President Barack Obama says he wants to reduce the number of deployed U.S. nuclear weapons by a third, but even if the Russians agree to do the same, it could be a decade or longer before the 500 or so U.S. warheads under discussion are actually destroyed.

A massive backlog at the Texas Pantex plant where nukes are dismantled means warheads removed from submarines and land-based missiles as a result of Obama's announcement Wednesday at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin are likely to wind up in storage, instead of disposal, for years to come, experts said.

Reuters file

A Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile launches in this undated file photo.

And most of the U.S. arsenal — roughly 1,000 deployed warheads and more than 3,000 that are stockpiled, according to estimates by analysts — isn't even on the chopping block.

"This is a good new development," Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project for the Federation of American Scientists, said of Obama's recommended cuts. 

"It's not something that fundamentally rocks the boat."

After decades of arms-control pacts, the number of warheads the U.S. has now is a fraction of the more than 22,000 that existed at the end of the Cold War.

Two years ago, there were more than 5,000 deployed, meaning they were ready to be launched on a few minutes' notice. The 2011 New START (Strategic Arms Reduction) treaty dictates that the U.S. and Russia cap the number at 1,550 by 2018, and Obama has been pushing for talks aimed at even deeper reductions.

"So far, the U.S. and Russia, in true diplomatic style, have been negotiating about negotiating," said James Acton, an expert on proliferation with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

What Obama did in his Berlin speech was set a numerical goal for Moscow to chew over, Acton said.

If the Russians concur — which analysts say probably won't become clear until the fall — the U.S. would then begin taking the weapons out of deployment.

The Navy has 14 nuke-launching submarines, Kristensen said. Each of the so-called Boomers can carry 24 Trident II D5 ballistic missiles equipped with multiple warheads. They operate out of bases in Kings Bay, Ga., and Bangor, Wash., but spend two-and-a-half months at a time hidden at sea.

Land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, known as ICBMs, are housed in silos around three Air Force Bases — Warren in Wyoming, Minot in North Dakota and Malmstrom in Montana.

Warheads are also kept on Air Force bases such as Barksdale in Louisiana and Whiteman in Missouri to be used on long-range bombers, analysts said, but Obama's target is less likely to affect them.

Undeployed warheads are found at storage facilities including Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, and there are six bases in Europe where the Air Force stores a much smaller number of tactical nukes, Kristensen said.

Physically removing the warheads is a painstaking process, but dismantling them could take far longer.

'Any change is always resisted'
The National Nuclear Security Administration said it expects to finish eliminating weapons that were retired before 2009 in 2022, even though it exceeded its dismantlement goal last year. Then, presumably, come the weapons retired since 2009, followed by any that the U.S. deep-sixes going forward.

Ray Narimatsu / Reuters

The Ohio-class ballistic submarine USS Alabama returns to Naval Base Kitsap in Bangor, Wash., in 2010.

The Pantex facility near Amarillo is responsible for deconstructing warheads, removing highly enriched uranium and plutonium and disposing of the material onsite before sending non-nuclear parts to other plants. Secondary systems go to the Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., where uranium and plutonium are removed, some of them recycled as fuel for the Navy's at-sea reactors.

The missiles themselves can be trashed or repurposed as missile-defense interceptors or space launch vehicles, Acton said. Submarines would go out with fewer warheads, but the number of nuclear-armed boats in the fleet would likely stay the same, he said.

Steven Pifer, director of the Brookings Institution's Arms Control Initiative, said the backlog at Pantex -- which also builds, rehabs and recertifies warheads -- is understandable considering the nature of the work.

"When you take a nuclear weapon apart, you want to do it in a very careful way," he said.

The New START treaty doesn't require that warheads be destroyed. Theoretically, some could be set aside for possible use as replacements or redeployment in a crisis, though it would take days, if not longer, to install them again, the analysts said.

Given the overall size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, will getting rid of 500 weapons make a dent? Kristensen said that given the opposition to disarmament from some on Capitol Hill, a move by the administration to cut even 10 percent is "a big deal."

"Any change is always resisted," he said.

Pifer said junking 500-odd warheads when there are still a thousand more at the ready might not change the nuclear landscape but still constitutes "a pretty good cut." The real question, he said, is whether Russia and President Vladimir Putin will go for it.

"The Russians have not shown a great deal of public enthusiasm for further reductions so far," he said.

However, because Russia's arsenal is aging, if they balk at new caps they may be forced to start building new submarines and ICBMs to stay at current levels. So accepting Obama's initiative would be a money-saver, Pifer said.

A summit has been set for September, and the two nuclear powers could begin hashing out the math then.

"The question will be: Is Putin ready to deal?" Pifer said.

Related stories:

• Obama proposes reduction to Cold War-era nuclear arsenal
• Obama, Putin to sign new deal on reducing nuclear threat

Rob Taylor / AP

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory speaks during a National Day of Prayer observance at the Pitt County courthouse in Greenville, NC.

WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina — North Carolina's governor, hoping to resume executions in his state, on Wednesday signed the repeal of a law that has allowed death row inmates to seek a reduced sentence if they could prove racial bias affected their punishment

The Racial Justice Act, the only law of its kind in the United States, had led to four inmates getting their sentences changed to life in prison without parole after taking effect in 2009.

Supporters said the historic measure addressed the state's long record of racial injustice in its capital punishment system, while critics said it caused unnecessary costs and delays after nearly all death-row inmates, including whites, sought relief under the act.

Governor Pat McCrory, a Republican, said repealing the law would remove the "procedural roadblocks" that had kept North Carolina from executing anyone since 2006 despite there being 152 people on death row.

"The state's district attorneys are nearly unanimous in their bipartisan conclusion that the Racial Justice Act created a judicial loophole to avoid the death penalty and not a path to justice," McCrory said.

Republican lawmakers gutted the Racial Justice Act, passed when Democrats controlled the legislature and governor's office, after winning the majority in the state's General Assembly.

The American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina criticized the repeal on Wednesday and accused state leaders of ignoring widespread evidence of systemic racial bias.

Statistics show that of the 152 people on death row in North Carolina, 80 are black, 62 are white and the remainder fall into other racial categories in a state where African Americans overall make up around a fifth of the population.

The repeal applies retroactively to cases with pending Racial Justice Act claims, a factor certain to result in additional legal wrangling, one death penalty expert said.

"To me, it's a violation of due process," said Mark Rabil, director of Wake Forest University law school's Innocence and Justice Clinic in Winston-Salem. "I don't really know what the legislature thinks they've done with our money other than buy a lot more litigation."

Anthony Devlin / Pool / Reuters

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks to the media inside the Ecuadorean Embassy in London on June 14, 2013.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Wednesday said members of his anti-secrecy website have been in contact with lawyers of alleged National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and are helping him seek asylum in Iceland.

Speaking to reporters during a conference call on the one-year anniversary of his own asylum in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, Assange said his group has a “common cause” with Snowden, but would not comment on whether he personally has spoken with supposed whistle-blower.

Assange did say, “We are in touch with Mr. Snowden’s legal team and have been, are involved, in the process of brokering his asylum in Iceland.”  

Snowden leaked details about far-reaching Internet and phone surveillance programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post earlier this month. He revealed his identity while in Hong Kong, where it is believed he is still hiding.

Assange believes that if Snowden is returned to the U.S., he will likely face a similar fate to that of Bradley Manning, who handed over thousands of military documents and sensitive government communications that were posted on Wikileaks. Manning is currently facing trial for aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act.

"Will Edward Snowden be in the same position that Bradley Manning is in, ... and is the United States the type of country from which journalists must seek asylum in relation to their work?" Assange asked.

Assange has taken up residence in London's Ecuadorean Embassy to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning on sexual assault allegations. He has denied the allegations but fears the U.K. or Sweden could send him to the United States, where a grand jury investigation is reviewing WikiLeaks' role in publishing the documents Manning provided.

Also on the call with Assange were well-known leakers Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, and Thomas Drake, who faced felony charges for leaking the Baltimore Sun information showing alleged mismanagement at the NSA in 2005.

Ellsberg, who is now widely seen as courageous for making public the papers that revealed secret military action in Vietnam, said he belongs in the same category as Snowden and Manning.

“We acted in the same spirit and I feel a great affinity for all of them,” he said.

Nita Bhalla / Reuters

Phul Kumari, 25, stands with her child in front of a window in a village community center in  in India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh in 2011. From a poor rural community in India's Jharkhand state, Kumari was trafficked to Uttar Pradesh to become a bride.

Nine 7-Eleven store owners and managers who authorities say ran a “modern-day plantation system,” employing dozens of immigrant workers at New York and Virginia convenience stores, were just one thread in a vast human trafficking and forced labor web that stretches around the world and into American homes.

Investigators filed indictments earlier this week against the eight men and one woman who were accused of hiding dozens of illegal immigrants from Pakistan and the Philippines at a string of convenience stores in two states.

The nine defendants arrested by investigators allegedly employed more than 50 illegal immigrants at ten 7-Eleven franchises in New York and four more in Virginia, using stolen identities to cover up their illicit activities, authorities said on Monday.

But while these alleged victims were discovered, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that millions of victims of human trafficking slip past law enforcement every year as he released the State Department's 2013 Trafficking in Persons report.

"When we think of the scale of modern-day slavery, literally tens of millions who live in exploitation, this whole effort can seem daunting, but it's the right effort," Kerry said. "There are countless voiceless people, countless nameless people except to their families or perhaps a phony name by which they are being exploited, who look to us for their freedom."

Only about 40,000 victims of human trafficking have been identified in the past year, the report said, based on information obtained from governments around the world. The estimated number of men, women, and children who are trafficked at any one time worldwide may reach as high as 27 million, according to the report.

“Because reporting is uneven, we can’t say for certain how many victims of trafficking are identified each year,” said Ambassador Luis C. deBaca, director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in an introduction to the report.

“That means we’re bringing to light only a mere fraction of those who are exploited in modern slavery,” deBaca said. “That number, and the millions who remain unidentified, are the numbers that deserve our focus.”

The report designated 21 countries as Tier Three, signifying that they make no significant effort to meet minimum standards of compliance set by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a 2000 law that allows for the prevention and prosecution of human trafficking.

The Tier Three countries listed by the report are: Algeria, the Central African Republic, China, the Congo, Cuba, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, North Korea, Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Uzbekistan, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.

Yet the number of traffickers convicted by the Department of Justice fell over the past year, the report said, recording 138 traffickers convicted in 2012, according to the report. A year earlier, 152 convictions were obtained by the Justice Department in trafficking cases, the report said.

Justice Department task forces reported fewer investigations for 2012, as well, saying that the department conducted 753 investigations into human trafficking suspects last year, compared to 900 investigations into 1,350 suspects in 2011.

As many as 100,000 U.S. children may be victims of domestic human trafficking, according to estimates cited by a 2013 Congressional Research Service report. The tally of victims brought into the U.S. by traffickers each year might be as high as 17,500 people, according to the report.

In another domestic case announced by investigators this week, a woman with cognitive disabilities and her young daughter beaten and threatened in their Ohio home for more than two years, authorities said. Three people were arrested for holding the two victims captive against their will since May 2011, according to the U.S. Attorney for Northern Ohio.

Jessica L. Hunt, 31, and Daniel J. Brown, 33, and Jordie L. Callahan, 26, allegedly held the two victims captive and kept them under surveillance using a video monitor in an Ashland, Ohio apartment, according to an affidavit filed on June 17 in Ohio’s Northern District Court.

Police were alerted to the alleged abuses when the adult victim was arrested in October of 2012 for shoplifting a candy bar, and asked to be taken to jail rather than back to the apartment, according to the affidavit.

The victims in Ohio were forced to shop and clean for their captors, as well as care for their pit bulls and pet reptiles, according to the affidavit. They were denied food, beaten, and threatened with firearms, as well as snakes including a poisonous coral snake, and 130-pound Burmese python, and a ball python, according to the affidavit.

"We are yet again reminded that modern-day slavery exists all around us," said Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. "One of our nation's core values is freedom, yet this woman and her child were denied freedom for two years.”

The chief executive of the Polaris Project, a non-governmental organization that works to prevent human trafficking, said the report brought attention to the “appallingly high rate” of global human trafficking in a statement.

“The average American should understand that human trafficking is much larger and more prevalent than most people realize, and they may come across human trafficking in their daily lives,” Polaris Project CEO Bradley Myles told NBC News in an email. “Hundreds of thousands of vulnerable women, men and children right here in the U.S. are lured or forced into commercial sex or to provide labor against their will.”

President Barack Obama has named human trafficking as a priority of his administration, and last year signed an executive order tightening safeguards and adding protections against use of trafficked labor by the government and federal subcontractors. In April, the White House hosted a forum on its efforts to crack down on human trafficking.

“But for all the progress that we’ve made, the bitter truth is that trafficking also goes on right here, in the United States,” Obama said in a speech on human trafficking in September 2012. “It’s the migrant worker unable to pay off the debt to his trafficker.  The man, lured here with the promise of a job, his documents then taken, and forced to work endless hours in a kitchen.  The teenage girl, beaten, forced to walk the streets.  This should not be happening in the United States of America.”

Related:

• Enslaved in America: An NBC News special report 
• The sex slaves next door: New form of trafficking invades US
• Survivor of sex trafficking speaks out as battle against crimes continue

Three male Naval Academy midshipmen have been charged with allegedly sexually assaulting a female midshipman last year and with making a false official statement.

The woman told investigators that she was assaulted by the men — all Academy football players at the time — at an off-campus party in April 2012. 

On Wednesday, the academy announced the accused men were charged with making a false official statement and with rape, sexual assault, and other sexual misconduct. 

"Midshipmen, like other members of the military, are subject to military law contained in the UCMJ [Uniform Code of Military Justice], a federal statute. These charges are accusations, and the accused midshipmen are presumed innocent until proven guilty," Commander John Schofield, a spokesman for the academy, said.

The woman initially reported the incident in 2012, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service immediately launched an investigation, sources told NBC News. But the woman essentially withdrew her complaint when she stopped cooperating with investigators, and the probe was halted.

Then, in February 2013, she renewed her complaint, and the investigation continued. 

Sources said the woman knew the men and considered them friends, but during a night of heavy drinking the three allegedly had non-consensual sex with her at different times.

The woman's lawyer, Susan Burke, has told NBC News that her client was "ostracized" for the accusations, and that the incident was "widely known at the Naval Academy." 

Burke has been critical of the Academy for how they have handled the investigation, saying that said her client was disciplined for drinking while the alleged attackers went unpunished for more than one year. 

One of the accused had his graduation put on hold while the investigation was still pending. 

The other two are juniors at the Annapolis, Md., academy.

NBC's Andrew Rafferty contributed to this report.

FBI via AP

The FBI had offered a $100,000 reward for information leading directly to the arrest of Walter Lee Williams, 65.

CANCUN, Mexico -- Mexican authorities arrested a former University of Southern California professor who faces sex crimes charges in the Philippines on Tuesday, just hours after he was added to the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted Fugitives" list.

Walter Lee Williams, 64, was arrested in the southern beach resort of Playa del Carmen. The FBI said he was an anthropology and gender studies professor at the University of Southern California until 2011.

Using academic research as a guise, Williams traveled in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia to have sex with underage boys, according to the FBI. The bureau said it had identified 10 victims between ages 9 and 17.

The Quintana Roo state attorney general's office said police found Williams at a cafe on Tuesday night in Playa Del Carmen, a short drive from Cancun.

"He was sitting in a cafe," said state attorney general Armando Garcia. "It's not known what he was up to but he had a home in Cancun."

The FBI added Williams to its most-wanted list on Monday. The bureau was offering a $100,000 reward for information leading directly to his arrest.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 7:29 AM EDT

Hundreds of people were evacuated in Arizona on Tuesday after a wind-whipped wildfire spread across 5,000 acres in just seven hours.

More than 300 firefighters, along with multiple helicopters and aircraft, moved in to tackle the “extreme” blaze which started in “remote, rugged terrain” on the east side of Granite Mountain near Prescott, Arizona, officials said.

Authorities told The Associated Press that the fire was man-made and under investigation.

Jeff Andrews, deputy fire staff officer for Prescott National Forest, said that short- and long-terms models were being used in a bid to predict how the fire might spread.

However, he warned that hot and windy conditions could make containing it more difficult.

In the space of just an hour yesterday, gusts of up to 22 mph pushed the pushed the fire from 20 acres to almost 200 acres.

Slideshow: Western wildfires

Felicia Fonseca / AP

Dry conditions fuel blazes in the U.S.

Launch slideshow

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:41 AM EDT

Washoe County Sheriff via AP

Joseph Naso, seen in an undated booking photo, insists he is "not the monster" who responsible for the so-called "alphabet murders."

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- An elderly California photographer charged with the slayings of four prostitutes dating back to the 1970s opened his own defense at his serial-murder trial on Monday, declaring to jurors, "I'm not the monster that killed these women."

Joseph Naso, 79, who has admitted a penchant for taking erotic pictures of women and displayed dozens of such photos in court on Monday, stood stoop-shouldered in a blue suit and tie, his hands crossed behind his back, as he politely greeted the 12 men and women who will decide his fate.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You're a welcome sight. I've been waiting two years and two months for this day to tell my side," Naso said.

He went on to discount the government's case as little more than "theories and opinions," saying, "They don't even have circumstantial evidence."

Naso is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of four northern California women, all of them prostitutes, whose slayings were dubbed the "alphabet murders" because the first and last name of each victim starts with the same letter in the alphabet.

Two victims, Roxene Roggasch, 18, and Carmen Colon, 22, were killed in the 1970s. Two others, Pamela Parson, 38, and Tracy Tafoya, 31, were slain in the 1990s.

Prosecutors contend that Naso drugged his victims before raping or trying to rape them, then killed the women and discarded their naked or scantily clad bodies in remote locations.

During prosecutors' opening statement on Monday morning, jurors were shown graphic photos of the victims as they appeared when their remains were found.

"The defendant is a serial rapist and murderer," said Marin County Deputy District Attorney Rosemary Slote told the jury.

Although he has no legal training, the defendant has insisted upon representing himself in the proceedings against him, for which he could face the death penalty if convicted of more than one more murder.

'I dated, I dance, I took pictures'
"I'm not the monster that killed these women. I don't do that," he said at one point during a rambling, two-hour, 10-minute opening statement. "I dated, I danced, I took pictures, but I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that."

He acknowledged knowing one of his alleged victims, Parson, who by his account he picked up as a hitchhiker and brought to his house. There, he said, she offered to have sex with him. But he said he declined and took photos of her instead.

Naso was arrested in 2010 after authorities searching his home in Nevada found what prosecutors have described as diaries of sexual assaults and a list of victim dumping grounds, along with hundreds of photographs of naked women, many of whom appeared to be dead or unconscious.

It was only then that investigators began to put a serial murder case together against Naso, who was at the time on probation for shoplifting.

Naso insisted on Monday that "not one picture of a deceased person" was found at his home. Naso showed the jury a collection of roughly 50 photographs he had taken over the years, mostly of female subjects, many of them topless or in various stages of undress, interspersed with photos from weddings, a college sorority gathering, a nursing school graduation and a church group.

Of prosecutors' assertions that Naso's DNA was found on nylons from his ex-wife that he allegedly used to strangle one of his victims, he said such evidence was inconclusive.

As to journal notations attributed to him by prosecutors that refer to him having "raped" a woman, he told jurors, "That's the way I talk. It's just loose talk that I used. 'I pick up a nice broad and I raped her.' It's got nothing to do with forcible rape in the way we usually think."

He concluded by saying, "When this trial is over, I'd like you to find me not guilty so I can go home and see my children."

Related:

• Eerie similarites noted in NY, Calif. cold cases
• Serial killing suspect kept photos, list of women

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images, file

Tuesday's report highlights successful teacher training programs at a handful of universities, including Ohio State, which recently launched an undergraduate degree program that gives students hands-on experience in a classroom each year.

The teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running classrooms and are quickly overwhelmed by the job, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The review found "an industry of mediocrity," with the vast majority of programs earning fewer than three stars on a four-star rating scale - and many earning no stars at all.

The council, a bipartisan research and advocacy group, spent eight years developing the methodology, fighting in court to gain access to data and analyzing the information before issuing the report. It contains detailed analysis of 608 colleges and universities with teacher training programs and partial data on 522 others.

Those 1,130 institutions collectively turn out more than 170,000 novice teachers annually, about 80 percent of the new teachers entering classrooms each year. Most of the rest come from non-traditional training programs that are not necessarily affiliated with colleges, such as Teach for America.

Freshly minted teachers "don't know how to teach reading, don't know how to master a classroom, don't know how to use data," said Kate Walsh, the council's president. "The results were dismal."

Attempts to improve teacher training have been under way.

The two big teachers unions have both called for aspiring educators to get better mentoring and more practical experience before they graduate. They have also urged tougher certification standards that would require candidates to prove their skills in a classroom - not just pass a paper-and-pencil test - before earning a license.

Yet the study is the first to attempt a comprehensive rating of teacher preparation programs.

The methodology drew immediate fire from some professors of education.

The council ratings lean heavily on a few factors: Whether a program is selective in its admissions; whether its students must take extensive courses in the subject areas they will be teaching; and how much hands-on experience students get in classroom management. Researchers also looked at syllabi, textbooks and the type of training offered in key fields, such as teaching reading.

But the study did not typically evaluate the quality of teaching within the training program or the success graduates may have had in the classroom.

"These rankings do not have a great deal to do with program quality," said Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at the Stanford University School of Education, which received only mediocre ratings.

Several universities tried to block researchers from getting data about their programs; in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri, the disputes escalated into court battles won by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

"Our members feel like they've been strong-armed," said Stephanie Giesecke, a director at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "These are not valid ways of rating our programs."

For all its grim warnings, the new report does point to a few bright spots.

It highlights successful teacher training programs at a handful of universities, including Ohio State, which recently launched an undergraduate degree program that gives students hands-on experience in a classroom each year.

Furman University in Greenville, S.C., also won high marks for its academic rigor and intensive mentoring of aspiring teachers.

"When they leave our program, we're putting a stamp on them that says, 'This person can work with other peoples' children,'" said Scott Henderson, director of program development for the teacher education program. "That's a huge responsibility."

The National Council on Teacher Quality was founded in 2000 and often advocates for education reform policies opposed by teacher unions. It is funded by private foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP

From left, Black Forest resident Kristin Brown, whose family lost their home in the wildfire, is joined by Ashley Clipp, Kaitlyn Barlow and Ashley's son Jackson, 2, as they support first responders outside of a fire camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Sunday.

The most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history is 75 percent contained and expected to be fully under control by Thursday, officials in Colorado Springs said Monday.

Since the Black Forest Fire started on Tuesday, 480 structures have been destroyed, but the mandatory evacuation zone was reduced Monday morning, according Jennifer Brown, an El Paso county public information officer.

Although Brown said more areas are being cleared for displaced residents to return, The Associated Press reported that people whose houses are in areas where the fire did the most damage may be delayed by fire investigators. 

The cause of the fire is still unknown and evidence in those areas could help officials determine what or who started the blaze.

Slideshow: Colorado wildfires

The Black Forest fire raging in Colorado is now the state's most destructive wildfire ever.

Launch slideshow

While officials said that three subsequent wildfires may have been caused by lightning strikes, at the time when the Black Forest Fire started, lightning hadn’t been an issue, so the fire is believed to be a result of a person or machine.

Meanwhile thunderstorms were bringing welcome rain as they helped firefighters contain the fire further on Sunday and Monday, and more showers were forecast into the week.

In the midst of firefighters extinguishing the remaining fires, the Sheriff’s office is focused on damage assessment of structures and cleanup, to prepare for more people to return to their homes. However, according to KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado, even those who are allowed back into their homes, or allowed to retrieve what they can from the rubble, still “must be ready to go at a moment's notice.”

Two deaths were caused by the wildfire, officials said, but the Sheriff’s department has yet to release their names. The two who lost their lives were in the midst of packing up belongings from their garage when it collapsed on them, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

US Marshals Service via Reuters; AP

James 'Whitey' Bulger in a 2011 booking photo, left, and John Martorano in 2008.

James “Whitey” Bulger, already charged with killing 19 people, was accused Monday of emotionally wounding a Boston hitman.

John “The Executioner” Martorano –  a star witness at Bulger’s racketeering and murder trial – told the jury that it “sort of broke my heart” when he learned his pal was an FBI informant.

He said Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi had been his “partners in crime,” his best friends and godfather to his children, the Associated Press reported.

But the news that Bulger and Flemmi were working with the feds “broke all the trust that we had, all loyalty,” Martorano said, according to the Boston Globe.

So he hit them where it hurt: He decided to become a government snitch, too.

As a result of his cooperation agreement, Martorano served just a dozen years in prison even though he admitted to 20 murders, some of which he matter-of-factly recounted in his first hours on the stand.

“I shot him … in the heart,” Martorano said of the 1973 slaying of Joseph Notarangeli. He said he dressed as a butcher for the rubout at a Medford, Mass., restaurant called the Pewter Pot.

Martorano also described a 1974 hit on Notarangeli’s brother, Alfred, and claimed Bulger watched from a second car – the first time in the week-old trial that a witness has directly tied the 83-year-old ex-fugitive to a killing.

The confessed hitman said he botched the initial attempt on Alfred Notarangeli’s life, mistakenly killing bartender Michael Milano who drove a similar car.

“Wrong guy,” he told the prosecutor, according to the Globe.

Milano wasn’t the only unintended victim of Martorano’s bloody membership in the Winter Hill Gang. Innocent bystanders Elizabeth Dickson, 19, and Douglas Barrett, 17, were caught in the crossfire and killed when Martorano opened fire on associate Herbert Smith in 1968.

Smith’s capital crime? He laughed at Flemmi, Martorano said.

The witness admitted he felt bad about Dickson and Barrett.

“I wanted to kill myself,” he said, according to the Globe.

Martorano – who has reportedly sold his life story to a movie producer for $250,000 – is one of three former Bulger cronies testifying for the prosecution. In opening statements, the defense argued the trio only squealed to save themselves and have no credibility.

Bulger, who spent 16 years on the lam before being nabbed with his girlfriend in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011, is charged with taking part in 19 murders, extortion, money-laundering, drugs and weapons.

He has pleaded not guilty, and in opening statements, his lawyer described him as a small-time drug-dealer and loanshark – not the notorious gang kingpin who prosecutors say kept a stranglehold on South Boston for decades and inspired Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Departed.”

Bulger also has denied he was an informant for the FBI, even though he wanted to put on a defense that argued he had immunity from the feds to commit crimes.

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 5:33 PM EDT

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Ken Feinberg, administrator for "The One Fund, Boston", waits to begin a town hall style meeting about the fund in Boston on May 7.

The primary compensation fund for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings has garnered upwards of $50 million and received more than 200 applications for payments, according to the fund’s administrators. 

The One Fund Boston received 212 claims by the Saturday postmark deadline, with additional applications known to be en route to the fund’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. in courier mail, according to Camille Biros, the deputy fund administrator.

The June 15 deadline marked two months to the day since twin explosions went off at the marathon's finish line, killing three and injuring over 260 people.

“We are still receiving applications. Typically, many applications come near or on the deadline,” Biros said Monday. “We don’t know what the ultimate number will be.” 

Any requests postmarked past deadline will be reviewed and distributed on a "case-by-case" basis, Biros said. The fund hopes to have payments in claimants' hands by July 1, she said.

The distribution protocol, finalized in May, will prioritize deaths, double amputees, and victims who sustained brain damage, followed by single amputees and then people whose injuries required an overnight hospital stay.

Families of four people killed –  three by the April 15 explosions and one MIT campus police officer killed by the suspects days later — are eligible for payments, but Biros on Friday declined to say whether those four families had applied for compensation. 

Applicants were required to fill out a three-page form, available on the fund’s official website. The form asks claimants to specify the nature of any injuries and the duration of the hospital stay. It also requires a hospital statement confirming that the purported injuries were sustained during the attack.

Fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg has said that, despite the sum of money in the fund’s coffers, claimants should 'lower their expectations' about the impact of potential payouts.

“Whatever we do with this fund is inadequate,” Feinberg, 68, said at a town hall-style meeting in May. “Everyone, please lower your expectations about this fund. If you had a billion dollars, you would not have enough money to deal with the problems with these attacks.”

Feinberg has managed compensation for families damaged by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre; and the shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech.