May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
ISAF via Getty Images(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) -- The woman at the center of the sex scandal that led to David Petraeus' resignation from the CIA has spoken publicly for the first time about the affair and apologized for the "harm" she caused to the families involved.
"I have remorse for the harm that this has caused, the sadness this has caused in my family and other families," Paula Broadwell said in her first interview with ABC News' affiliate WSOC in Charlotte, N.C., since news of the extramarital affair broke last November.
Broadwell met Petraeus, 60, while she was a graduate student at Harvard University and working on a dissertation about Petraeus. Broadwell wrote the biography on Petraeus titled All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. As Petraeus' personal biographer, she enjoyed tremendous access to the decorated war hero and former four-star general.
"I 'm the first to admit I've made mistakes, and I'm regretful for the pain I've caused, but at some point again you pick yourself up face forward and keep moving," Broadwell said.
Broadwell said it was support from loved ones that got her through the public scrutiny she faced in the aftermath of the affair. Broadwell, who lives in Charlotte with her husband and two kids, spends her time supporting veterans and wounded warriors.
"I'm blessed with family, community. That's been a great part of my rehabilitation ... and wonderful organizations that realize that even if you've made mistakes in life you can still contribute and pick up, dust off and move on," she said.
The extramarital affair was uncovered when Florida socialite Jill Kelley told an FBI agent that she received harassing emails from an unknown source. The emails eventually traced back to Broadwell and ultimately uncovered evidence of her affair with Petraeus.
Broadwell was stripped of her military security clearance after a federal probe alleged she was storing classified military material at her home.
"I'm not focused on the past," Broadwell said. "It was a devastating period for our family. We still have some healing to do. We're very focused on how can we continue to contribute and use this for the greater good to do something good in the next chapter."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(DUARTE, Clif.) -- April showers may bring May flowers, but in the foothills of Southern California, you can also expect bears.
From May 1 to June 21, as grills fire up and tasty smells waft through the neighborhood, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife considers it "second bear season."
The department spokesman, Andrew Hughan, told ABC News that he expects to spot at least one bear a week for the next month.
So far, the bears have already been living up to his predictions. All around Southern California, news reports have shown bears climbing fences, spooking horses and roaming streets all in search of their next meal.
One woman in Duarte, Calif., came downstairs thinking there was a burglar in her home. Instead, she found a cub halfway through her kitchen window.
"You must have had something that smelled good in that kitchen," the 911 operator told the woman, who had barricaded herself in her bedroom bathroom, according to the 911 recording obtained by ABC News.
And that's the problem.
As bears eat more human food or garbage, or even the fish out of the koi pond, they become habituated to a human food source and less frightened of people, according to the California Department of Fish and Wild Life website. This could lead to a more tenacious and even aggressive bear.
"Once a bear's habituated, they cannot unlearn," Hughan told ABC News. "It's a death sentence."
That's because bears that stubbornly return time and again to scour the same neighborhood can be put down, according to the "black bear depredation policy" in California.
"We've moved bears 100 miles away and they'll come back... following the scent trails." Hughan said.
He added that one bear even came back to the very same trash can.
A bear's sense of smell is 100 times better than a bloodhound's and 1,000 times better than a human's. So residents need to be smart.
Bottom line: If we don't set the plate, bears will not come. Don't leave food outside, secure your trash bins, and even clean barbecue grills.
There are ways to live with the bear population that is both safe for us and safe for them. Perhaps it could even evolve into a mutually beneficial relationship.
The Living With Wildlife Foundation (LWWF) in Montana works with bears at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center wildlife park that can no longer live in the wild because they were orphaned young or habituated.
Patti Sowka, director of the LWWF, told ABC News that the bears can assist companies by testing "bear-proof" products filled with anything from huckleberry jam to muskrat castor oil to see if the items can live up to the product guarantee -- a real-world take on quality control.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
intl. Inst. for Species Exploration at Arizona State Univ.(PHOENIX) -- What's new in animal species? Plenty, according to the sixth annual Top 10 list by the Institute at Arizona State University that includes everything from a glow-in-the-dark cockroach to an "Old World" monkey with a bright blue buttocks.
"Through the top 10, we are really just trying to raise awareness about how many species there are on the planet," Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE), told ABC News. "On average, 18,000 species a year are discovered. That sounds like a lot, but it really isn't."
Wheeler said there are an estimated 10 to 12 million living species, but only about 2 million have been discovered. This year's top 10 list was whittled down from more than 140 nominees.
While the institute simply compiles a list, "These discoveries are actually made by professionals and amateurs around the world," he said.
The 2013 release by the IISE showcases, among many impressive things, the discovery of the world's smallest vertebrate -- a tiny, 7 millimeter frog found in Papua, New Guinea. An image released by the institute shows the frog taking up about a third of the space on the face of a U.S. dime. The largest known vertebrate in the world is the blue whale, measuring 85 feet long.
A new type of luminescent (or glow-in-the-dark) cockroach specimen was discovered in Ecuador. Though the species may have already been extinct for some time, Wheeler said it's believed that the cockroach would mimic the toxic luminescent clicking beetle to ward off predators. This cockroach is one of more than a dozen species of luminescent cockroaches discovered since 1999.
Another fascinating finding was a new species of monkey, the lesula, only the second new species of monkey to be discovered in Africa in the last 28 years. The IISE said the lesula has been known to the people of Congo, where it was discovered by scientists, but the species was never recorded. This species of monkey has eyes that observers say look human, with brown coloring, and males have large, bare patches of skin on the buttocks and testicles that is a brilliant blue.
But the most interesting discovery may be that of the Semachrysa jade -- a green lacewing. What is believed to be the first ever photo of the insect was taken by Malaysian photographer Hock Ping Guek, though unbeknownst to him at the time. A California scientist happened upon the image of the lacewing on Guek's Flickr and asked him to mail the specimen to London's Natural History Museum where it was eventually identified registered as a new species.
Wheeler explained to ABC News that some scientists are predicting half of the world's species could be gone by the end of the century (a type of extinction that last happened at the time of the dinosaurs), so furthering these discoveries and spreading interest through the yearly top 10 list is important.
In a statement attached to this year's list of species, Wheeler pressed the urgency of exploring now: "We are calling for a NASA-like mission to discover 10 million species in the next 50 years. This would lead to discovering countless options for a more sustainable future while securing evidence of the origins of the biosphere."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
Sabrina Brady/Google(NEW YORK) -- The instructions were plain and simple: Draw your “best day ever.” Sabrina Brady did just that and it’s landed her quite literally front and center in all of Google’s glory.
Brady, 17, was crowned the national champion of the site’s fourth ever Doodle 4 Google contest on Wednesday. Students in grades K-12 from all over the country submit their artwork to the competition, hoping to see their masterpiece intertwined with Google’s iconic homepage logo.
Brady, a senior at Wisconsin’s Sparta High School, scored the top prize for her work titled “Coming Home.” The illustration shows her racing into her dad’s arms upon his return from an 18-month deployment in Iraq.
After reviewing thousands of entries submitted over a two-month period, Google selected finalists from every state in the country and asked users to vote for their favorite.
“Her creative use of the Google letters to illustrate this heartfelt moment clearly resonated with voters across the country and all of us at Google,” Doodle team leader Ryan Germick wrote in a blog post after announcing Brady the winner.
Brady doesn’t just get to showcase her masterpiece on Google’s homepage display; she also won a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook computer and a $50,000 technology grant for her school, according to the tech giant. Google says Brady will attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the fall.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
Glenn DePriest/Getty Images(MOSCOW) -- Just over a month after Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a standoff with police, investigators said they have begun to piece together a picture of what he did during a six-month visit last year to Dagestan, a volatile region in southern Russia that is home to Tsarneav's parents as well as a violent struggle with Islamist insurgency.
American investigators believe Tsarnaev traveled to Dagestan seeking to make contact with militant groups, but for reasons that remain unclear, he was either unable or unwilling to join their ranks.
As they peel back the layers of the man accused of working with his younger brother to set off a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon April 15, investigators said they are finding a frustrated young man who felt out of place in the United States.
They said Tsarnaev appears to have been largely self-radicalized before arriving in Dagestan in search of a lifestyle that may not have met his expectations either, according to U.S. officials close to or briefed on the investigation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The officials described Tsarnaev as a typical lone wolf.
While Tsarnaev's radicalization appears to have deepened during his time in Dagestan, investigators have not found a particular contact there or a "manifesto" on his computer or elsewhere that would explain why he and his younger brother Dzhokhar allegedly placed bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, the officials said. Hours after Tamerlan was killed in the police shootout, Dzhokhar was apprehended and remains in custody.
While officials stressed the investigation is still ongoing, they have also found no signs that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was affiliated with an international terror organization like al Qaeda. Similarly, they have found no evidence to suggest he was directed to strike the U.S. by anyone he met in Dagestan. They have not found any signs of suspicious contacts during Tsarnaev's trips to visit his father's family in Chechnya, which has also battled an Islamist insurgency, and probes into Tsarnaev's father's rumored ties to Chechen security officials have also not revealed anything of concern, the officials said.
Tsarnev's closest known militant contact in Dagestan appears to have been a young man named Mahmud Mansur Nidal, officials said. The two were often seen together leaving a Salafist mosque, popular with fighters, in Makhachkala.
But while Nidal eventually went off to join a militant group -- what locals call going "into the forest" -- investigators say they have uncovered no evidence that Tsarnaev joined him. Nidal would eventually be killed in a police raid after returning to visit family.
Tsarnaev had also been in touch over the internet with a Russian-Canadian convert to Islam and suspected militant named William Plotnikov, but officials say they have no evidence to suggest the two ever met in person. Contrary to previous reporting, investigators say they do not believe Tsarnaev dropped off the map after Plotnikov was killed by police in July, shortly before Tsarnaev left Russia to return to the United States.
Investigators have also taken a hard look at Magomed Kartashov, Tsarnaev's distant cousin and the founder and leader of a Islamist group called the Union of the Just. The group is anti-American and campaigns for the application of Sharia, or Islamic law.
The cousins met several times during Tsarnaev's stay in Dagestan. Kartashov's lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva, told ABC News by phone that the two did discuss religion, but she insisted Tsarnaev was the one with extremist views. Kartashov is in prison for an unrelated matter -- waving an Islamist flag during a wedding procession -- but his lawyer says Russian investigators have interviewed him there about his interactions with Tsarnaev.
Magomed Magomedov, another member of Union for the Just, told ABC News he also saw Tsarnaev several times last year, at the mosque and around Makhachkala, but could not remember their discussions about religion. He described Tsarnaev as being aloof and out of place in Dagestan.
"He was sticking out, it was obvious he is not local. He liked to draw attention with his expensive and fancy clothes. His haircut was something no one has seen before," he said.
That description matches the picture that investigators are painting of Tsarnaev. They said when Tsarnaev arrived in Dagestan, his flashy appearance and demeanor immediately set him apart.
He also apparently drew attention to himself by claiming to know more about Islam than he really did. According to investigators, Tsarnaev would often recite things he had read or seen on the Internet, often confusing those he was trying to impress.
"He was driving people crazy," one official said.
The officials said he was not as strict a practitioner of Islam as he claimed to be.
While his younger brother and alleged co-conspirator Dzhokhar has been described as the family pothead, one official said Tamerlan was also fond of marijuana, spending hours high on the couch in Massachusetts where he did not have a steady job.
The FBI has met with Tsarnaev's parents at least once. Officials said they are still planning to meet with nine or 10 other individuals, including with Tsarnaev's extended family, childhood friends, and contacts at the mosque. Those meetings were described as "tying up loose ends" rather than suspicious leads.
The American officials praised the unusual level of cooperation they've received from their Russian counterparts.
Often that relationship is plagued by lingering Cold War-era mistrust, but officials described how both sides have poured over linkage maps together, with the Russians sharing their knowledge and analysis, even suggesting individuals that the American side may want to interview. That, they say, is different from the past when the Russians offered little more than terse responses to American requests for information.
Indeed, that mistrust may have hindered early attempts to investigate Tsarnaev in 2011, when Russia asked the United States to look into what it suspected were Tsarnaev's plans to join extremist groups abroad. The FBI found nothing to support those claims, but said Russia did not follow up when the bureau asked for more information. That communication gap has become a target for a group of American lawmakers who plan to visit Russia next week to investigate the bombing.
"If there was a distrust, or lack of cooperation because of that distrust, between the Russian intelligence and the FBI, then that needs to be fixed and we will be talking about that," Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs' Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats who is leading the Congressional delegation, told ABC News by telephone.
While the officials described their cooperation with the Russians as "unprecedented," they grumbled privately that they have been unable to do a methodical step-by-step investigation like they are used to doing in the U.S., or even in other countries where they have long-standing cooperation. American investigators from the FBI have been unable to travel to Dagestan without permission from the Russian authorities.
Still, they insist they have been able to confirm much of what they have been told by Russian government officials from what one official vaguely described as "other channels."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(FORT BRAGG, N.C.) -- Nineteen new names were chiseled into the black granite face of the U.S. Army Special Operations Command Fallen Soldiers Memorial at Fort Bragg, N.C. Thursday.
A squall washed over dozens of “Gold Star” relatives -- so named for the small banners that adorn windows of homes where a loved one perished fighting overseas -- who lined up to lay a red rose at the base of the wall in memory of those lost over the past year.
The most recent fallen, who mostly died in counter-terrorism operations, join a union of 1,151 other Army special operations forces soldiers killed in missions over the past 60 years.
It is an annual ritual at the Army’s home of the elite soldiers who increasingly are bearing the brunt of combat casualties as surge troops withdraw from Afghanistan ahead of 2014.
“We will remember through children named after fallen friends, stones laid in their honor, building and street names, books written, tattoos inked, and ribbons and pins worn,” Army Lt. Gen. Charles Cleveland, the command’s top officer, told hundreds gathered in the rain.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
Pennsylvania State Police(PHILADELPHIA) -- Missing University of Rhode Island student Matthew Royer has been located unharmed in North Carolina, according to authorities and his family, but how he got there remains a mystery.
Royer, 21, had been last seen on May 16 on the University of Rhode Island campus. The college junior had moved out of his apartment and returned the keys, according to ABC News' Philadelphia station WPVI.
Royer was on his way home to Skippack Township, Pa., for the summer where his family was waiting for him. He was supposed to report for work at a golf course the day after he returned home, but when he did not show up, his family reported him missing.
Royer was located on Thursday but details about what took him to North Carolina have not been released.
"The family requests that the media not contact them nor reveal his location as they wish to consider this a private and closed matter," Pennsylvania State Police said in a statement.
Royer was reunited with family members at an undisclosed location, according to ABC station WPVI.
"I had figured someone took him prisoner or something," Royer's grandfather Thomas Scully told ABC News Friday. "We were searching for him. We were afraid."
Scully, 91, said he did not know why Royer went to North Carolina or how he got there, but called his grandson a "bright kid."
"His mother knows where he is and he's alright," a relieved Scully said. "We don't know what he's doing now. He's making his own world."
After Royer was reported missing, authorities determined that he made it within about 30 miles of his Pennsylvania home before falling off the grid.
Royer sent a text message to his mother, Janet Royer, at around 6 p.m. on Thursday to say that he had overslept and was "about to leave."
From there, surveillance footage, debit card use and cell phone tower pings showed Royer stopping at a gas station in Rhode Island at 6:30 p.m., and near Allentown, Pa., at 2 a.m. on Friday and stopping at a gas station about 35 miles from his home a short time later, according to his family and authorities.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 24th, 2013 - Seattle Times
Stephen Brashear/Getty Images(MOUNT VERNON, Wash.) -- Three people were sent to the hospital after a portion of an Interstate 5 highway bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash., collapsed Thursday, dumping two vehicles and a travel trailer into the icy water, authorities said.
The three people were rescued from the Skagit River by first responders and taken to local hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries.
Officials located a semi-truck believed to have hit several girders on the four-lane bridge just before the collapse. The driver remained on the scene and was cooperating with investigators, Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste said at a press conference early Friday morning.
"We're looking at the cause being an oversized, over-height vehicle, striking critical portions of this bridge, causing it to collapse," said Travis Phelps of the Washington State Department of Transportation and Washington State Patrol.
The National Transportation Safety Board will arrive Friday to investigate the collapse.
The collapse occurred on the portion of Interstate 5 over the Skagit River, about 60 miles north of Seattle.
The vehicles plunged about 40 feet from the bridge into the river, which set off a massive rescue operation.
Helicopter footage from ABC News affiliate KOMO-TV showed several rescue boats in the Skagit River with several ambulances waiting on the shore.
The bridge, built in 1955, was not considered structurally deficient, but was listed as "functionally obsolete" -- a category indicating an outdated design, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath, according to a database compiled by the Federal Highway Administration.
Federal records show it had a sufficiency rating of 57 out of 100, meaning it's in need of repairs. The bridge was inspected twice last year, most recently in November, and repairs were made, according to Washington Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson
Clean-up efforts will take several days to weeks, according to Phelps. The bridge sees 77,000 cars per day, and Phelps said they were expecting significant congestion until the bridge is fixed.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told reporters that one in five bridges in Washington have a rating of "functional obsolescence," which he described as "troubling." Inslee acknowledged the bridge collapse is going to cause a headache for tens of thousands of drivers.
"This is the aorta, the arterial of commerce for western Washington and we will ask all Washingtonians to help us avoid traffic problems," he said.
I-5 is the longest interstate highway on the West Coast, running from the Mexican border all the way north to Canada.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga.) -- Becoming the valedictorian of your high school is a difficult and impressive feat in itself, but it's even more impressive for a Georgia teen who did so while her family was homeless.
Chelesa Fearce has a GPA of 4.466 and scored 1900 on her SATs, even though she and her family were without a home for most of her high school years. Sometimes they lived in shelters or inside her mother’s car. Fearce says it was tough at times.
“You'd be worried about your home life and then worried at school,” she said. “Worried about being a little bit hungry sometimes, go hungry sometimes.”
Still, she persevered. “I just had to open my book in the dark and just use a cell phone light. Just do what I had to do,” she said.
Fearce is graduating with top honors at her school in Clayton County, Ga. She will be attending Spelman College in the fall, but already has enough credits that she’ll be a college junior.
Her message?
“Don't give up,” she said. “Do what you have to do right now so that you'll have the future that you want.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
Stockbyte(NEW YORK) -- Philosophy professor Simon Critchley from New York City's New School said he believes that the only way to really learn how to live is to prepare to die.
So, as part of a larger theatrical installation this spring called School of Death, he offered a suicide note writing workshop to anyone who was interested in appreciating its literary art form.
The notes studied ranged from the terse and emotionally conflicted -- "Dear Betty: I hate you, Love George" -- to the narcissistic: "Now you will appreciate me."
One man, before killing himself, wrote on the back of his wife's photograph after she had run away with his brother, "I present the girl I thought I married. Always remember, I loved you once and died hating you."
"The worst thing that can befall us is to die alone," said Critchley, 53. "And the suicide note in some strange way is not to die alone. It's always addressed to someone. It's a failed attempt at communication."
He said that if people were more comfortable talking about death, there might be fewer suicides.
"We talk about taxes, but death is kind of obscene," he said. "When faced with the actual issue -- for example the Terri Schiavo case -- we don't know what to do, emote or gloat."
The workshop, which was first reported by The New York Times, was advertised through social media. Those who signed up, ages 20 to 50, analyzed some of history's most famous last words, those of Adolph Hitler, Virginia Woolf and Kurt Cobain.
Suicide notes are part of the "fantasy to get our last word," said Critchley. "Saying goodbye also says how much someone means to you."
Novelist Woolf, just before drowning herself in 1941, writes to her husband, Leonard Woolf, that she is "going mad again" and hearing voices. "I can't fight any longer," she wrote. "...I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."
Hitler writes in 1945 from the Berlin bunker where he and lover Eva Braun took cyanide: "I have chosen death in order to escape the terrible situation of disgrace I am currently in. ...Things were going just as planned before, but little did I know it would backfire on me."
In 1994, Kurt Cobain, borrowing liberally from songwriter Neil Young, writes with great affection to his wife, Courtney Love, and daughter Frances: "I am too much of an erratic, moody baby! I don't have the passion anymore, and so remember, it's better to burn out than fade away." He then shot himself in the head.
Critchley's class may seem macabre, but some experts say it is refreshing.
"Morbidity has become fashionable again," said Elke Weesjes, founder and editor- in-chief of the United Academics Journal of Social Science. She is currently working on a journal with the theme "Morbid Curiosity," covering topics such as post-mortem photography, taxidermy and skull worship.
"Before 1880 people butchered their own animals; death was laid out in the parlor before the whole family," said Weesjes, 33. "People who moved to America were fleeing death one way or another -- fleeing the Holocaust, pogroms and famine. We have created a false society and island away from disasters. Death is not part of our everyday life anymore."
Though Weesjes did not attend Critchley's class she said, "Maybe it's good to have a smile on your face and laugh about it, but actually talking about it is a very good thing."
"The Western world is about to get ready to bury the biggest generation in history – the baby boomers," she said. "It only makes sense to start thinking about it. … Denying death can't be healthy."
Critchley said that he initially feared people would think the class was a joke, but he added that students, who had to write their own suicide notes, were, "earnest and engaged."
Wrote one woman: "I am so filled with love it is still all too much to bear. I cannot find my way. The world is all wrong and although I withstood the worst of it, I lost out."
But another was less emotional: "I am sorry, mostly to my dog. Love, Lauren. P.S. Please don't bury me in Los Angeles."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
NASA GOES Project(WASHINGTON) -- Get ready for an “extremely active” active Atlantic hurricane season, government forecasters said Thursday.
Between now and the end of the Atlantic hurricane season (Nov. 30) the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration predicts 13 to 20 named storms, of which seven to 11 could become hurricanes. Three to six of those hurricanes could be major, with winds 111 mph or greater.
Three climate factors are coming together to produce an “active” or “extremely active” hurricane season, NOAA forecasters said Thursday. Ongoing climate patterns off the coast of Africa have spawned a period of high hurricane activity since 1995. Water temperatures are warmer than average in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. El Niño conditions in the Pacific Ocean are absent this season; those tend to keep hurricanes from forming.
The 2013 prediction follows an especially active 2012 Atlantic season, which produced 19 named storms. (The average is 12, according to NOAA.) Of those storms, 10 became hurricanes and two became “major” hurricanes packing wind speeds 111 miles an hour or greater. Two tropical storms fired up in May, even before the official start of the 2012 season: Alberto and Beryl. The deadliest 2012 storm by far was Sandy, which killed at least 147 people as it raked its way across the Caribbean to the Eastern Seaboard.
In the U.S., Sandy caused approximately $50 billion in damage.
On Monday, NOAA predicted a below-normal hurricane season for the Central Pacific Basin.
National Hurricane Preparedness Week is May 26 through June 1.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
ABC News(PHOENIX) -- The jury in the Jodi Arias murder trial began its third day of deliberations Thursday on whether to sentence Arias to death, raising the possibility that prosecutors may retry the penalty phase of the case if the jury is deadlocked.
Under state law in a capital case if the jury can't reach a unanimous decision, the Maricopa County, Ariz., District Attorney's office will have to weigh whether to spend time and resources to find a new jury, schedule new court dates, and re-present its evidence to try and reach a death sentence, which could take months, according to Jerry Cobb, spokesperson for the prosecutor's office.
Arias, 32, was convicted of first-degree murder for killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in a gruesome attack in 2008.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez has argued that because the murder was especially cruel, involving 27 stab wounds, a slit throat, and a gunshot wound to Alexander's head, Arias deserves the death penalty.
But the jury has not yet returned a verdict on whether they agree.
On Wednesday, the jury stopped deliberations and sent Judge Sherry Stephens a note about their indecision. She responded by sending them back to the jury room to continue deliberating, with instructions on how to ask questions of her or attorneys if they felt they could not come to an agreement.
If the jury cannot agree, a hung jury will be declared. Martinez and the Maricopa County Prosecutor Office will then decide whether to find a new jury and present the death penalty phase of the trial to them, Cobb said.
If they decide not to redo the death penalty phase, Arias will be sentenced to life in prison, either with or without the possibility of parole, depending on Stephens' ruling.
The current jury has sat through nearly five months of testimony in the case.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
Joseph Devenney/Getty Images(ATLANTA) -- A Georgia woman said she is thankful to be alive after a 20-foot section of a 747 cargo plane’s wing fell off before part of it came crashing into her home.
Pamela Ware was in her Clayton County, Ga., home Sunday afternoon when she heard a boom from above.
The boom Ware heard was a part of the wing of a Boeing 747 cargo plane, operated by China Airlines flight 5254, flying to Atlanta from Anchorage, Alaska. As the plane approached Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Runway 27L at about 2 p.m. Sunday, a piece of its right wing tore off, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.
Part of the ripped debris landed on top of Ware’s house, while another chunk of the plane’s wing landed a few miles away, in the parking lot of a Walmart. The plane’s debris punctured two holes in Ware’s roof before landing in her yard.
Local authorities found several parts of the plane in a community under the approach path. Other aircraft waiting to depart on Runway 27R also reported seeing parts fall off of the aircraft.
The flight landed safely.
Federal officials are investigating what caused the plane’s wing to break.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
Lui Kit Wong-Pool/Getty Images(WEST VALLEY, Utah) -- A newly released, eerie home video made by Susan Powell, the Utah mother who disappeared in 2009 under mysterious circumstances, shows her recording her family's belongings just in case something ever happened.
"This is me July 29th, 2008," Powell says in the video. "[I am] covering all my bases, making sure that if something happens to me or my family, or all of us, that our assets are documented."
Powell also discusses the destruction of some of her possessions.
"And I had necklaces too, wherever those are [inaudible] got in a rage, as you can see, and broke this, there's studs and pearls and opals in there, broke those and threw all my DVDs and made a mess because he was angry at me about a year or two back," she said in the video.
The seemingly happy mother turned fearful wife ends her video on an optimistic note.
"Hope everything works out and we're all happy and live happily ever after as much as that's possible," she said, rolling her eyes.
Powell also left a hand-written will in a safety deposit box. In the will she wrote that the document wasn't to be seen by her husband.
"If I die, it may not be an accident, even if it looks like one," she wrote.
This video, will and a mountain of personal notes and other evidence -- the sum of an entire life -- have been reduced to a tiny thumb drive handed out by police on Monday.
Investigators have now declared that the mystifying case of what happened to Susan Powell is officially closed.
"No stone has been left unturned," Mike Powell of the West Valley Deputy Chief said this week.
From Susan's 2009 disappearance, to repeated searches, to the horrific murder suicide of her husband and two children, police have never wavered from the belief that Josh Powell was involved, even if they could never prove it in a court of law.
Powell, 28, was last seen in December 2009 at the Utah home she shared with her husband and their two young sons. Josh Powell told authorities that he had decided take an impromptu midnight camping trip with the boys -- in the midst of a winter storm -- the night his wife vanished. Powell says that he returned home to find his wife gone and has claimed that his wife left on her own. Josh Powell was named a "person of interest" in the investigation into his wife's disappearance, but was never charged.
On Feb. 5, 2012, during a supervised visit with his boys, Josh Powell locked a Child Protective Services worker out of the house he was then renting, attacked the boys with a hatchet and set off an explosion that killed himself and his two sons.
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
ABC News(PHOENIX) -- Jodi Arias will not be put to death -- at least not yet.
A judge declared a mistrial in the sentencing phase of her murder trial Thursday, after the jury could not agree on whether to sentence Arias to death or to life in prison for murdering her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in 2008.
Under state law, in a capital case, if the jury can't reach a unanimous decision, the Maricopa County, Ariz., District Attorney's Office must weigh whether to spend time and resources to find a new jury, schedule new court dates, and re-present its evidence to try to reach a death sentence, which could take months, according to Jerry Cobb, spokesman for the prosecutor's office.
Arias, 32, was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Alexander in a gruesome attack in 2008.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez has argued that because the murder was especially cruel, involving 27 stab wounds, a slit throat, and a gunshot wound to Alexander's head, Arias deserves the death penalty.
But the jury was unable to return a verdict on which they agree.
On Wednesday, the jury stopped deliberations and sent Judge Sherry Stephens a note about their indecision. She responded by sending them back to the jury room to continue deliberating, with instructions on how to ask questions of her or attorneys if they felt they could not come to an agreement.
"Each juror has a duty to consult with one another, (and) to try to reach agreement without violence to individual judgment. You may want to identify areas of agreement and disagreement. If you still disagree, you may wish to tell the attorneys and me what issues, questions or law or facts on which we can possibly help," Stephens told the jurors.
"At this time please go back to the jury room and continue deliberating," she said.
Now a second jury in a new penalty trial will deliberate whether to give Arias the death penalty or life in prison. That trial is set for July 18. If they also reach an impasse, and cannot agree, then Arias's life could be saved.
Stephens would then sentence her to either life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years, or natural life, without the possibility of parole.
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
Win McNamee/Getty Images(DALLAS) -- The Boy Scouts of America Thursday voted to lift its longtime ban on admitting gay Scouts but will continue to exclude openly gay adults from leadership roles.
The vote by its 1,400 national membership came as no surprise to gay rights advocates, who hailed it as a first step to ending discriminatory practices in the 103-year-old organization.
The ruling by secret ballot at a national convention in Dallas means that mothers like Jennifer Tyrrell, who is a lesbian, will still be excluded from the Boy Scouts.
Tyrrell was let go as an Ohio den leader of her 8-year-old son Cruz's Cub Scout pack last year because she was gay, but she applauds what she sees as a "temporary" policy.
"It's a great first step, and the fact that they've gone to the Supreme Court to defend the right to discriminate shows the progress we've made," the 33-year-old mother of four told ABC News.
"I am encouraged because we definitely are in it for the long haul," said Tyrrell. "Once the ban is lifted on youth, they will see their fears are unfounded. There are going to be [gay] boys who want to continue as leaders. It's just a matter of time."
She said she would continue to fight for other gay families who wanted to be part of the Scouts.
But others, such as former Eagle Scout James Dale, who brought the lawsuit against the Boy Scouts that made it all the way to the Supreme Court in 2000, said the partial lifting of the ban was "unacceptable."
In 1991, he was fired as an assistant Scoutmaster of a New Jersey troop when he came out of the closet in college. He lost the Supreme Court case by one vote.
Growing up, Dale said he found the Boy Scouts to be "one of the organizations that were the most welcoming and accepting."
But today, he sees it as an "anti-gay organization" that is out of step with a culture that is rapidly accepting same-sex families.
"You can have gay Scouts, [but] you can't have gay Scout leaders or anyone over the age of 18," said Dale, who's now 42 and works in advertising in New York City.
"It's still a damning and destructive message that they're going to send to young people. They will go from celebrated Eagle Scout when they're 17 years old to basically not being welcome anymore once the clock strikes 12 and they're 18 years old."
"It's kind of fascinating that the Boy Scouts of America are still so stuck," he said. "They're willing to destroy the organization. Over some...small-minded values."
About 70 percent of all local troops are supported by religious groups, according to the Boy Scouts, and in recent months, some have backed away from their opposition, according to the gay advocacy group GLAAD.
The Mormon church, which sponsors most of the troops, has now endorsed allowing gay Scouts. The Roman Catholic Church has taken no official position. The National Jewish Committee on Scouting, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association and the Metropolitan Community Church all urged full repeal of the ban.
But many other Christian groups stood firm in protest, citing religious freedom and the previous Supreme Court decision.
Nearly 19,000 past or current members of the Scouts signed a petition from Alliance Defending Freedom, which was delivered to the Boy Scouts this week, urging it to keep the ban.
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
Spencer Platt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- This is the case of the F-bomb that's landed New York City's mayor in federal court.
One of the leaders of the Big Apple's taxi industry filed suit against Michael Bloomberg this week, claiming a violation of his constitutional right against retaliation in the wake of news reports that a fuming, swearing Bloomberg threatened to destroy the yellow-cab industry once he's out of office next year.
Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman claimed Bloomberg has been trying to "blackmail" and bully city hacks because of their unified opposition to his administration's plans to require all taxi owners to convert their fleets to the new "Taxi of Tomorrow" design.
The mayor and his aides have been "relentless in their retaliation ... in their stubborn determination to override any opposition, from any quarter, to the Taxi of Tomorrow," according to the lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Manhattan Federal Court.
Those efforts, Freidman's suit said, were compounded by Bloomberg's recent comments when the mayor "personally threatened ... Freidman during halftime at the Knicks/Pacers playoff game at Madison Square Garden, stating, 'When I am out of office, I will destroy your f---ing industry," and then stating, "after January, I am going to destroy all you f---ing guys."
The tirade made the front page of the New York Post and the mayor has not denied it.
City Hall had no immediate response to the lawsuit.
After three terms in office, Bloomberg will return to private life on Jan. 1, 2014.
Freidman, also a board member of the Greater New York Taxi Association, has been a key voice in the battle against the Taxi of Tomorrow plan, arguing that it eliminates competition and would put unfair burdens on cabbies and those who own taxis.
His lawyer, Steve Mintz, said Bloomberg "is threatening hard-working taxi entrepreneurs, and it's un-American, offensive and we won't give in. We have won every case in court and will continue to."
Even before the mayor's purported colorful halftime commentary, the Bloomberg administration has been pushing Freidman to abandon his opposition to the mayor's taxi plans, his lawyer said. The key tool, Mintz alleged, is a barrage of summonses against Freidman's fleet that would cost the taxi owner more than $3.5 million.
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May 23rd, 2013 - Seattle Times
A portion of the Interstate 5 freeway over the Skagit River in Skagit County, Wash., collapsed May 23, 2013, sending cars and people into the water, authorities said. (Tiffany Matson)(SKAGIT COUNTY, Wash.) -- A portion of an interstate highway bridge in Washington state collapsed Thursday night, sending cars and people into the water, authorities said.
The collapse occurred on the Interstate 5 freeway over the Skagit River in Skagit County, Wash., about two hours north of Seattle.
It was unclear whether there were any injuries.
"N/B and S/B lanes of I-5 Skagit River Bridge collapsed," Washington State Trooper Mark Francis posted on Twitter. "People and cars in water."
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May 22nd, 2013 - Seattle Times
Brett Deering/Getty Images(MOORE, Okla.) -- There are reinforced tornado shelters in more than 100 schools across Oklahoma, excluding the two that were devastated by a Tornado earlier this week in Moore, Okla., an emergency-management official said.
As authorities search the rubble in Moore for possible survivors and bodies, among the unanswered questions is how everyone at Briarwood Elementary School survived while several students died at Plaza Towers Elementary School. Both schools were destroyed when an EF-5 twister with winds of at least 200 mph killed 24 people on Monday and injured hundreds more.
Some people believe those at Briarwood were more fortunate because of the school's construction.
Each grade at Briarwood is organized into four pods with a few classrooms in each pod. An opening to the outside runs through the center of the pods. Teachers said that when the walls and ceilings collapsed, they crawled through that open area and children were passed over the rubble.
Plaza Towers Elementary is more of a traditional school building with a long line of classrooms, all under one single roof. When the school collapsed, the roof and walls piled on top of one another, making it difficult for people to crawl to an outside space.
Both schools had practiced tornado drills but neither had a safe room, which could have potentially saved lives.
"You have limited amount of funds that are based on disasters we've had in the past that are used for mitigation measures and when you have limited number of funds, then you set priorities on what schools that you do want to ask for," Oklahoma Director of Emergency Management Albert Ashwood said.
More than 100 schools across Oklahoma have safe rooms and the state hopes to increase those numbers, Ashwood said.
"We're going to be looking at trying to up that number and try to get more safe rooms across schools across the state, the entire state," he said.
Metal safe rooms can be built above ground or underground and undergo rigorous tests to make sure they can sustain winds up to 250 mph. Researchers have conducted test on safe rooms to show they can withstand being hit by a car.
Moore has been trying to get federal money to subsidize residents who want to buy safe rooms. The city expressed its frustration in February on the city website, saying, "We've found that the FEMA requirements and their interpretations seem to be a constantly moving target, more so with the new wrinkles."
"If you don't have disasters, you don't have additional money for mitigation for safe rooms, but without disasters there's not a set funding source just for safe rooms," Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Craig Fugate said.
Alabama is the only state that requires all new schools to have safe rooms for students.
Many homes in the Midwest, known as Tornado Alley, don't have basements because of loose clay soil or flooding conditions. An indoor safe room might be the best option for families and schools.
"There are above-ground and below -round storm shelters that offer near absolute occupant protection from the worst-case tornado," said Ernst Kiesling, professor of civil engineering at Texas Tech University in Lubbock.
Meanwhile, authorities have searched each damaged home at least once, and the goal is to conduct three searches of each location just to be sure. Moore Fire Chief Gary Bird said he was "98 percent sure" there were no more bodies or survivors in the rubble.
Classes at Moore public schools have been canceled for the remainder of the school year but graduations will continue as planned.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano will travel to Oklahoma later Wednesday to meet with state and local officials and ensure that first responders are receiving the assistance they need.
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May 22nd, 2013 - Seattle Times
FBI(ORLANDO, Fla.) -- An Orlando, Fla., man being questioned by the FBI about his relationship with the accused Boston bombers was shot and killed Tuesday night by a federal agent who felt threatened, a law enforcement official told ABC News.
"There was some sort of aggressive movement that led the FBI agent to believe he was under threat and he opened fire," the law enforcement official said.
The dead suspect "was somebody who they were asking about his relationship with the Boston bombing subjects," the law enforcement official said.
A man claiming to be a friend of the suspect told ABC News' Orlando affiliate WFTV that the suspect's name was Ibragim Todashev.
The man killed by the FBI may have lived at one time in Boston, the law enforcement official said, adding that Tuesday night's shooting came as a surprise during a cooperative interview with the man.
In a statement, the FBI confirmed a shooting had taken place in the large Florida city and said, "the agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties."
"The suspect is deceased. We do not have any further details at this time. We expect to have more information later this morning," the FBI said.
Brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stand accused of setting off a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, killing three and injuring more than 260 others.
Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police days later, while Dzhokhar was injured and later captured.
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