TACOMA, Wash. -- A jury found Steven Powell guilty Wednesday on 14 counts of voyeurism for taking pictures of girls and women in various states of undress for the purpose of sexual gratification. The charges stemmed from an investigation into his missing daughter-in-law.

Defense attorneys had argued that there was too much reasonable doubt in the case to convict Powell, but jurors disagreed, finding him guilty on all counts.

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Powell is the former father-in-law of Susan Powell, who has been missing since December 2009. Her husband, Josh Powell, who is Steven's son, was a person of interest in her disappearance. He killed himself and the couple's two children in an explosion in Graham, Wash., earlier this year.

Steven Powell's sentencing hearing was scheduled for June 15. He faces a standard sentence of about four years, but the state has alleged aggravating factors that could result in a longer term.

Authorities brought the voyeurism charges last year after searching Steve Powell's home during their investigation into the disappearance of Susan Powell in Utah. 

Jurors questioned evidence during deliberations, asking if a disc of pictures was found in boxes containing only Steve Powell's belongings.

Watch the video and read the full story on King5.com

Evidence used by prosecutors included photos of young girls in bathrooms, girls changing clothes and at least one video of Powell allegedly touching himself. The photo corresponding to each charge was shown once again to jurors during the prosecution's closing arguments.

Defense attorneys argued reasonable doubt exists and that, "this case is not about what you feel, it's about what you know."

The photos were found on Powell's computer last fall when police searched his Puyallup home. At the time, Powell's former daughter-in-law, Susan Powell, had been missing for nearly two years. Officers were looking for her journals.

A child pornography charge against Steven Powell was thrown out last week.

Photos of Susan Powell were tossed out as evidence because she was not considered one of the alleged victims in the voyeurism case.

King 5-TV and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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A Weston, Fla., family has won a landmark $323 million court decision against Iran and Syria, six years after their son was killed by a suicide bomber in Tel Aviv. When they’ll see the money is another matter.

A U.S. federal judge awarded Tuly and Cheryl Wultz the judgment against Iran for financially supporting the Islamic Jihad movement and Syrian for allowing the group to train in its territory. The lawsuit was filed by an Israeli advocacy group on behalf of the family. The award includes $300 million in punitive damages.

Tuly Wultz remembers like it was yesterday how the terrorist looked moments before the April 17, 2006, blast that killed his son, Daniel, when they were vacationing in Israel. They were having lunch in Tel Aviv when the suicide bomber approached, standing 2 feet away from Daniel Wultz, 16.

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Read the original story at NBCMiami.com

“I tried to jump on Daniel but he already detonated and the bomb was over 40 pounds of explosives,” Tuly Wultz recalled in an interview with NBC Miami. He was severely injured, and his son and 10 other people were killed in the attack by an Islamic Jihad militant.

“My heart is still bleeding for Daniel. I’ll never be recovered from that,” the father said.

He said of Daniel Wultz, “He did what is right, he did what is justice.”

Daniel Wultz died from his injuries on May 14, 2006.

On Monday, the sixth anniversary of his death, his parents received word of the court victory.

Wultz Attorney Robert Tolchin told msnbc.com that with the court judgment in hand his clients can seek Iranian and Syrian assets to collect the award.

Tolchin said he couldn’t be specific, but he would explore “various avenues.”

“There is a lot of litigation by people seeking the turnover of Iranian assets,” Tolchin said. “The Iranians have kept U.S. courts busy.”

As in the Wultz case, Iran often does not fight against a judgment, but hires major U.S. firms to fight the collection of the award, Tolchin said.

Syria, on the other hand, did fight the claim and was represented in court by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark.

The case was brought under a special provision of federal law that allows U.S. citizens to take court actions against foreign states providing support for terrorism.

“Iran and Syria are foreign states with substantial wealth and that have expended significant resources sponsoring terrorism,” wrote Judge Royce C. Lamberth in his ruling.

“Barbaric acts like the April 17, 2006 suicide bombing have no place in civilized society and represent a moral depravity that knows no bounds.”

The Wultzes say they are pleased with the decision, which they say is just one step towards justice and a way to ensure their son’s death was not in vain.

“This judgment was important because it’s the first time that there’s a judgment that concerns terrorism against Syria,” Cheryl Wultz said.

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Prosecutors say a trio of defendants lured a North County, Calif., Marine wife to go on a dinner cruise but had different plans for her in the hours before her death.

New details were revealed in court Tuesday about what may have happened to Brittany Killgore, the 22-year-old Fallbrook resident who was last seen alive on April 13, wearing a purple evening gown.

Dorothy Grace Marie Maraglino, 36, appeared in court to face a murder charge for allegedly aiding and abetting in Killgore's murder, prosecutors charged. She stood quietly in court staring at the ground with half her face covered by hair.

Maraglino is pregnant, according to a law enforcement source, who added that she is due in August.

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Her alleged co-conspirators, Jessica Lynn Lopez, 25, and U.S. Marine Staff Sgt. Louis Perez, 45, have pleaded not guilty to murder in previous court appearances.

Deputy District Attorney Patrick Espinoza said Maraglino was involved in every part of the crime, from the planning to the execution.

Read original story on NBCSanDiego.com

Killgore's body was found abandoned on the side of the road on April 17, four days after she was reported missing. The last communication anyone received from Killgore was a text on April 13 that read "help."

Prosecutors said Maraglino called Killgore April 13 to convince her to go on a boat cruise, but it was just a ruse.

Killgore did not want to go with Maraglino, prosecutors said, because she knew the defendant didn't like her.

However, Killgore agreed to go with Perez and got in the car with him. It was during that ride, prosecutors claim, that Killgore texted the word "help" to a friend.

Within minutes, according to investigators, Perez had texted Maraglino, asking her to meet him at a home she owned. Maraglino bought the home in December 2009, according to the North County Times. At some point, she shared the home with Lopez and Perez.

Investigators searched the residence several times in the days after Killgore's body was discovered, taking photos, removing evidence bags and even watching video tapes, according to neighbors.

Click here for timeline from NBCSanDiego.com: Brittany Killgore case

At a hearing last month, a prosecutor said investigators found Killgore’s blood and a weapon in Perez's car.

An incriminating note?
Authorities said Killgore's body was discovered in brush near Lake Skinner, only hours after paramedics were called to a San Diego motel and found another woman -- who turned out to be Jessica Lynn Lopez -- with self-inflicted cuts and a suicide note.

The suicide note reportedly refers to Maraglino as "Mistress" and Lopez as "Master." The San Diego Union Tribune published a report saying its staff had a copy of the handwritten note along with reaction from Lopez' attorney Sloan Ostbye, who said the contents of the letter should not be believed.

“Master I am so sorry I dragged you into this,” the letter reads. “I thought I was defending the family and it would be simple like Dexter.”

"Dexter" likely refers to the television show "Dexter," which depicts a serial killer.

Lopez admits in the letter to binding and strangling Killgore, and then dumping her body near Lake Skinner.

The prosecutor said Lopez and Perez once lived together but didn't indicate when or where. Lopez currently lives a mile from Killgore's second-floor apartment overlooking Camp Pendleton.

Maraglino and Perez practiced sadomasochism and bondage, according to online profiles posted by the two, reported The San Diego Union Tribune. Maraglino is described online as Perez's "sex slave," said the paper.

Perez has lived in San Diego County for 10 years and has a wife there.

Authorities have revealed no link between Kilgore and the sadomasochistic lifestyle, said the Tribune. She was "an innocent victim," Espinoza told the court.

Homicide detectives said Maraglino’s arrest – the third in Killgore’s case – was made as a result of information and evidence obtained throughout the ongoing investigation.

The judge set bail for her at $3 million.

Killgore recently separated from Marine Lance Cpl. Cory Killgore, who was in Afghanistan when she disappeared. She cited irreconcilable differences in her divorce filing but gave no other details.

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By now, it’s hardly news when a city bans plastic bags at checkout counters -- but an entire state? That’s happened in Hawaii, where Honolulu County has joined the state’s three other counties to give Hawaii a first-in-the-nation title.

"Passing the bans did take an effort -- change always does -- but people seemed to understand the need for such an effort," Robert Harris, director of the Sierra Club's Hawaii chapter, told msnbc.com of the two-year campaign across the islands.

The Honolulu County Council approved the ban late last month and Honolulu Mayor Peter Carlisle, who is also the county executive, initially held back his support, saying he wanted to collect more public input due to enforcement and cost concerns.

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But when he signed the ban on Thursday, Carlisle was fully committed, especially since retailers were given three years to comply.

"This is groundbreaking. By signing this environmentally friendly bill, Honolulu joined our neighbor island counties," Carlisle said. "Hawaii has become the only state in the United States where every county has plastic bag legislation."

The county law bans non-biodegradable plastic bags at checkout as well as paper bags that are not at least 40 percent recycled. Retailers in Honolulu County have until July 1, 2015, to make the change.

That date "gives us plenty of time to get ready," Carlisle told msnbc.com. "Retailers will be able to use up their inventory of bags and make arrangements to educate the public on the importance of bringing their own bag."

Kauai and Maui counties already enforce bans, while Hawaii County's ban takes effect on Jan. 17, 2013. 

The Sierra Club organized rallies to support the bans, said Harris. "We also lobbied extensively for statewide legislation, which failed, but it helped direct attention to the issue and eventually got the last county to take action."

"Being a marine state, perhaps, we are exposed more directly to the impacts of plastic pollution and the damage it does to our environment," Harris said in explaining the support in all four counties. "People in Hawaii are more likely to be in the water or in the outdoors and see the modern day tumbleweed -- plastic bags -- in the environment."

Getting shoppers to switch to reusable bags is another matter.

Island supermarkets, which said they would prefer to charge a nickel or dime for plastic bags rather than live with a ban, argued that most shoppers have shifted to paper bags, which have their own environmental impact and increase store costs. 

The Surfrider Foundation, which also lobbied for the bans as part of its mission to protect beaches and oceans, acknowledged the challenge ahead.

Interactive: The paper or plastic debate

"While we are excited that the plastic bag bans have been enacted, there has been a reported increase in paper bag use from locals," Bill Hickman, the nonprofit's point man in Hawaii for plastics, said in a blogpost Monday. He added that his group might even lobby for a fee on paper bags at some point.

The state-level legislation, which would have charged users 10 cents per plastic bag, died a quiet death earlier this month, just two weeks after being introduced. A statewide ban also recently failed in California, noted Harris. 

Ted Duboise, publisher of PlasticBagBanReport.com, said he doesn't think any state is close to a ban enforced at the state level. "Too much political hem haw," he told msnbc.com.

As for a national ban, don't hold your breath, said Duboise, citing "labor, lobbyist and plastic industry interests."

Still, the number of areas with bans or bag fees has grown across the U.S. and the globe. Dozens of areas on every continent but Antarctica are listed on an interactive map at PlasticBagBanReport.com.

So is the lesson here that it's easier to get bans at the local level?

"In Hawaii, yes," said Harris. "And looking to the mainland, I would suspect the same."

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Burbank, Ill., police are on the hunt for the husband of a newlywed woman found stabbed to death in her bathtub over the weekend.

Arnoldo Jimenez, 30, and Estrella Carrera, 26, were married on Friday, just two days before Carerra's body was found by authorities during a search prompted by worried family members.

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Jimenez hasn't been seen since, officials said. A Cook County judge issued a warrant for his arrest on Tuesday.

Still wearing wedding dress, woman stabbed to death in bathtub

Following a City Hall wedding ceremony, the newlyweds rented a party limo and celebrated their new union with a group of friends and family, ending the evening at a night club on the north side of Chicago, officials said.

The pair were last seen together at about 4 a.m. Saturday, officials said. Roughly 36 hours later, Carerra's body was found. Officials confirmed she was still wearing her silver-sequined wedding dress.

"It was a very brutal killing," Capt. Joseph Ford of the Burbank Police Department told The Associated Press Tuesday. "We do our jobs every day, of course. But something like this really motivates you to work even harder."

Investigators said there were no signs of forced entry into the bride's apartment.

Jimenez was known to be driving a black, four-door 2006 Maserati with Illinois license plates. According to The Associated Press, he had tried to keep the impending wedding secret from most of Carrera's family.

Carerra called one of her cousins, Sandy Lopez, and invited her to the party but said nothing about a wedding, The Associated Press reported.

"She didn't want to tell me she had gotten married," she said. "She didn't tell anybody besides her father the day before." 

The couple had reportedly been dating for two years prior to getting married. Carrera had two children, aged two and nine.

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Updated at 2:20 p.m. ET: Lawyers for former Sen. John Edwards rested their case in his campaign finance corruption trial Wednesday morning without calling Edwards or his onetime mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Crowds had lined up two hours before court opened in Greensboro, N.C., anticipating they might get an opportunity to hear from the principal players after defense lawyers told U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles late Tuesday that they might call Edwards, Hunter and Edwards' daughter Cate Edwards Upham to the stand on Wednesday.

Jurors were dismissed for the day, but the trial isn't over yet: The prosecution now has the opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses, followed by closing arguments from both sides. 

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It was a subdued ending to the defense phase of Edwards' trial on six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in illegal and unreported campaign donations from two wealthy supporters at a time when federal election law limited individual political contributions to $2,300 for the election cycle. The decision surprised spectators and legal analysts alike, many of whom had predicted that Upham would certainly testify and that Edwards was likely to.

• Full trial coverage on msnbc.com
• Analysis by Hampton Dellinger

"Remember, the defense told this jury John Edwards is not afraid of the truth, and I think that was foretelling that he will take the stand," said Kieran Shanahan, a former federal prosecutor who is closely watching the trial.

Abbe Lowell, Edwards' lead attorney, rested after Eagles denied another attempt by the defense to introduce evidence that Donald McGahn, a member of the Federal Election Commission, disagrees with the government's theory that the payments for Hunter constituted illegal campaign contributions.

Watch US News videos on msnbc.com

Lowell tried to introduce an audiotape of McGahn saying at a July 2011 FEC meeting that, even assuming everything the government claims is true, the payments were contributions that should have been reported.

The audio is available here from the FEC's website.

But Eagles said, "I don't think the opinions of others ... are particularly helpful to this jury" — essentially the same reasoning she gave last week in ruling out testimony from former FEC members who had been expected to say they also thought the contributions were legal.

The jury was left with the final testimony of Jim Walsh, a former FBI agent hired by the defense who traced the money trail.

Walsh testified Tuesday that Edwards' friend Fred Baron, finance director for his presidential campaign, gave Hunter monthly payments totaling $74,000 in the second half of 2008 — well after the campaign had ended and some of it even after Edwards publicly admitted the affair.

"The only logical reason for making these payments at the time they were made was exactly what John Edwards has been saying: 'I'm trying to protect my wife from finding out that I'm the father of Rielle Hunter's baby,'" Shanahan said.

Another major point of the defense argument is that Edwards didn't know what the money from Baron and billionaire oil heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon was being used for, a contention that was supported Tuesday by John Moylan, who worked in both of Edwards' presidential campaigns.

Moylan testified that Edwards was shocked to learn in August 2008 — several months after the fact — that Mellon had been paying to help support Hunter and keep her from the public eye. The money was given through checks falsely labeled as furniture purchases through Andrew Young, who was once a top aide to Edwards and is now his chief accuser.

Referring to Young as "that damn Andrew," Edwards told Mellon, "Bunny, you should not be sending money to anyone," Moylan testified.

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An Oregon mother of seven is being sued for defamation by her former church over critical comments she made online.

Julie Anne Smith, a stay-at-home mom who home-schools her children, said church members began shunning her and her family after they left Beaverton Grace Bible Church almost four years ago.

She took to the Web in October 2009 to air her concerns about the church's practices on Google reviews, but said her comments kept being pushed down by other church members' more recent reviews. So in February of this year, Smith launched a blog called Beaverton Grace Bible Church Survivors to counteract what she called the "cat and mouse game" on Google.

"My primary issue was to discuss spiritual abuse in the church,” Smith told msnbc.com. “In essence, the legal suit is [O'Neal's] attempt of continuing that spiritual abuse.”

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But days after Smith launched her blog, pastor Charles O'Neal filed a $500,000 lawsuit against Smith, her daughter and three other former church members, claiming some of the comments posted online amounted to defamation. O'Neal has been the pastor of the church for 13 years.

"We have not gone hastily to court," O'Neal said in a statement released to msnbc.com. "For three and a half years this group has been engaged in a public, church to church, and World Wide Web defamation, showing their willingness to discredit God, harm the church, harm wives, harm children, and harm the testimony of Christ's Gospel."

"It is BGBC's firm conviction that this cannot continue," he added.

In reaction to O'Neal's lawsuit, Smith's attorney filed an anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss the suit. The motion, which is meant to protect individuals sued for exercising their constitutionally protected rights, will go before a judge on May 21.

Defamation lawsuits triggered by online comments are not unusual, but they typically involve businesses, American Civil Liberties Union attorney Aden Fine told msnbc.com.

"It’s very clear, especially in the age of the Internet, that companies don’t like to be criticized and don’t want the world to see this criticism, and so many companies have been very aggressive about suing people for criticizing them," Fine said.

"The result will be that people will be afraid of posting critical comments on the Internet," he said, adding that he expects these kinds of lawsuits to happen more even frequently in the future.

Smith, who used to play piano at the Beaverton church, said she and her family were asked to leave the congregation in November 2008, but it was almost a year before she took her grievances online. Church leaders, however, deny ever asking the Smiths to leave and claim her family left of their own accord.

“When you’re in a cult or a spiritually abusive place, your brain takes a while to process, to uncover all of that stuff that was going on, so I was kinda stewing,” she said. "Things were coming clear to me.”

Shunned?
Smith said the shunning by church members was so extreme that one of them even skidded out of a grocery parking lot to avoid her. "They treat you worse than a stranger," she said. "It just seems so cruel.”

She said her eldest daughter, Hannah, even left home about 4.5 years ago because she no longer wanted anything to do with the church. "My daughter willingly gave up many things to protect her sanity and leave the place that was emotionally killing her," Smith wrote on her blog.

Smith said she tried calling and emailing the church to resolve the conflict, but received no response.

The decision to eventually start posting reviews on Google came “out of desperation.”

"The mama bear in me came out," she said.

According to the complaint filed by the pastor, the defamatory statements included claims that O'Neal had "chosen to mislead the congregation" and "destroy relationships." Other messages quoted in the filing say the pastor is an example of "narcissism in the pulpit," and the church is "creepy" and uses "control tactics" for "spiritual abuse."

"You will be fine at this church if you never question the elders or pastor," the filing quotes another statement as saying.

Other comments Smith reportedly posted online state the church is "very destructive and disturbing."

"Leaders of cults convince their people that their church is the only true place to be..." and "turn a blind eye to known sex offenders in the church," Smith reportedly posted on Jan. 4.

O'Neal's attorney told msnbc.com in an email that the latter claim is "the second worst thing that any pastor can be accused of."

Court documents revealed the sex offender claim refers to a mentally disabled teenage church member who allegedly touched one of his sisters inappropriately. His family brought the matter up with the pastor, who said the boy "was never again allowed in the church nursery and never allowed to be alone in the company of children around the church.”

Smith said some of her statements were taken out of context in the filing, but she said she stands by everything she wrote.

Abuse 'unfounded'
Court filings state that another defendant, Meaghan Varela, allegedly made accusations of child abuse against the pastor, which led to a December 2008 visit from the Oregon Department of Human Services. The social worker informed O'Neal's daughter that someone also reported that pornography was being distributed to children at church.

"The allegations of child abuse filed by Meaghan Varela were extremely painful to my family," O'Neal's daughter said in a statement.

The DHS concluded that the child abuse allegations were "unfounded," court papers say.

ACLU's Fine said the court will look at whether the defendants' statements qualify as opinions or assertions of fact. Opinions are protected under free speech law.

Smith told msnbc.com she received messages of support from church members, and some told her they would like to post online about their own concerns but they're afraid.

"They've seen what happened to me," Smith said. "[O'Neal] sued me."

“He’s trying to bully people," she added.

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Construction at a portion of Santa Clara Valley Medical Center has stopped in San Jose, Calif., because crews have unearthed pine boxes filled with the bodies of those whose families couldn't afford their proper burials, NBC Bay Area has learned.

The pine boxes date back to between 1875 and 1935, and were discovered in February when construction crews were doing seismic survey work, Santa Clara County counsel Michael Rossi said Tuesday.

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For more, visit NBCBayArea.com.

He said the county had no idea there was a cemetery on the property.

"It’s a potter’s field or a pauper’s graveyard. Between 1875 and 1935 at Valley Medical Center, people who died indigent, whose families couldn’t be found were buried at this site," Rossi said.

There are as many as 1,445 bodies on the site. The county filed a petition with the court to get permission to remove at least 100 of the pine coffins to make room for construction.

The county is looking into hiring an archaeologist who specializes in this type of find, Rossi said.

If anything identifiable is found, Rossi said they would publish the information in the newspaper to give families time to claim the remains.

After that, the county will ask the court's permission to dispose of the bodies in accordance to law.

A county map from 1932 shows the cemetery, but by 1958 there was no indication it existed. By 1966, there was an employee parking lot on top of the cemetery.

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This may not have been the type of "stimulus" feds intended.

Two grants totaling nearly $1.5 million were distributed to the University of California San Francisco, NBCBayArea.com has discovered. The money was part of the federal stimulus program and went to studies into the erectile dysfunction of overweight middle aged men and the accurate reporting of someone's sexual history.

This is part of our ongoing series of investigations by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit into who got federal stimulus dollars, and why some projects did not break ground more than two years after receiving the grant.

The Investigative Unit looked closely at the federal government's decision to spend nearly $1.5 million of taxpayer money, money that came here to California. Grant number 1R01HD056950-01A2 was among the thousands of grants funded, receiving $1.2 million. This grant studied how to improve the accuracy of how people responded to questions about their sexual history.

Read original stimulus investigation on NBCBayArea.com

"If you honestly report on your sexual activity and number of partners?" Scott Amey asked with a sigh. "That's a good one."

Amey is the general council for  POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, a Washington D.C. nonpartisan non-profit government watchdog group. During our interview with an NBC crew he tried to explain why the government used that many tax dollars to improve self reports about high risk sexual behavior.

"I don't think most tax payers would think that would be a justified spending of stimulus money to conduct a sex study over fixing bridges and roads that are crumbling every day," Amey added.

NBC Bay Area talked to the University of California San Francisco, the institution that received the grant. "Does it make you wonder a little bit, stimulus money for a study like this?" Kovaleski asked Jeff Sheehy, who works at the UCSF Aids Research Center. "No it doesn't," he answered. "Because to my mind we save money if we get better health outcomes."

According to the grant, a good portion of the study will "Improve the accuracy of responses to questions," specifically questions about a person's sexual behavior. "Playing devil's advocate," Kovaleski said to Sheehy, "Do taxpayers need to spend $1.2 million to figure this out?""The judgment wasn't one that I was asked," Sheehy replied.

The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit discovered that for $1.2 million, taxpayers funded a study that included 200 videotaped interviews at $6000 per interview. Kovaleski asked Sheehy to justify the spending. "I think the average person is going to look at $1.2 million dollars to interview 200 people and say Wow!" Sheehy defended the study. "I understand people could look at it and have issues but this is research," he said.

How many jobs did this actually create?
Kovaleski then asked about jobs. "How many jobs did this $1.26 million create?" "Well I can't really say," Sheehy said. "There were eleven researchers hired on the job, two consultants. Well I can't say. This has not been evaluated for job creation."

The number Sheehy quoted during an interview with NBC Bay Area did not match information on recovery.gov, the government's website for stimulus funds. According to the site, the grant produced 0.85 jobs. "It does make you scratch your head and wonder," Amey said, "Wait a second taxpayer dollars went to a sex study that barely funded less than one person."

Amey was also left questioning another UCSF grant. When asked by an NBC reporter about a study into erectile dysfunction involving overweight middle aged men he replied, "Oh boy."

The grant totaled more than a quarter million dollars. Although UCSF was willing to discuss our questions about the sexual history grant, the University declined to provide an expert to talk with the NBC Investigative Unit about the erectile dysfunction grant. In a written statement provided they said in part, "Obesity related health issues currently cost $147 billion per year in direct medical costs in the United States..... Health providers therefore continue to search for incentives to encourage people to live a healthier lifestyle, to benefit both indviduals and society.... Preliminary analysis indicates that is is feasible to enroll men in this type of research, they successfully lose the expected weight over a 12-week period, and they see an improvement in ED symptoms." You can read the entire statement by clicking here.

Click here to see the high risk sexual behavior grant

Click here to see the erectile dysfunction grant

If you have any other examples of questionable stimulus spending, we want to know. Call us at 1-888-996-TIPS (8477) or email theunit@nbcbayarea.com.

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Iraq war veteran Steven Acheson will engage in the rarest of protests this weekend: He will hand back his military service medals at the NATO summit in Chicago, an act one veteran calls "disgraceful."

Acheson, who served for five years in the Army, including more than a year in Iraq that he says left him with PTSD and nightmares, is taking this step to protest the "war on terror" and the force leading it, NATO. He will be joined by a few dozen veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are concerned about the wars' fallout on veterans and civilians alike.

“I feel like this is a really good way for me to kind of, not clear my conscience, but just make a step in the direction of healing and kind of reconciling with the Afghan people and the Iraq people,” said Acheson, a 27-year-old college student from Wisconsin and a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, which includes soldiers who served in any of the post- 9/11 conflict zones, “… and let them know that we’re standing by their side and we’re not standing with NATO anymore. We don’t agree with the policies that are driving these wars.”

Acheson and 30-50 fellow 9/11-era veterans will carry their medals as they lead an anti-war march this Sunday through Chicago’s downtown area to the convention center where NATO is holding its summit. President Obama and other world leaders are scheduled to be among the summit attendees, and the city of Chicago is bracing for major protests.

Organizers are hoping the rally, which caps a week-long series of anti-NATO actions, will draw thousands. The Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will be flanked by Vietnam veterans and will hold a reconciliation ceremony with Afghans for Peace.

They intend to carry an American flag that they will lower and replace with a white one as they approach the summit venue. They are planning to pin their medals to the American flag, which they’d like to present to NATO officials. If they’re unable to do so, they may construct an ad hoc memorial or toss the medals toward the convention center -- like some 900 Vietnam veterans did in 1971 on Capitol Hill in an anti-war protest dubbed “Operation Dewey Canyon III.”

Barry Romo was West Coast coordinator for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War during the 1971 week-long demonstration.

“Wives left husbands; parents said … those medals were something you should be giving the grandkids. But I mean, the level of death was just really too much for us to deal with at that time and we said, you know, if there’s a question of medals versus lives then there was no question,” he said.

Returning the medals – even those that are given just for showing up to the theater of conflict, as are some of the ones the veterans plan to return – is not without controversy.

“They’re as much of a disgrace as the veterans back in the Vietnam days that did the same thing,” said retired Army 1st Sgt. Troy Steward, of New York, who served 22 years and is now a military blogger. “If these veterans aren’t proud of the service that they did … then they should never have accepted them (medals) in the first place.”

Steward, 43, who served in Afghanistan, said the action was “disgraceful and disrespectful” to others who had served. While the veterans were welcome to express their opinions, he said, there were a lot of “better ways to do it than essentially shaming your military service and your brethren.”

Acheson will return his “Global War on Terrorism Service Medal” and the “Iraq Campaign Medal”; he is keeping others he received.

Aaron Hughes, a 30-year-old organizer for IVAW who served six years in the Army, including 15 months in Iraq and Kuwait, also will return two medals.

In the process of searching for a way to heal “we came to these symbols of the occupations, which are these medals that we carry around and we still have,” Hughes said. “They’re these … reminders of what we’ve done, that it’s time to let go of.”

“I think it’s something that many of us are conflicted about, but we also feel like this is the right action to take,” he noted, adding that there was a lot of consensus on the returning of the medals. “It is a sacrifice, but it’s one that we feel is worth it.”

But some cautioned the veterans to think carefully before handing over the medals.

“They become almost like family heirlooms in some ways,” said Adrian Lewis, a professor specializing in 20th century warfare at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. “It's not the norm to give them back. Most folks are proud of them. They feel like they earned them and they’re indications that they served their country.”

“They may regret it at some point ... and their family may ultimately regret it, too,” he added.

Unlike the Vietnam War, Americans today don’t have the same outrage over the current conflicts, Lewis said.

“Most Americans are not paying attention to the war ... they have no stake in it, no commitment to it,” he added, noting that he therefore didn’t expect the veterans’ medal protest to “be a big deal. It's not a game-changer.”

It’s not clear how many other veterans have taken similar action. The Department of Defense, the Air Force and Army said they did not keep records on how many medals have been given back.

"We're very proud of the service rendered by our soldiers and veterans, and they are free to do with their awards and decorations as they please," George Wright, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said in an e-mail.

Acheson said the veterans don’t have high expectations for how NATO officials will receive their protest. He also noted that he was keeping some of his medals because he was proud of his service, even though he was upset that he ended up fighting in a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

“I’m tired of seeing … fellow vets being redeployed with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, and I’m tired of seeing soldiers being deployed in general to an illegal war,” he said. “I just feel like we’ve spent enough money and enough lives over there … it’s time to come home.”

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WASHINGTON - Law enforcement and homeland security personnel face an average of 55 daily encounters with "known or suspected terrorists" named on government watch lists, officials told Reuters. 

The figure -- which equals more than 20,000 contacts per year -- underscores the growing sweep of the watchlists, which have expanded significantly since a failed Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt of a U.S. airliner. But officials note that very few of those daily contacts lead to arrests. 

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Civil liberties groups question the use of watch lists, and they have been ridiculed for ensnaring innocent citizens. 

U.S. officials said the encounters, which involve airport and border security personnel as well as federal and local law enforcement officers, are reported to the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), an interagency unit led by an FBI official based in a tightly guarded building in northern Virginia. 

At its headquarters, the TSC operates a 24-hour command center, resembling something from a Hollywood thriller, complete with giant wall-screen projections and signs flashing "SECRET." 

Officials said that when a law enforcement or homeland security officer in the field stops a person whose name matches a name in the TSC's databases, the officer is supposed to phone the TSC command center for instructions. Based on information in the databases, the TSC then will advise the officer in the field how to proceed, which could range from releasing the suspect to calling in federal officers as backup. 

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The command center gets between 100 and 150 inquiries a day, of which an average of 55 involve individuals who turn out to be listed on one of the federal watch lists, officials said. Of those calls, about 60 percent come from federal officers at border or airport security posts; the rest come from local police. 

"There are incidents every single day," said TSC director Timothy Healy. 

The watch lists include the best known "no fly list" as well as a "selectee list" of people who the government thinks should get extra screening or questioning before being allowed to board an airplane. 

Officials acknowledge that the number of names on these lists -- and particularly the no-fly list -- have grown considerably since Christmas Day 2009, when a Nigerian-born militant who was listed in a classified database called TIDE, but not the no-fly list, successfully boarded a U.S.-bound aircraft but then failed to detonate a bomb which Yemeni militants had helped him stash in his underpants. 

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Before that incident, the number of names on the no-fly list was around 4,000. U.S. officials said it now contains about 20,000 names while the selectee list contains another 18,000. 

A new threat to aviation security surfaced earlier this month, in the form of a foiled plot by al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate to deploy a more sophisticated "underwear" bomb. 

The watchlists have been the subject of controversy - most recently last week when an 18-month-old girl and her parents were taken off a JetBlue flight when the toddler's name appeared on a no-fly security list, apparently the result of a computer glitch. 

While the U.S. government has instituted measures to enable people to petition for their names to be deleted, officials insist that over time the lists have become more accurate. 

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Watchlisting officials say that airlines maintain their own lists of potentially troublesome passengers; often, they said, when a well-publicized case arises of a prominent or innocent person being denied boarding, it is because the air carrier, rather than the government, misconstrued the identity of someone on its proprietary lists. 

But Nusrat Choudhury, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said her organization is pursuing legal action on behalf of people who have unjustifiably been restricted from flying. She said redress mechanisms maintained by the government are at best "ineffective." 

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Two or three of the inquiries per day turn out to be people listed on the "no fly" list, the most restrictive of the watchlists maintained by the TSC. 

A suspect's name is put on the "no fly" list if they are deemed by government experts to be a threat to aviation, to be planning an attack or if they are "operationally capable" and are known to be planning to attend, or to have already attended, a militant training camp. 

Fewer than 500 of the individuals on the no-fly list are U.S. citizens, officials said.

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The day after George Zimmerman fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, a family physician wrote in a report obtained by ABC News that Zimmerman had a broken nose, “a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury.”

The three-page medical report is part of the discovery -- stacks of documents and CDs – currently being examined by the prosecution and the defense, ABC News reported.

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The doctor wrote that Zimmerman, 28, made an appointment to make sure he could return to work, ABC News reported. Zimmerman, an insurance underwriter at the time, told the doctor that his lower back hurt; photos  show that he also had bruising on his upper lip.

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The report also notes that Zimmerman had been prescribed mood medications Adderall and Temazepam before the shooting, ABC News reported. The doctor added that Zimmerman refused to go to the hospital the night of the shooting and added that it was “imperative” that he see his psychologist.

Trayvon Martin timeline: Key events in the Sanford, Fla. shooting case

On the night of the shooting, police officials from Sanford, Fla. said that Zimmerman told them he had used the gun in self-defense.

After more than a month of legal handwringing, during which the case was being intensely scrutinized by the media, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder for Martin’s death on Feb. 26. The prosecution contends that Zimmerman tracked the teen, who was returning to the gated community, where his father’s girlfriend lived, after buying snacks at a corner store.

He was charged on April 11; he was released from jail 12 days later on $150,000 bail.

Zimmerman released on bail

Since the shooting, debate has raged over whether Martin attacked Zimmerman before being shot, punching him in the face and hitting his head against the pavement.

Martin’s family, pointing to surveillance video from the police station, note that Zimmerman didn’t have any apparent wounds. Zimmerman’s attorney argued that the footage was of too-low quality to determine whether he had been injured.

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Four months after Iranian-born medical researcher and activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh was gunned down in her car just yards away from her family’s home in west Houston, authorities are hoping the offer of a sizable cash reward will help solve her killing.

At a press conference Tuesday, the Houston chapter of Crime Stoppers announced it was increasing a cash reward to $200,000 for information leading to an arrest or charges in the case. It’s the largest cash reward ever offered for a Crime Stoppers tip not only in Houston, but in the nation.

“We don’t want to wait for justice in this case,” said Katherine Cabaniss, executive director of Crime Stoppers of Houston.

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Houston Police Sgt. J.C. Padilla said investigators still have no motive in Bagherzadeh’s slaying and haven’t ruled anything out. “The more we talk to people, the more we realize we need the community’s help,” he said.

The 30-year-old Bagherzade was shot to death Jan. 16 while in her car, just yards away from her family’s townhome in the well-to-do Galleria area. Police said at the time that Bagherzade was on her cellphone talking to her ex-boyfriend when someone outside the car shot her in the head through the passenger-side window.

The boyfriend told police he heard a loud thud and then a screeching noise. The victim's car crashed into a neighbor’s garage door.

Bagherzadeh moved to the U.S. several years ago and was studying molecular genetic technology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Bagherzadeh was known for speaking out on behalf of Iranian women’s civil rights. She was an active member of SabzHouston, a Houston-based group that was formed to protest the 2009 election results in Iran. The group contends the results, which declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the landslide winner, were a sham.

Bagherzade's slaying is perplexing because her purse and other belongings were left untouched in the car, and she had no known enemies.

Police have said there’s no evidence she was shot because of her Iranian activism, but that hasn’t stopped a slew of unsubstantiated rumors from surfacing online that she was assassinated -- by Iranian government agents, by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency or  by some other nefarious group.

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“It has been four months since my sister was senselessly killed behind our house," Ali Bagherzadeh, the victim’s brother, said at Tuesday's press conference. "As a community we should be outraged at the loss of a talented and beautiful person."

The previous largest reward offered by Crime Stoppers was $100,000 for tips in the 2003 bludgeoning deaths of four young people in the Clear Lake area, also in Houston. Someone came forward in 2006 with a tip that helped solve that case, Cabaniss said.

"The cash reward in that case was offered for three years. The significance of that is that we recognize that sometimes it takes time for the person who knows who the shooter is to make the phone call that solves the case," Cabaniss told msnbc.com. “We are hoping that in this case it doesn't take years for justice to be served. We remind the person who knows who the shooter is that one phone call today is worth $200,000. One name, one shooter, $200,000.”

Crime Stoppers is a nonprofit group that offers cash rewards to people who provide anonymous tips that lead to an arrest of people responsible for a crime. The first Crime Stoppers program was formed in 1976 in Albuquerque, N.M. Today, there are Crime Stoppers programs across the U.S. and around the world.

The organization says that it has paid more than $92 million in rewards and that its tips have led to nearly 612,000 arrests.

Anyone who has any information about the Bagherzadeh case is urged to call the Crime Stoppers hot line at (713) 222-8477 or submit tips online at www.crimestoppers.org. Tips can also be sent by text message: text TIP610 plus your tip to CRIMES (274637). All tipsters remain anonymous.

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Critics denounced a vote Tuesday by Virginia lawmakers rejecting a gay prosecutor for a judgeship in the state’s capital, saying the representatives were on the “wrong side of history” and pushing a “form of bigotry,” according to local local media reports.

Tracy Thorne-Begland, a prosecutor for 12 years in General District Court in Richmond, was the only one of more than three dozen judicial nominees who failed to win approval from the House of Delegates, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported. The final tally was 33 for and 31 against, while 36 either didn’t vote or abstained. Fifty-one votes were needed to approve.

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Thorne-Begland’s nomination for the bench in the same court where he was a prosecutor came under scrutiny last week after the Family Foundation of Virginia, Republican Delegate Robert G. Marshall and others said they opposed his nomination because of his candor on gay rights. They said they didn’t object to him because of his sexuality, The Washington Post reported.

“He holds himself out as being married,” Marshall said, according to the Post. In Virginia, where gay marriage is not legal, he said Thorne-Begland’s “life is a contradiction to the requirement of submission to the (state) Constitution.”

But Richmond Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring described the decision as an “embarrassment” for Virginia that cast “a definite pall on the state,” and said Thorne-Begland would have done a great job.

“It's hard to think about what happened in the General Assembly and not conclude that it's a form of bigotry,” Herring told reporters, the Times-Dispatch reported.

"We are on the wrong side of history," said Democratic Sen. A. Donald McEachin, of the rejection. "This is not our finest hour."

Thorne-Begland told the Times-Dispatch after the vote: "I look forward to continuing to serve the citizens of the city of Richmond and the great Commonwealth of Virginia."

Thorne-Begland announced he was a gay Navy officer some two decades ago on the television program “Nightline.” That led to an  honorable discharge for the decorated officer under the military's former "don't ask, don't tell," policy, according to the Times-Dispatch.

That policy, repealed in 2010, banned gay men and women from serving openly in the military.

The Virginia assembly’s decision came a week after North Carolina voting down gay marriage while President Barack Obama became the country’s first president to support same-sex unions. A Gallup poll released last Tuesday found that 50 percent of Americans supported same-sex marriage while 48 percent were opposed. It was the second time that at least half of Americans had backed same-sex marriage.

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A shark believed to be a 15-foot great white attacked the kayak of a California man when he was out fishing off Moonstone Beach on the central coast of the state, KSBY-TV reported on Tuesday.

Joey Nocchi, 30, of Paso Robles, Calif. said that that his kayak was suddenly jolted by a blow from underneath that lifted the boat right out of the water on Saturday in the incident just south of San Simeon State Park.

Nocchi’s fishing buddies who witnessed the encounter from their kayaks said "the shark came all the way out of the water, jaws open, extra eyelids closed like they do when they’re making a kill strike," Nocchi told The Tribune of San Luis Obispo.

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The shark left 20-inch bite marks in the boat when it struck, dumping Nocchi into the water.

"I had my life vest on and (the shark) came across me," Nocchi told NBC station KSBY. "I didn’t want to touch it. I had my hands back but his tail came across me and I felt his skin on my hands. It was a pretty crazy, eerie feeling."

Pakistani fishermen reel in shark the size of a school bus

Evidently, the shark lost interest after tasting the kayak.

Nocchi, who was unhurt, was able to right the boat and paddle it back to shore while water poured through the gash.

Warnings since have since been posted on the beach.

Nocchi told KSBY he will get back out on the water, maybe in a few days.

"I got that out of the way now," he said of the shark attack. "It probably shouldn’t happen again."

Follow Kari Huus on Facebook

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The Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio will drop health insurance coverage for students this fall rather than comply with a federal mandate that its plan provide free birth control.

University officials on Tuesday also cited rising insurance costs for their decision to end student health coverage.

“The Obama Administration has mandated that all health insurance plans must cover ‘women’s health services’ including contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing medications as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),” according to a university statement. “Up to this time, Franciscan University has specifically excluded these services and products from its student health insurance policy, and we will not participate in a plan that requires us to violate the consistent teachings of the Catholic Church on the sacredness of human life.”

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“Additionally, the PPACA increased the mandated maximum coverage amount for student policies to $100,000 for the 2012-13 school year, which would effectively double your premium cost for the policy in fall 2012, with the expectation of further increases in the future,” the statement said.

The university will no longer require its undergraduates to carry insurance, according to the statement. "We didn't want to put them in a situation where they would have to violate their conscience," Michael Hernon, a vice president at Franciscan University, told Reuters.

Fewer than 200 students at the campus in southeast Ohio had been buying insurance from the university, Hernon told Reuters. Franciscan University has nearly 2,800 students.

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Earlier this year, the Franciscan was among 18 Catholic colleges in a letter-writing campaign, calling for President Barack Obama to change the government's mandate for religious institutions to offer preventative care services, including contraceptives. Churches and houses of worship are exempt from the rule. 

Several Catholic and evangelical Christian universities have challenged the contraceptive mandate in court. Those cases have not yet come to trial. Hernon told Reuters that the university is weighing a lawsuit.

With the new health insurance year set to start in August, however, administrators at Franciscan University chose not to wait for the court's ruling. In addition to the contraception mandate, they said they were concerned that premiums for the student plan would rise because the Affordable Care Act also mandates other specific services be covered.

So the bulletin advised students that they should begin to figure out their insurance plans.

"We encourage you to decide how you are going to provide for accidents or illnesses requiring visits to physicians, health clinics, or the hospital emergency room while you are a student here," the announcement said.

The university will maintain its health insurance plan for faculty, for now. That plan does not cover birth control. Hernon said administrators are "looking at all the options" as they decide how, or whether, to continue the plan in the future if the contraceptive mandate is upheld.

The university, which was founded 60 years ago to serve World War Two veterans, is ranked as one of the top-tier private colleges in the Midwest. It boasts on its website that its academics and culture are "grounded in a passionately Catholic faith tradition."

Msnbc.com's Sevil Omer and Reuters' Stephanie Simon contributed to this report.

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Dominique Strauss-Kahn is suing the hotel housekeeper who accused him of sexually assaulting her, saying she seriously damaged his reputation with what he calls a bogus allegation.

The former International Monetary Fund leader struck back at maid Nafissatou Diallo's lawsuit against him with a $1 million defamation claim of his own Monday, exactly a year after she told police he tried to rape her in his Manhattan hotel suite. He says whatever happened was consensual.

Read the original report at NBC New York

He was arrested, resigned from the IMF and spent several days behind bars and three months on house arrest before prosecutors dropped the case, saying they'd lost confidence in Diallo's trustworthiness because she'd lied about her background and changed her account of what she did right after leaving Strauss-Kahn's room. Although prosecutors didn't say they believed she misrepresented the encounter itself, Strauss-Kahn's court papers blast her claims as intentional lies.

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"As a direct result of her malicious and wanton false accusation, Mr. Strauss-Kahn suffered ... substantial harm to his professional and personal reputation in the United States and throughout the world," says his Bronx court filing, written by attorneys William W. Taylor III, Hugh Campbell and others. 

Strauss-Kahn's suit was submitted two weeks after the same court rejected his argument that diplomatic immunity should shield him from Diallo's suit, a ruling he may yet appeal.

Diallo's lawyers said Strauss-Kahn's defamation claim an example of the "misogynistic attitude" of a man who now faces preliminary charges of being involved in a hotel prostitution ring in France.

As of last week, French investigators were also examining accusations that Strauss-Kahn may have been involved in a rape during a sex party in a Washington, D.C., hotel in 2010. Separately, a French writer accused him last year of having tried to rape her during a 2003 interview, an accusation prosecutors decided was too old to try. Strauss-Kahn denies all the allegations.

"As with his plea for diplomatic immunity, we are entirely confident this latest desperate ploy will be swiftly rejected," Diallo attorneys Kenneth W. Thompson and Douglas H. Wigdor wrote in an e-mail.

Diallo, now 33, says that when she arrived to clean Strauss-Kahn's suite, he abruptly chased her down, tried to yank down her pantyhose and forced her to perform oral sex. She says a ligament in her shoulder was torn, among other injuries.

The married Strauss-Kahn, 63, has acknowledged there was a sexual encounter and called it a "moral failing," but insisted it wasn't forced. His new filing says he and Diallo "engaged in mutually consensual sexual acts" and says she "suffered no injuries whatsoever."

At the time, Strauss-Kahn was considered a leading Socialist candidate to take on conservative incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Socialist Francois Hollande won the election last week.

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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered the Air Force to restrict flights of its new F-22 stealth fighters because of continuing problems with the aircraft's oxygen system.

At least 22 pilots have suffered from oxygen deprivation while in flight since April 2008.

Panetta on Tuesday ordered that all F-22 flights remain within a "proximate distance" of an airfield in case a pilot should suffer from a hypoxia event and be forced to land. That will force an immediate end to F-22 patrol missions over Alaska.

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Panetta also ordered the Air Force to accelerate installment of a backup oxygen system in all F-22s and provide monthly progress reports on efforts to identify the problem with the current oxygen system.  The Air Force does not expect to begin installing automatic backup oxygen systems until December of this year.

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The Air Force has been unable to determine the cause of the 12 incidents of hypoxia suffered by pilots of the F-22. Pilots have reported wooziness while flying the supersonic jet, considered the most advanced fighter plane in the world.

Some of the military’s top aviators have refused to fly the radar-evading planes because of the oxygen system problems.

The supersonic plane has also been criticized in the past for its high-maintenance costs. 

The Air Force reports that each of the aircraft costs $143 million. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, however, estimates that each F-22 cost taxpayers $412 million, if upgrades and research and development expenses are included.

Jim Miklaszewski is the chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News. Courtney Kube, NBC's Pentagon producer, and msnbc.com reporter Jeff Black contributed to this report.

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A 12-year-old boy risked his life to rescue his four younger siblings from a burning home near Pensacola, Fla.

Justin Jackson says he was watching over his three brothers and one sister when a fire broke out inside their home in Milton, Fla., on Sunday evening, NBC station WPMI-TV in Mobile, Ala., reported. His mom was working the night shift at a nursing home and his father had been away on business, according to local media reports.

“If he wasn’t here, we would not be alive,” Justin's 9-year-old brother, Emilio Jackson, told WPMI-TV. "I love him all the way to the universe and back."

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A storm knocked out power to the neighborhood and the children had used a few candles to light up the house, according to WPMI-TV.

Justin said he was awakened by thunder and lightning, and then saw smoke. He leaped into action, grabbing his three brothers, including Diego, 6, and William, 5, WPMI-TV reported.

"I just picked them up and took them outside and I was knocking on neighbor's doors but none of them came out," Jackson told WPMI-TV.

Jackson said he ran back into the fire and kicked down the door to get his 3-year-old sister, Brooklynn.

"I was worried that I was not going to get my little sister out of there," Justin told WPMI-TV. "I had to pick her up and she was real stiff, I was just real scared at that point." 

After saving his sister, Justin said he dashed back into the burning home a third time to call 911.

"Smoke was in my eye. I couldn't see anything," WPMI-TV quoted Justin as saying.  

Jackson's mother, Tiffanie Jackson, said she was working when she received a telephone call concerning her children.

"When I saw the flames I was, like my house is on fire, I didn't know what to do. My life is burning up. My babies were in that,"  the children's mother, Tiffanie Jackson, told WPMI-TV. "There aren't enough words to describe how proud I am of Justin. He's my hero."

Said Justin: "I was just helping my family."

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A black man who says he suffered emotional distress when he heard a hijacked public address announcement at a Wal-Mart store in New Jersey telling all blacks to leave has filed a lawsuit seeking $1 million in damages from the company.

Donnell Battie says Wal-Mart was negligent, careless and reckless and showed deliberate indifference by failing to properly control access to the P.A. system.

Battie’s lawsuit was first filed in Camden County Superior Court in March. It was moved this week to U.S. District Court in Camden, the New Jersey Law Journal reported Tuesday.

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The lawsuit stems from a March 14, 2010, incident at a Wal-Mart in the community of Turnersville in Washington Township, N.J. Shortly before 5 p.m., someone commandeered the store’s public address system and announced: “Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now.”

A store manager quickly went on the intercom system and apologized for the remark, and police were summoned, according to media reports at the time. A 16-year-old was later arrested on harassment and bias intimidation charges.

Battie says he was in the store and contends the announcement led to depression, anxiety, anger, loss of sleep and appetite, paranoia, anti-social tendencies and loss of enjoyment in activities.

Battie's attorney, John Klamo, says Battie had already been getting professional help for previous traumatic incidents.

"Mr. Battie is an individual who has been under care of a doctor for various disabilities dealing with his psychological makeup," Klamo told the Law Journal. He's in Wal-Mart and something of this nature presents its ugly head and it brings up past situations in his life that affected him."

Archive video: Police investigate alleged store P.A. slur

Greg Rossiter, a Wal-Mart spokesman, declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit but told msnbc.com:

“We were appalled by this incident and are amazed that anyone could be so backward and mean-spirited in this day and age. We are sorry it happened and apologized at the time to any of our customers and associates who heard it. We updated our intercom system in this store to prevent this from happening in the future.”

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The last time Emma Rymas, 94, had seen her only child was nearly seven decades ago. Living in Connecticut at the time, she and her husband had just gone through a bitter divorce. 

Rymas moved to California with the understanding that her then 6-year-old son, Robert Fianelli, would soon be joining her. But the boy never came: Rymas says her ex-husband kept Fianelli from her, though she wouldn't offer more details. 

"I was broken hearted, but I couldn't do anything," Rymas said.

But Rymas never gave up. Last month, from her home in Apple Valley, Calif., Rymas told her sister-in-law, Mary Fantino, she wanted to renew the search for her son. Fantino went to a church leader for help.

"I said, well, give me the info you have about him, and I'll try," Father Nicholas Carpenter said.

After a few hours on Google, Carpenter found an address for Fianelli in Nevada, near Reno. He gave it to Fantino, who sent a letter to him, hoping it was the same Robert Fianelli that Rymas said goodbye to 67 years ago.

Read original story on NBCLosAngeles.com

"I didn't know how he was going to react," Fantino said.

He reacted well: Fianelli called her back when he received the letter, and Fantino broke the news to his mother.

“The look on her face was just -- and I don’t want to cry -- it was really something,” Fantino said, holding back tears.

Rymas was overjoyed. Mother and son were reunited on April 5.

"The first thing he said was, 'Hello, Mom!'" she said.

Fianelli, now 73, had been traveling around the world with the Navy, but currently works as a mailman in Nevada. He lives with his wife and has a son and daughter, who have children of their own. Rymas hasn't met her grandchildren and great-grandchildren yet, but plans to.

"I'm as happy as I can be," Rymas said from her home at Merrill Gardens, a senior living facility.

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Summer holidays may be a little quieter this year in some cash-strapped American cities, but others are taking steps to make sure fallen soldiers are remembered on Memorial Day and the nation's birth is celebrated with a bang on the Fourth of July.

New Rochelle, N.Y., last week announced it was canceling Independence Day fireworks costing it $75,000 and axing budgets for Memorial Day and Thanksgiving parades, which cost $30,000 each to put on, NBCNewYork.com reported. Private donors stepped up to keep the parades afloat, officials said. They are not so sure they can raise enough money in time to light up the skies July Fourth.

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The city was one of several that announced fireworks cancellations recently. 

Public donations and corporate sponsorships pay for the fireworks in about 75 percent of the nation’s approximately 14,000 municipal displays during the week of Independence Day, Philip Butler, spokesman for Fireworks by Grucci, told msnbc.com. City and town governments -- taxpayers -- mainly pay for the events’ police and fire protection, he said. That's a change from the 1980s and '90s, he said, when more than 70 percent of the pyrotechnics were paid with government funds.

Grucci, which will put on 84 shows ranging from $50,000 to $100,000 each the week of July 4, was scheduled to put on the New Rochelle show, Butler said. Grucci will hold the town's reservation until June 1.

“It’s prevalent all across the country,” Butler said. “It’s a sin politicians pull budgets for entertainment -- and not just fireworks but events like summer concerts, too."

New Rochelle's financial problems mirror other cities' woes. Pension and health insurance costs rose while revenue from sales and property taxes dropped, officials said.

Gregory Minchak, National League of Cities spokesman, told msnbc.com that city budgets across the country are still being cut, although the pace has slowed.

City finances, largely driven by property taxes, lag even if the economy starts to improve, Minchak said. Property tax revenues fell when housing values dropped, he said, but it takes a while for higher assessments to kick in when values start to rise again.

“Any time you have high unemployment – the national rate was 8.1 percent in April – that also affects city finances,” Minchak said. Local governments lay off workers and people spend less in their communities, driving down sales-tax revenues.

But city finances won't keep bombs from bursting in the air everywhere.

"Communities will rally around their fireworks displays," said Stephen Vitale, president of New Castle, Penn.-based Pyrotecnico, which is putting on more than 650 Fourth of July fireworks displays. Vitale said the pyrotechnic industry is largely recession-proof.

Some communities save money by setting off fireworks on July 3 or on the weekends before or after the Fourth, lessening police and firefighter overtime pay, Vitale said. Overtime often is double regular pay on a holiday but only time-and-a-half other days.

Todd Reichenbach, of Billings, Mont.-based Pyro F/X, told msnbc.com his company will put on seven municipal shows ranging from $15,000 to $40,000.

“We had to say no to four towns,” Reichenbach said.

“Montana is a bit more isolated,” he said of the state’s economy. “When the rest of the country is doing good, we’re not as good; when the rest of the country is hurting, we’re not as bad,” he said.

Here's a sampling of communities' approaches to celebrations for Memorial Day, considered the summer kickoff, and Independence Day:

• Batavia, Ill., has put on a fireworks show annually for 60 years and never spent taxpayer dollars on buying the fireworks, Mayor Jeff Schielke told msnbc.com. The Chicago suburb of 26,000 gets behind two annual fund-raisers, he said. One pits a team of police and firefighters against a team of teachers in a basketball game; the other is a citywide garage sale, which last week included 200 homes with owners paying $25 each to host shoppers from throughout the region. This year's fireworks display will cost $35,000 to $40,000, Schielke said.
• Hanford, Calif., will be one of three San Joaquin Valley cities each getting a $10,000 grant in to feature a laser light show that is less polluting than fireworks, Mike Bertaina, president of the Hanford of Chamber of Commerce, told msnbc.com. The other cities in a pilot program that covers about half a laser show's cost will be decided soon, said Jaime Holt, spokeswoman for the valley's Air Pollution Control District. District governors decided to try the substitution to ease ozone pollution, usually a winter problem, seen with a spike in particulate matter after July Fourth fireworks, Holt told msnbc.com. "Fireworks have metals and other toxic materials contributing to ozone through combustion that puts toxic material into the environment," Holt said.
• San Ramon, Calif., wants to get the word out that out-of-town fireworks fans should go elsewhere July 4 since the city cut its annual show, a tradition since 1985, the San Ramon Express News reported. The San Francisco suburb plans to end its Fourth of July festivities by 6 p.m. so its own resident revelers have time to go to other Bay Area communities where fireworks shows survive. The Express News said the city would have spent $318,000 if it put on a fireworks event this year, up from $175,000 in 2011. This year's scaled-back July 4 celebratiion, aimed only at city residents and featuring a symphony concert, a funk-and-soul band and an armed forces salute, will cost only $41,580, the Express News said.
• Chicago in 2010 ended a three-decade tradition of July 3 fireworks linked to the 10-day Taste of Chicago festival at Grant Park, city officials said. The only official July 4 fireworks continue at Navy Pier, run by a civic organization. To save money, the Taste of Chicago this year will be scaled back to five days and not start until July 11, officials said.
• North Providence, R.I., will bring back Independence Day fireworks for the first time in four years and enhance its Memorial Day parade after an April fund-raising dance raised more money, over $10,000, than expected, the weekly Valley Breeze reported. Severe budget cuts had killed July Fourth fireworks, the newspaper said.
• Sea Bright, N.J., last week canceled oceanfront July Fourth fireworks because the 11-person Police Department could not find 10 to 15 officers from other communities to work that day despite offering $72 per hour to patrol an expected crowd of 35,000 visitors, The Hub newspaper reported. Neighboring Red Bank, citing increasing security costs, canceled its 50-year-old KaBoom festival, planned July 3. Town officials said the event was a victim of its own success, bringing 100,000 visitors to town in 2011.
• Woodstown, N.J., will bring back Fourth of July fireworks, thanks to the sponsorship of the Woodstown-Pilesgove Business Association, the Newark Star-Ledger reported.
• Marion, Mass., selectmen canceled their fireworks show because of a lack of fund-raising since last year’s event but hope to bring back pyrotechnics next year, the SippicanVillageSoup weekly newspaper reported.

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American troops sold $2 million worth of weapons and combat gear, including assault rifles and night vision goggles to street gangs and to foreign countries, including China, in a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy uncovered by a Navy probe, according to military officials.

A two-year undercover investigation has implicated more than 60 individuals, an official with the Navy Criminal Navy Investigative Service (NCIS) told The Daily News in Jacksonville, N.C. Many of those involved were stationed at Camp Lejeune, a sprawling coastal Marine Corps installation that is home to special operations and expeditionary forces.

Some of the equipment was sold over eBay and Craigslist, though weapons and ammunition were also sold at yard sales and in secretive face-to-face meetings, according to the paper.

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The Navy probe eventually spilled into other military branches, including the Army and Air Force.

In all, $1.8 million worth of equipment has been recovered as a result of the investigation. Officials said that in addition to the assault rifles and night vision goggles, $800 flashlights were recovered as a result of the probe.

Panetta: Misconduct threatens war effort

“We’re talking about sophisticated, high-tech flashlights that cost the government up to $800 per unit. The temptation and ease with which to steal and sell them, for some, is irresistible,” an unnamed military official told Stars & Stripes, which confirmed the report.

So far, 47 service members and 21 civilians have been charged. About half of those have been to trial, with many pleading guilty to the offenses, Ed Buice, an NCIS spokesman, told The Daily News.

Two Marines have been convicted in the case, The Daily News reported.

Sgt. Daniel Adam Reich was convicted Monday of selling and attempting to sell military property as well as conspiracy. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison and given a dishonorable discharge.

Capt. Donald E. Pump Jr. last week was convicted of attempting to sell military property and conspiracy. He was dismissed from the Marine Corps and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Though cases of what is sometimes called "mailing the war home" aren't unusual, the scope of the investigation and the number of people allegedly involved points to a deeper problem of checks and balances in how combat equipment is accounted for, Philip Cave, a Washington military attorney, told msnbc.com.

"Who's minding the store? Where's the accountability? Where's the supervision and leadership?” Cave said. “Somehow these people figured out how to beat the system."

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Politics make strange bedfellows, especially in Long Island, N.Y., where an estranged husband and wife are running for the same seat.

Michelle Schimel, D-Great Neck, is serving her third term in the New York State Assembly. Her opponent is Mark Schimel, the man she separated from last year after 32 years of marriage, who is planning to run as a Republican.

"This is a very painful and personal family matter. The Republican Party is . . . using it as an opportunity to drag my personal life into the public," Michelle Schimel, 54, said in a statement, according to Newsday. "I will run this campaign as I have every campaign: on the issues, on my record, and on my values."

Mark Schimel, 57, was nominated last Thursday by Nassau County and still needs to file nominating petitions, according to Newsday. He is a vice president at Infosys International, an IT company.

His decision to run shocked his own mother.

“You’re joking,” Irma Schimel told The New York Daily News when she learned of his political aspirations. “This is a really startling thing. It’s a shock. Why would he do this?”

His estranged wife has been in office since 2007, according to her website. She served as town clerk in North Hempstead, N.Y., before being elected to the Assembly.

A local GOP leader told Newsday Mark Schimel is serious about running.

"We talked about it a couple of times, and he is serious. We've told him that we want a dignified and issue-oriented campaign,"  said Frank Moroney, North Hempstead Town GOP leader.

The couple has two kids and still hasn't legally divorced, reported The New York Daily News. Irma Schimel told the paper she still considers Michelle her daughter in-law, even receiving a Mother's Day card from her this year.

“I love her very much,” Irma Schimel said. “I can’t believe he’d do a thing like this. I’m going to talk to him.”

She predicted her son would lose against Michelle.

Scott Levenson, general consultant for Michelle Schimel,  told Politico.com that Mark's bid was a political stunt, and vowed her campaign would be about "civility and decency," not candidates' personal lives.

“We’re going to keep the personal life of the assembly member private,” Levenson said. “The fact is the Republican party is clearly manipulating this situation, sadly, for their own political game. Assembly member Schimel is committed to keeping civility and decency in both the way she runs her government office and the way she runs her political campaign.”

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Updated at 6:20 p.m. ET: A Florida mother killed her four children and then shot herself Tuesday morning as Brevard County, Fla., deputies closed in on her Port St. John home, authorities said.

Deputies said the mother, identified as Tonya Thomas, 33, sent a warning text message to a friend before the shootings, but the friend didn’t see the text until later.

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Three of the children, at least one already wounded, fled to the home of a neighbor who had been awakened by gunfire, but Thomas immediately called the children back and killed them, sheriff’s spokesman Tom Goodyear said.

The neighbor called 911 as they left his home, Goodyear said.

See the story at NBC station WESH of Orlando

“She was very calm,” Goodyear said of the neighbor’s report. “She called them back and they walked back to the house.”

Arriving deputies found one of the children, Pebbles Johnson, 17, lying in the front yard of the Bright Avenue home and spotted a person at the front door, Goodyear said. The person ducked back inside after seeing deputies, he said. The teen was declared dead when she was transferred to an ambulance.

As a SWAT team arrived, officers heard gunshots inside. SWAT officers entered through a back sliding door just before 7 a.m., and found Thomas and three other children dead. They were identified as Joel Johnson, 12, Jazlin Johnson, 13, and Jaxs Johnson, 15.

Goodyear said the children’s father, who was separated from the family, had been notified of the deaths.

Also, a friend of Thomas told police she texted him during the night that she wanted to be cremated with her four children, Goodyear said. However, the friend did not see the text until after he woke up Tuesday morning and the incident was over. The friend, who was not identified, called police after seeing news of the deaths, he said.

Goodyear said police previously responded to the Florida “Space Coast” home, about 15 miles south of Cape Canaveral, for domestic disturbance calls involving Jaxs Johnson. He said the most recent call was about a month before Tuesday’s shootings.

"The cops have been called to that house many times because the kids were terrorizing the neighbors," neighbor Travis St. Peter told NBC station WESH.

Goodyear said that of Tuesday afternoon, authorities had no motive for the killings.

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