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A mistrial was declared Thursday afternoon on the remaining charges against five former Bell elected officials.Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy had asked jurors to decide whether further deliberations would help break a deadlock on the remaining charges.The judge noted, however, that based on a flurry of testy communications from the panel, "It seems to me that all hell has broken loose i...
The benefit-claims backlog that has ensnared nearly 600,000 younger veterans — many with war wounds — has reached a crisis point inside the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the hour has come for President Barack Obama to become personally involved in unclogging the quagmire, two of the nation's leading veterans advocates told NBC News Thursday. "It’s time to go above the VA. If you think of VA ...
Civil unions for gay couples got the governor's signature in Colorado on Thursday, punctuating a dramatic turnaround in a state where voters banned same-sex marriage in 2006 and restricted protections for gays two decades ago.Cheers erupted as Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper signed the bill during a ceremony at the History Colorado Center near the state Capitol. Dozens of gay couples and oth...
By Jamie Novogrod, Producer, NBC Nightly NewsNEW YORK -- Andy and Christina Fox, retirees living in Maryland, were shocked when they received a letter in late 2011 from a small life insurance company in the Midwest."To be honest with you, we thought it was a scam," Chris says. "It was five years after my father had passed. We had no knowledge of any insurance policies whatsoever."It was no scam. I...
Crushed by a $1 billion education budget deficit, Chicago is closing 54 public schools, school district officials announced Thursday.The official list of closings isn't due to be published until March 31, but parents were learning whether their schools were on the list in letters that were already being sent home with students.The school district's chief executive, Barbara Byrd-Bennett, said the d...
A man in a black Cadillac who got in a shootout with Texas deputies may have ties to the murder of the Colorado prisons chief killed earlier this week, according to media reports.The man’s car had Colorado license plates and was heading south, the Denver Post reported. Colorado officials had issued an appeal to the public to be on the lookout for a boxy, dark Cadillac or Lincoln.Lt. Jeff Kramer, a...
A Pennsylvania woman returned to a dollar store she had been banned from and pepper sprayed employees as they attempted to escort her out before encouraging her children to do the same, according to police.Authorities say Delaina Garling, 27, went to a Family Dollar Store outside Philadelphia, Pa. on Monday where she had been banned from for alleged theft. Surveillance video shows the woman, accom...
WASHINGTON - Lingering snow and colder-than-normal temperatures in much of the United States will give way to warmer-than-average weather and continued drought in areas that need moisture most, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday in its spring outlook.Fifty-one percent of the continental United States is already in moderate to exceptional drought and that is expect...
A growing chorus of voices across the country is calling for President Obama to replace the acting director of Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), Edward J. DeMarco. DeMarco, a holdover from the Bush administration, is responsible for overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. President Obama’s nominee to replace him in 2010 was blocked by Republicans.DeMarco has prohibited Fannie and Freddie from providing responsible homeowners who are struggling to keep up with their mortgages with access to principal reductions. He has even refused to allow them to participate in the Obama administration’s principal reduction program (HAMP PRA), despite FHFA analysis showing that participating in the program could save $3.6 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and $1 billion for the taxpayers.
An arsenal of more than 300 guns, many of them illegal, has been seized from a Long Island home around the corner from a high school, and the homeowner was arrested, authorities said Thursday.Jay Steiner, 66, was arrested in late January after an undercover Suffolk police officer visited his Centereach home.Steiner has been charged with criminal possession of a weapon and is free on bail."Wow!...
