National & International News
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NBCNews.com
5 hours ago

Funeral for "Ladybug," 9, Is First for School Tornado Victims

AP The first funeral for a child killed when a tornado struck the Plaza Towers elementary school in Oklahoma will likely be held Thursday. Antonia Candelaria, 9, who died along with six other children when Monday’s massive EF-5 twister tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, was due to be buried at a local church. She was nicknamed "Ladybug" and was “specially gifted in art as well as music” and “loved to draw, paint, color and make crafts, according to an obituary published in The Oklahoman. “She was a beautiful young lady on the inside and out,” the obituary said. In total, 24 people were killed and as many as 13,000 homes damaged or destroyed. Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
4 hours ago

U.K. Mom Confronts Blood-Soaked Man After Murder


A woman who talked to a blood-soaked, knife-carrying man accused of murdering a British soldier in the southeast London neighborhood of Woolwich on Wednesday, said she did so to protect the crowd that was beginning to gather, NBC News reported. Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, jumped off the bus she was riding when she saw a man slumped on the sidewalk next to a crashed car. Assuming it was a road accident she decided to offer first-aid, but as she got closer, she saw a man covered in blood and carrying a butcher’s knife. She also saw a handgun. “He was obviously a bit excited and the thing was to talk to him,” said Loyau-Kennett, a mother of two. Photos of the scene show her, hands in pockets, speaking apparently calmly to the man. A second alleged attacker, his hands covered in blood and holding a meat cleaver, was captured on video telling passers-by "By Allah we swear by the almighty Allah and we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone." Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
13 minutes ago

Obama Security Speech to Focus on Drones, Gitmo


President Barack Obama is set to deliver his first major national security speech of his second term on Thursday. He is expected to defend but also announce changes to his administration’s use of drones to kill suspected terrorists and foreign enemies. The White House said Obama "will discuss why the use of drone strikes is necessary, legal and just, while addressing the various issues raised by our use of targeted action." The president has also approved new "policy guidance" that sets out "standards under which we take lethal action," the White House said in a statement on the address which is scheduled for 2 p.m. ET. Obama will also discuss providing better security for U.S. diplomatic facilities, balancing security while protecting civil liberties at home and stating his desire to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, an action opposed by Congress. The speech comes a day after the administration publicly acknowledged for the first time that drone strikes have killed four Americans overseas since 2009, NBC News reported. Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
2 hours ago

What’s at Stake in Boy Scouts Vote on Gay Membership

NBC 5 News After years of emotional debate, the Boy Scouts of America is considering a proposal at its annual meeting to allow gay youths to openly participate in the organization, NBC News reported. The results are expected to be announced shortly after 6 p.m. ET Thursday. Thirteen years ago the Supreme Court ruled that as a private membership organization the Boy Scouts was free to decide whom it would admit. The exclusion of gay Scouts has been the subject of much squabbling and soul searching in the century-old organization — from local troops and councils to online petitions to national board meetings. But many questions — for example: Under the proposal, what would happen to an Eagle Scout who is gay and wants to volunteer as an adult? — still persist. For answers and analysis, click through. Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
4 hours ago

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Had Role in Triple Homicide: Sources


Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a Florida mixed martial arts fighter -- who was killed while being questioned by the FBI in Orlando on Wednesday -- murdered three people in Massachusetts in 2011 after a drug deal went awry, sources told NBC News. What began as a drug ripoff ended as a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and his friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them, the sources said. An FBI agent shot and killed Todashev on Wednesday after he allegedly attacked the agent with a knife, investigators said. The agent sustained non-life threatening injuries, the FBI said in a statement. Todashev was not suspected of being involved in the bombing, but he did confess to being involved in the brutal 2011 killings in Waltham, Mass., investigators said. Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
2 hours ago

Cleveland "Hero" Gets Free Burgers for Life

Getty Images Charles Ramsey, the Big-Mac-munching man who was credited with helping a woman escape from a Cleveland, Ohio, home where she had been held captive for over a decade, will enjoy free burgers for life, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. More than a dozen Ohio restaurants and at least one in Pennsylvania have pledged free burgers for life to Ramsey, who mentioned in numerous interviews earlier this month that he had been eating a McDonald's burger when he heard screams from the house across the street. A restaurant where he works as a dishwasher also created a special burger in his honor. The “Ramsey Burger” started out as a temporary menu item, but has since become permanent and the concept has spread to other restaurants, according to the Plain Dealer. “We want to honor our local hero with local food,” Cleveland restaurateur Scott Kuhn told the paper. “He stopped his meal midway through to help those women." Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
19 minutes ago

Wall Street Opens Lower as Global Stock Rout Spreads

AP Stocks fell after trading began Thursday, as global markets were roiled by uncertainty about when the U.S. Federal Reserve may pull back on its $85 billion a month bond purchases and by weaker-than-expected manufacturing report out of China. The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened lower, led by Bank of America. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were also down sharply in early trading. In his Congressional testimony Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated the central bank's intention to "maintain highly accommodative monetary policy as long as needed," according to CNBC. He added that any near-term decision on scaling back bond purchases depended on an improvement in jobs data. Newest figures out of the Labor Department on Thursday show that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits is down by 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, falling below the 350,000 mark that economists normally view as a sign of an improving job market, according to Reuters. Get More at NBC News

NBCNews.com
4 hours ago

Sen. Gillibrand: Sex Assaults Undermine Military


Democratic New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand comments on recent reports of sexual assaults in the military. Get More at NBC News

Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 11:14 AM
 

I have not done anything wrong. I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations.  

— IRS Director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner Refusing to answer lawmakers' questions during her appearance before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
NBCNews.com
4 hours ago

Okla. at Risk of More Tornadoes as Storms Threaten Much of U.S.

AP More bad weather – thunderstorms bringing large hail and the chance of “a tornado or two” – was in the forecast for southwestern and central Oklahoma and northwestern Texas on Thursday, NBC News reported. The risk of severe thunderstorms extended from Texas and Florida to New England and the Great Lakes and from Texas up to Montana and Washington. “The activity is expected to be far less significant than the outbreak earlier this week, but hail could be particularly large in northwest Texas and western Oklahoma,” the National Weather Service said. In the Northeast, the weather service said “storms may undergo a gradual intensification” with a chance of “mainly isolated damaging wind.” “Any severe threat should diminish by early evening,” it said. Get More at NBCNews.com

bronx ghetto tour
37 minutes ago

Bronx "Ghetto Tours" Halted Amid Residents' Outrage

Bronx AP
Real Bronx Tours, which took mostly European tourists from Manhattan to see life in the South Bronx "from a safe distance," said this week it would immediately cease all tours there. Three times a week, the $45 bus ride took visitors past food-pantry lines, a housing project and a park a guide described as a pickpocket hangout. "We've had enough of the gawkers who come to ghettoize us," Al Quinones, caretaker of a community garden, told The Associated Press. "Their timing was bad. The Bronx is not burning, not now! Now, it's resurgence." Read »
NBCNews.com
4 hours ago

West Point Sergeant Charged with Secretly Filming Female Cadets


A staff member at West Point is accused of hiding cameras in the women’s shower and locker room. Army Sgt. 1st Class, Michael McClendon was relieved of his duties at West Point and has been charged with four counts of indecent acts, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment and violations of good order and discipline, according to The New York Times. Get More at NBC News

Sandy
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 5:18 PM

Jersey Shore Towns to Vacationers: We’re Still Here

Jersey Shore Towns to Vacationers: We’re Still HereRyan Morrill/The SandPaper
More than six months after Sandy, many repeat summer renters have not yet booked homes on Long Beach Island, N.J. over fears of damage from the storm. Realtors and homeowners, who typically have the bulk of their summer properties booked up by Memorial Day, say they’re seeing more rental vacancies than usual for this time of year. They worry the storm damage got more attention than the cleanup and that summer renters, one of the main economic drivers of LBI—an island with one and a half times as many seasonal second homes as permanent residents—will take their vacations and money somewhere else. “People think we’re Seaside Heights and we’re not,” says Joe Mancini, the mayor of Long Beach, the island’s largest township. He, like others on LBI, believe that images of lingering damage in Seaside and Mantoloking, LBI’s neighbors to the north, have sowed the flawed notion that the entire Jersey shore is still damaged. “This was a horrific storm,” Mancini adds, “but we were aggressive in cleaning it up.” Read »
NBCNews.com
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 10:00 PM

NASA Funds Project to Make Space Meals with 3-D Printer

NASA is paying out $125,000 to study the use of 3-D printing technology for food preparation in space, NBC News reported. "We will be building the components for a prototype" over the grant's six-month period, David Irwin, principal investigator for the project at Texas-based Systems and Materials Research Consultancy, told NBC News. Generic mixes of starch, protein and fat can be transformed into food elements that result in food items like warm pizza with fake cheese, sauce and pepperoni, according to NBC News. The contract was signed on Wednesday and the project is part of NASA's efforts to widen the menu options for future space travelers on Mars and asteroid missions. Astronauts are currently eating pre-packaged, pre-processed foods. Get More at NBC News

Sandy
Wednesday, May 22, 2013 at 5:39 PM

N.J. Shore Town Destroyed by Sandy Confronts an Uncertain Future

N.J. Shore Town Destroyed by Sandy Confronts an Uncertain FutureGetty Images
It’s hard to relax in Highlands, a small but proud middle-class town at the northern tip of the Jersey Shore. The borough of 28,000, at the junction of the Shrewsbury River and Sandy Hook Bay, is undergoing a profound transformation that won’t end with the physical rebuilding. The unprecedented damage wrought by Sandy—up to eight feet of water inundated downtown—has prompted what might best be described as an existential crisis, with residents, business owners and public officials confronting daunting questions about the kind of place Highlands will be for those who remain, and how it will survive. Read »
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