- US Says Four Americans Killed by Drones in Counterterror Strikes
 Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call(WASHINGTON) -- Attorney General Eric Holder has disclosed in a letter to Congress that four Americans were killed by U.S. drones in the course of the government's attacks on terrorists.
"Since 2009, the United States, in the conduct of U.S. counterterrorism operations against al Qaida and its associated forces outside of areas of active hostilities, has specifically targeted and killed one U.S. citizen, Anwar al-Aulaqi," Holder wrote.
"The United States is further aware of three other U.S. citizens who have been killed in such U.S. counterterrorism operations over that same time period: Samir Khan, 'Abd al-Rahman Anwar al-Aulaki and Jude Mohammed. These individuals were not specifically targeted by the United States," Holder wrote.
Holder sent the letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as well as to leaders of both parties in both houses of Congress, and the chairmen and ranking members of intelligence, foreign affairs and armed services committees. In the letter, Holder detailed U.S. policy on drone strikes against Americans.
The names of the Americans killed by drones had previously been classified information.
Samir Kahn was the publisher of Inspire magazine, which Anwar al-Awlaki edited. Abdul Rahman al Awlaki was Awlaki's son. Both were thought to be killed in the same drone attack as Awlaki.
Jude Kenan Mohammed was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List and was believed to be plotting a car bombing on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
The decision to target Anwar al-Awlaki was "subjected to an exceptionally rigorous interagency review" and approved by Holder and other Justice Department lawyers, Holder wrote.
Holder's letter, released in advance of a speech by the president, represents the administration's most specific statement of policy on drone strikes against Americans.
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- Oklahoma Tornado: Officials Hunt for 6 People, Survey Damage
 Geoff Legler/Oklahoma National Guard via Getty Images(MOORE, Okla.) -- Six adults remain unaccounted for after the devastating tornado that tore through Moore, Okla., Monday, killing 24 people and destroying as many as 13,000 homes, officials said Wednesday.
Authorities are working to determine whether the missing adults are buried in the rubble or simply "walked off," Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management Director Albert Ashwood told reporters.
Of the 24 confirmed deaths, 23 people have been identified. Ten of the victims were children, according to a report issued Wednesday by the state Medical Examiner's Office.
Most of the dead children were killed at the Plaza Towers Elementary School, which was leveled in Monday's E-F5 tornado. Their ages ranged from 4 to 9.
Six children were killed by suffocation after being trapped under the rubble and two died from massive injuries, the medical examiner said.
The storm's youngest victims were two infants, 4-month-old Case Futrell and 7-month-old Sydnee Vargyas. Both babies died after receiving head injuries, although it's unclear where they were during the tornado.
As many as 13,000 homes were destroyed or damaged, Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett said at a news conference Wednesday.
He estimated the cost of damages to be between .5 billion and http://abcnewsradioonline.com/national-news/rss.xml billion.
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- Colo. Gov. Delays Aurora's Chuck E. Cheese's Killer's Execution
 Craig F. Walker/The Denver Post(DENVER) -- Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper has indefinitely delayed the execution of convicted killer Nathan Dunlap, saying that he had doubts about the death penalty, much to the dismay of victims' families and a furious district attorney.
The killing of four employees in a Chuck E. Cheese's in 1993 was a massacre that scarred the people of Aurora, Colo., long before shooter James Holmes opened fire in a crowded movie theater on July 20, 2012. Holmes killed 12 and wounded dozens more.
Dunlap, 38, is one of three men on the state's death row. He was sentenced to death in 1996, but the victims' families say they have been waiting for justice to be carried out for nearly 20 years.
The governor granted a reprieve to Dunlap, which means that he will not be executed as long as Hickenlooper is in office. The reprieve stays in effect until Hickenlooper or the next governor lifts it.
Hickenlooper also could have granted clemency, which would have changed Dunlap's sentence to life without parole.
Dunlap had been scheduled to be executed in August. It would have been the state's first execution since 1997.
"If the state of Colorado is going to undertake the responsibility of executing a human being, the system must operate flawlessly," Hickenlooper wrote in his executive order. "Colorado's system for capital punishment is not flawless."
Hickenlooper cited a number of reasons for his decision, including a lack of statistical evidence that the death penalty deters crime, moral arguments and the state's not being equipped with the drugs needed for execution.
"There's going to be one person in this system who will go to bed with a smile on his face tonight, and that's Nathan Dunlap," Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler told reporters on the steps of the Colorado state capitol. "And he's got one person to thank for that smile, and that's Governor John Hickenlooper."
"He's made himself Nathan Dunlap's guardian angel," an aggravated Brauchler said.
The district attorney emphasized that a jury had found Dunlap guilty and sentenced him.
"To be 20 years and 20 miles removed from one of the most heinous acts of violence in the history of this state and hear, 'Just not sure,' does not feel like an act of courage," Brauchler said. "It is certainly not leadership."
Hickenlooper recently met with families of victims.
"The majority of the families really did feel that they would get closure from an execution. There were some that expressed gratitude and even some form of relief, [but] I think the majority were disappointed," Hickenlooper said at a news conference.
One of the families he met with was that of 19-year-old Sylvia Crowell, who was killed during the Dec. 14, 1993, shooting. Sylvia was closing the salad bar at closing time when Dunlap, also 19 at the time, came up behind her and shot her in the head. He had recently been fired from the restaurant.
Sylvia's parents, Bob and Marjorie Crowell, who live in Aurora, say they have been waiting 20 years for justice.
A "very disappointed" Bob Crowell said that he doesn't think there will ever totally be closure in the case, but he believed that the execution could have demonstrated to other criminals that "they will pay the price with their lives if they perform an act like that in the state of Colorado."
"This whole scenario of having to make us wait...it's like having a knife stuck in your back every time somebody says or does something," Crowell told ABC News. "Today was the trump of all of that when the governor refused to carry out the execution, or refused to let it happen."
Dunlap went on to kill Ben Grant, 17, as he cleaned nearby and Colleen O'Connor, 17, who was cleaning the rowdy restaurant's quiet room for adults when Dunlap approached her. She begged for her life, but he showed no mercy. Dunlap also killed the restaurant's 50-year-old manager, Margaret Kohlberg.
He also shot Bobby Stephens in the jaw. Stephens, 20 at the time, was the sole survivor.
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- Florida Man Shot by FBI Was About to Sign Boston Murder Confession: Officials
 Orange County Sheriff's Dept(ORLANDO, Fla.) -- The man shot dead by an FBI agent in Orlando, Fla., early Wednesday was "about to sign a statement" admitting to a role, along with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in an unsolved triple murder in Massachusetts in 2011, two people with direct knowledge of the case told ABC News.
Ibragim Todashev "just went crazy," and pulled a knife during his interview with the FBI, said state and federal law enforcement officials briefed on the latest twist in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing.
One official said an FBI agent was stabbed several times, although his injuries were described by the FBI as "non-life-threatening."
FBI agents and Massachusetts state police began to question Todashev after his name and phone number were recovered from the phone of the dead bombing suspect. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police days after he and his younger brother Dzhokhar allegedly planted two bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon April 15, killing three and injuring more than 260 others. Dzhokhar was later captured and is in custody.
Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev both fought mixed martial arts in the name of Boston's Wai Kru gym, where one of the 2011 triple murder victims, Brendan Mess, also trained, according to law enforcement officials.
According to officials, Todashev was initially being questioned about any role in the marathon bombing when it emerged he had connections to the gruesome murder. There is no indication Todashev was tied to the bombing, sources familiar with the case said.
In the wake of the bombing, detectives developed DNA evidence linking both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar to the triple murder scene.
The three men who were killed had their throats slit and their bodies were left with cash and marijuana placed on top of them. The murder took place on September 11, 2011, the ten year anniversary of the al Qaeda terror attacks on New York and Washington.
Also killed with Mess were Raffael Teken and Eric Weissman.
According to a recent Florida police report, Todashev was arrested May 4 and booked with aggravated battery for allegedly fighting with a father and son over a parking space in a mall parking lot in Kissimmee, Fla. Todashev had told police he fought in self-defense as the son "came at him swinging" after Todashev pushed the father.
Neither father nor son wanted to press charges in relation to the altercation, the report said. The report lists Todashev's place of birth as Russia.
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- Mall Kicks Out Women Wearing Breast Cancer Hats with Expletive
 Photodisc/Thinkstock(KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.) -- The King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania kicked out three sisters last Sunday for wearing matching hats with a message: F*** Cancer. Over one of the letters was a strategically placed pink breast cancer ribbon.
The ladies, who spoke to the ABC News affiliate WPVI, said they were honoring their mother, who died last Tuesday of breast cancer and had battled the disease for four years.
“The logo, the saying, is the only expression that I feel is strong enough to defeat the word, defeat the disease,” Zakia Clark told WPVI.
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The sisters were shopping for funeral dresses when a security guard approached them and asked them to leave.
“I said, ‘I’m not leaving. I spend money here and I’m not going to leave,’” Zakia told WPVI.
“He said, ‘You know what? Shut your mouth. That was your cue to stop shopping.’ So I removed my hat,” she said.
The incident was caught on camera and the women were kicked out.
The King of Prussia Mall told ABC News in a statement they were sorry for the misunderstanding.
“King of Prussia Mall extends [its] sincere condolences to Zakia Clark, her sisters and other family members. Sunday’s situation was a very unfortunate misunderstanding between our mall security personnel who are responsible for upholding the safety and integrity of the mall’s public spaces and this family at their time of loss. We have spoken with Zakia and believe we have resolved this misunderstanding as she graciously accepted our expression of sorrow for their loss and regret for the situation.”
When questioned on why the women were singled out for their attire, when stores inside the mall such as Urban Outfitters sell shirts that have the same expletives and are not censored, a mall spokesperson told ABC News that they “work with our retailers to avoid having any controversial material from being displayed directly in store front windows to help provide a pleasant and family-friendly shopping environment for our customers.”
The sisters told WPVI that their mother’s funeral was set for Wednesday.
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- Jodi Arias Jury Can't Agree on Death Sentence
 iStockphoto/Thinkstock(PHOENIX) -- The jury in the Jodi Arias murder trial cannot agree on whether to sentence Arias to death or life in prison.
The jury, which began deliberating at 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday, sent a note to Judge Sherry Stephens shortly before 3 p.m. ET Wednesday saying they could not come to an agreement.
They are tasked with deciding whether Arias will get the death penalty or a sentence of life in prison. The same jury convicted Arias, 32, earlier this month of first-degree murder for killing her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander, in a bloody attack in 2008.
Prosecutor Juan Martinez has argued that the cruelty of the murder warrants the death penalty.
Arias and her attorneys begged the jury on Tuesday to spare her life and sentence her to prison rather than death.
If the jury cannot agree on a sentence for Arias, new jurors will be selected and the penalty phase will begin again. If a second jury cannot decide unanimously on a penalty, Arias would be sentenced to either life in prison without parole, or life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.
The jury currently deliberating has been listening to testimony in the case since the beginning of January.
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
- Police Search for Missing Teenager Days After Kidnapper Found Dead
 Ryan McVay/Thinkstock(DAYTON, Iowa) -- As the search for Kathlynn Shepard, 15, entered its third day Wednesday, new details emerged about the man accused of kidnapping her and a younger girl from a school bus stop before he killed himself in his truck in a secluded area.
Police have identified Michael Klunder, a registered sex offender from Stratford, Iowa, as the sole suspect in the girls' abduction. He was found dead on Monday evening, four hours after he allegedly kidnapped Kathlynn and her 12-year-old companion as the two got off a school bus around 4 p.m. Monday, Lt. Robert Hanson of the Iowa Department of Public Safety told ABC News.
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Klunder had spent years in and out of prison, including time served for a 1991 conviction on charges that he kidnapped and assaulted a woman, and kidnapped two 3-year-olds. The children were later found alive.
Klunder allegedly drove the girls around in his truck for hours on Monday, crisscrossing large swaths of the rural areas near the town of Dayton, police said.
Around 5:30 p.m. Monday, just as authorities were about to issue an Amber Alert, police learned that the 12-year-old had escaped from the parked truck and hid out in the woods, and then made her way to a nearby house and called for help, Hanson said.
That girl, who has not been identified, was taken to a hospital and later discharged.
Around 8 p.m. police located Klunder's pickup truck and found him dead inside.
There were, however, no signs of Kathlynn.
Hundreds of police officers and volunteers have been scouring a network of rural roads and trails in the search for 15-year-old. Police have deployed aircraft and dogs as part of the effort.
Police are treating the search for Kathlynn as a rescue, but as the days pass the chances of finding her alive dwindle, police said.
Kathlynn is described as 5 feet 6 inches tall, and weighing 160 pounds. She was last seen wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and a Vikings cap.
The kidnapping comes less than a year after two young cousins were abducted less than 90 miles from Dayton. Lyric Cook, 10, and Elizabeth Collins, 8, went missing while riding their bikes in July. Their bodies were found by hunters last December in the Seven Bridges Wildlife Area of northeastern Iowa.
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- Cleared of Charges in School Explosion, Fla. Honor Student Heads to Space Camp
 Sixteen-year-old twins Kiera and Kayla Wilmot with their mother, Marie, in Bartow, Fla. (Credit: Marie Wilmot)(LAKELAND, Fla.) -- Kiera Wilmot is going to space camp.
In late April, the 16-year-old central Florida honor student was accused of igniting a chemical explosion on school grounds, leading to her arrest and suspension from school, but authorities dropped criminal charges last week.
The nightmarish ordeal was shocking for her single mother, Marie Wilmot, who always encouraged Kiera and her twin sister, Kayla, to follow their passions.
"The initial phone call was terrifying," Marie told ABC News. "Time will help I hope, it was devastating for me as a mother."
While school officials debate whether Kiera will return to Bartow High School, the Wilmot family received an unexpected surprise.
The explosion struck a chord with 18-year NASA veteran Homer Hickam, a former lead astronaut training manager for Spacelab, and later for the International Space Station.
In the late 1950s, Hickam had a brush with law enforcement for allegedly starting a forest fire. State police came to his high school and led him and his friends away in handcuffs, but his high school physics professor and school principal came to the rescue, clearing him of wrongdoing.
Back then, schools did not have zero-tolerance rules. Kids could make their mistakes without the threat of a criminal record, or serving time in jail.
"I couldn't let this go without doing something," Hickam said. "I'm not a lawyer, but I could give her something that would encourage her. I've worked closely with the U.S. Space Academy, and so I purchased a scholarship for her."
Learning of her twin sister, Hickam raised enough money so Kiera and Kayla could attend space camp together. Hickam runs several scholarships for kids with potential, and hopes to create an ongoing Space Academy scholarship. The twins will attend in July.
The five-night program immerses students in science, technology, and math education, while giving them hands-on training, learning about the mental, emotional and physical demands astronauts, engineers and technologists face, according to its website.
"I'm really excited about going," Kiera said. "Especially the zero gravity tank, I've always wanted to do that."
The United States Advanced Space Academy is a college-accredited program offered through the University of Alabama-Huntsville, and students receive one hour of freshman level general science credit upon completion.
"You're not just sitting in a classroom hearing about it, you're on the floor, in spacecraft simulators, experiencing zero gravity," Hickam said. "They run through real space missions, like voyages to the moon or Mars, where they are given problems they must solve."
Now an author, Hickam's works include his famous memoir Rocket Boys, later adapted into the film October Sky, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.
Eager to move forward, the twins couldn't be happier with the opportunity, which could serve as a prelude to college, and eventual careers. They both credit their eighth-grade robotics teacher with sparking their interest in science, technology and math courses.
"I like to program and build robots, it's challenging and you have to build them a certain way," Kiera said. "I'd like to be careful with the science I do, always remember to follow directions, and be aware of peer pressure."
Their mother, Marie, will be joining the girls in Huntsville, taking the time to relax and reflect while her daughters explore the many facets of the program.
At a press conference on Wednesday afternoon at the Vision Center of Word Alive Ministries in Lakeland, Fla., the Wilmot family and their attorney, Larry D. Hardaway, took questions from the media and remained hopeful that Kiera will be reinstated at Bartow High School.
"The way people have reached out, I wasn't expecting this kind of response," Marie said. "It is a blessing."
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio
- 22 People Survived Oklahoma Tornado by Hiding in Bank Vault
 Dena Clark(MOORE, Okla.) -- Dena Clark wasn't supposed to be at the Tinker Federal Credit Union in Moore, Okla., when the tornado hit Monday. Her worried mother knew a storm was coming and was on the phone with Clark telling her to go home.
But living in Oklahoma, Clark had seen so many tornadoes come and go with minimal effect that she decided to stop at the bank because she had a lot of cash in her car from a weekend garage sale at her home.
Clark, 23, was in the middle of a transaction with a bank employee when tornado sirens started going off.
"We're actually going into the vault," the teller told Clark.
"Me too?" she asked.
"Yes," the woman replied.
For the next few minutes, the bank employees and their customers all moved into the bank's vault, a small room filled with deposit boxes and encased in two feet of concrete. The bank manager and a police officer monitored the situation by watching TV and looking out the window. At least one passerby came into the bank seeking shelter.
Clark was texting her husband about whether she should stay or go. At first he told her she could probably head out, but that text was quickly followed by another one: "Tornado on the ground. Stay."
Soon enough, the lights flickered, the TV went off and the power was out.
"Eventually, everyone was in the vault and the bank doors were closed," Clark said. "We had our flashlight and there's several people in there ranging from a 10-year-old boy on his iPad to these elderly people that just happened to be at the bank."
There were 14 employees and eight other people in the vault. There was one problem: They couldn't get the vault door closed all the way from the inside. Someone took off a belt and looped it through an opening meant to let in oxygen so that they could tug the vault door closed as much as possible, she said.
When it still wouldn't close all the way, the branch manager, the police officer and another employee held the door shut "just in case."
"After our ears started popping, I just remember hearing the windows blow out," Clark said. "I could hear the glass hit the ground. It was still relatively calm for a little bit after that but you could hear things."
"They say [a tornado] sounds like a freight train coming, and I agree with that. But it also just sounds like swirling," she said. "We could hear things moving above us, rotating above us. Things started to hit the bank vault."
The bank manager, she said, was shouting, "Don't let go! Don't let go!"
Another bank employee prayed in Spanish, crying out to God to protect them. Clark recalled getting emotional for the first time, she said, at the memory.
"You see movies. I could just picture in my mind the bank vault door ripping away from us and not knowing what was going to happen," Clark said. "I don't know how they kept that bank door shut. I don't know how long we were actually inside the tornado. It felt like forever."
Debris started flying through the cracks of the door and glass cut the feet of people who were wearing sandals. Clark said it became difficult to breathe because of all the dust and debris.
"As soon as the tornado passed, we were all kind of wondering, 'Is there a building out there?'" she said.
When they believed the twister had passed and tried to open the door, they found that they couldn't and began to smell gas.
"We started smelling gas and I was thinking to myself, we survived a tornado and now we're going to explode," Clark said.
The few people with cellphone service who had been calling and texting loved ones then called 911 to say that they were trapped in the bank vault and could smell gas.
Before authorities could arrive, people passing by heard them shouting and came to help.
"They started to dig us out and they pulled back some of the rubble just enough for us to open the door and get out," Clark said. "We made it out of the vault and it was just a sense of relief and people were hysterically crying and hyperventilating."
What she saw shocked her.
"It was unbelievable," she said. "I know it was a miracle. Nothing in the bank was standing except for where we were."
Clark's cellphone battery was running low, but she managed to text her husband, call her mother and snap a photo of the vault before the phone died.
"I believe I found my car. It's what looks like my car. It was standing vertically against some rubble," Clark said. "It's not a big deal. It can be replaced. Lives can't."
Bank officials expressed a similar sentiment.
"Thank you all for your support as we and many of our members found ourselves in the path of yesterday's storm," the bank posted on its Facebook page. "Sadly, our Moore branch was lost. Fortunately, all employees of that branch emerged unscathed, having ridden out the storm in the safety of the vault."
Hours after the tornado, Clark was reunited with her family and found that her house was relatively unscathed.
Clark said she feels "so lucky and so blessed" to have survived the disaster.
"I wasn't supposed to be at the bank," an emotional Clark said. "It was so clearly orchestrated by God."
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- Officials Warn of Businesses 'Preying' on Tornado Victims
 JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images(OKLAHOMA CITY) -- Investigators with the Oklahoma Attorney General's office have already uncovered evidence of businesses taking advantage of the recent tornado's devastation by price-gouging in the weather-ravaged region, including a grocery store accused of charging consumers for a case of water.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt told ABC News that 30 investigators from his office started aggressively combing the region for fraud just hours after the tornado tore through it -- and immediately found businesses violating the law.
"This is something we were putting in place and starting in motion as soon as we knew the threat existed," Pruitt said. "We're going to places where we think potential harm could occur."
Using a law known as the Emergency Price Stabilization Act, consumer protection investigators are teaming with local law enforcement to catch fraud as it happens. The law was passed after a tornado leveled the same region in 1999 and prohibits price increases of more than 10 percent on goods and services such as water and hotel rooms for 30 days after a disaster. It extends to 180 days for construction-related complaints.
In addition to the cases of bottled water, Pruitt said his team uncovered a hotel in the area that was allegedly overcharging in violation of the law.
"We're looking at everything from work gloves to water to storage units, hotels and car rentals. And long term, we'll be dealing with home construction and repair," he said.
Despite repeated warnings to be on the lookout for scam artists after a disaster, Pruitt said many Oklahomans are still unaware that they can be ripped off.
"They would never anticipate or expect or guess that someone would take advantage of them right now, but this situation is what criminals prey upon," he said.
Pruitt says his investigators are fielding tips from citizens and law enforcement and are operating not only in the area that was directly hit, but surrounding areas where displaced homeowners may end up.
"We pray there is some good that comes out of this, that (criminals) are discouraged when they know someone is there to enforce the law," Pruitt said. "And our citizens should know that they're safe from that."
The Attorney General's office has set up a hotline to report fraud, which can be reached at (405) 521-2029.
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