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. 

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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Gary Green, The Orlando Sentinel / Pool via Getty Images file

George Zimmerman appears during his bond hearing in a Seminole County courtroom on April 20, in Sanford, Florida.

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.

Prosecutor files evidence, witness list in Trayvon Martin shooting case

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.

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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Crime Stoppers

Gelareh Bagherzadeh was shot outside of her home in Houston on Jan. 16. Her killing remains unsolved.

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.

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.

Crime Stoppers

Crime scene photo of Gelareh Bagherzadeh's car, which crashed into a neighbor's garage door after she was fatally shot on Jan. 16 in Houston.

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.

“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.

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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.

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."

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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.”

“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.

"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.

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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Handout / U.S. Air Force via Reuters file

A F-22 Raptor fighter jet flies in a training mission during Red Flag 12-3 over the Nevada Test and Training Range.

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."

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.

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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Kiichiro Sato / AP

Fireworks explode over Lake Michigan Sunday, July 4, 2010, in Chicago.

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.

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.

Watch the Top Videos on msnbc.com

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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Dick Yarwood/Newsday, file

Mark and Michelle Schimel at a polling place March 27, 2007, when she was running for the 16th district in the New York State Assembly.

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.

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

Tim Shortt / FLORIDA TODAY

Brevard County sheriff's investigators say a mother took the lives of her four children during an early morning confrontation, calling three of them back into her home to fatally shoot them before turning a gun on herself, law enforcement sources report.

“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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MIAMI -- A Miami-Dade Fire Rescue captain, whose Facebook comment about the Trayvon Martin shooting spurred an investigation, was demoted two ranks to firefighter Monday in a letter from the fire chief.

Brian Beckmann, who posted the comment April 11, must also complete a Fit for Duty evaluation and diversity and/or sensitivity training, the letter from Fire Chief William Bryson said. Beckmann may appeal the decision within 14 days.

Rowan Taylor, president of International Association of Firefighters Local 1403, wrote in an email statement that he disagrees with the demotion.

"As union President, I believe this discipline is excessive. We will immediately file an appeal to an independent arbitrator," Taylor said.

For more, visit NBCMiami.com

A copy of Beckmann’s initial Facebook post was in the Finding of Fact Report released by the department.

Besides having disparaging words for the prosecutor, the post also said: "I and my coworkers could rewrite the book on whether our urban youths are victims of racist profiling or products of their failed, (expletive), ignorant, pathetic, welfare dependent excuses for parents, but like Mrs. Corey, we speak only the truth. They're just misunderstood little church going angels and the ghetto hoodie look doesn't have anything to do with why people wonder if they're about to get jacked by a thug,” he posted.

A disciplinary report said that the comment altered the reputation of the Fire Rescue department.

“The statement posted cast the subject in a negative light as well as brought ill repute to our entire organization as a result of the reference to 'my co-workers.'"

Beckmann, who said in an interview with the department that he was not the author of the post and rather copied it from what he thought was an editorial reply to a news article or blog, apologized to Bryson in a note.

“I know that my actions have brought you undue scrutiny and you didn’t deserve that,” he said. “I promise I will try harder than ever to be a decent and professional public servant to the citizens of Miami-Dade County, that was always my goal and will continue to be.”

Beckmann also explained why he chose to use the statement.

Prosecutor files evidence, witness list in Trayvon Martin case

"I have...from all the years of, all the horrible things I have seen and after a recent couple of events I was reading things that evoked a response in me that made me what to share it and it was not the response they're deeming it to be," he said according to an attachment to the memorandum.

Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez released a statement Monday that said he agreed with the department’s decision.

“The comments made by Captain Beckmann were reprehensible and will not be tolerated,” Gimenez said. “We can’t have our employees, especially a supervisor, making such disparaging comments about any member of our community, much less one of our own employees."

Gimenez said that he directed his staff to revise policies dealing with the issue.

"It is important to reiterate my position that public servants have a responsibility to uphold the highest levels of integrity and decency, especially when you consider our multicultural, multi-ethnic community. There’s no such thing as being off-the-clock; we are public servants 24/7 and must conduct ourselves with the utmost professionalism at all times," he said in an email statement.

Beckmann, who has worked for the county since 1997, was promoted to lieutenant in 2002 and captain in 2006. He has previously been disciplined twice for reporting late to work and responding to an unauthorized email “sent to be humorous and not county business,” according to his personnel record summary.

Other officers involved in the case were asked to receive counseling for their "lack of official action," the attachment said.

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Updated at 6:55 p.m. ET: John Edwards' defense lawyers said Tuesday they might call both Edwards and Rielle Hunter, his mistress and the mother of his youngest daughter, to the stand Wednesday in his campaign finance corruption trial.

Both have been on the defense's potential witness list from the beginning, as has Edwards' eldest daughter, Cate Edwards Upham. But speculation had swirled around the trial in Greensboro, N.C., that it might be too risky for the defense to call any of them to the stand.

Their names were on an updated list of possible witnesses that Edwards' lawyers gave the judge late Tuesday. Their appearance on the list doesn't mean they'll definitely testify; crafty defense lawyers have been known to list possible witnesses whom they have no intention of calling to throw prosecutors off the trail.

Tuesday, a large crowd gathered at the federal courthouse anticipating Upham's testimony, but a parade of other witnesses pushed her appearance on the stand back a day. She is likely to be one of the first witnesses called Wednesday.

Upham is expected to say that despite the lies and betrayal, her father still cared for her mother, Elizabeth, and was trying to protect the family.

"Taking the stand, talking about her father, how much family mattered — I think it could be powerful evidence for John Edwards," said Hampton Dellinger, a legal analyst for NBC News and msnbc.com.

The focus instead was on the money trail Tuesday, as a longtime friend and former campaign aide testified that Edwards was surprised to learn that billionaire oil heiress "Rachel "Bunny" Mellon had given almost $750,000 to help conceal the affair with Hunter.

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

Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina who was the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, is on trial in U.S. District Court on six felony counts of accepting about $1 million in illegal and unreported campaign donations from Mellon and the late Fred Baron, finance chief for his 2008 presidential campaign.

A major point of the defense argument is that Edwards didn't know what the money from Mellon and Baron 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.

Slideshow: Edwards' public life

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has faced public and private challenges throughout his life and career.

Launch slideshow

Edwards' lawyers also called former FBI agent Jim Walsh to provide an analysis of Edwards' and Hunter's finances that appeared to show that most of the money from Mellon and Baron stayed in the hands of Young and his wife, while "Rielle Hunter saw little" of it, Dellinger said.

Financial records showed that the Youngs got about $1 million from Baron and Mellon in 2007 and 2008, but tax returns suggested they gave Hunter only $191,000 of it.

Other records showed that rather than deal with Young, Baron paid Hunter through direct deposits into her checking account. That money accounted for $74,000 over seven months.

Other defense witnesses also questioned the credibility of Young, calling him "untrustworthy" and "dishonest."

That could be Edwards' best angle after U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles ruled out a major part of the defense case Monday, saying jurors wouldn't be allowed to hear about a federal audit that concluded that the money for the Hunter operation didn't amount to campaign contributions subject to federal regulation.

Scott Thomas, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, had been ready to testify about the audit of Edwards' 2008 campaign, which found that the contributions were legal. But Eagles ruled that evidence inadmissible because there was no way to determine what FEC auditors knew or were told at the time.

Thomas was allowed to testify Tuesday morning, but only in general terms. He said the commission had never before considered a case like Edwards'.

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WASHINGTON - The first tropical storm of the year formed in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Mexico on Monday and was named Aletta, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said. 

The storm had maximum sustained winds early Tuesday near 40 mph with additional strengthening forecast during the next day or so followed by gradual weakening. 

The storm is swirling far out over the Pacific and is not posing a danger to land. Aletta is centered about 640 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and is moving west-northwest near 9 mph.

The storm's forecast track shows it going farther out to sea. 

The Atlantic storm season has yet to begin. June 1 is the official start of the Atlantic season, though storms can form before or after that date.

For Pacific storms, the other names being used this year are: Bud, Carlotta, Daniel, Emilia, Fabio, Gilma, Hector, Ileana, John, Kristy, Lane, Miriam, Norman, Olivia, Paul, Rosa, Sergio, Tara, Vicente, Willa, Xavier, Yolanda and Zeke.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Two illegal immigrants pleaded guilty in Texas on Monday to possessing 27,000 rounds of assault rifle ammunition along the U.S.-Mexico border, where cross-border weapons smuggling has increased in recent years, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. 

Police in Laredo, Texas, discovered the ammunition after they stopped a Dodge Ram pickup truck that failed to stop at a stop sign in March, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson said in a statement. 

Mexican President Felipe Calderon told U.S. President Barack Obama in April that his country's bloody drug war - which has claimed more than 50,000 lives since 2006 - would not cease until the United States stems the flow of weapons that head south of the Rio Grande. 

After the Laredo traffic stop, officers arrested Abraham Garcia-Perguero, 35, and his wife, Maria Isabel Rodriguez-Olivio, 33, both Mexican citizens living as illegal immigrants in Laredo, Magidson said. 

Police seized 27 boxes of .223-caliber ammunition - commonly used in AR-15 or M-16 assault rifles - alongside a Glock pistol with 50 bullets, Magidson said. 

Garcia-Perguero and Rodriguez-Olivio admitted they picked up the ammunition and Glock bullet magazine from a local gun shop and were going to deliver them to another person waiting outside a strip club, Magidson said. They expected to receive between $400 and $500 for transporting the ammo. 

Each faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine for possessing the large ammo cache.

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SALMON, Idaho -- When Mica Craig reached down to brush what he thought was a stick off some mulch in the garden section of a Washington state Wal-Mart, it turned around and sank its fangs into his hand. 

The Friday encounter with a rattlesnake sent Craig, 47, to the hospital, where he said he remained in excruciating pain and may lose feeling in two fingers. Wal-Mart Stores Inc has apologized.

"I reached down to grab the stick to move it out of the way, and the snake stretched out, turned around and got its fangs in my right hand," he said. "I slung it off and I did a tap dance on it until it was dead."

Craig was rushed to the hospital by fellow customer Maria Geffre, who told Reuters she saw him crumple to the ground after crying out that he had been bitten by a snake.

"He had punctures on his hand and there was the dead rattler he'd stomped on," Geffre said, describing the snake as at least a foot long with four buttons, or rattles.

Craig, a married father of two, said the mulch was for his marijuana plants, which he is licensed to grow for medical reasons. It was unclear whether the snake came from an adjacent field or arrived at the store along with garden supplies.

"It's the most scared I've ever been in my life," Craig told KIRO FM from his hospital bed in Lewiston, Idaho. "I was screaming bloody murder through the parking lot."

'Isolated incident'
Craig said emergency room doctors sent him home because there was little swelling initially - he had iced the wound - and they thought the snake had inflicted only a "dry bite," or one that did not inject venom.

But his hand quickly swelled up to "the size of a grapefruit," Craig told KIRO, and he returned to the hospital. Doctors treated him with six bags of anti-venom, Craig said.

"As of right now, my little finger doesn't move at all and my ring finger barely moves," he said according to KIRO. "I'm just hoping that my hand works."

A Wal-Mart spokeswoman offered an apology to Craig and said the retailer was looking into how the incident could have happened at the store in Clarkston, in eastern Washington.

"At this point, it appears to be an isolated incident. We are working with a pest management team, which is conducting a sweep of the property to ensure there is no additional rattlesnake activity," Wal-Mart spokeswoman Kayla Whaling said.

Travis Taggart, director of the Center for North American Herpetology, said about half of documented rattlesnake bites, which are usually defensive when directed at humans, are "dry" but still cause severe pain.

Msnbc.com staff and Reuters contributed to this report.

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PHOENIX - Tucson police on Monday released recordings of 911 calls reporting the disappearance of Arizona 6-year-old Isabel Celis, who authorities said may have been snatched from her bed last month.

The high-profile search for hazel-eyed Isabel, who was reported missing on April 21 from the home she shared with her older brothers and both parents, drew national media attention as volunteers and police combed streets in her middle class Tucson neighborhood looking for her.

In the audio recording, Isabel's father, Sergio Celis, calmly tells the operator he wants to "to report a missing person. My little girl who's 6-years-old. I believe she was abducted from our house."

Dad asked to stay away from missing Tucson girl's brothers

The second 911 was placed by Isabel's mother, Rebecca. The audio of the call and a transcript were posted by NBC News affiliate in Tuscon, KVOA.com.

Rebecca: Hello?
Dispatcher: Hello ma'am are you the mom?
Rebecca: Yes.
Dispatcher: Okay, what is your name?
Rebecca: My name is Rebecca Celis. C-E-L-I-S
Dispatcher: Okay, anything else you remember she was wearing and her hair?
Rebecca: Her hair is in braids. It's in little ponytails. I made little ponytails on her head last night before she went to bed.

Dispatcher: So who, noticed her gone, your husband?

Rebecca: My husband, I went to work this morning at seven and um, I just, and I didn't even come and check on her, I should have come and checked on her.

Dispatcher: Okay, now you looked everywhere, under the beds, the closets, everything?
Rebecca: Yeah, I looked everywhere, I even looked _______— (inaudible) the windows out of our house. Somebody took the window out of our house.

Earlier on Monday, police said Isabel's two elder brothers had been placed in the sole care of their mother over concerns for their welfare.

More recordings at NBC News affiliate in Tuscon, KVOA.com

Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said the girl's father, Sergio Celis, had agreed not to have any contact with his sons, who are now in the care of their mother, Rebecca Celis.

Villasenor told reporters at a news conference that Sergio Celis had entered a voluntary agreement with Child Protective Services to stay away from the children, but declined to elaborate.

"Child Protective Services said that this would be the best scenario at this point," he said. The police chief did not give the boys' ages or names.

The girl's parents have told police Isabel was last seen when she was put to bed on the night of April 20. The family awoke the next morning to find her bed empty. Authorities said a window to the girl's ground-floor room was open, and a screen was missing.

Police have said they are treating the girl's disappearance as a "possible abduction," but have yet to rule anyone out as a suspect.

1,000 tips from the public
In a news release on Friday, Tucson police said they had been in contact with Child Protective Services after becoming aware of "information regarding the welfare of the older Celis children," but did not elaborate.

Several days after Isabel vanished, Sergio and Rebecca Celis made a tearful public appeal for her safe return, pleading with their daughter's presumed abductors to "tell us what you want."

After making their brief, anguished appeal, they hugged volunteers who helped in a search for their missing daughter, then walked away without fielding questions from the media.

During the search in recent weeks, Villasenor said police have received more than 1,000 tips from the public. Police have also canvassed homes in a 3-mile radius of the girl's home and searched the Celis house using sniffer dogs. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated 1:45 p.m. ET -- Firefighters trying to protect a historic mining town in northern Arizona were told to expect extreme conditions Tuesday, with temperatures in the 80s and gusts up to 35 mph that could fan an out-of-control wildfire. 

Crews are facing additional hazards as well: snakes and abandoned mining shafts.

Snakes were a problem at a past fire in the area, Karen Takai, spokeswoman for the fire team, told msnbc.com. No one has been bitten so far, she said, but "we know that could be an issue in this area."

Procedures call for any bitten firefighter to be taken to a local hospital for anti-venom.

As for mine shafts, "there are a lot ... that you don't see because of the amount of brush," she said. 

Add rugged terrain to the mix, she said, and conditions are "extremely difficult."

The National Weather Service also issued a "red flag warning" Tuesday for northern Arizona, southeast Nevada and southern Utah.

Burning south of Prescott, Ariz., in the Prescott National Forest, the wildfire that started Sunday has scorched an estimated 1,700 acres of ponderosa pine and chaparral, and threatens some 350 homes in Crown King.

Tourists who had been in the town left when a mandatory evacuation was ordered Sunday, while homeowners were allowed to stay as long as they remained on their property.

Some 300 fire personnel were already at the scene, and the first of 400 more are coming in Tuesday, Takai said. Six air tankers worked Monday to douse hot spots, and those flights will continue Tuesday.

Two buildings and one trailer have been destroyed, Prescott National Forest spokeswoman Debbie Maneely said.

The blaze, still at zero percent containment, started at a "structure" and was human-caused, she said.

Greg Flores, president of the Crown King Chamber of Commerce, said he helped a couple and their dog flee was the fire "fully engulfed" their home. 

"There were flames over 100 feet tall when we got up there," the Associated Press quoted him as saying.

Flores and his wife fled their home around 2 a.m. Monday when ash began raining down. They spent the night on the floor of his business and have since been able to return home. 

Flores added that the fire had turned a ridge black, destroying much of the forest there. 

Report: Busy fire season expected due to droughts

Crown King is located in the mountains more than 85 miles north of Phoenix, where the fire created a haze over the city on Monday.

The fire was one of several in Arizona since the weekend. They are the first major wildfires in Arizona this year, after a record 2011 season in which nearly 2,000 blazes scorched 1,500 square miles, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Another wildfire more than 120 miles northeast of Phoenix was five percent contained Monday evening.

On the San Carlos Apache Reservation, in eastern Arizona, a fire caused by lightning charred more than 1.7 square miles of ponderosa pine, juniper and oak.

A fire on the Fort Apache Reservation burned 575 acres of brush and grassland and threatened a fish hatchery.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Keith Bedford / Reuters

Tattoo artist Dave Hurban displays an iPod Nano which he has attached to his wrists through magnetic piercings in his wrist in New York.

Keith Bedford / Reuters

Tattoo artist Dave Hurban displays the magnetic piercings he uses to attach his iPod.

You can see more images of piercings in PhotoBlog.

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The parents of Trayvon Martin, Tracy Martin, left, and Sybrina Fulton, second from left, meet with prosecutor Angela Corey as they arrive with their attorney Benjamin Crump, right, at the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford, Fla., on April 20. Tracy Martin and Fulton are among the witnesses whose names were made public in a court filing by Corey on Monday.

Updated at 8:40 p.m. ET: Court paperwork filed late Monday offered a window into evidence in the trial of George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch captain facing second-degree murder charges in the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

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The documents filed with the Seminole County Court by Special Prosecutor Angela Corey listed witnesses the state will call for questioning, as well as other evidence to be presented, including video from the night of the shooting, crime scene photographs and 56 audio-recorded statements, including one from a witness who called 911 the night of the shooting, according to the Sentinel.

Many of the witness names were redacted from the eight-page filing, it said, though the names of family members of both victim and shooter who will be called were made public, including Martin’s parents and Zimmerman’s father.

The documents also included the names of 18 police officers from Sanford, the Florida town where the shooting took place, and lead investigator Chris Serino, the Sentinel said.

Martin, who was unarmed, was shot and killed by Zimmerman on Feb. 26 during an encounter in a gated community where Martin was staying with his father.

At the time, police said that Zimmerman claimed he had acted in self-defense, and no charges were filed for weeks after the shooting.

The case sparked a national debate over race, justice and gun rights. Martin, 17, was black, and Zimmerman, 28, is the son of a Hispanic mother and Caucasian father.

Access to evidence in the case has been the source of contention. 

Both the prosecution and the defense have said they want to keep some or most of the evidence sealed from the public, arguing that they were concerned about safety of witnesses. 

If the court allows evidence to remain sealed, a number of news organizations, including the Orlando Sentinel and NBC, are expected to challenge the decision.

The prosecutor's court filing came shortly before the clerk’s office was preparing to close.

Late Monday, Mark O'Mara, Zimmerman's attorney, confirmed on Zimmerman's web site that he received the discovery. The site is operated by O'Mara on behalf of the George Zimmerman Legal Defense Fund.

In a statement last week, O'Mara said he may file a motion to redact information in the discovery, therefore delaying public access to the documents. He said during a hearing in late April he was concerned for the safety of the witnesses.

The court public information officer told NBC she would release the state's witness list in the morning. 

Jamie Novogrod contributed to this report.

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Don Emmert / AFP - Getty Images file

An Bull Elk with snow on his face is seen near the road between Banff and Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada, in this 2009 photo. Elk are one of the groups of mammals researchers say will be able adapt surroundings and keep up with climate change.

As the climate changes over the next century, the ranges of nearly 90 percent of mammal species will shrink — in many cases because animals won't be able to get to areas where the climate is going to become suitable for them, says new research.

Across the Western Hemisphere, the study also found, nearly 10 percent of mammals will be unable to move fast enough to keep up with changes in climate. In some areas, such as the Amazon, that number will be as high as 40 percent.

And while some animals will do just fine or even better than before, certain animals in certain places face catastrophic losses of survivable habitat. Most at risk are primates, which will likely lose 75 percent of their range because of both inhospitable climate and the inability to get to livable places.

Related: As temps rise, amphibians may vanish

"We could be underestimating the vulnerability of some species to climate change," said Carrie Schloss, an ecologist at the University of Washington.

"There have been a lot of projections done on species' ranges and where they are projected to be in the future based on where the climate will be suitable," she added. "But most don't tell you whether species can get from where they are today to where the climate will be suitable." 

To make more accurate predictions of how mammals might be expected to fare in the coming decades, Schloss and colleagues collected information on 493 species of mammals whose future ranges had already been predicted through about the year 2100. Then, the researchers used known relationships between how big an animal is and what it eats to estimate how far a given species could be expected to move from generation to generation.

Previous studies have shown that climate change will expand the ranges where some species will be able to live. But when Schloss' team factored in whether animals could actually get to these newly suitable habitats, they found that true ranges will actually shrink in nearly 60 percent of those cases. Range size will shrink by an average of nearly 40 percent.

Animals in tropical regions face the biggest risks, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, possibly because species there are extra-sensitive to even small changes in climate.

Across the moist subtropical regions of the western hemisphere, for example, nearly 15 percent of mammals will likely be left behind by climate change. That number jumps to nearly 40 percent in some areas of the Amazon. In those places, species that can only migrate about one kilometer (0.6 miles) each year would need to move eight times faster to keep up with climate-induced shifts in their ideal rangelands.

Related: Climate change could shrink animals

Other areas that are likely to experience climate changes that are more extreme than many species will be able to handle include the Yucatan Peninsula, the Appalachian Mountains and the southeastern United States. Primates are in particularly trouble, as are moles and shrews.

Jeffrey Arguedas / EPA

Sloths are expected to keep up with climate change, according to research detailed on Monday.

Animals expected to be able to keep up with climate change include carnivores, armadillos, sloths, coyotes, elk and moose. Many of these animals can move large enough distances to get them to where they'll need to go.

The new study should help researchers focus conservation efforts by, for example, figuring out where to create corridors for animals that will need to migrate in the face of climate change, said David Ackerly, an ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Unfortunately, there is not a lot of good news in analyses of climate impacts," he said. "Rapid change will be disruptive. The question is: Where will impacts be worse and what can we do?"  

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