Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(GRAHAM, Wash.) -- Moments before Josh Powell ignited a gas-fueled explosion at his home, killing himself and his two children, a locked-out child services worker pleaded with a 911 operator to get police to the home because she feared for the two boys' lives.
Elizabeth Griffin-Hall, who had brought the boys to Powell's home for a supervised visit, called 911 after she said the man let the two boys into the house but slammed the door in her face.
"Nothing like this has ever happened before -- one of these supervised visits. I'm really shocked," she said in the 911 call, one of seven released Tuesday evening. "I can hear the kids crying but he still wouldn't let me in."
She told the 911 operator she wanted to move her car out of the driveway because she smelled gas coming from the house, and then asked for police to be sent to the home. But the 911 operator said officers only get sent to life-threatening situations.
"This could be life-threatening," she said. "He went to court on Wednesday and he didn't get his kids back. I'm afraid for their lives."
Moments later, with Powell's house engulfed in flames, she called back and told a 911 operator she believed he intentionally blew up the house, killing himself and his children.
That same day, Powell's distraught sister, Alina Powell, called 911 to say she was receiving "weird" messages from her brother via email and voicemail that made her too "terrified to drive over there" herself.
"I'm not afraid of him," she told the emergency operator through sobs. "He's never hurt me. I'm afraid of seeing something I don't want to see."
The deadly house explosion likely exceeded even her worst fears.
"People are saying there's not somebody here," Griffin-Hall said in another 911 call after the explosion, "but I was just there, and there is somebody here. There's two little boys in the house and they're 5 and 7, and there's an adult man, and he has supervised visits, and he blew up the house and the kids."
When the 911 operator asked her if she believed he did it "intentionally," she answered, "Yes."
Police had called Josh Powell a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell, who he claimed went missing from their Utah home after he and his then 2- and 4-year-old sons went on a midnight camping trip in December 2009.
He was never arrested or charged, but he lost custody of his sons after his father, Steven Powell, was arrested in September and charged with 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography. The pornographic images were kept in the home the two men shared with Josh and Susan Powell's boys.
At a custody hearing last week, a judge said Josh Powell would have to undergo a psychosexual exam before he could get his kids back.
KABC-TV/ABC News(LOS ANGELES) -- Prosecutors in Los Angeles have filed lewd acts charges against a second teacher for allegedly fondling at least one student at the beleaguered Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles.
Martin Springer was charged Tuesday with three counts of committing lewd acts on one girl, according to The Los Angeles Times, which reported that a law enforcement officer said a second girl recanted her accusation against the teacher.
Bail for Springer was reportedly set at $300,000, while the judge said the 49-year-old will be forced to wear an ankle monitoring device if released.
Another teacher, Mark Berndt, was arrested earlier after a year-long investigation into lewd acts he allegedly committed on 23 children aged 6-10 between 2005 and 2010. He is accused of feeding students cookies with his semen on them and taking pictures of students blindfolded with cockroaches in their faces.
Brian Claypool, an attorney for some of Berndt's alleged victims, told ABC News that he has identified a female teacher who would allegedly bring little girls to Berndt to be victimized.
"I reported to the L.A. County Sheriff's Special Victims Unit a new teacher who I believe patently aided and abetted the abuse Berndt was carrying out," Claypool told ABC News.
Claypool said his accusation has come from conversations with at least three students or former students who said the other female teacher had a role in the alleged crimes.
"She was a teacher who would escort little girls into Berndt's classroom when he was all alone. Berndt would come over in the middle of day, whisper in her ear, and they would giggle, and then teacher would pick out two girls, escort them through a common door, so that they were stuck with a pedophile in this classroom. And that's where he was blindfolding them and spoon-feeding them semen," he said.
Following the arrests of Springer and Berndt, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy announced on Monday he was having Miramonte's 128-person staff temporarily transferred out of the school for the remainder of the winter track.
The district has contacted former teachers and staff members who had been laid off during budget cuts to come back and temporarily teach at the school.
The school is expected to reopen to students on Thursday.
Former air marshal Steve Theodoropoulos. ABC News(NEW YORK) -- Managers at the Federal Air Marshal Service regularly made fun of blacks, Latinos and gays, took taxpayer-paid trips to visit families and vacation spots, and acted like a "bunch of school kid punks," current and former air marshals tell ABC News.
One supervisor was even photographed in 2006 asleep on a flight, carrying a loaded pistol, the air marshals said.
In interviews aired Tuesday night on World News with Diane Sawyer and Nightline, the air marshals describe a culture of incompetence, bigotry and sexism on the part of senior managers at some offices that has endured for the last decade and raises questions about the professionalism and performance of the force entrusted with preventing acts of in-flight terrorism.
"Sooner or later, if you do not have people operating at their peak efficiency, then you take the risk that a terrorist is going to get away with his dirty deed," said Sen. Bill Nelson, D.-Florida, who asked for an inspector general's investigation of the allegations made by current and former air marshals two years ago.
"The culture is, hate African Americans, hate females, go after gays and lesbians cause we don't like the way they think," said former air marshal Steve Theodoropoulos.
It was Theodoropoulos, working in the Orlando air marshal office, who provided a photograph to reporters in 2010 of a "distorted air marshal Jeopardy game board" with classifications that were racial slurs aimed at minority and gay air marshals.
"Category pickle smokers was directly aimed at gay males," he said of the board, which he discovered in a training room at the air marshal office in Orlando. The air marshals say it was removed in 2009.
Other categories included "Our Gang" for African-Americans, "Geraldo Rivera" for Latinos, and "Ellen DeGeneres" for gay female air marshals.
One of the five women listed on the board later tried to commit suicide, according to Theodoropoulos and other air marshals familiar with the case.
Air marshals who were military veterans were listed as "Operators" because they were often called away for training and perceived to be shirking their flight assignments.
"Anybody that's not like them, they're against," said Theodoropoulos. "I mean, how do you operate under those conditions?"
Sen. Nelson says the attitude calls into question the judgments and training of air marshals involved in the incident.
"This behavior went well over the line," said Sen. Nelson. "This is unprofessional, this is unacceptable and it should have been corrected two years ago when I first reported it to the Inspector General."
The Inspector General's report is scheduled to be made public on Thursday, but according to an advance copy obtained by ABC News, the investigation found "a great deal of tension, mistrust and dislike between non-supervisory and supervisory personnel in field offices around the country."
The report, which was triggered by a CNN broadcast about the Jeopardy board in 2010, concludes that the allegations, perceived and real, "posed a difficult challenge for the agency" but, according to a survey of air marshals, "do not appear to have compromised the service's mission."
The survey found that 76 percent of air marshals asked said "people they work with cooperate to get the job done."
But the Inspector General also warned that "these allegations add unnecessary distraction at all levels at a time when mission tempo is high and many in the agency are becoming increasingly concerned about workforce burnout and fatigue."
John Pistole, who oversees the air marshals as head of the Transportation Security Administration, said security had not been compromised by the behavior of some air marshals. "Absolutely not," Pistole told ABC News on Tuesday. "The national security mission is always paramount."
"TSA took a proactive approach to the issues raised and has developed and implemented solutions ahead of the conclusion of the investigation," said the TSA in a statement to ABC News.
But some members of Congress questioned the report's conclusion that the mission was not compromised. The Inspector General's report also failed to fully investigate many of the more damning allegations made against air marshal managers.
"Our review does not support a finding of widespread discrimination and retaliation" within the Federal Air Marshal Service, the report said.
Other air marshals, still working undercover on flights and unable to reveal their names publicly, alleged that managers regularly scheduled themselves on flights so they could visit family or vacation spots. In one example, the air marshals provided a photograph of a manager who arranged to fly to Brussels at Christmas time, and then jumped a fence to sit next to the Baby Jesus in a nativity crèche in the city's main square.
Theodoropoulos has had his own issues, stemming from an altercation with a bartender that led to his dismissal from the air marshals after a 20-year career in law enforcement. He and his union say the government used a relatively minor incident as a way to get rid of a whistleblower and send a message to other air marshals to keep quiet.
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.) -- A gunman fired at least one shot inside City Hall in Middletown, N.Y., Wednesday morning before a court officer shot and killed him.
The alleged shooter, a male who arrived on a dirt bike without license plates, entered the courthouse with a rifle bag before a shootout occurred at the metal detector in front of the courtroom -- situated just down the hall from the mayor's office and next door to the police department.
He and an injured court officer were first taken to Orange Regional Medical Center. At least one other court officer was being treated for shock.
Between three to five shots were exchanged in all, including the one fired by the gunman.
A possible motive was not immediately made available.
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.) -- A jury of seven men and seven women was selected Wednesday for the murder trial of former University of Virginia lacrosse player George Huguely, accused of killing his ex-girlfriend and classmate Yeardley Love.
In addition to the dozen jurors, two alternates were selected for the trial that is expected to last two weeks in Charlottesville, Va. It's not clear the make-up of the 12 who will be the main jury. It took two days for the court to whittle down the pool of 160 potential jurors to 15. During questioning, many said they would not be able to be impartial in the trial.
Opening arguments are expected to be presented Wednesday.
Huguely, 24, pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges of first-degree murder and five other charges.
Love, 22, was found dead face-down in a pool of blood in the early hours of May 3, 2010 in her off-campus apartment in Charlottesville. Her face was covered in scrapes and bruises, according to a police warrant, and her right eye was swollen shut.
Love was a star lacrosse player at the school and a senior just weeks away from graduation.
Huguely, also a lacrosse player for the school's nationally ranked team, waived his Miranda rights in interviews with police after Love was found and confessed that he kicked in the door to Love's bedroom and shook her violently, repeatedly banging her head against the wall, according to police documents.
His attorneys have since claimed that Love's murder was a tragic mistake and that Love's death was caused by an irregular heartbeat caused by Adderall and alcohol, not a beating.
An autopsy performed on Love found that she died from blunt force trauma to the head.
If convicted of first degree murder, Huguely could be sentenced to life in prison. He could face 40 years if convicted of second degree murder. A manslaughter conviction could lower the sentence to 10 years.
Huguely's arrest in Love's case was not his first run-in with the law. He had been arrested before for resisting arrest and public intoxication, charged with reckless driving and involved in a domestic dispute with his father on the family yacht.
Huguely is being held without bond in the Albermarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail.
Brand X Pictures/Thinkstock(RALEIGH, N.C.) -- The second trial of a man who is accused of beating his pregnant wife to death in their North Carolina home began this week with testimony from the dead woman's sister that the defendant was unfaithful with multiple mistresses.
Jason Young, 37, is on trial for first-degree murder a second time, after a jury was deadlocked while deliberating last July. Michelle Young was 29 years old and five months pregnant with their second child when she was found face-down in a pool of blood by her sister, Meredith Fisher, in 2006.
Jason Young was released from jail in July 2011 after posting a $900,000 bond but now could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted.
Fisher went to the couple's house after receiving a voicemail from Jason Young asking her to do a favor and see if she could find an item in the house near the computer.
In emotional testimony, Fisher described finding her sister, who was a star employee at Progress Energy, beaten with her then 2-year-old daughter, Cassidy, nearby.
"That's the small of her back, that I touched her and felt that she was cold," Fisher recalled.
Fisher tried to encourage Cassidy, the only witness and now age 7, to speak on the 911 call: "Sweetie do you know what happened to mommy? Did she fall?" Cassidy responded, "She's got boo-boos everywhere."
Young says that he was at a hotel on a business trip in Hillsville, Va., 160 miles from their home in Raleigh, the night that his wife died.
The prosecution argued that Young drove back from Hillsville that night to murder Michelle, and then tampered with the hotel's security equipment to cover his tracks.
Keith Hicks, a worker at the hotel, testified that he found an unplugged security camera and an open emergency exit door.
KOMO/ABC News(GRAHAM, Wash.) -- As investigators pore over the gutted Washington state home of Josh Powell for evidence explaining how and why he murdered his two sons and killed himself in a gas explosion, ABC News has exclusively obtained what is believed to be his final words to his loved ones.
Powell left a voicemail for his family just 20 minutes before attacking his two young boys Braden, 5, and Charles, 7, with a hatchet and igniting a gas leak that blew up his house on Sunday afternoon.
"I am not able to live without my sons, and I'm not able to go on anymore. I'm sorry to everyone I've hurt. Goodbye," the voicemail message said.
Many are now looking at the tumultuous relationship that Josh Powell had with his father Steven Powell, whose September arrest led to charges of 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography. The pornographic images were kept in the home the two men shared with the boys -- a fact which led to Josh Powell losing full custody of his sons.
The boys were ordered in a Washington court in September to remain in the custody of their mother Susan Powell's parents, Chuck and Judy Cox, because they had been living in a dangerous home environment with sexually explicit material, and because of the possibility that Josh Powell participated in the voyeurism and child pornography charges against his father.
Steven Powell has now been named a person of interest in the 2009 disappearance of Susan Powell, according to Seattle's Q13 FOX News, which reports that he was not overly emotional when he heard the news of the explosion, and has been uncooperative with Pierce County deputies. He is currently on suicide watch.
John Hallewell, who was Josh Powell's best friend, says that Sunday's murder/suicide was likely not done as revenge against his missing wife because, "all he ever thought about was himself."
"Josh has his problems, but he was trying to do what was right and start a family and do all those things … I think especially once Josh moved to live with his father, and he just got a hold of him, and basically he went downhill pretty fast from there," Hallewell told ABC News.
"I don't think it could have been for revenge," Hallewell added. "I think it was more a case where he thought he was in a corner and didn't have a way of keeping the kids, and thought if I can't have them nobody's going to. I don't think he even thinks enough about anyone else to do it for revenge."
Alina Powell, Josh Powell's sister, released a statement on Tuesday regarding her brother's death.
"Josh and his boys spent more than two years being crushed alive by hate, harassment, and abuse. None of us could have anticipated the devastating tragedy that took place Sunday, but what this unimaginable loss shows is that hate will never end well," Alina Powell said in the statement. "Hate kills."
Creatas Images/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) -- Amid allegations that two of its teachers committed lewd acts on students, a Los Angeles elementary school will be wiped clean of all of its staff while investigations into the accusations continue.
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy made the announcement Monday night while meeting with parents. He said everyone from the principal to the janitors at Miramonte Elementary School will be removed and replaced. The new staff is scheduled to take over on Thursday when classes resume.
"I can't have any more surprises at Miramonte, even though the police will do what they have to do. And if there are no more, thank God. We deal with the horror and the tragedy I have already. And if there are more, then we will have to deal with that," Deasy said.
Last week, third grade teacher Mark Berndt was arrested for allegedly abusing 23 students, ages 7 to 10, between 2008 and 2010. According to officials, the 61-year-old blindfolded and sometimes gagged children, spoon-feeding some of them his semen and placing live cockroaches on the faces of others.
Berndt, who's being held on $23 million bail, was busted when a worker at a film processing outlet turned over photos of the alleged abuse to police.
A few days after Berndt's arrest, another teacher at Miramonte was placed behind bars for molesting some of his students. Martin Springer, 49, is accused of fondling two girls over the past three years.
"I am outraged, disgusted," Deasy said, referring to the allegations.
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- By a vote of 75-20, the Senate Monday night passed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization conference report.
Most notably, the FAA Modernization Reform Act will extend the funding for the FAA through 2015, investing more than $20 billion in airports and runways in the country and on modern air traffic control equipment.
This marks the first long-term reauthorization of the FAA in almost five years -- the agency has worked under 23 short-term extensions since 2007. The past extensions have just been in two- or three-month increments, time after time.
“It will finally give the FAA the ability it needs to be a world-class travel system,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday. “The aviation jobs bill will also create thousands of jobs, about 300,000," Reid said without elaborating. "It will protect airline workers and approve safety for travelers. This legislation will create badly-needed jobs and will give the FAA the ability to finally upgrade the country's air traffic control system.”
The House of Representatives passed the bill last Friday, so it now heads to President Obama’s desk for his signature.
Library Of Congress/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Much has been written and said over the years about the active extramarital sexual life of the late President John F. Kennedy. While much has been documented -- and much more speculated upon -- a new book is raising eyebrows. Mimi Alford goes on the record with her memoir, Once Upon a Secret: My Affair with President John F. Kennedy, which hits bookstores Wednesday.
Alford says she was a 19-year-old White House intern at the time she met JFK, who was then around 44. The president was immediately smitten with the debutante, who bedded the young woman and carried on an 18-month-affair, she says.
Alford, who was Mimi Beardsley at the time, claims she was a virgin when she slept with Kennedy. On her way home from the White House, Alford says, "[I]t kept echoing in my head: I'm not a virgin anymore."
Always addressing Kennedy as "Mr. President" even during their liaisons, Alford says he would never kiss her on the lips to maintain some distance from her. He also reportedly set up secret liasons in various cities, and once asked Beardsley to service his "little brother," former Senator Teddy Kennedy. Beardsley reportedly refused, though she claims she performed oral sex on one of Kennedy's closest confidates at the president's direction -- while the former Commander in Chief watched.
Alford maintains that Kennedy confided in her during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the world was on the brink of destruction, telling the intern he'd "rather my children red than dead," a suggestion that he'd prefer a system under communism than losing his family.
Perhaps most haunting are Kennedy's last words to Alford shortly before he went on his ill-fated trip to Dallas in November 1963, when the president told the intern he would call her when he returned, even though her knew Alford was getting married.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(SAN FRANCISCO) -- A federal appeals court in California on Tuesday struck down Proposition 8, the controversial ballot measure passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote that defines marriage as between a man and a woman.
About 18,ooo same sex couples had obtained marriage licenses in the state before the ballot initiative was passed.
Prop 8 “amounts to a distinct constitutional violation because the Equal Protection Clause protects minority groups from being targeted for the deprivation of an existing right without legitimate reason,” the court said.
“By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the People of California violated the Equal Protection Clause.”
Judge Steven Reinhardt, writing for the majority, said the court had decided the issue on the “narrowest grounds.”
“We do not doubt the importance of the more general questions presented to us concerning the rights of same-sex couples to marry, nor do we doubt that these questions will likely be resolved in other states, and for the nation as a whole, by other courts,” he wrote. “For now, it suffices to conclude that the People of California may not, consistent with the Federal Constitution, add to their state Constitution a provision that has no more practical effect than to strip gays and lesbians of their right to use the official designation that the State and society give to committed relationships, thereby adversely affecting the status and dignity of the members of a disfavored class.”
The narrow ruling, specific to California, means the case is less likely to reach the Supreme Court.
Bill Clark/Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- A top official at the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer foundation resigned Tuesday following the charity’s decision to reverse its policy barring funding for Planned Parenthood.
Karen Handel, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia, denied that she had anything to do with the decision to end funding for Planned Parenthood, which she says was made under guidelines formulated before she was hired.
Still, critics of the foundation’s decision linked the move to Handel, a vocal opponent of abortion and Planned Parenthood.
“I am deeply disappointed by the gross mischaracterizations of the strategy, its rationale, and my involvement in it. I openly acknowledge my role in the matter and continue to believe our decision was the best one for Komen’s future and the women we serve,” Handel wrote in the letter that was obtained by several media outlets. “However, the decision to update our granting model was made before I joined Komen, and the controversy related to Planned Parenthood has long been a concern to the organization. Neither the decision nor the changes themselves were based on anyone’s political beliefs or ideology.”
“What was a thoughtful and thoroughly reviewed decision — one that would have indeed enabled Komen to deliver even greater community impact — has unfortunately been turned into something about politics. This is entirely untrue. This development should sadden us all greatly,” she added.
Handel declined a severance package.
The Susan G. Komen foundation confirmed Handel’s resignation and acknowledged “mistakes” in the way it handled the controversy that erupted last week.
“We have made mistakes in how we have handled recent decisions and take full accountability for what has resulted, but we cannot take our eye off the ball when it comes to our mission,” the organization’s chief executive and founder, Nancy Brinker, said in a statement. “Today I accepted the resignation of Karen Handel… I have known Karen for many years, and we both share a common commitment to our organization’s lifelong mission, which must always remain our sole focus. I wish her the best in future endeavors.”
Hemera/Thinkstock(WOODS CROSS, Utah) -- A Utah mother, who allegedly forced her son to walk alongside a moving car she was driving after he had missed his school bus, has been charged with child abuse and reckless driving, ABC News has learned.
Stacie Johnson, 37, reportedly was angry that her 9-year-old son had missed the bus to school one too many times, and was again refusing to walk. But what Johnson may have thought was teaching her son a lesson turned into criminal charges Monday, 11 days after she was arrested in connection with the incident.
“He had missed the bus repeatedly...he refused to go to school,” Johnson, who said she is a graduate student with an internship, wrote in an email to ABC News. “The reason I did not walk with him is that I was already late for work.”
Police responded to a call on Jan. 26 reporting that a boy was being pulled alongside a moving car by his belt, which was being held by the female driver, as it headed down a Woods Cross neighborhood street.
Woods Cross Police Chief Greg Butler told ABC News that Johnson was driving at a slow enough speed that the boy could keep pace with the vehicle, but that he could have been hit by traffic driving in the opposite direction.
Police turned the case over to the Davis County District Attorney’s office and Johnson was charged Monday with child abuse, a class A misdemeanor, and a class B misdemeanor of reckless driving.
While the story has been making its way around the Internet, Johnson’s identity was not known until after she was charged Monday.
Johnson told ABC News that contrary to other media reports, she did not “drag her son through the car window in the middle of the road,” but rather that the door was “ajar” as she drove slowly to the side of the two-lane road.
She retains custody of her 9-year-old son and another son, age 12. Johnson said that her younger son has struggled emotionally ever since she and his father divorced about four years ago.
ABC News (BREWSTER COUNTY, Texas) -- A 6-year-old boy is recovering from a mountain lion attack that left him with scrapes and puncture wounds to his face.
Rivers Hobbs was walking with his family on a sidewalk between a restaurant and Chisos Mountain Lodge, where the family was staying in Big Bend National Park in west Texas, when a mountain lion attacked him and clawed at his face.
The cat let go only after Jason Hobbs, Rivers' father, was able to stab it in the chest with a knife.
A representative from the Big Bend National Park said it was the second attack of the day, but in the other incident the people were able to drive off the mountain lion by hitting it with a backpack.
“From the description, it’s small and haggard looking,” park spokesman David Elkowitz told the Houston Chronicle. “It would appear to be a young lion.”
Park officials are still looking for the mountain lion.
Molly Riley-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama told student inventors Tuesday that their work was crucial to the nation’s future and called for millions of dollars in new education funding to give math and science “the respect and attention they deserve."
“You’re making sure America will win the race to the future,” Obama said at the White House Science Fair. “As an American, I’m proud of you. As your president, I think we need to make sure your success stories are happening all across the country.”
The president announced that his 2013 budget proposal, which will be released next week, will include $80 million for a new Department of Education competition to support math and science teacher preparation programs.
“The belief that we belong on the cutting edge of innovation -- that’s an idea as old as America itself,” Obama explained. “We’re a nation of tinkerers and dreamers and believers in a better tomorrow.”
The president seemed to get a big kick out of the rockets, robots and energy projects on display Tuesday. “It’s not every day that you have robots running all over your house. I am trying to figure out how you got through the metal detectors,” the president joked.
In an impromptu moment, an almost-giddy Obama tested out Joey Hudy’s air cannon, which launches marshmallows up to 176 feet. “Would it hit the wall over there? Would it stick?” the president asked the 14-year-old from Phoenix. “Let’s try it,” the president declared before warning the press to “back up.”
“Secret service isn’t happy about this,” Obama said before launching the marshmallow across the State Dining Room.
Other projects included ecologically conscious dissolvable sugar packets, a system to detect nuclear threats and a robot designed to connect older adults with their families.
Obama explained to the students that while he “didn’t build a rocket,” he did help his daughter Sasha win her school’s egg drop competition this year. “We practiced by dropping it from the Truman balcony,” he revealed.
“Walking around the science fair, I was thinking back to when I was your age, and basically, you guys put me to shame,” Obama said to laughter. “What impresses me so much is not just how smart you are, but it’s the fact that you recognize you’ve got a responsibility to use your talents in service of something bigger than yourselves.”
The president ended his remarks with a plea to the press. “Pay attention to this. This is important. This is what’s going to make a difference in this country over the long haul. This is what inspires me and gets me up every day. This is what we should be focusing on in our public debates,” he said.
KOMO/ABC News(GRAHAM, Wash.) -- As she watched Josh Powell's house engulfed in flames, the child services worker who brought his two young sons to the home for a supervised visit told a 911 operator she believed he intentionally blew up the house, killing himself and his children.
That same day, Powell's distraught sister, Alina Powell, called 911 to say she was receiving "weird" messages from her brother via email and voicemail that made her too "terrified to drive over there" herself.
"I'm not afraid of him," she told the emergency operator through sobs. "He's never hurt me. I'm afraid of seeing something I don't want to see."
What actually was happening may have been even more terrifying than she could have imagined.
The frantic child services worker told the 911 operator that she brought the two boys to Josh Powell's home for the visit, but after he let the boys into the house he "slammed the door in [her] face" and then the house exploded.
"There's two little boys in the house and they're 5 and 7, and there's an adult man, and he has supervised visits, and he blew up the house and the kids," said the woman, who identified herself as Elizabeth Griffin-Hall, a Child Protective Services officer.
When the 911 operator asked her if she believed he did it "intentionally," she answered, "Yes."
Among the six other tapes released Tuesday was the call from Alina Powell.
"He left me a voicemail," she said. "He said something about [how] he can't live without his sons and goodbye."
ABC News has exclusively obtained what is believed to be Josh Powell's final words to his loved ones, the voicemail he left for his family just 20 minutes before attacking his two young boys, Braden, 5, and Charles, 7, with a hatchet and igniting a gas leak that blew up his house on Sunday afternoon.
"I am not able to live without my sons, and I'm not able to go on anymore. I'm sorry to everyone I've hurt. Goodbye," the voicemail message said.
Police had called Josh Powell a person of interest in the disappearance of his wife, Susan Powell, who he claimed went missing from their Utah home after he and his then 2- and 4-year-old sons went on a midnight camping trip in December 2009.
He was never arrested or charged, but he lost custody of his sons after his father, Steven Powell, was arrested in September and charged with 14 counts of voyeurism and one count of child pornography. The pornographic images were kept in the home the two men shared with Josh and Susan Powell's boys.
At a custody hearing last week, a judge said Josh Powell would have to undergo a psychosexual exam before he could get his kids back.
The tapes of the CPS worker and Alina Powell were among seven released Tuesday. The rest recorded the frantic, fearful voices of people who heard the explosion, saw the house engulfed in flames and called 911.
A female neighbor told the 911 operator that there was "a loud, huge boom. And there's crap flying all over the place, dark smoke."
"Fire. Fire. There's a house on fire. Explosion," a male neighbor said. "The house is totally engulfed in fire, from front to back."
John Moore/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- A retired general Tuesday assailed the commander of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden for drawing too much media attention to operations that he argued should be kept under wraps.
Special Operations Commander Adm. Bill McRaven was confronted by retired Lt. Gen. James Vaught, who said he didn’t understand why the recent raids by the Navy SEALs, such as the one to kill Osama bin Laden or to rescue U.S. hostage Jessica Buchanan, were all over the media.
“Since the time when your wonderful team went and drug bin Laden out and got rid of him, and more recently when you went down and rescued the group in Somalia, or wherever the hell they were, they’ve been splashing all of this all over the media,” Vaught, 85, said. “I flat don’t understand that.
“Now back when my special operators extracted Saddam [Hussein] from the hole, we didn’t say one damn word about it,” he continued. “We turned him over to the local commander and told him to claim that his forces drug him out of the hole, and he did so. And we just faded away and kept our mouth shut.
“Now I’m going to tell you, one of these days, if you keep publishing how you do this, the other guy’s going to be there ready for you, and you’re going to fly in and he’s going to shoot down every damn helicopter and kill every one of your SEALs. Now, watch it happen. Mark my words. Get the hell out of the media,” he concluded, as laughter broke out at a meeting of the National Defense Industrial Association in Washington, D.C.
Vaught commanded the failed mission to rescue the hostages in Iran in 1979. Eight service members died and four were injured in “Operation Eagle Claw” when the helicopters on the mission collided in the remote Iranian desert. Vaught, whose role made him the first commander of Delta Force, was not active duty during the Hussein raid, which was also conducted by the Delta Force, the secretive counterterrorism unit.
McRaven jokingly responded that he became a Navy SEAL because his sister was dating a special forces member and because he was infatuated with John Wayne’s movie The Green Beret.
“The fact of the matter is, there have always been portrayals of SOF [Special Operations Forces] out in the mainstream media,” he said. “We are in an environment today where we can’t get away from it. It is not something that we actively pursue, as I think a number of the journalists here in the audience will confirm. But the fact of the matter is, with the social media being what it is today, with the press and the 24-hour news cycle, it’s very difficult to get away from it.”
He added that it was difficult to avoid media coverage in today’s 24-hour news cycle and that it could actually help Navy SEALs do their job better.
“We have had a few failures. And I think having those failures exposed in the media also kind of helps focus our attention, helps us do a better job. So sometimes the criticism...the spotlight on us actually makes us better,” McRaven said.
The Navy SEALs have received heavy media attention in the past year thanks to the bin Laden raid and the rescue in Somalia. A movie titled Act for Valor focusing on the elite special operations force is due for release soon, and Academy Award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow is making a movie about the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
McRaven was in Washington, D.C., Tuesday talking about an expansion in the role of special operations forces in Afghanistan. Special operations troops, McRaven said, would likely be the last to leave the country and the Pentagon is even considering a new special operations command, but that has not been decided yet.
“I have no doubt that special operations will be the last to leave Afghanistan,” McRaven said. “As far as anything beyond that, we’re exploring a lot of options.”
Jemal Countess/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- A New York prosecutor considering rape allegations against Greg Kelly, a Fox TV local morning anchor who is the son of the city's police commissioner, has decided not to bring charges in the case.
Kelly's lawyer, Andrew Lankler, met Tuesday evening with the lead prosecutor, the head of the Manhattan district attorney's sex crime unit, according to sources, and left with a letter informing him that, following the investigation, it was determined the allegations against Kelly did not meet the standard of criminal prosecution and no charges would be brought.
Kelly had taken time off from his job while the office of Manhattan District Attorney's Cyrus R. Vance Jr. investigated a New York woman's rape allegations made last month.
KOMO/ABC News(SEATTLE) -- Josh Powell, the husband of missing Utah mother Susan Powell, set off an explosion at his Washington home Sunday that killed himself and his two sons, who were there for a supervised visit, police said.
"We believe that he killed his kids and himself," Pierce County, Wash., Sheriff's Department spokesman Sgt. Ed Troyer said.
Graham, Wash., Deputy Chief Gary Franz told ABC News that a Child Protective Services (CPS) worker had just dropped off Powell's two sons at the house for a supervised visit. Powell took his two sons inside the house and then locked the CPS worker out.
"The children were just right in front of her as she was walking up to the door," Child Protective Services spokeswoman Sherry Hill said. "They went into the house and Josh shut the door right in front of her and locked it."
The CPS worker smelled gas, stepped away and the house exploded. The case worker was not physically harmed.
"He grabbed the kids, locked her out of the house, and immediately the house went up in flames, very quickly, very big, so we believe that Josh Powell intentionally set this fire," Troyer said.
Firefighters arrived at the scene and found the three bodies. Police are awaiting verification from the Medical Examiner's Office, but said they believe the bodies are those of Josh Powell and his two sons.
Troyer told ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle that emails Powell sent to authorities seemed to confirm that Powell planned the explosion. Troyer did not elaborate on the contents of the emails.
Josh Powell was the only named person of interest in Susan Powell's 2009 disappearance, but he had not been charged. The couple's two sons were placed in custody of Susan Powell's parents in 2011 after Josh Powell's father, Steve Powell, was arrested on charges of voyeurism and child pornography.
At a hearing Wednesday, a statement from the West Valley City, Utah, police noted that information and images were found on Josh Powell's computer that, "specifically related to their children's welfare," according to ABC News affiliate KTVX-TV in Salt Lake City.
The police did not specify what the information was, but Judge Kathryn J. Nelson ruled that because of that information, Josh Powell would not be allowed to have his children back until he submitted to a psychosexual evaluation and a polygraph test, the report said.
Hemera/Thinkstock(CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.) -- The trial of a young man accused of murdering his girlfriend, University of Virginia lacrosse player Yeardley Love, is expected to begin on Monday.
Love's murder shocked the University of Virginia campus when the 22-year-old was found face down and bloodied in her Charlottesville, Va., apartment in the early morning hours of May 3, 2010. Fellow lacrosse player and romantic interest George Huguely, 23, was charged with her murder.
Details of what happened between the couple suggests that just three days before Love was found dead she had lashed out against Huguely, according to two search warrant affidavits.
One of Love's sorority sisters told authorities that she witnessed an "altercation" between her friend and Huguely during which, "Love hit Huguely with her purse" hard enough to cause all of its contents to be strewn about his apartment.
Later, the friend told police Love realized that her cellphone and camera were missing, and that she, "believed it was still at Huguely's apartment." Love recovered the camera, but never got her cellphone back, according to the statement.
Days later, Love was dead and Huguely slapped with a first-degree murder charge.
A redacted email exchange between Love and Huguely is also included in the court documents and is believed to have contained discussion of the couple's recent breakup.
Huguely's attorney has long argued that Love's murder was a tragic mistake, and Huguely at the time waved his Miranda rights and told authorities exactly what had happened the night she was killed.
Huguely confessed to police, according to search warrants in the case, that in the early morning hours of May 3, 2010, he kicked in the door to Love's bedroom and shook her violently, repeatedly banging her head against the wall. Love's body was found later that day after an early morning 911 call, face down on her pillow in a pool of blood. Her face was covered in scrapes and bruises, according to the warrant, and her right eye was swollen shut.
Defense attorneys for Huguely have argued that the girl's death was caused by drugs -- the attention deficit disorder drug Adderall was found in her system -- and not by a brutal beating that left her battered and bloodied.
Josh Powell was the only named person of interest in Susan Powell's 2009 disappearance, but he had not been charged. The couple's two sons were placed in custody of Susan Powell's parents in 2011 after Josh Powell's father, Steve Powell, was arrested on charges of voyeurism and child pornography.
