All 4 in Navy plane crash believed dead
MORGANTON, Ga. (AP) — All four crew members aboard a Navy plane that barely missed a house and crashed in north Georgia woods are believed dead and searchers scoured the site Tuesday afternoon for the final victim, authorities said.
Naval Air Station Pensacola spokesman Harry White told The Associated Press that all aboard were presumed killed in Monday afternoon's crash of the Florida-based T-39N Sabreliner. Three bodies were found. He said authorities concluded the fourth person was dead as an investigative team of at least seven military personnel arrived at in the dense forest.
River searched for missing 5-year-old
SATSUMA, Fla. (AP) — Investigators searched a river Tuesday for a 5-year-old girl who disappeared from her father's mobile home more than a year ago.
Putnam County Sheriff Jeff Hardy would not say why the river was being searched. He said he met with members of Haleigh Cummings' family Tuesday afternoon, but he would not say what he told them.
Closing arguments in teen's murder trial
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — An Ecuadorean immigrant broke the rules when he decided to fight back against a gang of mostly white teenagers and ended up paying with his life, a prosecutor said Tuesday in closing arguments in the murder trial of one of the teens.
Prosecutors contend the November 2008 stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero near a train station was the culmination of an ongoing campaign of violence against Hispanics in an avocation the teens called "beaner-hopping," or "Mexican hopping."
Seven teenagers were implicated in Lucero's death, but only one, 19-year-old Jeffrey Conroy, has been charged with murder and manslaughter as a hate crime, among other offenses, because prosecutors contend he was the one who inflicted the fatal blow. Four of the other teenagers have pleaded guilty; two are awaiting trial.
Facebook launches new 'Safety Center'
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) — Facebook has launched a revamped internal site designed to help people stay safe and report threats while on the popular online hangout.
Facebook's "Safety Center," which features new tools for parents, teachers, teens and law enforcement, is the first major endeavor from the social networking site and its four-month-old global safety advisory board.
The company unveiled its Safety Center a day after meeting with child advocacy officials in the U.K., who had been pushing the company to install a so-called "panic button" on the site for some time, following the kidnapping and murder there of a teenager by a man she encountered on Facebook.
6-minute hearing on pants-bombing case
DETROIT (AP) — Federal prosecutors said Tuesday they have shared hundreds of documents and other evidence with lawyers for a Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day.
A judge held a six-minute hearing solely to "take the temperature" of the case against Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was not in court. No trial date was set and there was no discussion of his cooperation with authorities or any possible plea bargain.
Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear on an Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight Dec. 25 last year.
Suicide after IRS raid spurs lawsuit
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indiana man whose wife committed suicide three days after Internal Revenue Service agents raided their home is suing the U.S. government for wrongful death.
The government denies any responsibility for the death of Denise Simon, a 50-year-old mother of six from Fort Wayne.
Federal court papers say Simon left behind a note stating that she could not "live in terror of being accused of things I did not do."
Murder charge in death of couple
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — An unemployed security guard was charged Tuesday with murdering a pregnant woman and her husband after slipping into their Southern California beach house during a robbery.
Joshua Graham Packer, 20, of Ventura was charged with three counts of murder in the stabbing deaths of Brock and Davina Husted and their unborn child. Davina Husted was about five months pregnant.
The charges carry special allegations that could make Packer eligible for the death penalty if convicted. Packer also was charged with burglary, robbery and use of a gun.