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Okla. men get video of deadly tornado overhead

Two 19-year-old Oklahoma men who took cover in a cellar during a deadly tornado were able to use their cellphones to get video of the twister as it passed over the home.

Charles Gafford was at the home of friend Alex Rodriguez as the tornado struck Monday. While in the cellar, they got their phones through an opening in the overhead door.

The video shows the tornado approaching and passing over the home. Debris, including tree limbs and a tire, fly past. The video has drawn more than 280,000 views on Youtube.

Rodriguez’s mother, Amanda Odom, told The Associated Press that 19-year-olds “do stupid things” and if she had been home, there would be no video.

The tornado is blamed for at least 24 deaths in Moore.

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Watch the AP’s video at http://bit.ly/10MRTnk

Impact of Okla. tornado beyond mere cleanup

Lives were forever changed in a few short minutes as a large tornado battered the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing at least 24 people and injuring dozens. The storm tore apart one elementary school and severely damaged another; it ripped homes off their foundations, scattered prized possessions, laid waste to businesses.

While officials are nearly certain the search for survivors and the dead is complete, the effects of Monday’s tornado will linger into the coming weeks as the cleanup and rebuilding begins. There’s also the emotional fallout, as residents and first responders grapple with what they saw and heard in the moments before, during and after the massive tornado.

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Watch the AP video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0bfYKY87lI

AP photographer describes destroyed Okla. school

As soon as I saw the tornado warnings on TV, I had to leave the office right away. I had photographed about a dozen tornados in my decade in Oklahoma and if I didn’t get into my car before the funnel cloud swept through, I knew I would get stuck in traffic and arrive too late at the scene.

By the time I got to Moore, all I could see was destruction. Mangled pieces of metal wrapped up in bare tree limbs. Adults carrying children in their arms. Shredded pieces of wood, cinder block and insulation strewn on the ground.

I walked across a field littered with debris toward a group of people standing by a heaping mound of rubble too big to be a home. A woman told me it was a school and that students had hid in hallways and bathrooms as the massive tornado struck.

I expected chaos as I approached the piles of bricks and twisted metal where Plaza Towers Elementary once stood but was surprised by how calm and orderly everything was.

Police and firefighters used bars to try to lift a large chunk of a wall up as they pulled children out one-by-one from underneath. Parents and neighborhood residents stood in a line helping to pass the children from one set of arms to another out of harm’s way.

A little boy was lifted from under the wall and rescuers were going to start passing him to the line of volunteers, but his dad was there. As the boy called out for him, they were reunited.

I spent about 30 minutes at Plaza Towers and photographed about a dozen children who were pulled from under the rubble.

I focused my lens on them. Some of the children looked dazed and others seemed terrified. But they were all alive.

I know students are among those who died in the tornado, but for a moment, there was hope in the devastation.

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AP Photographer Sue Ogrocki has worked in Oklahoma for more than 10 years where she has covered about a dozen tornados.

AP CEO calls records seizure ‘unconstitutional’

The Associated Press’ president and chief executive says the government’s secret seizure of two months of reporters’ phone records has already had a chilling effect on newsgathering, a week after the subpoenas were revealed publicly.

Gary Pruitt on Sunday called the Justice Department’s actions “unconstitutional” and said the AP hasn’t ruled out legal action.

In his first television interviews since the AP reported the Justice Department seizure, Pruitt said it has made sources less willing to talk to AP journalists and, in the long term, could limit Americans’ information from all news outlets.

Pruitt told CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the government has no business monitoring the AP’s newsgathering activities.

“And if they restrict that apparatus … the people of the United States will only know what the government wants them to know and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment,” he said.

In a separate interview with the AP, Pruitt said, “It’s too early to know if we’ll take legal action but I can tell you we are positively displeased and we do feel that our constitutional rights have been violated.”

He said President Barack Obama “should rein in that out-of-control investigation.”

“They’ve been secretive, they’ve been overbroad and abusive — so much so that taken together, they are unconstitutional because they violate our First Amendment rights,” he added.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said the government needs to stop leaks by whatever means necessary.

“This is an investigation that needs to happen because national security leaks, of course, can get our agents overseas killed,” he said.

Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the government should focus on those who leak sensitive national security matters and not on journalists who report on them. The Texas Republican said his committee should hold hearings on how the Justice Department obtained phone records from AP reporters and editors.

“What confuses me is the focus on the press, who have a constitutional right here and we depend on the press to get to the bottom of so many issues that we, as individuals, cannot,” Cornyn said.

Cornyn said the Justice Department’s actions were part of a pattern for Obama’s administration to quiet its critics.

“It’s a culture of cover-ups and intimidation that is giving the administration so much trouble,” Cornyn said.

He also renewed his call for Attorney General Eric Holder to resign, citing the contempt citation the House of Representatives voted against him last year for refusing to turn over documents in a failed government gun smuggling sting.

White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said the president “has complete faith in Attorney General Holder.” He also insisted the White House was not involved in the decision to seek AP phone records.

“A cardinal rule is we don’t get involved in independent investigations. And this is one of those,” Pfeiffer said.

Although the Justice Department has not explained why it sought phone records from the AP, Pruitt pointed to a May 7, 2012, story that disclosed details of a successful CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the one-year anniversary of the May 2, 2011, killing of Osama bin Laden.

The AP delayed publication of that story at the request of government officials who said it would jeopardize national security.

“We respected that, we acted responsibly, we held the story,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt said the AP published the story only after officials from two government entities said the threat had passed. He said the administration still asked that the story be held until an official announcement the next day, a request the AP rejected.

The news service viewed the story as important because White House and Homeland Security Department officials were saying publicly there was no credible evidence of a terrorist threat to the U.S. around the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

“So that was misleading to the American public. We felt the American public needed to know this story,” Pruitt said.

The AP has seen an effect on its newsgathering since the disclosure of the Justice Department’s subpoena, he said.

“Officials that would normally talk to us and people we talk to in the normal course of newsgathering are already saying to us that they’re a little reluctant to talk to us,” Pruitt said. “They fear that they will be monitored by the government.”

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of personal and work telephone records for several reporters and editors, as well as general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and for the main number for the AP in the House of Representatives press gallery.

“It was sweeping and broad and beyond what they needed to do,” Pruitt said.

He objected to the “Justice Department acting on its own being the judge, jury and executioner in secret,” saying the AP would not back down.

“We’re not going to be intimidated by the abusive tactics of the Justice Department,” he said.

McConnell and Pfeiffer were interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Cornyn appeared on “Face the Nation.”

Bieber Owes Thousands for Monkey Vet Bills

(Newser) – Justin Bieber has now officially ditched his pet monkey in Germany—but he still owes several thousand in vet bills, food and care for the abandoned primate, the AP reports. "You can bet we are going to ask for that money back," says a …
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A look at statements about foiled terror plot

A look at the events and public statements surrounding an Associated Press story about a foiled plot to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner:

— May 2, 2012: Federal government officials ask the AP to delay publishing a story about a foiled plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner, which the AP had recently discovered. They cite national security concerns. The AP agrees to temporarily delay publishing until national security concerns are allayed.

— May 7, 2012: Federal government officials inform the AP that the national security concerns have been allayed, but they still ask AP to withhold publishing the story until an official announcement planned for the following day. The AP declines and publishes the story. Later that day, John Brennan, then the president’s chief counterterrorism adviser, conducts a teleconference with analysts to discuss the plot. He assures them the bomb was never a threat to the American public.

— Feb. 7, 2013: Brennan, during his nomination hearing to become CIA director, tells senators, “I said there was never a threat to the American public, as we had said so publicly, because we had inside control of the plot and the device was never a threat to the American public.”

— May 14, 2013: Attorney General Eric Holder describes the disclosure of information about the foiled plot as “a very, very serious leak.” Holder says: “It put the American people at risk. And that is not hyperbole. It put the American people at risk. And trying to determine who was responsible for that, I think, required very aggressive action.” Holder does not specify how the disclosure of information about the foiled plot had endangered Americans.

AP sources: Pentagon to cut civilian furlough days

U.S. military officials say the Defense Department leaders trying to find ways to deal with mandatory budget cuts are poised to trim the number of civilian furlough days from 14 to 11 and allow the military to exempt thousands of additional workers from the unpaid day off requirements.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is expected to announce a decision on the hotly contested issue as early as Tuesday afternoon when he meets with defense department personnel in Virginia.

The Pentagon is expected to let the Navy avoid furloughs for tens of thousands of workers at shipyards, where they make up the bulk of the workforce and are key to keeping production lines going.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the decisions.

Dad wants evidence in girl’s stabbing

The father of a 12-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his 8-year-old sister had planned on addressing the media, but sheriff’s officials said a news conference set for Tuesday was canceled.

Barney Fowler told The Associated Press that he will believe his son is innocent until he sees evidence that proves otherwise, and that the family was backing the boy after a crime that terrified this Central California foothill community.

“Until they have the proper evidence to show it’s my son, we’re standing behind him,” Fowler said. “If they have the evidence, well that’s another story. We’re an honest family.”

Fowler had said he planned to address the media Tuesday at the sheriff’s substation in Valley Springs, but sheriff’s officials said in a brief statement late Monday that the news conference was canceled. No reason was given for the cancellation, and a sheriff’s spokesman did not return calls from the AP.

The boy told investigators on April 27 that he encountered a random attacker in the family home while his father was attending a Little League game. He described the man as tall with long gray hair.

The boy said the man fled on foot and he found his sister, Leila Fowler, bleeding.

Leila’s death set off an intense manhunt in the rural community where some residents had moved to escape big city crime. The Calaveras County Sheriff’s Office spent more than 2,000 man-hours amassing evidence and searching door-to-door.

Residents of the rural community began locking their doors and calling authorities when they thought they saw men who fit the description.

They also held fundraisers for the Fowler family and turned out by the thousands for a candlelight vigil in Leila’s honor.

“We’re thankful to the community and all they’ve done for my daughter,” Barney Fowler said.

He echoed comments made earlier Monday by his son, Justin Fowler, 19, who told the AP the family was in shock and extremely sad about the boy’s arrest.

“We’re just in a fog,” Justin Fowler said.

Rumors began spreading last week around town that the 12-year-old was a suspect. The AP is withholding his name because he is a juvenile.

“I know there were a bunch of rumors going around saying it could possibly be him but nobody wanted to say that he could do that,” said Maureen Lourenco, whose children attend middle school with the boy. “I have a 12-year-old son and my daughter’s 14 and I just can’t fathom them doing that.”

Residents say the Fowlers are good neighbors who never caused any problems. Now after fearing for weeks that a random intruder had committed a heinous crime in their midst, they’re dealing with another kind of reality.

“To kill a little girl? Eight years old? I don’t understand how” they handle that, neighbor Arturo Magallon said.

People across the mountain community were relieved there had been an arrest, and the crime did not appear to be the work of an intruder.

“I see a lot of people now starting to walk again like it used to be before,” Magallon said.

Investigators initially maintained the boy was being questioned only as a witness.

The Fowler family is now trying to cope with what could be a double tragedy.

“We’re just trying to stay positive, but it’s hard,” Justin Fowler said.

Days after his sister’s killing, the 12-year-old brother appeared at a vigil for her. Justin was photographed with the name “Leila” written on his forearm. Barney Fowler attended with his fiance, Krystal Walters.

“We’re a strong family,” Barney Fowler said Monday. “We’re staying strong.”

On Monday, counselors were talking to the siblings’ classmates at Toyon Middle School.

“Our kids are experiencing a lot of mixed emotions,” said Superintendent Mark Campbell. “We have a degree of ease that it’s not a random assailant, but it’s a double whammy from our school perspective. We lost a student and we stand to lose another. It’s a lot for our kids to process.”

Feds placing intense pressure on widow, friends in Boston bombing investigation, experts say

Federal authorities are placing intense pressure on what they know to be the inner circle of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects, arresting three college buddies of surviving brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and keeping Tamerlan Tamerlan’s 24-year-old widow, Katherine Russell, in the public eye with their open surveillance and leaks to media about investigators’ focus on her.

Legal experts say it’s part of their quest not just to determine whether Russell and the friends are culpable but also to push for as much information as possible regarding whether the bombing suspects had ties to a terrorism network or accomplices working domestically or abroad. A primary goal is to push the widow and friends to give their full cooperation, according to the experts.

Russell is “assisting” investigators, a source close to her tells Fox News, though reports say she may not be fully cooperating.

David Zlotnick, a professor of law at Roger Williams University and former federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, said authorities may be tracking Russell closely because they feel she’s not being completely honest about all she knows.

“It seems to me they don’t believe her yet,” he said.

Dzhokhar is in a prison hospital, facing a potential death sentence if convicted of the terrorism plot that authorities allege the 19-year-old and his late 26-year-old brother carried out April 15. Twin pressure cooker bombs detonated near the race’s finish line, leaving three people dead and injuring more than 260 others. Tamerlan died in a gunfight with authorities April 19, a day after authorities released photos of the suspects.

Tamerlan’s widow has been ensconced at her parents’ North Kingstown, R.I., home since then. Much about her remains a mystery, including what she knew or witnessed in the weeks, months and years before the bombings, and what she saw and did in the days after.

It’s unclear when Russell last communicated with her husband, but her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, told The Associated Press in an interview last month that the last time she saw him was before she went to work April 18. DeLuca said Tuesday that Russell had met with law enforcement “for many hours over the past week,” and would continue to do so in the coming days. He previously told the AP that Russell didn’t suspect her husband of anything before the bombings, and nothing seemed amiss in the days after.

Zlotnick said the fact that charges have been brought against the younger brother’s three friends from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth over allegations they covered up for Dzhokhar indicates authorities are willing to go after the widow for similar actions. That puts pressure on Russell to cooperate.

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, students from Kazakhstan, were charged this week with conspiring to obstruct justice by taking a backpack with fireworks and a laptop from Dzhokhar’s dorm room, while Robel Phillipos was charged with lying to investigators about the visit to the dorm room. All three are 19 years old and face the possibility of five or more years in federal prison.

Investigators may also focus on the timeline of events regarding the teens’ actions, experts say. The teens made contact with Dzhokar before a shootout that killed an MIT officer, but did not call authorities.

Federal, state and local authorities are also continuing to search the woods near the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth campus, a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives official confirms to Fox News.

ATF spokeswoman Debora Seifert says no search warrants have been executed and they are searching public areas.

The lawyers for the Kazakh students said their clients had nothing to do with the bombing and were shocked by the crime. Phillipos’ attorney, Derege Demissie, said he was accused only of a “misrepresentation.”

Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts and a professor at Harvard Law School, said she believes authorities will try to use the conspiracy charges against the friends to turn them into cooperating witnesses against Dzhokhar. They will also see if the defendants can help them determine if there’s a wider plot and a continuing danger for citizens.

“I think it’s to find out … are there other tentacles here?” Gertner said.

A grand jury is likely already hearing testimony against Dzhokhar, said Michael Sullivan, a former U.S. attorney for Massachusetts who also once headed the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He said investigators will be looking into whether the brothers tested bombs before the attack and asking questions about whom Tamerlan had contact with when he traveled to Russia last year.

Those are some of the things they would also want to know from Russell.

One of investigators’ goals right now is “to figure out if she has knowledge of how he became radicalized, who he spoke to, how he may have learned to make the bomb and whether there are others out there who share his views,” said Ron Sullivan, a professor and director of Harvard’s Criminal Justice Institute.

In addition to threatening her with criminal charges and a potential prison sentence to get what they want from her, Ron Sullivan said authorities can bring social pressure to bear, including leaking information that suggests she isn’t being helpful.

“She’s the mother of a young daughter. I imagine she does not want to be deemed as a pariah or ostracized by the whole country,” he said.

One question that swirls around Russell is what she saw inside the cramped Cambridge apartment she shared with Tamerlan, whom she married in 2010, and their toddler. Two U.S. officials have told the AP that Dzhokhar told investigators the bombs were assembled in that apartment. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the details of the ongoing investigation.

Robert Clark Corrente, a former U.S. attorney for Rhode Island, said it is unlikely Russell could be prosecuted if she saw a pressure cooker in the home. But if she saw a dozen pressure cookers and several bags of fireworks, that could be a different story.

Her culpability for her actions after the bombings is also a matter of degrees. She could be in trouble if authorities determine she harbored someone or destroyed evidence. But even if Russell communicated with her husband after the release of his photo as the bombing suspect, Corrente said she may not be charged because of the public way it happened.

“I think anybody would be expected to call his or her spouse and say, ‘You won’t believe what I just saw on TV,”‘ Corrente said.

The arrests of Dzhokhar’s friends and scrutiny of Russell may also have a deterrent effect by demonstrating what happens to people who don’t alert authorities if someone close to them is involved in a terror plot, Zlotnick said.

Eugene O’Donnell, a John Jay College of Criminal Justice lecturer and former police officer and assistant district attorney in New York City, said the message from federal authorities is clear: “No stone will be unturned” in their probe.

“I think after 9/11 there’s really a kitchen sink approach to national security,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Experts: Feds pressure widow, pals in bomb case

Every time the widow of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev leaves her parents’ house, federal agents watching the residence follow her in unmarked vehicles.

Federal authorities are placing intense pressure on what they know to be the inner circle of the two bombing suspects, arresting three college buddies of surviving brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and keeping Tamerlan’s 24-year-old widow, Katherine Russell, in the public eye with their open surveillance and leaks to media about investigators’ focus on her.

Legal experts say it’s part of their quest not just to determine whether Russell and the friends are culpable but also to push for as much information as possible regarding whether the bombing suspects had ties to a terrorism network or accomplices working domestically or abroad. A primary goal is to push the widow and friends to give their full cooperation, according to the experts.

David Zlotnick, a professor of law at Roger Williams University and former federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia, said authorities may be tracking Russell closely because they feel she’s not being completely honest about all she knows.

“It seems to me they don’t believe her yet,” he said.

Dzhokhar is in a prison hospital, facing a potential death sentence if convicted of the terrorism plot that authorities allege the 19-year-old and his late 26-year-old brother carried out April 15. Twin pressure cooker bombs detonated near the race’s finish line, leaving three people dead and injuring more than 260 others. Tamerlan died in a gunfight with authorities April 19, a day after authorities released photos of the suspects.

Tamerlan’s widow has been ensconced at her parents’ North Kingstown, R.I., home since then. Much about her remains a mystery, including what she knew or witnessed in the weeks, months and years before the bombings, and what she saw and did in the days after.

It’s unclear when Russell last communicated with her husband, but her lawyer, Amato DeLuca, told The Associated Press in an interview last month that the last time she saw him was before she went to work April 18. DeLuca said Tuesday that Russell had met with law enforcement “for many hours over the past week,” and would continue to do so in the coming days. He previously told the AP that Russell didn’t suspect her husband of anything before the bombings, and nothing seemed amiss in the days after.

Zlotnick said the fact that charges have been brought against the younger brother’s three friends from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth over allegations they covered up for Dzhokhar indicates authorities are willing to go after the widow for similar actions. That puts pressure on Russell to cooperate.

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, students from Kazakhstan, were charged this week with conspiring to obstruct justice by taking a backpack with fireworks and a laptop from Dzhokhar’s dorm room, while Robel Phillipos was charged with lying to investigators about the visit to the dorm room. All three are 19 years old and face the possibility of five or more years in federal prison.

The lawyers for the Kazakh students said their clients had nothing to do with the bombing and were shocked by the crime. Phillipos’ attorney, Derege Demissie, said he was accused only of a “misrepresentation.”

Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge in Massachusetts and a professor at Harvard Law School, said she believes authorities will try to use the friends as cooperating witnesses against Dzhokhar. They will also see if the defendants can help them determine if there’s a wider plot and a continuing danger for citizens.