a call from msnbc.com. Unpaid-for lunches are not unique to Columbus. Across the country, districts are struggling as the ailing economy brings more students to school without lunch money.

“It’s one of those issues that we’re seeing more of,” Diane Pratt-Heavner of the Maryland-based School Nutrition Association told msnbc.com. The group recently surveyed 964 of its members. Fifty-three percent said they had seen increases in the number of students unable to pay for lunch.

Schools have been trying to balance budget cuts with new federal nutrition standards that are expected to increase the cost of meal preparation.  In response, Pratt-Heavner said her group would like Congress to require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to spell out how schools should respond to requests for unpaid lunches and how to manage the debt.

“The people working in our school cafeterias are not in this line of work for the money – they want to serve all their kids – but at the end of the day, the new nutrition standards for school meals are raising the cost of serving school meals, and school nutrition programs simply cannot afford to allow unpaid meal charges go unchecked,” Pratt-Heavner told msnbc.com.

Until then, school districts continue to make accommodations for students who can’t pay. Some offer alternative meals of cheese or peanut butter sandwiches. Districts also try various methods of collecting debts, such as phone calls and letters to parents.

Pratt-Heavner said more districts are turning to collection agencies.

Meade told msnbc.com his agency will start contacting parents by early April, using phone calls and letters. Of every dollar collected, the company will earn 26 cents in commission.

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Updated at 6:42 p.m. ET: A group that puts on “barstool blackout” parties on college campuses and at other venues across the country says it’s not to blame for partygoers who drink too much and wind up in the hospital.

Nine people who were among a crowd of about 1,600 attending a party Saturday night at the Paramount in Huntington, N.Y., were taken by ambulances to the hospital, NBCNewYork.com reported. Nearly all showed symptoms of alcohol poisoning, said Suffolk County police Lt. Joseph Condolff.

The party was sponsored by Barstool U, which promotes and stages DJ and dance parties for college students.

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"I don't think they should be promoting this," Lauren Shea, a social worker with the Daytop Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Center in Huntington Station, told NBCNewYork.com.

"Most people think it's a fun time, but when you black out from drinking, that's a problem," said Shea.

Barstool U was started by University of Michigan graduate David “El Presidente” Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, a website described in a Boston Magazine article as a widely read “sports/smut site” that’s a cross between ESPN and “Girls Gone Wild.”

Read the original story and watch the video on NBCNewYork.com

Portnoy on Wednesday refuted the charge that “blackout” shows encourage college students to drink until they puke their guts or pass out. "People who say that are really disconnected with what we do," he told msnbc.com.

He said "blackout" refers to the venues being lit with black lights.

"It's an electric dance music party with black lights. You dress in all-white to reflect off the black lights," Portnoy explained.

"I really don’t think anybody in our demographic who has come to our parties is under any confusion that the goal is to drink and pass out."

A post on barstoolsports.com expounds on the fallout from the Long Island show:

Anyway this is just another classic example of out of touch ugly people, smug reporters, and idiot cops talking about something that they have no idea what they are talking about. For the 9 millionth time our Blackout shows don’t encourage kids to get blackout drunk. It’s called a blackout party  because it’s a blacklight party. We say it time and time again. Everybody who comes to our event knows that.  There isn’t even that much drinking at our events.  Everybody is just dancing for 3 hours straight.  That’s the opposite of blacking out.  If anything a kid who was drunk walking into our show would sober up. If a person wants to truly blackout they’ll stay in their dorm room or go drink in the woods.  It’s a hell of a lot cheaper and easier that way. You don’t pay 25 bucks to go to an electric dance music party to blackout. 

The post added:

If a kid blacks out before our concert or in his dorm he has nobody to blame but himself period.  We don’t encourage it, facilitate it, or have anything to do with it.  Stop pointing the finger at other people and start teaching kids to take responsibility for their actions.  We just throw awesome concerts that 99.9% of the people who attend have one of the best nights of their lives.

And for good measure, Barstool posted its own YouTube video of the Long Island party, which it says ended prematurely after a fire alarm went off 45 minutes into the show.

According to Barstool U’s website, several upcoming shows on the East Coast in March and April have already sold out.

Several visitors to the Barstool U website agreed with Portnoy’s view. One with the username “herpstoolderp” commented:

Anyone getting blackout drunk is making their own decision, it's not like Barstool is encouraging them to get blackout drunk, because what kind of @!$%#ing show would that be, with a bunch of passed out idiots? Honestly pres, you need to just say "We expect you to have a good time while drinking responsibly."

 NBCNewYork.com and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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Jamal Stevens, 7, is among the few who can say they survived being picked up and tossed around by a twister -- last Friday he was sucked out of his bed and flung onto a grassy strip along an interstate behind his home. But how could Jamal or anyone survive such an extreme event?

"It is puzzling because one or two people in a place will be killed while others live, and it often seems to be luck," acknowledges Tom Schmidlin, a Kent State University professor who has studied tornado injuries.

Luck does seem to have a lot to do with it, in that one or more factors have to go your way to survive. It can happen, but chances are very, very remote.

"It's a lot like flipping a coin and have it land perfectly on its edge," says Jason Persoff, a University of Colorado doctor and -- on the side -- storm chaser.

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A key survival factor seems to be "an oversized object being thrown with the patient" that actually protects him or her from the other debris flying through the air like missiles, says Persoff, who doesn't know of any specific studies but has treated such victims himself and spoken to peers about it.

"A mattress, a tub, a door, or sometimes another person" can offer that protection, he notes, while emphasizing that those same objects can just as easily become debris that kills.

Other factors that might come into play include one's age, a tornado's speed and where one lands.

"The very old and very young seem to be vulnerable," notes Schmidlin. Moreover, a person flung by a twister will likely also have been hit by debris "so surviving probably depends on those elusive factors of what you were hit with and your ability to survive injuries."

Mark Baker, an emergency room doctor at Children's of Alabama hospital in Birmingham, says children might actually have an advantage compared to adults when it comes to their chests and abdomens. "Their skeletons are a little more pliant," he says.

But the danger for children is the head area. Baker's ER group saw 60 children during the city's deadly twister on April 27, 2011 -- and two thirds had serious or critical injuries, most to the head.

Jamal, who doesn't remember anything about the ordeal, felt sore afterward but otherwise checked out OK after landing on a relatively soft grassy area along that interstate in Charlotte, N.C.

 

As for increasing one's chances of surviving a twister, experts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham recently came out with some straightforward advice: Wear a helmet.

The idea was first proposed in the 1960s, researchers at the university's Injury Control Research Center wrote in an online commentary, and anecdotal evidence includes a boy who survived the deadly 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado because he was wearing a bike helmet when airborne debris hit him in the head.

Acknowledging the idea "never gained popularity," the team said it was time to raise awareness -- and even chastised federal safety tips as "woefully inadequate."

The tornado safety page at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the team wrote, does encourage people to protect their head "with anything available -- even your hands" but doesn't specify wearing a helmet.

"From a practical perspective," the team added, using one's hands has "major limitations."

For one, hands can't cover all head, face and neck areas, they stated. And second, using your hands and arms for protection means you can't then use them for other emergency tasks -- "such as keeping young children close by and protected."

Dr. Russ Fine, director of the injury research center, says that since the commentary was published Jan. 12, he's "questioned, publicly and privately, why they have not changed their web-based Emergency Preparedness recommendations to include helmets."

"I'm embarrassed that the nation's prevention agency hasn't modified its recommendations," he adds.

Msnbc.com forwarded the commentary to the CDC and a spokesperson was reviewing it for a response.

Baker, the ER doctor, agrees that helmets, especially with straps, and infant carriers for the youngest should be part of preparing for a tornado.

Children's of Alabama is also informally starting to get the word out, says spokeswoman Kathy Bowers. Efforts include a public service announcement on local TV with a meteorologist who touts the value of having helmets handy.

Fine senses that the helmet idea is slowly getting some traction. He went to a sporting goods store to buy bike helmets for two grandchildren during Birmingham's last bout of bad weather and the clerk realized it was for the storm, not exercise. "She also said she didn't own a helmet but that she and every other clerk" borrowed them from the shelves when bad weather hit, he says.

Fine himself has a helmet at home, as does his wife. "We have helmets in our safe room," he says. "We have our drill, we know what we're planning to do."

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Updated at 5:44 p.m. ET: TULSA, Okla. -- A sheriff's deputy and two other people were wounded after an exchange of gunfire Wednesday afternoon outside a courthouse plaza in Tulsa, police said.

Police spokesman Leland Ashley said authorities responded to a report of a person firing into the air near a gazebo between the Tulsa County Courthouse and the Tulsa City/County Library. Deputies, including the one who was wounded, exchanged gunfire with the shooter, Ashley said.

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"During the course of exchange of gunfire, an innocent bystander was hit," Ashley said. He said the injuries to the deputy, who was shot in both arms, and the bystander did not appear life-threatening. 

The suspect was in critical condition, Sgt. Shannon Clark told NBC News.

No names were immediately released.

Emergency Medical Services Authority Capt. Chris Stevens said one man was taken to a hospital in critical condition, one man was hospitalized in serious condition and a woman was hospitalized in fair condition. Stevens said a second women, who was not hit by gunfire, was "shaken up" and treated at the scene.

A library employee, John Fancher, told the Tulsa World he heard about three gunshots and immediately looked out his window to see a man with a gun looking around. The gunman casually sat down before deputies arrived and then turned toward them still holding the gun, Fancher said.

The deputies then shot the man, Fancher told the newspaper.

Tulsa County District Court Judges Jefferson Sellers and Rebecca Nightingale told the Tulsa World that they were in courtrooms on the seventh floor when they saw the gunfire exchange. Nightingale said the gunman fired at least two shots at the deputies, and Sellers said the deputies fired multiple rounds back at him after ordering him to drop the weapon.

Library Chief Executive Officer Gary Shaffer told The Associated Press he was returning from lunch when he saw emergency vehicles. A man who appeared to have been shot in the leg was wheeled out of the library by paramedics.

Shaffer said it was unclear if the man, who he said was unconscious, ran into the library after getting shot or if he was shot in the library. There was broken glass in the library from an apparent bullet.

This is a breaking news story. Check back for more details.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Police investigating a marijuana scent at a Long Island home discovered an arsenal of guns, grenades and bomb-making material that would have been enough to "blow up the entire block," NBC New York has learned. 

Police officers went to the home on Narrow Lane in Woodmere after an alarm went off Tuesday afternoon and found Marc Ringel, 53, without identification, according to authorities. 

Read the original report on the arsenal at NBCNewYork.com

"As soon as he opens the door, the officers are struck by a very pungent smell of marijuana," said Deputy Inspector Kenneth Lack, of Nassau County Police. "They also see what appears to be a black semi-automatic handgun right inside the door, as well as what appears to be two military-style hand grenades." 

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Police took Ringel into custody and evacuated about 20 homes on the block as a precaution while they searched the rest of the home.

During their search, police discovered a massive cache of weapons, including 100 handguns, 20 rifles, 15 pipe bombs, 15 handmade grenades and 50 pounds of bomb-making material, police said. 

In addition to the weapons, police found a marijuana greenhouse as well as a pit in the backyard with a wire that extended into the house. Police believe Ringel used the pit to test explosives. 

The home is owned by Ringel's parents, who live in Florida during the winter. Police said they weren't sure the parents knew Ringel was living in the house. 

At this point, authorities said they do not know of any motive Ringel had for developing the arsenal, nor what he planned to do with it. Investigators, with the help of the FBI, are delving into his background and searching the house for writings that may indicate his plans. 

County Executive Ed Mangano called Ringel "a potential madman." 

Ringel has one prior criminal conviction, but it is unrelated to any weapons or bomb charges. He is a divorced high school graduate.

Pending charges against Ringel are unspecified at this point. It wasn't known if he had an attorney.

This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.

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A Texas school district has apologized for what some perceived as a racist chant from fans after one of its teams beat a rival in a high school basketball playoff game.

Alamo Heights High School, which is made up mostly of white students, beat Edison High, which is predominantly Hispanic, in the Region IV-4A championship in San Antonio on Saturday. As Alamo players celebrated the win on the court, a large group of students began cheering “USA! USA!”

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Alamo Heights head coach Andrew Brewer silenced the students as soon as he heard them, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

Alamo Heights Superintendent Kevin Brown said he has apologized to San Antonio Independent School District officials. As punishment, Alamo Heights students who were involved in the chanting will not be allowed to attend the team’s remaining state title games.

The San Antonio district on Tuesday also filed a complaint with the University Interscholastic League, the governing body of high school sports in the area.

Read NBC Sports’ story of fallout from the incident here.

You can also see video of the incident on KSAT.com.

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