'Psy-ops' replaced with MISO by Army
WILMINGTON, N.C. — The Army has dropped the Vietnam-era name "psychological operations" for its branch in charge of trying to change minds behind enemy lines, acknowledging the term can sound ominous.
The Defense Department picked a more neutral moniker: "Military Information Support Operations," or MISO.
U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Ken McGraw said Thursday the new name, adopted last month, more accurately reflects the unit's job of producing leaflets, radio broadcasts and loudspeaker messages to influence enemy soldiers and civilians.
"One of the catalysts for the transition is foreign and domestic sensitivities to the term 'psychological operations' that often lead to a misunderstanding of the mission," McGraw said.
Fort Bragg is home to the 4th Psychological Operations Group, the Army's only active duty psychological operations unit. Psychological operations soldiers are trained at the post.
The name change is expected to extend to all military services, a senior defense official said in Washington.
Maine ready to free Pakistan donor
PORTLAND, Maine — A Pakistani man held on an immigration violation in Maine while police were investigating the attempted Times Square car bombing will soon be free on bail, his wife said Friday.
Sara Rahman and her husband's attorney have begun the process of arranging for bond for Mohammad Shafiq Rahman of South Portland, one of three Pakistani men in New England charged with immigration violations as authorities investigated the May 1 attempted car bombing.
An immigration judge set bail this week at $10,000. He'll likely be released early in the week, after the holiday weekend, said Cynthia Arn, Rahman's lawyer.
Arn said people can be reassured that Rahman has "no connection" to Faisal Shahzad, who pleaded guilty to 10 terrorism and weapons charges in the Times Square case.
Authorities have said Rahman and two men arrested in Massachusetts may have given money to Shahzad through an informal money transfer network but may not have known how the money would be used. But no criminal charges were brought against any of the three men.
New clues emerge in 21-year-old case
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly 21 years after an 11-year-old boy was abducted on a familiar central Minnesota road, authorities acknowledged Friday there is new activity in the case, after investigators spent two days searching and digging at a farm near where Jacob Wetterling was last seen.
The Stearns County Sheriff's Department said Friday they had seized several items during their search of the 158-acre property in St. Joseph and confirmed that the search was related to Jacob's disappearance, which drew national attention and led to state and federal sex offender registration laws.
Authorities did not describe the items seized or release any additional details. The department said in a statement that analysis of the items could take weeks or months.
Jacob was riding his bicycle with his brother and a friend on Oct. 22, 1989, when they were approached by a masked gunman who told the boys to stop and lie on their stomachs in a ditch. He ordered the other two boys to run away, and Jacob has been missing ever since.
Texas drops charges in online sex case
HOUSTON — The case against a Houston mother accused of flying to Canada to lure away a 16-year-old boy she had an online sexual relationship with has been dropped, prosecutors in Texas said Friday.
Charges against Lauri Price, 43, were dropped after investigators determined they would not be able to show Price knew the teenager was underage, said Donna Hawkins, a spokeswoman for the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
The teenager had told Price he was 20 years old, Hawkins said.
"Throughout the search of (Price's) e-mails and her online history with the (teenager), the investigation was never able to determine the defendant knew he was a minor," she said.
Prosecutors also decided to drop the charges because the teen's parents weren't willing to let him testify and there were some jurisdictional issues related to the age of consent, Hawkins said.
Skip Cornelius, Price's attorney, said his client is relieved the case is over.
DNA match brings murder confession
AMITY, Maine — Police say a fingerprint and DNA from a beer can and cigarette butt led them to a man who allegedly confessed to killing two men and a boy in northern Maine.
A Maine State Police spokesman says 20-year-old Thayne Ormsby of Orient was charged Friday with three counts of murder. Ormsby was being held on a fugitive charge in Dover, N.H.
The victims were found stabbed to death June 23 in a mobile home on U.S. 1 in Amity, a town of 200 residents near the Canadian border. An affidavit filed Friday indicates Ormsby told police he thought one of the victims was dealing drugs. Killed were 55-year-old Jeffrey Ryan, his 10-year-old son, Jesse, and 30-year-old neighbor Jason Dehahn.
Ancient whale's skull is 10 feet across
LOS ANGELES — Paleontologists digging near the coast of Peru have uncovered the largest fossilized skull of a sperm whale ever found.
The 12-million-year-old skull — which measures nearly 10 feet across — belonged to a now-extinct genus and species of sperm whale that could have been as much as 57 feet long. The fossil includes the longest documented sperm whale teeth, measuring more than 14 inches. The whale, described in a paper published Thursday in the journal Nature, was christened Leviathan melvillei in honor of Moby Dick author Herman Melville.