Man Killed by FBI Knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev: Friend

An odd Boston-bombing twist: A man was fatally shot overnight by an FBI agent in Orlando, and multiple sources say the dead man was connected to Tamerlan Tsarnaev in some way. NBC 's anonymous sources say Ibragim Todashev had previously been questioned about his relationship with the suspect and had...

Okla. Student: 'Felt Like the School Was Flying'

As the massive tornado hit the Plaza Towers Elementary School, "it sounded like rivets being pulled out by a monster," a teacher's assistant tells the Wall Street Journal , recounting how she and some 10 other adults huddled and tried to protect as many children as they could during the minutes...

Weiner Officially Jumps Into NYC Mayoral Race

Anthony Weiner—possibly inspired by Mark Sanford's shocking comeback —has made it official: He's running for mayor of America's biggest city. The former congressman launched his run for New York City mayor with a video posted on YouTube at midnight, in which he says, "I made some big mistakes and...

Mystery Illness Kills 2 in Alabama

State and federal officials are scrambling to investigate a mysterious respiratory illness that has killed two people and left five others hospitalized in southeast Alabama. Officials describe the outbreak as a cluster of illnesses with flulike symptoms, with fever, coughing, and shortness of breath as the most important symptoms to...

Senate Panel Clears Immigration Reform

Far-reaching legislation to grant a chance at citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in the United States cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on a solid bipartisan vote tonight after supporters somberly sidestepped a controversy over the rights of gay spouses. The 13-5 vote cleared the way for an epic...

Freedom Goat Runs for Her Life, Snarls Traffic

It's hard not to root for the goat in this one: One believed to have escaped en route to a slaughterhouse snarled the morning commute along one of the busiest roadways in northern New Jersey today, leading police on a nearly two-hour chase. The small female eluded five Jersey City...

Cops: We Can't Solve Susan Powell Case

Josh Powell reportedly had an affair just months before his wife disappeared, and his brother may have been "heavily involved" in getting rid of her body, Utah police revealed as they announced they couldn't solve the sensational case. The West Valley City Police Department yesterday opened its books on the...

Weather Service: Tornado as Big as It Gets

The National Weather Service says the tornado that hit Oklahoma yesterday was a top-of-the-scale EF-5 twister with winds between 200 and 210mph. The agency upgraded the tornado from an EF-4 based on what a damage-assessment team saw on the ground. Less than 1% of US tornadoes are this violent. Yesterday's...

Now Jodi Arias Doesn't Want to Die

Pretty much immediately after being convicted of murder , Jodi Arias told a reporter she wanted the death penalty: "The worst outcome for me would be natural life," she said. In the last 12 days she has changed her mind. Arias today made an impassioned, 18-minute plea for her life, telling...

Foster Mom Jailed for Spanking Kid With Spoon

A wooden-spoon spanking is landing a Connecticut foster mom in jail for third-degree assault. Jami Littlefield, 51, will be sentenced to 100 days in prison and two years' probation after she pleaded guilty to hitting a 4-year-old girl with the utensil, the Day reports. The child was "acting out," telling...

Word Choices Show We're Me-Centric, Less Moral

Lexicologists poring over a Google database of books and word usage suggest three general traits of the past half-century, writes David Brooks in the New York Times . Society has become more individualistic (with words and phrases such as "self" and "I come first" on the rise), less moral ("virtue" and...

Forklift Driver Survives Plunge Into Soy Sauce

It's still unclear what caused a warehouse floor to collapse in New Jersey yesterday, ABC 7 notes, but it seems a forklift may have saved its driver's life. As Danny Rodriguez was operating the vehicle, a hole opened below him and he fell—apparently into a mix of cooking oil...

NC Woman Tries to Poison Family Over Cheese: Cops

Today, in really stupid reasons to end up in jail: A North Carolina woman is charged with trying to poison five family members after one of them refused to share some cheese with her. A statement from the Nash County Sheriff's Office said 24-year-old Tiara Drake wanted some of a...

Oklahoma's Coburn: I Want Offsets to Pay for Tornado Aid

Tom Coburn represents Oklahoma, so you might expect him to call for tornado relief to flow to his state no matter the cost—but you'd be wrong. Instead, the Republican senator is demanding that all aid to his state be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget, a spokesman tells...

Teen Faked Own Kidnapping Over Bad Grade: Cops

A 19-year-old college student was flunking English again, so he did what any struggling student fearful of mom and dad's wrath would do: faked his own kidnapping, police say. Aftab Aslam's parents got a text saying the Georgia Gwinnett College student had been kidnapped; if they called police, he'd be...

Okla. Coroner Drops Death Toll to 24

The Oklahoma state medical examiner's office has dramatically dropped the confirmed death toll in yesterday's horrific tornado to 24, reports the AP . A spokeswoman said that some bodies were apparently counted twice in the chaotic aftermath of the storm, and that confusion was exacerbated by knocked-out communication lines. Seven children...

It's Not Over: Almost 10M Face Tornado Risk Today

The tornado threat isn't over: "Large and devastating" storms could continue today, forecasters say. "We could have a Round 3," says a CNN meteorologist. "Hopefully, it won't be as bad." But "tornadoes, damaging wind gusts, and large hail" could hit areas east and south of Oklahoma City, with cities from...

Tales of Tragedy, Heroism Out of Oklahoma

As frantic search and rescue efforts continued through the night in Oklahoma, officials warned that the death toll— which has been downwardly revised to 24 —from yesterday's horrific tornado was still expected to rise, CNN reports. The destruction is "the worst thing I have ever seen," a highway patrol trooper...

Elite FBI Agents Fell to Their Deaths

The two FBI agents who were killed in a training accident Friday fell to their deaths while rappelling from a helicopter onto a ship 12 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, an agency spokesperson revealed last night, per the AP . Special Agents Christopher Lorek and Stephen Shaw, members of...

Why the Oklahoma Tornado Was Among the Worst Ever

The monster tornado that tore through an Oklahoma City suburb is one of the worst on record by most standards, the Smithsonian finds. At an estimated two miles wide, the storm was one of the biggest recorded and it was also extremely powerful, with winds above 199mph. But what made...

Rapist May Be Sentenced— Even Though He's Dead

A former police detective was convicted of kidnapping and rape last year—but before he could be sentenced, he committed suicide. But he's not off the hook: A California judge could still sentence Anthony Orban despite his death. "The only reason he is not here is because he volunteered to...

Oklahoma Devastation, Rescue in Pictures

The massive tornado that hit Moore, Okla., yesterday left scenes of utter devastation but there were also moments of hope as survivors were found in the rubble. AP photographer Sue Ogrocki arrived at the destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School expecting to find a scene of chaos, but instead found it...

Prison Ordered to Give Files to Tsarnaev Lawyers

Prison files on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev—including suicide watch logs—are to be turned over to the Boston bombing suspect's lawyers by order of a federal judge, Reuters reports. His defense team says it wants to track his condition while he is in prison for evidence of "voluntariness of his statements"...

Monster Oklahoma Tornado Kills 51

A two-mile-wide tornado touched down near Oklahoma City today, leveling the suburb of Moore and leaving at least 51 confirmed dead so far, reports ABC News . "It is absolutely devastating, this is horrific," Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb said. "We're going to have fatalities. ... We're going to have significant injuries....

Church Offers Free Chick-fil-A for Straight Couples

A church in Dayton, Ohio gave out free $25 Chik-fil-A gift cards to straight married couples attending its "Day to Honor Biblical Marriage" event. An ad for the event was picked up by Reddit and, as these things do, spread quickly around the Internet, reports the Huffington Post . Despite Chik-fil-A's...

Apple Kept Billions Out of IRS' Reach: Probe

A Senate inquiry into Apple has accused the company of keeping billions out of the reach of the IRS through tax havens and a complex network of overseas subsidiaries. The company runs its non-American operations through affiliates based in Ireland, which has a low tax rate. However, investigators say many...

Takeout Tycoons GrubHub and Seamless Merge

Yahoo and Tumblr weren't the only online properties getting into bed together today: GrubHub and Seamless, two of the largest food-delivery websites in the US, have announced a merger, combining forces to fend off an increasing number of startup rivals, Bloomberg reports. "This has nothing to do with cost savings;...

Mob Chases Down Guy Thought to Be Sex Attacker

Residents of a Colorado neighborhood went full-on vigilante recently, chasing down a man they thought had been sexually assaulting children and throwing rocks at him until authorities intervened. The Pueblo residents were upset that police hadn't done enough, in their estimation, to catch the person responsible for two recent sex...

It's a Good Thing Military Rape Stats Are Up

Lately, the media, public, and Congress have been abuzz over the military's "epidemic" of sexual assault, given a new annual report indicating that there were 26,000 instances of unwanted sexual contact last year. But that figure "is such bad math … that no conclusions can be drawn from it,...

Toddler Puts Gun in Mouth, Shoots

A North Carolina toddler found a handgun in his parents' bedroom Saturday afternoon, put it in his mouth ... and the gun went off, authorities say. The Asheboro boy is "extremely lucky," a sheriff's captain tells the Winston-Salem Journal , because the bullet missed his vital organs (as well as his vital...