By Jim Leckrone

COLUMBUS, Ohio |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 6:39pm EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) – A federal judge on Friday delayed the execution of an Ohio man convicted of killing two people, finding that the state enforces some execution policies in an inconsistent way.

“Ohio pays lip service to standards it then often ignores without valid reasons, sometimes with no physical ramification and sometimes with what has been described as messy if not botched executions,” wrote U.S. District Judge Gregory L. Frost.

Kenneth W. Smith, 45, was scheduled to die July 19. He was convicted along with his brother Randy Smith of murdering Lewis Ray and his wife Ruth Ray in their Hamilton, Ohio home as part of a 1995 robbery.

Smith and other inmates argued to Foster that Ohio does not always have the required number of medical team members present for an execution and does not always properly document the preparation of drugs.

Frost’s ruling does not conclusively hold that Ohio’s method of execution is unconstitutional. But it acts as a stay on executions until a trial on the issue, which is scheduled for late October, said Gregory W. Meyers, an Ohio public defender

“The arbitrary and rather cavalier manner in which they depart from protocol is denying inmates’ rights,” said Meyers. He expects the government to appeal.

Lisa Hackley, a spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general’s office, said its attorneys are reviewing the judge’s order. Ohio has executed four people so far in 2011, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

“The task of implementing court-ordered capital punishment sentences is a difficult one,” said Carlo LoParo, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. “However, we are confident our team consistently carries out that responsibility in a professional, humane, dignified manner.”

(Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Reporting by Jim Leckrone in Columbus; Editing by Greg McCune)

By Rick Wilson

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 12:40pm EDT

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich (Reuters) – A man who killed seven people in a bloody rampage was targeted ex-girlfriends and their families, including his own daughter, police said on Friday.

“I don’t think there’s any question in my mind this was premeditated,” said Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk. “He was hunting these people down.”

After the killings, the suspect, Rodrick Shonte Dantzler, engaged in a gun battle with police in downtown Grand Rapids and a high speed chase before taking three people hostage. All three hostages were released safely. Dantzler killed himself with a shot to the head during hostage negotiations with police.

The dead included Jennifer Marie Heeren, 29, an ex-girlfriend of Dantzler; Kamrie Deann Heeren-Dantzler, 12, daughter of Jennifer and Rodrick; Rebecca Lynn Heeren, 52, mother of Jennifer; Thomas Heeren, 51, father of Jennifer, all shot at a house on Brynell Court in Grand Rapids.

Also killed were Kimberlee Ann Emkens, age unknown, an ex-girlfriend of Dantzler; her sister Amanda Renee Emkens, 27; and Marissa Lynn Emkens, 10, daughter of Amanda; all shot in the same house on Plainfield Avenue.

Belk said police were confident that Dantzler was the suspect in all seven murders and had acted alone.

Police were looking for Dantzler Thursday afternoon, but the chase did not begin until a third ex-girlfriend called to say he was pursuing her in his car. Dantzler shot her in the arm while she was in her car, outside of the Grand Rapids police station. Police pursued his fleeing vehicle.

The police manhunt of Dantzler included helicopters, state police and sheriff’s deputies. Besides the third ex-girlfriend, another bystander was wounded. The wounds were not life-threatening.

At one point, the suspect drove the wrong way on Interstate 96, ran off the road into a ditch, slammed into a stand of trees, and then fled on foot into a neighborhood in northeast Grand Rapids where he pressed his way into a house and took the hostages, Belk said.

Shots were fired as he entered the house, but the house occupants were not injured, Belk told reporters. He released a 53-year-old woman who lived at the house. But a man and woman remained held and were in a tight confined area at the back of the house during the hostage situation, he said.

Police believe the hostages were strangers to Dantzler.

Mike Shutich, 58, a friend of the Emkens family, described it as “close-knit.” Patricia Emkens, the mother of Kimberlee and Amanda Emkens and the grandmother of Marissa, discovered their bodies when she returned home from work, Shutich said.

Kimberlee Emkens had previously lived with Dantzler but had gone back to live with her mother because of physical abuse, Shutich said.

“He was not a very nice man,” said Shutich. “He didn’t take well to women. He was knocking Kimmy around, which is why she came home. He always had a gun on him. Why I don’t know.”

Shutich said that Patricia Emkens is “all about her kids.”

“Her daughters, her granddaughter were everything to her,” Shutich said. “I’m afraid this is going to crush her.”

A makeshift memorial was on the Emkens’ front porch Friday, with candles and a teddy bear with a note praying that “God be with you in this terrible time of tragedy.” The two-story house is part of a modest, working-class neighborhood with well-kept homes.

Mayor George Heartwell described the saga as “a rolling rampage” that included gun battles with police in the heart of downtown Grand Rapids which left a squad car shot up.

Police cordoned off several blocks of the neighborhood surrounding the house where he was barricaded.

Police said Dantzler, who has a criminal record, was using alcohol and cocaine after the killings. It was not known if he was also using them before. The weapon was a 40-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Belk said Dantzler had a large amount of ammunition with him, with more than one magazine.

(Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Reporting by Rick Wilson; Editing by Greg McCune)

By James Vicini

WASHINGTON |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 6:50pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Three accused Somali pirates were charged in a U.S. court on Friday with the murder, kidnapping and hostage-taking of two American couples in February and could face the death penalty if convicted.

A federal grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, handed up the indictment against Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar over the pirating of a yacht off the coast of Somalia in February and the murder of the four Americans on board.

The three Somalis were among 14 men brought to the United States and charged in March with piracy, conspiracy and other offenses. The other 11 defendants all pleaded guilty.

The new, more serious charges against the three defendants were contained in a superseding indictment. Twenty-two of the 26 counts carry a possible death sentence.

The four slain Americans were Jean and Scott Adam of California and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle from Seattle.

“Today’s superseding indictment charges three men from Somalia with brutally murdering four American citizens held hostage for ransom,” U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement.

According to the indictment, the three defendants and others, armed with firearms and a rocket-propelled grenade, boarded the yacht, the S/V Quest, on February 18.

As they sailed toward Somalia, the three defendants and their co-conspirators took turns standing armed guard over the hostages, according to the 33-page indictment.

Beginning February 20, the U.S. Navy and the FBI began negotiating with the pirates to try to secure the release of the hostages.

One defendant, Abrar, fired a shot over the head of Scott Adam and instructed Adam to tell the Navy that if the U.S. warship came any closer, the pirates would kill the hostages, according to the indictment.

The three defendants and other co-conspirators were accused of intentionally shooting and killing the hostages on February 22, without provocation, before the four Americans could be rescued by the U.S. military.

An arraignment for the three has been set for July 20.

Pirates operating off the coast of Somalia have hijacked vessels in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden, making tens of millions of dollars in ransoms by seizing ships, including oil tankers, and hostages.

(Editing by Christopher Wilson)

KANSAS CITY, Mo |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 9:04pm EDT

KANSAS CITY, Mo (Reuters) – The death toll from a devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri, in May has risen to 159, the city said on Friday.

Janice McKee, the latest victim, died of injuries sustained in the tornado, Lynn Onstot, public information officer for the city, said in a statement.

The tornado, which cut a six-mile swath through Joplin and destroyed 6,000 homes and many other buildings in the city, was the deadliest in the United States in more than 60 years.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

By Laura Zuckerman

BILLINGS, Montana |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 9:12pm EDT

BILLINGS, Montana (Reuters) – Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer continued on Friday to press Exxon Mobil over an oil spill into the Yellowstone River and threatened to take the company to court as clean-up continued a week after the leak.

Schweitzer has been increasingly critical of Exxon in the days since one of its pipelines burst on July 1, spilling what the company estimates was up to 42,000 gallons of oil into the river.

“We’re going to hold them liable in court,” Schweitzer told reporters following a public meeting in Billings, the Big Sky state’s largest city.

Exxon, which said it was committed to a safe, effective clean-up operation, promised to “stay and make this right for the people of Montana,” spokesman Pius Rolheiser said in an emailed statement.

Montana formally opened a state office in Billings on Friday to address residents’ health and environmental concerns in the aftermath of the spill, a day after Schweitzer withdrew the state from a joint command team over what he said was the company’s failure to provide information.

The Democratic governor has sent a letter to Exxon asking the oil giant to spell out the chemical characteristics of crude that flowed through the pipeline, which was buried in the Yellowstone River streambed.

Schweitzer, a trained soil scientist, urged Montana residents to document damage and collect soil and water samples in containers that officials have provided them.

The governor has also warned Exxon not to work on the damaged pipeline without oversight by Montana and federal environmental officers. He has demanded the company preserve all documents related to the rupture and has asked federal regulators for the pipeline’s safety records.

Exxon has brought hundreds of high-paying jobs to several Montana communities, including Billings, where oil from the now ruptured Silvertip pipeline was refined.

Schweitzer’s apparent frustration with Exxon came to a head amid complaints from Montana residents that calls to Exxon’s hotline went unreturned for days.

EXXON STOPPED PUMPS WITHIN MINUTES

Exxon has apologized for the spill that dumped toxic substances into a river prized for near pristine waters, wildlife habitat and world-class fisheries.

The company said it shut down pumps on the pipeline to stop the oil flow within six minutes of discovering that something was wrong.

High and turbulent waters have made it difficult for boats to navigate the Yellowstone, hampering clean-up efforts and a probe of what caused the pipeline to rupture just west of Billings.

Schweitzer has pledged the state’s new office dealing with the spill would respond to each inquiry within 24 hours.

“This is your office, five days a week, eight hours a day until this mess is cleaned up,” he told a gathering of about 150 people, including residents who say oil fumes caused them respiratory distress, fainting and other health problems.

“Montana is responsible for managing that river. There are damages and no one from Exxon has sidled up and offered us a check,” Schweitzer said.

Federal officials said shoreline contamination along the Yellowstone — the longest free-flowing river in the lower 48 states — has been observed over an area stretching at least 240 miles downstream from the spill site.

Gary Hammond, supervisor of the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks regional office in Billings, said scientists believe chemical exposure of river- and wetland-dependent animals and fish may prove devastating for years to come.

“This is a long-term problem,” he told Reuters.

In a press conference Friday, National Wildlife Federation’s senior scientist Doug Inkley said only 10 to 15 percent of oil spilled is ever recovered.

“Unfortunately, I am a veteran of previous oil spills and I am personally dismayed about what I’m seeing with this oil spill,” Inkley said.

(Additional reporting by Molly O’Toole, editing by Alex Dobuzinskis, Cynthia Johnston and Bernard Orr)

OMAHA, Neb |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 9:07pm EDT

OMAHA, Neb (Reuters) – Federal and Missouri state officials were closely watching efforts to reinforce a Missouri River levee near Waverly where water was flowing across the top and could threaten a highway, authorities said on Friday.

The overtopping of the Belcher-Lozier levee in three or four spots could flood Highway 65 in Carroll County, Missouri, if it is not contained, state transportation officials said.

“We are in a heightened watch mode there,” said Richard Bennett, a state transportation department traffic engineer.

Flooding along the Missouri River this year from a deep melting snowpack and heavy rains has forced federal officials to release record amounts of water to relieve pressure on six reservoirs from Montana through South Dakota.

As a result, levees have been strained for hundreds of miles and residents forced to shore up protections and evacuate homes. Missouri alone has 61 road closures due to flooding.

Aerial reconnaissance on Thursday night confirmed that water had begun to run over the top of the levee, said Josh Marx, a member of the emergency management branch for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Kansas City District.

The area of concern on the levee is about five miles southeast of Norborne, Missouri, and six to eight miles west of the highway, officials said.

Historically, when river flooding has inundated the highway in that area, water has covered several miles of road potentially up to several feet deep, Bennett said.

The district that is monitoring the levee told the Army Corps of Engineers it would place sandbags at the places where water is running over the top, Marx added.

There is “a slight overtopping, maybe about a foot of water going over the top at probably three or four locations,” Marx said. “It doesn’t appear there is an overtopping breach that is forming at this time.”

The Army Corps of Engineers plans to have started a gradual reduction in water releases from most of the dams by mid July. However, it has not yet announced plans for reducing flows from the Gavins Point Dam on the South Dakota-Nebraska border.

Water flows freely from the Gavins Point dam for more than 800 miles to the Mississippi River near St. Louis, making those release rates critical to residents downstream.

(Reporting by Michael Avok in Omaha and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 7:04pm EDT

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – Casey Anthony, the Florida woman acquitted this week of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008, has rejected a visit from her mother scheduled for Friday evening, a jail official told Reuters.

Cindy Anthony, a familiar fixture throughout Casey’s trial, scheduled a visit at the jail with Casey for 7 p.m. on Friday.

“This morning under policy, Casey was told of the visit and she has declined the visit so it will not occur,” said jail spokesman Allen Moore.

Moore said Cindy would be notified of her daughter’s decision.

Mark Lippman, the lawyer for Casey’s parents, told Reuters during the trial that Casey had cut off communication with Cindy and George Anthony.

Casey Anthony is scheduled to be released from jail on July 17, just over three years after she first told anyone that Caylee had been missing for a month.

Casey, 25, was convicted of lying to detectives and sentenced on Thursday to the maximum four years in jail for sending investigators on a wild goose chase after claiming a nanny had kidnapped her daughter.

But due to credit for the time she served awaiting trial and good behavior while in jail, Casey will be let out in little more than a week.

Her imminent release raises questions about where she will live.

During the trial, defense lawyers accused George Anthony of sexually abusing Casey and helping to cover up Caylee’s death. But no evidence of sexual abuse was presented, and George denied the allegations under oath.

After the verdict, George and Cindy Anthony described Casey’s defense strategy as “baseless” but said the jury made a fair decision.

Moore said the jail has no need to know where Casey will live, and she was not sentenced to probation so she will not have to provide an address to the probation office.

Casey will be only the second inmate in the past 15 years to not walk out the front door of the jail lobby after being released from custody, Moore said. The jail has planned a secret exit for her protection.

The only other inmate who got such special handling was Noelle Bush, daughter of then-Governor Jeb Bush and niece of then-President George W. Bush. Moore said the Secret Service was concerned Noelle, who was arrested on drug-related charges, could be targeted by terrorists.

“Lisa Nowak, she walked out the front entrance,” Moore said, referring to the former NASA astronaut who drove from Houston to Orlando to attack a romantic rival.

“And we’ve had local politicians, police chiefs and all sorts of people, and they’re all required to walk out the front entrance,” Moore said.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 5:50pm EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Space shuttle Atlantis rocketed off its seaside launch pad on Friday, rising atop a tower of smoke and flames as it left Earth on the final flight of the U.S. space shuttle program.

After a 30-year history that has cost nearly $200 billion and claimed the lives of 14 astronauts, the shuttles are being retired to make way for a new generation of spacecraft that President Barack Obama says will put U.S. astronauts on an asteroid and then on to Mars.

“Today’s launch may mark the final flight of the space shuttle but it propels us into the next era of our never-ending adventure to push the very frontiers of exploration and discovery in space,” Obama said in a statement from the White House.

About 1 million sightseers witnessed the liftoff. They had lined causeways and beaches around the Kennedy Space Center in central Florida, angling for a last glimpse of the pioneering ship that has defined the U.S. space program for the past three decades as it soared through the skies.

“Good luck to you and your crew on this final flight of this true American icon,” shuttle launch director Mike Leinbach radioed to the crew minutes before takeoff.

Cloudy skies had threatened to delay Atlantis’ launch on a planned 12-day mission to the International Space Station but conditions cleared in time for the blastoff.

However, 31 seconds before the scheduled 11:26 a.m./1526 GMT launch, computers detected a problem with the retraction of equipment used to vent gases from the fuel tank and stopped the countdown. Engineers verified the equipment’s position and the shuttle lifted off three minutes later.

“The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through,” said Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson.

The shuttle’s cargo of tonnes of food and equipment is intended to bridge the gap until newly hired commercial freighters are ready to begin deliveries to the station.

Atlantis and its four-member veteran crew are scheduled to arrive at the station, a recently completed orbital research outpost, on Sunday.

HIGH COSTS

NASA is ending the shuttle program primarily due to high operating costs. Its legacy includes launching and servicing the Hubble Space Telescope and dispatching dozens of planetary probes and Earth-orbiting satellites but also a troubled safety record.

In 1986, seven astronauts died aboard shuttle Challenger when a rocket booster seal failed shortly after launch. Seven more died aboard Columbia, destroyed due to heat shield failure in 2003 as it returned to Earth.

The shuttle fleet’s crowning achievement was building the recently completed space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations that orbits 230 miles above Earth.

The focus of the U.S. human spaceflight program for the next decade shifts to the space station itself, a complex the size of a five-bedroom house that has the potential for breakthrough research in medicine and technology.

NASA will rely on Russia to fly its astronauts to the station, at a cost of more than $50 million a seat, until commercial firms are ready to take over crew ferry flights.

Among the companies interested in the work is Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which already has a NASA contract to fly cargo to the station.

The company, owned by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, successfully tested its Dragon capsule in orbit last December and hopes to make it all the way to the station during a second test flight later this year.

The other freighter, being developed by Orbital Sciences Corp, has yet to debut.

NASA also is backing space taxi development work by Boeing Sierra Nevada Corp and Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The U.S. space agency also plans to use the $4 billion or so it has been spending each year to maintain and operate its three space shuttles to develop new spacecraft that can travel beyond the station’s near-Earth orbit, where the shuttles cannot go.

Atlantis is scheduled to spend about a week at the space station, transferring more than 5 tonnes of food, clothing, science experiments and other gear to the station and packing up old equipment to be returned to Earth.

Upon Atlantis’ return, about 3,200 space shuttle contractor employees will be laid off. Most work at the spaceport in Florida.

“We’re going to be going through a tough time. Change is hard,” said Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana.

(Editing by Tom Brown and Bill Trott)

By Mary Slosson

PASADENA, Calif |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 11:43pm EDT

PASADENA, Calif (Reuters) – Lawyers for the accused gunman charged with wounding Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in a deadly shooting rampage told a federal appeals court on Thursday that forcing him to take anti-psychotic drugs could cause him irreparable harm.

But 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski expressed skepticism during the hearing, which was held in Pasadena, a few miles from Los Angeles, saying of the defense team’s argument, “I don’t buy it.”

The three-judge panel adjourned after 90 minutes without issuing a ruling and gave no indication how long it would deliberate before deciding whether to lift an earlier court order that temporarily bars prison officials from medicating Jared Loughner against his will.

Loughner did not attend the hearing. He remains held at a hospital for federal prisoners in Missouri after a lower-court judge in May declared him incompetent to stand trial on charges he killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Giffords, at a public event in Tucson, Arizona.

The 22-year-old college dropout, described by his own lawyers as “gravely mentally ill,” has since been undergoing psychiatric evaluation to determine whether his ability to understand court proceedings against him can be restored.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns denied an emergency petition filed by Loughner’s attorneys in June seeking to bar prison officials from forcibly medicating him. Burns said he would defer to the judgment of doctors treating Loughner.

But the appeals court days ago ordered a halt to the involuntary medication while it reviewed the matter.

Federal prosecutor Christina Canabillis argued on Thursday that doctors were prompted to medicate Loughner against his will due to a number of outbursts in which he threw chairs in his cell and spat at one of his own attorneys. Such behavior clearly poses a danger to the medical personnel trying to determine his competency, she said.

But defense lawyer Reuben Cahn argued that forcing anti-psychotic drugs on Loughner amounted to a “serious invasion on personal liberty” resulting in “irreparable damage.” Prison officials coerced Loughner by threatening to strap him down and inject him if he refused to take pills prescribed by his doctors, Cahn said.

“Nothing can reverse the injury done to him,” Cahn said.

Kozinski expressed doubt about permanent harm, comparing the situation to a person taking pain medication.

Loughner is accused of opening fire on Giffords and a crowd of bystanders outside a Tucson supermarket on January 8. Six victims were killed and 13 were wounded, including Giffords, who is still recovering from a gunshot to the head.

He pleaded not guilty in March to 49 charges stemming from the shooting rampage at the “Congress on Your Corner” event, including multiple counts of first-degree murder.

At the competency hearing in May, Judge Burns cited the conclusions of two medical experts that Loughner suffers from schizophrenia, disordered thinking and delusions.

(Editing by Steve Gorman, Alex Dobuzinskis and Peter Bohan)

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 9:02am EDT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – Four veteran astronauts scrambled aboard space shuttle Atlantis on Friday, hoping the weather would clear for liftoff on the final mission of the U.S. shuttle program.

Launch was targeted for 11:26 a.m. EDT from the Kennedy Space Center. Meteorologists, however, predicted just a 30 percent chance of suitable weather for the flight.

Dense cloud cover or possible rain and thunderstorms could prompt a delay.

Up to 1 million spectators lined beaches and causeways around the shuttle’s central Florida launch pad. If liftoff is delayed, they may have to wait through the weekend for a glimpse of the final shuttle rocket vaulting into orbit.

An abridged crew of four — Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, flight engineer Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus — began strapping into reclined seats on Atlantis’ top deck shortly after 8 a.m. EDT.

Typically, two or three other astronauts would be seated in the windowless middeck during launch. But NASA limited the crew to accommodate small Russian Soyuz capsules serving as escape vessels, should Atlantis too damaged during launch or while in orbit to safely return to Earth.

Previously, the U.S. space agency had a second shuttle prepared for any potential rescue but Atlantis, which will be making the 135th and final flight of the program, has no shuttle backup.

Atlantis, which was set to be retired last year, is laden with food and other supplies critical to the International Space Station, a recently completed orbital research outpost 220 miles above Earth.

COMMERCIAL FIRMS GET READY

NASA added the final flight to buy time in case the commercial delivery firms hired to resupply the station starting next year run into problems with their new rockets.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, which is owned by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, successfully tested its Dragon capsule in orbit last December and hopes to make it to the space station in a second test flight later this year.

The other cargo hauler being developed by aerospace company Orbital Sciences Corp, is expected to debut next year.

With the space shuttles retiring, the station and its six-member crew will need regular supply runs from both companies, in addition to deliveries from Russian, European and Japanese spacecraft.

All have just a fraction of the shuttle’s 25,000-tonne lift capacity.

NASA has been steadily building the $100 billion station over the last 11 years. Completing it was the primary reason the United States decided to fix the shuttles and resume flying after the loss of Columbia and her crew in 2003.

With the space station assembly complete, the United States wants to use the $4 billion or so it has spent each year to maintain and operate NASA’s three space shuttles to develop new spacecraft that can travel beyond the station’s near-Earth orbit, where shuttles cannot go.

(Editing by Tom Brown)

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 11:38pm EDT

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – A Florida judge on Thursday sentenced Casey Anthony to four years in jail for lying to police after her daughter disappeared, but she will be released from custody on July 17 after getting credit for time served and good behavior.

Anthony, 25, will be let out of jail four days later than was previously announced after her release date was recalculated, court spokeswoman Karen Levey said.

Court officials had earlier said Anthony would be released from jail on July 13, having received credit for the 1,043 days she spent behind bars since her arrest.

Anthony was acquitted on Tuesday of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in 2008 but on Thursday received the toughest possible punishment for providing false information to law enforcement during the investigation.

Each of the four misdemeanor counts Casey Anthony was convicted of carried a maximum of one year in jail. Judge Belvin Perry ordered the one-year terms to run consecutively, and also imposed a $1,000 fine for each count.

Perry said as a result of Casey Anthony’s lies, law enforcement spent “a great deal of time, energy and manpower looking for young Caylee Marie Anthony.”

Casey Anthony did not speak during the sentencing hearing. She wore her long hair loose rather than pulled tightly back as she had during the trial and smiled while she chatted with defense attorneys before the proceedings.

But her face tightened as the judge discussed her lies and handed down the punishment.

The hearing drew Anthony’s fans, critics and a large police presence to the Orlando courthouse where her closely watched trial played out over more than six weeks this summer.

“Boycott any books, movies by Casey,” one protester’s sign read.

“Casey will you marry me,” read a sign held by 20-year-old pizzeria worker Tim Allen.

Reaction to the sentence was mixed. Some people came hoping to witness Anthony walk out of the courthouse a free woman.

“I would like to put my eyes on her,” said Darwin Outsey, a 33-year-old Orlando car detailer who agreed with the murder acquittal but thought Anthony was at least guilty of being an accessory to the killing.

Others criticized the sentence as too lenient.

“She doesn’t deserve to walk free among civilians who care for their children,” said Dobia Wright, 30, an unemployed tree trimmer from Orlando who brought along his 3-year-old son.

Where Anthony will go after her release is a mystery. Her parents, George and Cindy Anthony, left the courtroom after the verdict without speaking to their daughter but were back in the regular seats to hear the sentence on Thursday.

Afterward, their lawyer shook hands with defense attorney Jose Baez but would not comment to Reuters about the family’s plans.

Casey Anthony’s punishment is a far cry from the death penalty prosecutors had planned to seek if jurors found her guilty of first-degree murder.

The prosecution said Casey Anthony smothered Caylee with duct tape on June 16, 2008, drove around for several days with Caylee’s body in her car trunk and then dumped the remains in woods near the Anthony family home.

The defense argued that Caylee died in an accidental drowning in the family’s backyard pool.

Millions of Americans followed the trial and many were stunned, even angered, by the verdict reached by jurors on Tuesday.

The jury also found Casey Anthony not guilty of aggravated child abuse or aggravated manslaughter of a child. Jurors who have spoken out since said they felt there wasn’t enough evidence for a murder conviction, but their decision left them in tears and feeling sick.

(Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Greg McCune)

By Laura L. Myers

SEATTLE |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 1:29am EDT

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A U.S. Army sergeant charged with beating up a fellow soldier and shooting at an unarmed civilian while deployed in Afghanistan pleaded not guilty on Thursday as his court-martial opened near Tacoma, Washington.

Sergeant Darren Jones, 30, of Pomona, California, is one of a dozen soldiers accused in connection with the most far-reaching prosecution of alleged wrongdoing by U.S. military personnel during 10 years of war in Afghanistan.

Five soldiers from the infantry unit formerly known as the 5th Stryker Brigade were charged with murdering unarmed Afghan villagers in cold blood during their deployment in 2010. One of them, Jeremy Morlock, was sentenced in March to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of murder and agreeing to testify against his co-defendants.

Seven other men, including Jones, were charged with less serious offenses stemming from an investigation that began as an inquiry into drug use by U.S. troops. Five of those cases already have been completed with varying sentences.

Jones was the first to request a five-member military panel to hear evidence against him at court-martial. The proceedings, overseen by military judge Lieutenant Colonel Kwasi Hawks, could last several days, said Major Christopher Ophardt, an Army spokesman at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Jones faces two counts of conspiracy to commit assault, one count of unlawfully striking another soldier, one count of assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of impeding an investigation.

Army prosecutors say Jones opened fire on an unarmed Afghan while on patrol in March 2010 and took part in discussions about how to stage killings of civilians to look like combat casualties.

The Army also says that Jones participated in the May 2010 beating of Private First Class Justin Stoner, whose complaint of widespread hashish use in his platoon led to the Army probe of civilian slayings in southern Afghanistan.

Magazines Der Spiegel of Germany and Rolling Stone have published several photos related to the killings, one showing Morlock crouched grinning over the bloodied corpse of an Afghan teenager, lifting the youth’s head by the hair for the camera.

The existence of such photos, among dozens under a protective seal by Army officials as evidence, has drawn comparisons with pictures of Iraqi prisoners taken by U.S. military personnel at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison that were made public in 2004.

Jones faces a maximum punishment of 22 years in prison if convicted, Ophardt told Reuters.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Cynthia Johnston)

By Joseph Ax

NEW YORK |
Fri Jul 8, 2011 9:52am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – By now, anyone following the Dominique Strauss-Kahn sexual assault case knows plenty about the woman who accused him: her age, origins, work history, relatives and, most recently, a series of lies and misstatements she gave to investigators.

But one detail has remained concealed by major U.S. media: her name.

Citing the unique stigma of rape, American news outlets have for decades refused to identify victims and alleged victims of sexual assault, even as they investigate their backgrounds.

As recent revelations raise doubts about the credibility of Strauss-Kahn’s accuser, and the attempted rape case against the former International Monetary Fund chief appears close to collapse, news organizations have begun to revisit these long-held policies.

“It’s an ethical minefield,” said Adam Penenberg, a journalism professor at New York University. “It puts everybody in an impossible position.”

The woman’s name has already been published by numerous news outlets in Europe and Africa, where accusers’ names are more routinely reported.

An Internet search will reveal it is on hundreds of websites. Some journalism experts say that renders the convention of anonymity increasingly meaningless.

No major U.S. news organization has yet revealed the woman’s name, even as her credibility has been seriously questioned.

“Editors here have discussed the situation as new developments have emerged in this case,” said Phil Corbett, the New York Times’ associate managing editor for standards.

“As of now, the authorities continue to consider the woman to be the victim in an alleged sexual assault, and we have stuck to our normal practice of not identifying her.”

Editors at Reuters debated the issue and decided the woman should remain unidentified, said Jim Gaines, the global head of ethics, standards and innovation.

“It was very brief, because we all know what the rule is,” Gaines said. “It’s hard to anticipate the circumstances under which we would name her, unless she named herself.”

WHEN SHOULD POLICY CHANGE?

Are there circumstances that would justify dropping the policy and identifying the woman?

Several editors said a dismissal of the charges against Strauss-Kahn would probably be insufficient to convince them to use his accuser’s name, unless, for example, authorities seek to charge her with perjury for suspicion of lying under oath.

“I would distinguish between charges being dropped and charges being brought against her,” said Roger Smith, the national editor for the Los Angeles Times.

Corbett said there is no “clear, bright line” that would indicate when to use her name.

Journalists are not legally bound to conceal the identities of sexual assault victims — the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that news outlets may use them if legally obtained. But with rare exceptions, the media have refrained from doing that.

One exception was NBC News’ decision in 1991 to identify the woman who accused a Kennedy family member, William Kennedy Smith, of raping her. That sparked a national conversation about privacy and the media’s responsibility to rape victims.

The prevailing view, then as now, is that sexual assault is uniquely damaging and worthy of an exception.

“The reality is that as journalists, we have a special responsibility to help ensure that women feel safe reporting sexual assault. It’s not like other crimes,” said Bruce Shapiro, head of the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma at Columbia University in New York.

FEAR OF SACRIFICING PRIVACY

Some experts say there is also a societal obligation to encourage victims to come forward without fear of sacrificing their privacy.

“What about the next woman, and the one after that?” said Alisa Solomon, a journalism professor at Columbia.

A handful of journalists assert the practice of withholding victims’ names runs counter to journalism’s goal of providing a complete and truthful account.

One dissenter is Geneva Overholser, who as editor of the Des Moines Register won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for public service for a series about a woman’s ordeal as a rape victim.

“We’re setting ourselves up to do something that feels very much like social work, not journalism, and that’s not our role,” said Overholser, now the director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California.

To Overholser, the debate in the Strauss-Kahn case only underscores the problem with concealing the name in the first place. By splashing his name and photo across front pages while withholding hers, she said, there is an implicit judgment that one side is wrong and the other is right.

“If anything, it helps continue the stigma,” she said. “We’re signaling to rape victims that they have to go and sit in a dark corner.”

(Reporting by Joseph Ax, editing by Jesse Wegman and Grant McCool)

By Paula Rogo

NEW YORK |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 4:41pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Regardless of the outcome of the sexual assault charges against former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the case could discourage victims from coming forward, women’s rights advocates say.

The high-profile case shows why sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes in the United States: the accuser has been called a prostitute in print, intimate details of her past exposed to the world, and her credibility questioned by prosecutors trying to make a case against Strauss-Kahn.

“Unquestionably, it has had a chilling effect on the public consciousness and women in coming forward,” said Sonia Ossorio, executive director of the National Organization for Women in New York City.

“It reinforces what we already know, that the majority of women do not report rapes because the spotlight will be on their personal history and their credibility will be questioned,” she said.

Forty-five percent of sexual assaults in the United States go unreported, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2009 National Crime Victimization Study — down from 60 percent in 2007.

A New York judge freed Strauss-Kahn from house arrest last week after prosecutors revealed that his accuser, a 32-year-old hotel maid from Guinea, had lied about her background, undermining her credibility as a witness.

Women’s rights advocates worry that the woman’s assertion that she was assaulted has been lost in the politics and legal maneuverings of the case.

“They have insidiously succeeded in shifting the focus from the reported act of sexual violence perpetrated by Strauss-Kahn to Hawa’s character,” said Equality Now, an international women’s rights group, using a pseudonym for the accuser.

If she did fabricate the story, it would be unfortunate because “it would perpetuate the stereotype that victims lie about their assaults,” said Rita Garza of victim’s services agency Safe Horizon.

“The reality is that very few people lie about sexual assault,” Garza said. “It is a low one to three percent.”

MEDIA COVERAGE

Media coverage of the woman has turned especially intense since details of the accusers past misstatements have come out — that she lied about being gang-raped in her application for U.S. asylum and changed details of her story about what happened after her encounter with Strauss-Kahn.

The New York Post reported she worked as a prostitute before and after the Strauss-Kahn encounter on May 14, including while she was living under the protection of the District Attorney’s office.

That prompted a libel suit filed by the woman’s lawyers.

“It’s the irresponsible journalism of the year,” activist Gloria Steinem told Reuters. “Certainly, the example set by the New York Post would be enough to discourage anyone from ever coming forward.”

The Post said it stands by its reporting.

The coverage has also prompted debate over the media portrayal of minority and immigrant women and whether it could further discourage them from reporting sexual assaults.

“Immigrant black women are the least powerful in a society,” Ossorio said. “They are the least likely to be taken seriously.”

The accuser’s admission that she fabricated a story to improve her chances of getting U.S. asylum could expose her to criminal prosecution and possibly deportation, experts said.

“It is already difficult for a victim of a crime to come forward, especially with the added fear of deportation,” said Michele Vigeant of Safe Horizon. “It becomes an added barrier for those seeking service and seeking justice intervention.”

Women are often vulnerable after sex crimes and need to feel confident someone will believe their stories, Vigeant said.

“Even if she has had credibility problems outside of that day, a strong prosecutor would have said we are ready to stand up for her because it was a crime,” said Diane Rosenfeld, a professor at Harvard Law School. “Way too many prosecutors back out of rape cases.”

(Reporting by Paula Rogo; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Paul Simao)

By Dave Warner

PHILADELPHIA |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 9:31pm EDT

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) – A legal battle over the fate of 10 double eagle gold coins from the Franklin Roosevelt Administration got underway on Thursday with the government saying the coins, now worth an estimated $75 million, were wrongly taken from a U.S. mint.

Authorities say the coins were improperly removed more than 70 years ago from the U.S. Mint at Philadelphia, only blocks from the courthouse where U.S. District Court Judge Legrome D. Davis was presiding over the case.

“You are going to hear a remarkable and intriguing story about gold coins that were stolen from the U.S. Mint in 1933,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero told the jury in her opening statement.

None of the 445,500 coins, then worth $20 each, ever legally went into circulation, she said. President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order shortly after taking office in March 1933 that prohibited the payout of gold from banks.

Yet 10 coins — called double eagles because the $10 coin was called an eagle — somehow disappeared.

“The only answer is that they were stolen,” Romero said. She pointed a finger at the late Israel Switt, saying the now deceased Philadelphia jeweler was “somehow involved.”

His heirs — his daughter Joan Langbord and her sons Roy and David — are contesting the government position that it is entitled to the coins.

In fact, the government has had possession of the disputed coins since 2004, when Roy Langbord surrendered them to the government.

GOVERNMENT WANTS TO KEEP COINS

The government says it can keep the coins because of a federal provision allowing it to grab property that is “traceable to any offense constituting specified unlawful activity.”

“We will ask you to find that these 10 1933 double eagles are assets that belong to the United States,” Romero said.

The Langbord family, however, says the coins are their rightful property and they want them back. Their attorney, Barry Berke, told the jury the government cannot seize property unless it can prove it was obtained illegally.

“They don’t have evidence, they don’t have facts, to prove what they have to prove,” he said.

The Langbord family alerted authorities after finding the coins in a safe-deposit box in 2003, wrapped in a bag from Philadelphia’s iconic Wannamaker’s department store, which is no longer in business.

“The government only knew about it because our client told them,” he said.

Berke accused the U.S. Attorney’s office of “essentially trying to rewrite history,” by claiming that bookkeeping and procedures in 1933 were tight and accurate.

In fact, he said, nobody at this time knows how the coins left the mint, when they were taken or who may have been responsible.

“We have evidence of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gold coins leaving the mint after March 6,” he said, referring to the date of Roosevelt’s proclamation on gold.

He said the cashier at the mint, for instance, kept a bag full of the gold coins at his desk, and an assistant U.S. Treasury secretary told the mint it could continue the practice of exchanging gold from citizens for gold from the mint.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Cynthia Johnston)

By Kathy Finn

NEW ORLEANS |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 9:35pm EDT

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – A bystander who witnessed the run-up to a fatal police shooting in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina told a New Orleans court on Thursday that he watched from a motel balcony as a gunman fired a rifle at an unarmed man.

Douglas Bloedorn testified he tried to warn the man to take cover but the gunman, who prosecutors said was a police officer, turned the weapon on Bloedorn.

“Get in your room and get down,” he shouted at Bloedorn, according to testimony. Minutes later, his motel room was filled with police who stayed for 45 minutes. When they left and he stepped out of the motel, the body of a dead man lay near the entrance.

The testimony came during the second week of a federal trial of five New Orleans police officers charged with civil rights violations connected with the shooting deaths of two people, the wounding of four others and obstruction of justice related to a cover-up.

Killed in the shootings were 40-year-old Ronald Madison, who died at the entrance to the Friendly Inn motel, and 17-year-old James Brissette.

Charged are sergeants Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius and Arthur Kaufman, and officers Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso. All face possible life sentences if convicted. Five more have pleaded guilty to their part in the incident.

Defense attorneys have argued the officers were responding to a perceived threat and that it was difficult to be rational in the tragedy and chaos of the storm’s aftermath.

Bloedorn was the latest of several witnesses, including some officers at the scene, who have testified that police fired on unarmed people who did not appear to pose a threat.

TRIED TO WARN MAN

Bloedorn testified that in 2005 he was living in a second-floor room at the Friendly Inn, at the west end of the Danziger Bridge.

On September 4, he heard gunfire coming from the bridge and went to the balcony outside his room where he said he saw a man in dark clothing aim a rifle at an unarmed man who was running through the motel parking lot.

He said the gunman fired once but the man kept running.

Bloedorn said he shouted to the man, “Dude, stop, they’re going to kill you.”

The man apparently escaped alive, according to testimony. The gunman was later identified as a police officer.

In other testimony, one of the police officers who fired his weapon that day said four months passed before anyone asked him for a detailed account of what happened.

Michael Hunter drove the truck that carried about a dozen officers to the Danziger Bridge after they received a report that civilians were firing on police near the bridge.

Hunter said an investigator called together all the officers who had used weapons at the police substation immediately after the shooting, but the discussion was brief.

“There were just three questions: What weapon did you fire, how many times did you fire and who did you fire at,” Hunter said.

He said no one asked whether civilians had fired at police. He said he believed that was because everyone knew the civilians had no guns and understood that the police goal was to justify the shooting.

“At some point Lieutenant (Michael) Lohman turned to somebody to his right and said, ‘We can’t have this looking like a massacre,’” Hunter recalled.

Lohman was among the officers who pleaded guilty for his role in the alleged cover-up. He testified for the prosecution earlier in the trial.

(Editing by Karen Brooks and Cynthia Johnston)

By Jim Brumm

WILMINGTON, North Carolina |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 8:43pm EDT

WILMINGTON, North Carolina (Reuters) – Planned Parenthood asked a federal court on Thursday to block enforcement of part of North Carolina’s budget that bars extending state funds to the women’s health provider because it performs abortions.

In a suit filed on Thursday in the U.S. District Court in Greensboro, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina sought an injunction to halt enforcement of the budget that denies the organization state and federal funds used to subsidize family planning services and provide teen pregnancy prevention programs.

One of two Planned Parenthood affiliates operating in the state, the group received about $212,000 of state and federal funds in the year ended June 30 to fund programs at its clinics in Fayetteville, Chapel Hill and Raleigh.

During the year, the three clinics provided family planning and reproductive health exams to almost 7,000 women, Planned Parenthood said.

Planned Parenthood Health Systems, the other North Carolina affiliate, receives $32,000 of state funds to provide long-acting contraceptives to low-income women such as IUD’s and $60,000 in Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative funding.

Spokeswoman Melissa Reed said they saw 17,407 patients last year, 63 percent of which had no insurance or were on Medicaid.

The two affiliates received $454,241 last year from Medicaid, a program not affected the state budget provision defunding the group, Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina (PPCNC) Field Manager Alison Kiser said in an email.

In the press release announcing the suit, PPCNC chief executive Janet Colm said, “This is the first time in North Carolina’s history that a single health care provider has been carved out in the budget and banned from applying for competitive grants from the state.”

In singling out Planned Parenthood, the suit argues, the North Carolina budget violates federal law and the constitutional rights of Planned Parenthood.

Specifically, the suit asks the court to enjoin Lanier Cansler, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human services, from enforcing provisions of the state budget defunding Planned Parenthood.

There was no response on Thursday afternoon to requests for comments on the suit from Governor Bev Perdue or the leaders of the General Assembly.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Bohan)

By Laura Zuckerman

BOZEMAN, Mont |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 9:51pm EDT

BOZEMAN, Mont (Reuters) – Montana’s governor withdrew his state on Thursday from participation in the command team directing cleanup of oil spilled from a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline, saying citizens “can’t get straight answers” from the company.

In establishing the state’s own incident command center in Billings, just downstream from Friday night’s spill on the Yellowstone River, Governor Brian Schweitzer cited what he characterized as a lack of public transparency by Exxon.

Schweitzer said Exxon was responsible for restricting reporters’ access, and even that of some state environmental officials, in violation of Montana’s open-meetings law. He also said the company has been too slow in responding to citizens’ queries about the spill.

“When Montana citizens call a hotline and Exxon Mobil doesn’t get back to them, that’s unacceptable,” Schweitzer told Reuters by telephone.

A joint unified command organization consisting of the state, Exxon and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was set up after the spill to oversee efforts to assess damage, conduct cleanups and provide information to the public.

Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Jeffers denied the company had sought to restrict access to unified command meetings or information, saying the EPA was in charge. He said the company was doing its utmost to answer questions from the public.

“We’re doing our best to respond as fast as possible to everybody who has been impacted by this spill,” he told Reuters.

Schweitzer urged land owners and other members of the public affected by the spill to begin documenting damage themselves by taking their own videos, collecting soil samples and pulling together necessary paperwork for making claims.

“Right now, we can’t get straight answers from Exxon engineers. Imagine what we’ll get from their lawyers,” he said.

EXXON SAYS CONTACTED LAND OWNERS

In response to complaints at a public meeting hosted by the EPA near Billings on Wednesday night, Jeffers said Exxon had assigned more employees to its telephone hotline.

He also said the company sent claims adjusters to the public meeting and had contacted every one of the landowners, now numbering about 80, who had called to report oil contamination on their property.

The EPA issued a statement saying the agency was continuing to direct the spill response and “will continue to work hand-in-hand with the state of Montana, other federal agencies, and local government to ensure the spill is cleaned up and the environment restored.”

A 12-inch Exxon pipeline carrying crude oil to refineries in Billings burst on Friday night, dumping up to 1,000 barrels of petroleum into one of America’s most pristine rivers about 150 miles downstream from Yellowstone National Park.

The investigation into the cause of the rupture has focused on the possibility that raging high water from a season of heavy rains and record snowmelt washed away some of the riverbed around the buried pipe, exposing it to debris swept through the channel.

Federal officials said shoreline contamination has been observed over an area stretching at least 240 miles downstream from the spill site.

But dangerous river conditions have so far prevented environmental inspection teams from reaching most of the inlets, back channels and other shoreline areas where much of the oil would likely collect, and where fish would seek refuge from high water, said Robert Gibson, a spokesman for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

(Reporting by Laura Zuckerman; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

Thu Jul 7, 2011 7:50pm EDT

(Reuters) – Hackers broke into the Washington Post Co’s jobs website in two incidents last month, affecting more than a million user IDs and emails, the company said on its website.

The company said about 1.27 million users’ IDs and email addresses were affected but no passwords or other personal information was accessed.

The company said the jobs accounts of users whose email addresses were accessed remained secure.

This latest breach comes amid a spate of hack attacks against high profile targets including Sony Corp and Citigroup.

Washington Post said it quickly identified the attack and took action to shut it down. It is pursuing the matter with law enforcement and conducting an audit of the security of its jobs site.

(Reporting by Abhishek Takle in Bangalore; Editing by)

By Michael Peltier

TALLAHASSEE, Fla |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 8:03pm EDT

TALLAHASSEE, Fla (Reuters) – Following the highly publicized Casey Anthony verdict, a handful of Florida state lawmakers have proposed that it be a felony if parents do not inform law enforcement of a missing or dead child.

Two days after a jury acquitted the 25-year-old mother in the 2008 death of her two-year-old daughter Caylee, at least one bill was filed in the state legislature to close loopholes critics said resulted in a not guilty verdict.

The seven-week caught national attention and became a cable reality TV must-see.

Republican lawmakers Rep. Jose Diaz of Miami and Scott Plakon of Longwood, on Thursday filed the measure dubbed “Caylee’s Law” that makes it a felony for parents or caregivers who fail to verify the whereabouts and safety of a child up to 12 years of age within 48 hours. The law also requires that a child’s death be reported within two hours.

“While the process that produced the verdict must be respected, the deficiencies in our laws that have become apparent from this case should not be,” Diaz said in a statement Thursday.

The bill also bolsters penalties for anyone who provides false statements to police.

Caylee Anthony was last seen on June 16, 2008, Police did not learn of her disappearance until July 15. The child’s skeletal remains were discovered December 11, 2008.

Prosecutors accused Anthony of using duct tape to suffocate her daughter after using chloroform to render her unconscious. They alleged that she put the child’s body in the trunk of her car for a few days before disposing of it.

Though acquitted of murder, Anthony was convicted on four counts of lying to police, a misdemeanor under Florida law. Jailed since her arrest in late 2008, Anthony was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison but is scheduled to be released Wednesday for time served and good behavior.

The bill would make the crime a second degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

“We must provide steeper penalties where a caretaker … intentionally misleads or impedes law enforcement during an investigation involving his or her child,” Plakon said.

On Wednesday, an Oklahoma lawmaker said he planned to introduce a similar law in his state. It would also require parents to swiftly report the death or disappearance of a child.

The chairman of the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee, Greg EversBaker, on Thursday said his committee would spend its first committee meeting in September discussing what the chamber should do in response to the Anthony verdict.

(Reporting by Michael Peltier; Editing by Greg McCune)

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich |
Thu Jul 7, 2011 9:37pm EDT

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich (Reuters) – A man suspected of killing seven people was surrounded by police on Thursday in a house in the western Michigan city after a police chase and was thought to be holding two hostages, authorities said.

The bodies of seven apparent shooting victims were found at two different locations in Grand Rapids on Thursday, setting off a manhunt for suspected gunman Rodrick Dantzler with police helicopters, state police and sheriff’s deputies.

The suspect later invaded a house in northeast Grand Rapids and apparently took two hostages. Police have set up a perimeter and are negotiating with him, Grand Rapids police spokesman Sergeant Jon Wu said.

Wu said the two hostages are believed to be strangers to Dantzler, and Michigan State Police said they have provided a helicopter and are assisting Grand Rapids police.

“They’re obviously trying to resolve the situation as safely as possible without harm to anyone else,” said Michigan State Police Lieutenant Kyle Bowman.

Mayor George Heartwell said Grand Rapids police, Kent County sheriff and Michigan state police were working on the case, including the department’s hostage negotiators.

“This is so uncharacteristic of Grand Rapids. We are all stunned about it,” Heartwell said in a telephone interview.

Earlier, Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk said the seven bodies were found at two separate locations. Two adult women and a girl were found dead at one location and three women and a man at the second location.

Officers in a police cruiser spotted Dantzler in a Lincoln Town Car within hours of the discovery of the bodies of the victims, and the officers began a pursuit that led through downtown Grand Rapids, Wu said.

Dantzler fired at the officers multiple times and police returned fire, and at one point a bullet struck a woman bystander who was in a car, striking her in the arm, Wu said.

Her wounds are not life-threatening, but the woman was taken to a local hospital, he said.

FBI special agent Sandra Berchtold said the bureau is assisting Grand Rapids Police Department, but she declined to provide more information.

(Writing by David Bailey; Additional Reporting by Rick Wilson and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Greg McCune)

CHICAGO |
Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:57pm EDT

CHICAGO (Reuters) – An accused murderer who overpowered guards and escaped from an Oklahoma jail in a stolen police car was back behind bars late on Sunday, authorities said.

Shaun Bosse, who was awaiting trial on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of arson, was recaptured near the town of Blanchard, the McClain County Sheriff’s Office said.

“He was recaptured without incident this afternoon and he is being transferred back to jail,” Deputy Eric Venegas told Reuters.

Bosse overpowered two deputies at a jail in Purcell on Sunday morning, grabbed a set of car keys and fled in a 2004 Pontiac Grand Prix, which was later found abandoned.

News reports said Bosse is accused of murdering Katrina Griffin, 24, and her two children, Christian, 8, and Chastity, 6, whose bodies were found in a blazing mobile home last year.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; editing by Wendell Marsh and Molly O’Toole)

By Zelie Pollon

SANTA FE, New Mexico |
Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:04am EDT

SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) – Voluntary evacuations have been issued for Los Alamos, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is threatened by a fast-moving wildfire that broke out in northern New Mexico on Sunday, authorities said.

The Las Conchas Fire flared early Sunday afternoon around 12 miles southwest of Los Alamos, charring about 3,500 acres and endangering the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratory and its surrounding communities, said Lawrence Lujan, a spokesman for the Santa Fe National Forest.

“We have homes and we have the labs, so it’s a very, very big concern, not only locally but nationally and globally,” Lujan said.

“This fire is very complex. We have a national type one team coming in because of the nature of the fire,” he said.

New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez has ordered the New Mexico National Guard to Los Alamos to provide support for the ongoing efforts to protect lives, property and critical infrastructure threatened by the fire.

“My administration will make every effort to provide support for local emergency response crews,” said Governor Martinez.

“With evacuations in place and the fire burning quickly, it is important that residents in the surrounding communities remain attentive to the local emergency operations’ alerts and orders,” she added.

Martinez said she had requested that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issue a Fire Management Assistance Declaration for the Las Conchas Fire to provide further assistance.

The blaze continued to throw flames a half mile ahead of the fire pushed by high winds and hot dry conditions. It remained zero percent contained late Sunday.

Bandelier National Monument has been evacuated, as have the communities of Cochiti Mesa and Las Conchas. Voluntary evacuations have been issued for Los Alamos and nearby community White Rock.

Jeff Berger, a spokesman for the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where the world’s first atomic bomb was developed, said the fire was rapidly advancing but had not yet reached lab property.

“Lab emergency crews have been dispatched across the lab. Their job is to protect key facilities and materials,” Berger said. “Protected areas include all hazardous and radioactive facilities and our proton accelerator and supercomputing centers.”

Berger said the laboratory would be closed on Monday for all activities and non-essential employees.

Fire crews are currently battling 41 large wildfires in the United States, which have torched more than 1.4 million acres, according to the Idaho-based National Fire Information Center.

Most of the active blazes are in the Southwest and Texas, where scant rainfall has created tinder-dry conditions.

(Reporting by Zelie Pollon; Writing by Tim Gaynor: Editing by Eric Johnson)

By Michael Avok

BROWNVILLE, Neb |
Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:06am EDT

BROWNVILLE, Neb (Reuters) – A top regulator said on Sunday that a nuclear power plant threatened by flooding from the swollen Missouri River was operating safely and according to standards.

“I got to see a lot of efforts they’re taking to deal with flooding and the challenges that presents,” Gregory Jaczko, the chairman of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said after touring the Cooper Nuclear Station near the village of Brownville and meeting with plant officials and executives.

“Right now, we think they’re taking an appropriate approach. This is a plant that is operating safely and meeting our standards,” he added.

The plant is located about 80 miles south of Omaha, where snow melt and heavy rains have forced the waters of the Missouri River over its banks, although they have not flooded the plant and receded slightly on Sunday.

Jaczko said he was not doing an official plant inspection. He was briefed by NRC resident inspectors — the agency staff who work on-site every day — plant officials and executives, said Mark Becker, a spokesman at the Nebraska Public Power District, the agency that runs the plant.

The power plant sat about 4 feet above the river’s level on Sunday. The river had surged over its banks near the plant and filled in low-lying land near the Cooper plant.

Water levels there are down after upstream levees failed, Becker said, relieving worries that water will rise around the Brownville plant as it has at another nuclear plant north of Omaha in Fort Calhoun.

Art Zaremba, director of nuclear safety at Cooper, backed the assessment.

“The plant is very safe right now, and we’ve taken a lot of steps to make sure it stays that way,” Zaremba said.

Residents near the plant were largely unconcerned about any potential safety risks from flooding ahead of Jaczko’s visit.

“I just don’t think the water is going to get that high,” said Brownville resident Kenny Lippold, a retired carpenter who has been following each step of the flood preparations in this riverside village of 148 residents.

“They claim that they are going to keep operating,” Lippold said, adding that he will not flee his home of 29 years even though it is less than a mile from the Cooper reactor.

Local shop owner Katy Morgan, 28, said her fears have been assuaged by information she has received via plant officials, who give out emergency radio equipment to residents within a 10-mile radius of the Cooper plant.

“I know everybody freaks out when they talk about nuclear,” said Morton, who runs a boutique on Brownville’s main thoroughfare. “I suppose if there was a drastic increase in the river I would be concerned. If they say ‘evacuate’ then I would be concerned,” Morton said.

Jaczko will visit on Monday the Fort Calhoun plant in the town of Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, about 20 miles north of Omaha, an agency official said.

Flood water up to 2-feet deep is standing on the site of the 478-megawatt Fort Calhoun plant, which will stay shut down until the water recedes, the NRC said.

On Sunday afternoon, workers accidentally deflated an auxiliary berm at the plant, said Omaha Public Power District spokesman Jeff Hanson.

Hanson said the “aqua dam” was a supplemental measure that provided workers “more freedom” but was not essential to keeping the plant dry.

“The plant itself is still protected,” Hanson said. Floodwater would need to rise over 7 feet to flow over the berms and enter the plant, Hanson said, adding that the supplemental dam was not in original flood prevention plans.

An NRC inspection at Fort Calhoun two years ago indicated deficiencies in the flood preparation area, which have now been remedied, the agency said.

(Writing by Eric Johnson; Editing by Tim Gaynor)

By Keith Coffman

DENVER |
Sun Jun 26, 2011 10:47am EDT

DENVER (Reuters) – The only authenticated photograph of infamous Wild West gunslinger Billy the Kid was auctioned off to Florida billionaire William Koch for an $2.3 million on Saturday night.

Koch, an energy company executive and well-known collector of art and American West artifacts, placed the winning bid in person before stunned onlookers at Brian Lebel’s annual Old West Auction in Denver.

Lebel said at an auction preview that he expected the tintype image to sell for between $300,000 and $400,000.

Koch told Reuters after the auction that he plans to allow some small museums to display the piece, and after that he will “just enjoy” the iconic piece.

“I love the old West,” he said. “This is a part of American history.”

The metallic photo, taken outside a Fort Sumner, New Mexico, saloon in late 1879 or early 1880, depicts the outlaw gripping the upright barrel of a Winchester carbine, with a Colt 45 pistol strapped to his hip.

The photograph was owned by the descendants of Dan Dedrick, who was given the photo by his cattle rustling partner, Billy the Kid himself.

Born Henry McCarty, but known in New Mexico as William Bonney, the Kid was shot dead at age 22 by lawman Pat Garrett in 1881, months after a jailbreak in which Bonney reportedly killed two deputies.

In the 130 years since his death, Billy the Kid has been depicted, with varying degrees of accuracy, in scores of popular culture movies and books.

Koch’s winning bid was actually $2 million, but a $300,000 “buyer’s premium” was tacked on, bringing the total selling price to $2.3 million, an auction spokeswoman said.

Brian Lebel said he was pleased that the photo wasn’t sold to an overseas buyer.

“I’m happy that it will stay in this country and will be shared with the public,” he said.

Koch is one of the sons of Fred C. Koch, founder of Wichita, Kansas-based energy conglomerate Koch Industries, one of the largest private companies in the United States.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Ellen Wulfhorst)

SANTA FE, New Mexico |
Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:20pm EDT

SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) – Authorities in New Mexico evacuated two communities after a fast-moving wildfire broke out a few miles from Los Alamos, authorities said on Sunday.

The blaze started early afternoon around 12 miles southwest of Los Alamos. It has charred around 800 acres and is zero percent contained, a spokesman with the San Fe National Forest said.

“It is running, crowning and spotting up to a half mile ahead of the fire,” Lawrence Lujan told Reuters.

Residents in Cochiti Mesa and Los Conchas have been evacuated and power and telephone lines are down, Lujan said.

(Reporting by Zelie Pollon; Writing by Tim Gaynor: Editing by Eric Johnson)

WASHINGTON |
Sun Jun 26, 2011 6:03pm EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A tear on Sunday in a temporary berm allowed Missouri River flood waters to surround containment buildings and other vital areas of a Nebraska nuclear plant, but reactor systems were not affected.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said the breach in the 2,000-foot inflatable berm around the Fort Calhoun station occurred around 1:25 a.m. local time.

More than 2 feet of water rushed in around containment buildings and electrical transformers at the 478-megawatt facility located 20 miles north of Omaha.

Reactor shutdown cooling and spent-fuel pool cooling were unaffected, the NRC said.

The plant, operated by the Omaha Public Power District, has been off line since April for refueling.

Crews activated emergency diesel generators after the breach, but restored normal electrical power by Sunday afternoon, the NRC said.

Buildings at the Fort Calhoun plant are watertight, the agency said. It noted that the cause of the berm breach is under investigation.

NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko and other officials planned to visit the site on Monday.

Jaczko will also visit the Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Nebraska, another facility that has been watched closely with Missouri River waters rising from heavy rains and snow melt.

But water levels in that area 80 miles south of Omaha are receding, relieving worries that water will rise around the Brownville plant.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani, John Crawley and Michael Avok)

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Florida |
Sat Jun 25, 2011 1:10pm EDT

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – The Saturday session of Casey Anthony’s first-degree murder trial was scuttled by an unspecified “legal issue” announced by Judge Belvin Perry.

The delay could push back the end of the trial in which Anthony is accused of smothering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee on June 16, 2008 and hiding the body in the woods while claiming the little girl had been kidnapped by a nanny.

Asked to identify the legal issue which delayed the trial, neither defense lawyer Cheney Mason nor prosecutor Jeff Ashton would comment.

“I can’t tell ya,” Ashton said. Mason said nothing.

At the 9 a.m. trial starting time, the lawyers and Perry disappeared into a side room to talk in private. They emerged 40 minutes later for Perry to make the announcement to spectators and then to the jury in its holding room.

Earlier, the prosecution and defense lawyers argued about whether defense expert Dr. Kenneth Furton would be allowed to testify about opinions that were not disclosed to prosecutors in advance.

Perry said the “legal issue” which required Saturday’s recess was unrelated to the Furton issue.

Prosecutors say Anthony smothered Caylee with duct tape to free herself to “live the good life.” Prosecution evidence suggests she drove around for several days with Caylee’s body in her car trunk, then dumped the remains in the woods near the Anthony home outside of Orlando.

The child’s disappearance came to light on July 15, 2008 when Casey’s mother, Cindy Anthony, called 911. Cindy Anthony said she was frustrated because her daughter had made excuses for a month as to why she couldn’t see or speak to her granddaughter.

She said she became alarmed when she found Casey Anthony’s abandoned car at an impound lot, smelling to her and several other witnesses as if it contained a dead body.

Casey Anthony initially told detectives that Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny and that she was searching for her daughter on her own. After a five-month nationwide search, Caylee’s body was discovered by a meter reader.

When the trial opened, defense lawyer Jose Baez told jurors that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family’s backyard pool, but that her death went unreported. He also claimed that Casey Anthony’s seemingly uncaring attitude while she partied in nightclubs was a result of a history of sexual abuse.

Saturday’s delay could push back the end of the trial which began with opening statements on May 24. Perry had expected to keep the court in session until at least mid-afternoon in order to end the testimony portion by the end of next week.

On Friday, Perry said he expected to be handing the case to the jury for deliberations late next Friday or on Saturday.

The trial will resume Monday at 8:30 a.m.

(Writing and reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Ellen Wulfhorst)

OMAHA, Nebraska |
Sat Jun 25, 2011 2:51pm EDT

OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) – A levee breach on Saturday near Missouri Valley, Iowa flooded farmland and threatened to impact U.S. Highway 30, which connects Iowa and Nebraska over the Missouri River, officials said.

“It is emptying into agricultural lands and the DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge,” said Larry Oliver, emergency management coordinator for Harrison County, Iowa.

The breach occurred on a secondary levee about a mile south of Highway 30. Residents of about 18 homes were told to evacuate because of the potential for flooding, Oliver said.

“We are monitoring the flow,” said Oliver. “There’s a lot of water moving there.”

The Iowa Department of Transportation is monitoring the situation and keeping Highway 30 open for now, according to spokeswoman Dena Gray-Fisher.

“We’re not expecting it to impact the roadway right away, so the road is still open,” Gray-Fisher said. The highway connects Iowa to Blair, Neb., north of Omaha.

Heavy rains and snow melt along the Missouri River valley have flooded areas from Montana through Missouri, forcing residents to shore up protections and evacuate their homes.

From Gavin’s Point Dam near Yankton, S.D. to Rulo, Neb., the Missouri is expected to reach the highest levels seen since 1952, according to the National Weather Service.

Bridges from Nebraska to Iowa and Missouri are already out for 112 miles from south of Plattsmouth, Neb. to St. Joseph, Mo. for safety reasons due to flooding, Gray-Fisher said. Portions of Interstate 29 in Iowa also are closed.

Heavy rains flooded Omaha streets on Saturday, and the weekend rain was not over for the Missouri Valley area, according to NWS meteorologist Dave Fobert in Omaha.

Thunderstorms were expected across North and South Dakota Saturday night into Sunday, moving into eastern Nebraska on Sunday night into Monday. Fobert said some areas could get an inch of rain, but “it’s hard to say” how this will impact river flooding.

(Writing and reporting by Mary Wisniewski; Additional reporting by Michael Avok in Nebraska; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES |
Sun Jun 26, 2011 3:12am EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – At least six people were killed when a tractor-trailer rig barreled through railroad gates and into an Amtrak train early Friday in Nevada, authorities said on Saturday.

The Churchill County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the six fatalities in a written statement released late on Saturday night. Authorities said dozens more were injured, at least one critically.

Meanwhile, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesman said the driver of the truck slammed on his brakes just 320 feet before the rail crossing, apparently failing to see signs, flashing lights and closed signal arms.

“The data so far indicates that all signals and gates were operating properly (and) there was excellent visibility of the track,” said NTSB member Earl Weener.

The truck, leading a convoy of three tractor-trailer rigs, was traveling at such a high rate of speed that it embedded itself in the side of the train, Weener said.

Among those killed in the collision at a crossing of U.S. Route 95 near the town of Lovelock, about 70 miles east of Reno, were the truck driver and train conductor, the Nevada Highway Patrol has said..

Authorities said earlier on Saturday they expect to pull more bodies from the twisted wreckage of the train, but a search was proceeding slowly because the burned-out train cars were considered dangerously unstable.

“We know that people have seen bodies, but we can’t get to them in the wreckage,” Nevada Highway Patrol spokesman Dan Lopez said. “The biggest thing right now is the safety of the workers.”

It was not immediately clear if the confirmed fatalities included the bodies seen inside the wreckage. Weener said emergency responders had reported “multiple fatalities” but could not be more specific.

‘FATALITIES TO PASSENGERS’

“Preliminary reports are that there have been fatalities to passengers, an Amtrak train crew member and the operator of the truck,” Amtrak said in a written statement.

A spokeswoman for the passenger rail line, partly owned by the U.S. government, declined to elaborate on the statement.

Weener did not offer an explanation for the driver’s apparent failure to notice the signs or lights, saying the train’s engineer saw the collision clearly and verified that the signals were working correctly.

“We will not be determining a probable cause of this accident while on scene, nor will we be speculating,” Weener said, adding that a team of 21 investigators expected to remain at the accident site for seven to 10 days.

He said the other two trucks in the convoy took action to stop in time, but the lead vehicle did not.

The fiery crash sent a plume of black smoke billowing into the air over the scene and forced closure of the tracks and Route 95 in both directions.

Survivors were taken to local hospitals.

A spokeswoman for Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno said the hospital received nine people from the accident, including one who remained in critical condition on Saturday.

A second patient was listed in serious condition and a third in fair condition. Six others had been discharged.

Another 60 people were taken to Banner Churchill Community Hospital in Fallon, about 30 miles away, spokeswoman Aimee Fulk told Reuters.

The 10 most seriously hurt patients were admitted and treated in the hospital’s emergency room, she said, while the remaining 50 were treated for lesser injuries and released.

Fulk said she had no further information on the condition of the patients in the emergency room but was not aware of any life-threatening injuries among them.

Passengers who were not injured, some of whom spent the night in local shelters, were taken to their destinations by bus.

The westbound California Zephyr was en route from Chicago to Emeryville, California with 204 passengers and 14 crew members on board when it was hit.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Todd Eastham)

DENVER |
Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:34pm EDT

DENVER (Reuters) – Two bombs were found inside a Borders Bookstore in a suburban Denver shopping mall overnight, the FBI said on Saturday.

Police were summoned to the Colorado Mills Mall in Lakewood early on Saturday after a store alarm sounded, the FBI said in a news release.

Police discovered evidence of forced entry and found two explosive devices.

The Jefferson County Bomb Squad responded to the scene, but the FBI did not say if the devices detonated.

“No injuries were reported and no threats have been communicated to Borders or the Mall,” the FBI release said.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman, editing by Dan Whitcomb and Ellen Wulfhorst)

By Kevin Murphy

GREENSBURG, Kansas |
Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:48pm EDT

GREENSBURG, Kansas (Reuters) – When community leaders in tornado-ravaged places such as Joplin, Mo., consider the future, they look to Greensburg, Kansas.

Destroyed by a powerful tornado on May 4, 2007, Greensburg is renowned for its rebirth as a community of sustainable living. The town has energy-saving buildings and landscaping at every turn, drawing curious public officials and tourists from around the world.

“Greensburg is certainly a great story,” said Steve Castaner, a long-term recovery manager for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s a laboratory for how you can take advantage of opportunities to reinvent yourself.”

Next week, FEMA will host a “sustainable communities workshop” in Greensburg, attended by people from Joplin and two southeast U.S. communities recently damaged by tornadoes. They will learn how to follow Greensburg’s example.

The EF-5 tornado destroyed 95 percent of Greensburg, a town of 1,600 in the flat farmland of south central Kansas. Almost immediately, city, state and community leaders talked about bringing Greensburg back green, said Mayor Bob Dixson.

Greensburg’s population is down to about 800 because of a loss of housing stock and jobs, but it draws “a pilgrimage” of people who want to see sustainability at work, said Matt Deighton, a volunteer who gives tours of the town.

There is plenty to see.

The tornado destroyed many of the town’s large trees, so wind turbines now outnumber them. The town has a ten-turbine wind farm. The hospital has its own turbine, as does the public school and even the Best Western motel, which has saved 50 percent on its utility bill.

“As far as I know, we are the only hotel in the United States with a wind power generator,” said Ron Wright, owner of the Best Western Night Watchman Inn.

The new public school not only has a wind turbine but 97 wells dug 410 feet into the ground for a geothermal heating system that uses the 55-degree water to cool or warm air pumped into the building.

Like those of many buildings in town, the school’s windows are sized and positioned to make best use of natural light and the sun’s warmth.

The mayor had his house built with small windows on the north and larger ones elsewhere, and he used timber in four- or eight-foot lengths to reduce waste.

City Hall and several other buildings have rooftop solar panels to convert sunshine into electric power. Many homeowners have chosen to build energy-efficient houses.

In building anew, Greensburg used a lot of old materials. Bricks for the walls at city hall came from a power plant the tornado destroyed. The furniture store is made of bricks from the old store. Wood siding at the school came from trees damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Rain is not wasted. All through town are systems for filtering and capturing rainwater, which is stored in underground cisterns for irrigation when the weather is dry.

Greensburg is building a museum to herald what used to be its biggest claim to fame — the largest hand-dug well in the world — but also to tell the story of its green rebirth.

Its slogan is that it is “Stronger. Better. Greener.”

The community took advantage of various federal programs to build with sustainability in mind, but it took a spirit of public and private cooperation to be successful, Dixson said.

FEMA provided $80 million in subsidies for construction of city hall, the school and hospital, said Pam Reves, city treasurer. The U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory provided technical assistance and other guidance on sustainable construction in the public and private sector.

A key player is Greensburg GreenTown, a nonprofit organization that promotes green projects and gives tours. The town boasts the most LEED-certified buildings, a recognized system of measuring green projects, per capita in America.

The visit by officials from Joplin and the communities of Smithville, Miss. and Cordova, Ala., comes on the heels of an earlier visit by a delegation from Tuscaloosa, Ala., heavily damaged by a recent tornado.

Greensburg City Councilwoman Erica Goodman said Greensburg is ready with a message of hope for other communities.

“We can’t tell you want to do,” Goodman said. “We can only tell you what we have done and hopefully you can take that home and start your recovery.”

(Writing and reporting by Kevin Murphy; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Ellen Wulfhorst)

By Geoff Davidian

MINOT, North Dakota |
Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:11pm EDT

MINOT, North Dakota (Reuters) – The world seemed to disappear before the eyes of U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Theron Griffin, who stood guard on Saturday as the swelling brown waters of the Souris River consumed this North Dakota city.

Griffin was alone for most of the 14 hours he acted as a sentinel to the town of Minot, where about 12,000 residents have evacuated and officials are fighting to stem the record-breaking crest of river water that has submerged thousands of homes.

“See those rapids, those white waves?” Griffin said, pointing to water that almost swallowed a stop sign. “Those weren’t there 14 hours ago.”

Griffin explained how teams of local and federal authorities piled dirt, sand and clay along the river banks for five days in an attempt to thwart the city’s inundation.

“The dikes on the north side of Third Street have pretty much failed,” he said. “The small berms have failed.”

Floodwaters swallowed more than 3,000 Minot-area homes, including that of Cassandra Martin who moved to Minot in February with her husband, Brandon, and Mea, their 16-month-old daughter.

The couple fled their home on official orders and were staying at a downtown Red Cross shelter.

“We’re renting a home just two blocks from here, and we snuck down there last night when the National Guard stepped away to survey the damage,” said Martin, who is pregnant with their second child.

The water was 4-feet deep on the first floor and the basement, some 12-feet deep, was completely flooded, she said.

More evacuees are expected from the towns of Turtle Lake, Velva, and Sawyer, among others, according to Allan McGeough, executive director of the mid-Dakota chapter of the Red Cross.

In Sawyer, about 16 miles southeast of Minot, 400 residents were told to evacuate after river water rushed through a downtown roadway, and as many as 300 people in Velva will require shelter, authorities said.

The Souris River was expected to crest early on Sunday. By Saturday evening, it was at least 3.5 feet above the 130-year-old record it shattered on Friday.

It is expected to crest by Sunday morning at 3.8 feet above that record, according to the National Weather Service.

(Writing by Eric Johnson; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES |
Fri Jun 24, 2011 10:55pm EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – At least two people were killed and dozens injured on Friday when a tractor-trailer rig crashed through closed rail crossing gates and collided with an Amtrak train on a rural Nevada highway, authorities said.

The truck drove into the side of an Amtrak train carrying 204 passengers and 14 crew members at a rail crossing about 70 miles east of Reno, Nevada, Highway Patrol spokesman Dan Lopez said.

Lopez said that at least two people, including the driver of the truck, were confirmed killed in the fiery crash on U.S. Route 95, which sent a plume of black smoke billowing into the air over the scene.

“We haven’t been able to gain access to the train to make sure there’s no one else in there,” Lopez told Reuters by phone from the scene. “There could be further fatalities.”

He said investigators were trying to determine why the driver ignored the closed crossing arms and flashing red lights before hitting the train.

“The truck did in fact strike the train at the fourth car and according to witness statements the gates and lights were operational,” Lopez said.

About 60 people were taken to Banner Churchill Community Hospital in Fallon, about 30 miles away, hospital spokeswoman Aimee Fulk told Reuters.

Fulk said the 10 most seriously hurt patients were admitted to the hospital’s emergency room, while the remaining 50 were treated for lesser injuries.

“They were minor injuries where they able to walk and probably just need to be checked over just in case,” Fulk said, adding that some had already been released by late afternoon.

Fulk said she had no further information on the condition of the patients taken to the emergency room but was not aware of any life-threatening injuries among them.

She said some crash victims may have been taken to other hospitals. Authorities arranged overnight shelter for others at an elementary school in Fallon.

“I visited with those affected by today’s train crash this afternoon at the shelter in Fallon. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. Kathleen and I will keep them in our thoughts and prayers,” Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval said in a written statement.

The westbound California Zephyr was en route from Chicago to Emeryville, California when it was hit by the gravel truck.

Amtrak said in a written statement that representatives for the passenger rail service, which is partly owned by the U.S. government, were headed to the scene, along with those of track owner Union Pacific.

“We are saddened by any injury and appreciate the emergency response by local and state agencies,” Amtrak said in the statement. “We ask the news media to be respectful of our customers, our employees and their families.”

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb, Editing by Greg McCune)

NEW YORK |
Fri Jun 24, 2011 11:10pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As New York’s same-sex couples head to the altar to celebrate their newly won right to marry, they can take comfort in the fact that, if it doesn’t work out, their right to get divorced in the state just got a lot easier as well.

State senators on Friday voted 33-29 to approve marriage equality legislation introduced by Governor Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat in his first year of office. New York will become the sixth and most populous U.S. state to allow gay marriage.

“One of the so-called benefits to marriage is actually divorce,” said Ruthann Robson, professor of law at the City University of New York. “If same-sex marriage is recognized, same-sex divorce would be recognized too.”

In fact, same-sex divorce was first recognized in New York in 2008, when an appeals court found that a same-sex marriage performed in Canada could be legally recognized in New York for the purposes of dissolving the union.

But without a formal law on the books, same-sex divorce in the state has proceeded on a case-by-case basis, creating some degree of uncertainty for same-sex couples looking to undo their unions, said Bettina Hindin, an attorney at Raoul Felder and Partners, who has represented same-sex couples in New York divorce proceedings.

Since same-sex marriages are now legally equivalent to heterosexual unions, same-sex couples’ right to divorce will be rooted in New York’s Domestic Relations Law, rather than cobbled together out of court rulings and individual judges’ decisions, according to Hindin.

“A lot of things are going to be easier” with legalized same-sex marriage, Hindin said. “It’s still somewhat out of the ordinary; this will make things far more ordinary.”

KIDS STILL AN ISSUE

If same-sex couples married in New York leave the state, however, they may run into trouble getting a divorce, especially if they end up in one of the 30 states that do not recognize same-sex marriage, said Susan Sommer, senior counsel at Lambda Legal, which advocates for gay rights.

In some states, such as Wyoming, courts have found a right to divorce even absent the right to marry. In other jurisdictions that don’t recognize same-sex marriages, such as Texas, attempts at same-sex divorce have yielded mixed results.

In 2010, two trial courts in Austin and Dallas granted two separate gay couples’ petitions for divorce. The Austin appeals court upheld the ruling on appeal, while the Dallas appeals court did not, ruling that the courts lacked authority to issue divorces for same-sex couples. Both cases are currently pending before the Texas Supreme Court.

“It can be a real bind for people, trapped in this legal limbo,” Sommer said.

Still, same-sex relationships are no more susceptible to divorce than their heterosexual counterparts, Sommer added. According to a 2008 report from the Williams Institute at the University of California Los Angeles, annual same-sex marriage divorce rates were about 2 percent, nearly identical to the rate for opposite-sex marriage.

“People go into their marriages expecting everything to work out, and for the majority of people that’s the case,” Sommer said. “But stuff happens.”

One issue that remains unresolved by the same-sex marriage vote is child custody, where one partner is a biological parent but the other has failed to adopt the child.

“Money is easy,” Hindin said. “It’s the children, the truly emotional piece of the relationship, that will be coming to the forefront and have to be dealt with by statute.”

(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Editing by Jesse Wegman and Paul Simao)

NEW YORK |
Fri Jun 24, 2011 10:53pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) – When New York became the sixth and by far the largest state to legalize same-sex marriage, following a grueling overtime session in the state Legislature on Friday, it immediately transformed the national debate over the issue, legal experts said.

With a population over 19 million — more than the combined population of the five states that currently allow gay marriage, plus the District of Columbia, where it is also legal — New York is poised to provide the most complete picture yet of the legal, social and economic consequences of gay marriage.

“I think that having same-sex marriage in New York will have tremendous moral and political force for the rest of the country — in part because New York is a large state, and in part because it hasn’t come easily,” said Suzanne Goldberg, a professor at Columbia Law School.

The New York Assembly passed same-sex marriage legislation twice before, in 2007 and 2009, but in both cases it stalled in the state Senate, as it nearly did again this week. The bill passed late on Friday after legislators agreed on language allowing religious organizations to refuse to perform services or lend space for same-sex weddings.

The new law’s impact can be measured in part by the numbers at play: New York is home to more than 42,000 same-sex couples, according to an analysis of U.S. census data conducted by the Williams Institute. This means, among other things, that the number of same-sex couples living in states allowing same-sex marriage has more than doubled overnight.

REAL-WORLD DATA

If a significant portion of those couples choose to marry, it could provide a wealth of new information about the practical economic effects of such legislation, from employment and retirement benefits to divorce rates and wedding and tourism industries, said New York University Law School professor Arthur Leonard.

Parties on both sides of the issue frequently invoke the hypothetical economic impact of same-sex marriage, Leonard pointed out, so the influx of real-world data from New York could go a long way toward changing those hypotheticals into concrete facts.

“It becomes less of an experiment the more information we have,” he added.

The ripple effect of the new law is likely to provide more than just information, said Goldberg. New York’s mobile population means that the effects of the law will reach literally into other states.

“New Yorkers tend to move about the country quite a lot,” Goldberg said. “High numbers of same-sex couples likely to marry here will increase pressure on other states to treat those couples fairly.”

Currently, 39 states have laws defining marriage as between a man and a woman, according to statistics from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

NEW YORK UNIQUE

For states considering how to handle calls for same-sex marriage, Massachusetts — the first state to legalize it, in 2004 — has generally served as the reference point, Leonard said. But he noted that New York was different from Massachusetts for two primary reasons.

First, it has more than three times as many people. Second, New York instituted same-sex marriage through legislation, complete with religious exemptions. Massachusetts, on the other hand, established the right to same-sex marriage in a court ruling.

The significance of that difference cuts both ways, said Michael Dorf, a professor at Cornell Law School who studies the constitutional and social consequences of same-sex marriage in the United States.

When legislation fails to pass, it can serve as evidence of a minority group’s political weakness or of widespread prejudice against it, Dorf said. Both are factors courts use under an equal-protection analysis to determine whether to intervene and protect minority rights. The New York legislation’s success, in contrast, could lead judges in other states to say, “‘We don’t need to intervene, let the political process work this through,’” Dorf said.

But because courts are also wary to make rulings that are perceived to be too far outside the mainstream, the New York law may begin to tip that balance.

“To the extent that the anti-same-sex marriage argument has been that this is a radical change and incompatible with the country’s social mores, the fact that the country’s third most populous state has done so shows that it may not be,” Dorf said.

Regardless of the immediate impact of the law, Dorf said, politics and public opinion on the issue “are in the course of rapid change.”

“It seems inevitable that we’ll have same-sex marriage in most of the states within a decade,” he said.

(Reporting by Jessica Dye; Editing by Jesse Wegman)

By Tom Brown and Peter Henderson

MIAMI/SAN FRANCISCO |
Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:37pm EDT

MIAMI/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Going lightly on the gas pedal, getting a few dollars of gas rather than filling up, cutting out the cruising, and swapping the BMW for a Dodge Caliber — those are ways Americans are coping with gasoline prices well above $3 a gallon.

But people pumping gas on Friday from Miami to San Francisco saw prospects for lower prices thanks to President Barack Obama’s decision on Thursday to tap the country’s emergency petroleum stockpile as part of a global effort to bolster tight oil supplies.

The release of 30 million barrels from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve may not make people reschedule long summer road trips but could spell welcome relief for household budgets crimped by an anemic economic recovery.

While it might be a political move by Obama to help his re-election bid for 2012, as some speculate, most drivers seemed happy to get a break, even a small one.

Jonathan Sifuentes, a 26-year-old power company employee, called the decision “the right thing to do” as he fueled up a Toyota Camry sedan on Miami’s outskirts.

“Everyone is hurting, with the economy, and unfortunately we do need gas to maintain our lifestyle, to go to work, to get groceries, to pick up our kids,” he said.

Gasoline prices have fallen about 30 cents since the beginning of May to an average of $3.65 a gallon, but the U.S. Department of Energy said it expected gasoline to average $3.75 a gallon this summer, up 99 cents from last year.

While U.S. gas prices may look like a steal to a European, Americans rely more on the stuff. The American lifestyle built around the car and cheap gas prices, for all the work on mass transit and renewable energy, is not going away.

Some drivers hoped the reserve release would help bring down gas prices as much as 50 to 75 cents per gallon. But Dales Feild, a 55-year-old retired General Motors Co assembly worker in Detroit who likes to go shopping and cruising around town for the fun of it, said she did not expect to see a gallon below $3 again, ever.

“I was surprised when it did it once, I don’t think it’ll happen again,” Feild said as she filled the tank of her navy blue GMC Sonoma pickup truck.

‘NOT AN EMERGENCY’

Chicagoan Jackson Donnie, a 29-year-old landlord, had stopped filling his gas tank, putting in $20 each time, and was often perilously close to empty. He was walking more or riding his scooter. Obama, he said, felt America’s pain at the pumps.

“I think what he did is just to give the economy a break because we were so uptight,” said Donnie. “He feels for us. He’s a human being just like we are.”

Diana Crane, 59, was buying $15 worth of gas at a Houston Valero station for her Ford Focus. She said Obama’s motives might have been political, but she did not really care.

“He’s trying to make people feel good.” said Crane. “If they feel good, maybe they’ll vote for him. That’s what politicians do. Isn’t the government supposed to be for the people?”

Not everyone was willing to give Obama credit for doing the right thing, like Los Angeles nurse Igor Piligramm, 45.

“That’s a bad idea because emergency supplies exist for emergencies,” he said as he filled up his sedan in Hollywood. “This is not an emergency.”

While there might not be many options for short-term relief, the high gas prices and the release of vast reserves, only the third in history, inevitably led drivers to talk about the need for long-term solutions, from America pumping more of its own gas to investing in renewable energy.

The latter is particularly popular in a green energy hotbed like San Francisco, where Praneal Narayan, a software company employee, was pumping gas in his Lexus.

“It feels like there is always some excuse for the price of fuel going up,” he said. “Alternative energy is what we should really be focused on instead of what is the price of fuel today.”

Until the long-term fixes come through, drivers just need to find the way to make it through the month, like 48-year-old San Francisco yacht captain Yohy Bitton.

Bitton was filling up for a drive down the California coast for the weekend, but he was not taking his own gas- guzzling BMW. He rented a compact Dodge Caliber.

“I’m driving to LA. I’d rather drive this,” he said. “The mileage is better, it seems. Much better.”

(Additional reporting by Bruce Nichols in Houston, Euanju Lie in Chicago, Deepa Seetharaman in Detroit and Mary Slosson in Los Angeles; Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Peter Cooney)

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla |
Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:57pm EDT

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – The end is in sight for the weeks-long first-degree murder trial of Casey Anthony, the young hard-partying Florida mother who garnered national attention in 2008 when she falsely claimed her 2-year-old daughter Caylee had been kidnapped by a nanny.

Judge Belvin Perry on Friday made plans for the jury to begin deliberations by the end of next week.

Defense attorneys spent the day once again attempting to punch holes in the state’s evidence.

Prosecutors say 25-year-old Casey smothered Caylee with duct tape on June 16, 2008, drove around several days with the toddler’s body in her car trunk and then dumped the remains in woods near the Anthony family home outside of Orlando.

Caylee was reported missing on July 15, 2008, by Casey’s mother, who was frustrated by Casey’s excuses for why she couldn’t see her granddaughter.

Cindy Anthony said she became alarmed when she smelled a stench she likened to death in Casey’s abandoned car.

Despite Casey’s initial statement to detectives that Caylee was kidnapped, her defense team contends the child accidentally drowned in the family’s backyard pool and the death went unreported.

Defense attorney Jose Baez suggested to the jury in his opening statement that Casey’s father, George Anthony, had some role in the disposal of the body.

Yuri Melich, the lead detective in the case, acknowledged on Friday that he saw a television report showing George had used the same distinctive type of duct tape found on Caylee’s skull to hang a missing persons poster at the search command center he ran with his wife.

Melich testified that he never followed up and asked George about the tape.

Melich also said he told searchers to ignore a tip in August 2008 from meter reader Roy Kronk about possible human remains in the woods. Melich said the tip was vague but seemed to identify a location that previously had been searched by a cadaver dog.

On December 11, 2008, following another tip from Kronk, Caylee’s remains were found in those woods but in a slightly different area than the tip specified, Melich said.

Baez also called to the witness stand one of the first deputies to go to the Anthony home in response to Cindy’s 911 call on July 15, 2008.

Deputy Ryan Eberlin acknowledged that he didn’t notice a horrid odor of decomposition emanating from Casey’s car, in contrast to what many other prosecution witnesses testified they smelled.

The deputy mentioned he had briefly handcuffed Casey that night, a statement that led to the jury finding out that Casey was accused of credit card fraud by her mother.

Baez hammered at his theory that the Anthony family was dysfunctional. Baez contends that Casey’s seeming lack of remorse over her daughter’s death is a result of being sexually abused by family members. George specifically denied any such abuse from the witness stand.

Casey’s brother, Lee, described how the family denied Casey’s obvious pregnancy until just before she gave birth.

Lee, called as a defense witness, said he noticed Casey was pregnant in early to mid-2005 when Casey exited the bathroom they shared at the Anthony family home.

“When I went in, she was coming out. I could see her mid-section and she was showing,” Lee testified.

Lee said he remarked, “‘Excuse me. What the hell is that?’ She kinda just waved me off.”

Lee said he confronted his mother within a day or two. Cindy previously has testified that she thought Casey was just putting on weight or experiencing some bloating.

Lee said the next time he saw clearly that Casey was pregnant was later in the year when she picked him up at the airport. Lee said Casey’s belly was “far enough out to where I knew she was not just putting on weight.”

Lee cried on the witness stand as he testified that “regrettably” he did not visit Casey in the hospital after she gave birth to Caylee in August 2005. Pressed by Baez to explain why, Lee said, “I was just angry at everyone in general, that they didn’t want to include me or felt it important to tell me (about the pregnancy), especially since I had already asked.”

Earlier in the morning, over state objections, Baez tried to ask Cindy whether she and George had experienced marital problems.

Judge Belvin Perry asked Baez how that line of questioning fit into the defense theory of the case involving accidental drowning and sexual abuse. After a long jury break and a lengthy meeting between attorneys and the judge at his bench, the issue was dropped.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)

By Michael Avok

FORT CALHOUN, Neb |
Fri Jun 24, 2011 7:14pm EDT

FORT CALHOUN, Neb (Reuters) – The chair of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission will arrive in Nebraska Sunday to monitor preparations against Missouri River flooding at two Nebraska nuclear power plants, officials said Friday.

NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko will visit the Cooper Nuclear Station south of Omaha Sunday and the Fort Calhoun plant north of Omaha Monday, said agency spokesman Victor Dricks.

During both visits, Jaczko will also be talking with NRC resident inspectors– the agency staff who work on-site every day — and plant officials, Dricks said.

Flood water up to 2-feet deep is standing on the site of the 478-megawatt Fort Calhoun plant, operated by the Omaha Public Power District, the NRC said Wednesday.

The utility has erected a water-filled berm around vital areas of the plant — which shut in early April to refuel — to protect the containment building and auxiliary buildings from up to six feet of water.

Heavy rains and snow melt have flooded the Missouri River valley, threatening towns from Montana to Missouri.

An NRC inspection at Fort Calhoun two years ago indicated deficiencies in the flood preparation area, which have now been remedied, the agency said.

The rising river is not expected to reach vital equipment at the 800-megawatt Cooper plant, located near Brownville, Nebraska and operated by the Nebraska Public Power District, the NRC said. Cooper is running at full power.

During the Fort Calhoun stop, the chairman will meet first with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials, then take a helicopter tour along the Missouri River to provide an overview of the flooding and measures being taken. Following the plant visit he will meet with executives of the utility.

“Both plants remain under the ‘unusual event’ declarations, the lowest of four levels of emergency notification,” Dricks said. “We are maintaining close communications with the National Weather Service and the Army Corps of Engineers.”

Fort Calhoun will stay shut down until the water recedes, Dricks said..

(Additional reporting by Naveen Arul in Bangalore and Eileen O’Grady in Houston; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Greg McCune)

By Jennifer Greenhill-Taylor

ORLANDO, Fla |
Thu Jun 23, 2011 8:32pm EDT

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) – The mother of accused child killer Casey Anthony offered the startling revelation in court on Thursday that she was the one who searched for information about chloroform on the family’s computer.

Cindy Anthony testified that she was trying to research information on her dog, who had been eating bamboo leaves and not feeling well. She said her search led her from chlorophyll to chloroform, as several types of chlorophyll can produce chloroform.

Previous witnesses at Casey’s first-degree murder trial in Florida have testified they found evidence of what they considered to be a surprisingly large quantity of chloroform, as well as residue from a decomposing human body, in Casey’s car trunk.

Prosecutors accuse Casey, 25, of using duct tape to suffocate her 2-year-old daughter Caylee on June 16, 2008 and then storing the child’s body in the trunk.

Cindy also testified on Thursday that the trunk liner in Casey’s car was already stained when Cindy and her husband George bought the car from a used car dealership in Orlando.

Prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick challenged Cindy’s claims, asking why records showed she was at work on the dates of the Internet searches in March 2008.

Cindy said because she was salaried, her work record often varied from reality.

“We were not supposed to report overtime, so sometimes we’d only work a half day to make up for longer hours,” she said.

Cindy said she previously had given law enforcement and the state attorney’s office the information about her computer searches.

“This is not new,” she said.

MOTHER RECALLS “INHALATION” SEARCH

Casey and Caylee lived with George and Cindy Anthony. Cindy said the computer at their home was almost always on, and she often used it right after Casey. She said anyone, including Casey’s friends, could sit down and use the computer.

“Did you input the words ‘how to make chloroform’ into a Google search on March 21?” Burdick asked. Cindy said she didn’t recall typing in those words.

Later a computer forensics expert testified that those exact words had been typed into the Anthonys’ computer on that date just 20 seconds after a MySpace entry.

Cindy said she never went on MySpace or Facebook.

Burdick pressed her on other search topics that prosecution experts found evidence of, including self-defense, neck-breaking and a shovel.

Cindy said she had not looked up those things but remembered a You Tube pop-up screen with a skateboarder titled “Neck-breaking.”

When asked about a search for “inhalation” on March 17, Cindy said she made that search after receiving an email from a friend about the danger of a child ingesting or inhaling household items.

“I searched for alcohol, acetone, peroxide and other household chemicals because I wanted to know about things Caylee might get hold of in the house,” Cindy said.

When asked whether she’d been on one particular website 84 times searching for chloroform, Cindy said she’d only been on it a few times. The site offers information and supplies to amateur scientists.

Defense attorney Jose Baez questioned Kevin Stenger, a computer forensics expert who had earlier testified for the prosecution. Stenger said he used two programs to arrange the deleted Internet history data from the Anthony computer.

Baez asked him to compare reports from these two programs, and Stenger acknowledged that there were differences in the reports. One program showed that the amateur scientists website had been visited once on March 21. The other program showed it had been visited 84 times.

The trial is now in its fifth week, and the defense has continued to try to chip away at the prosecution’s case.

Defense attorneys maintain Caylee drowned in the family’s backyard pool. Her skeletal remains were found in woods near the Anthony family’s home in the Orlando area on December 11, 2008, following a nationwide search.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Casey.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Greg McCune)