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Victim in Fatal Maryland Garage Collapse Identified
Wall Street Rises Midday After Global Sell Off
AP
Stocks made a rebound during midday trading on Thursday after a slow morning as global markets were roiled by uncertainty about when the U.S. Federal Reserve may pull back on its $85 billion a month bond purchases and by weaker-than-expected manufacturing report out of China. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is slightly higher, as Hewlett-Packard rises 14 percent after a strong earnings report. The S&P 500and the Nasdaq are still lower but well off their worst levels, CNBC reported. In his Congressional testimony Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated the central bank's intention to "maintain highly accommodative monetary policy as long as needed," according to CNBC. He added that any near-term decision on scaling back bond purchases depended on an improvement in jobs data. Newest figures out of the Labor Department on Thursday show that the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits is down by 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, falling below the 350,000 mark that economists normally view as a sign of an improving job market, according to Reuters.
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Cleveland "Hero" Gets Free Burgers for Life
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Charles Ramsey, the Big-Mac-munching man who was credited with helping a woman escape from a Cleveland, Ohio, home where she had been held captive for over a decade, will enjoy free burgers for life, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. More than a dozen Ohio restaurants and at least one in Pennsylvania have pledged free burgers for life to Ramsey, who mentioned in numerous interviews earlier this month that he had been eating a McDonald's burger when he heard screams from the house across the street. A restaurant where he works as a dishwasher also created a special burger in his honor. The “Ramsey Burger” started out as a temporary menu item, but has since become permanent and the concept has spread to other restaurants, according to the Plain Dealer. “We want to honor our local hero with local food,” Cleveland restaurateur Scott Kuhn told the paper. “He stopped his meal midway through to help those women."
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Tamerlan Tsarnaev Had Role in Triple Homicide: Sources
Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a Florida mixed martial arts fighter -- who was killed while being questioned by the FBI in Orlando on Wednesday -- murdered three people in Massachusetts in 2011 after a drug deal went awry, sources told NBC News. What began as a drug ripoff ended as a triple homicide when Tsarnaev and his friend Ibragim Todashev realized their victims would later be able to identify them, the sources said. An FBI agent shot and killed Todashev on Wednesday after he allegedly attacked the agent with a knife, investigators said. The agent sustained non-life threatening injuries, the FBI said in a statement. Todashev was not suspected of being involved in the bombing, but he did confess to being involved in the brutal 2011 killings in Waltham, Mass., investigators said.
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Okla. at Risk of More Tornadoes as Storms Threaten Much of U.S.
AP
More bad weather – thunderstorms bringing large hail and the chance of “a tornado or two” – was in the forecast for southwestern and central Oklahoma and northwestern Texas on Thursday, NBC News reported. The risk of severe thunderstorms extended from Texas and Florida to New England and the Great Lakes and from Texas up to Montana and Washington. “The activity is expected to be far less significant than the outbreak earlier this week, but hail could be particularly large in northwest Texas and western Oklahoma,” the National Weather Service said. In the Northeast, the weather service said “storms may undergo a gradual intensification” with a chance of “mainly isolated damaging wind.” “Any severe threat should diminish by early evening,” it said.
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Bronx "Ghetto Tours" Halted Amid Residents' Outrage
AP
West Point Sergeant Charged with Secretly Filming Female Cadets
A staff member at West Point is accused of hiding cameras in the women’s shower and locker room. Army Sgt. 1st Class, Michael McClendon was relieved of his duties at West Point and has been charged with four counts of indecent acts, dereliction of duty, cruelty and maltreatment and violations of good order and discipline, according to The New York Times.
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U.K. Mom Confronts Blood-Soaked Man After Murder
A woman who talked to a blood-soaked, knife-carrying man accused of murdering a British soldier in the southeast London neighborhood of Woolwich on Wednesday, said she did so to protect the crowd that was beginning to gather, NBC News reported. Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, jumped off the bus she was riding when she saw a man slumped on the sidewalk next to a crashed car. Assuming it was a road accident she decided to offer first-aid, but as she got closer, she saw a man covered in blood and carrying a butcher’s knife. She also saw a handgun. “He was obviously a bit excited and the thing was to talk to him,” said Loyau-Kennett, a mother of two. Photos of the scene show her, hands in pockets, speaking apparently calmly to the man. A second alleged attacker, his hands covered in blood and holding a meat cleaver, was captured on video telling passers-by "By Allah we swear by the almighty Allah and we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone."
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NASA Funds Project to Make Space Meals with 3-D Printer
NASA is paying out $125,000 to study the use of 3-D printing technology for food preparation in space, NBC News reported. "We will be building the components for a prototype" over the grant's six-month period, David Irwin, principal investigator for the project at Texas-based Systems and Materials Research Consultancy, told NBC News. Generic mixes of starch, protein and fat can be transformed into food elements that result in food items like warm pizza with fake cheese, sauce and pepperoni, according to NBC News. The contract was signed on Wednesday and the project is part of NASA's efforts to widen the menu options for future space travelers on Mars and asteroid missions. Astronauts are currently eating pre-packaged, pre-processed foods.
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Washington State Man Arrested Over Ricin Letters
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A man was arrested on Wednesday after two letters containing the deadly poison ricin were discovered in Washington state last week, The Associated Press reported. A grand jury issued an indictment for 37-year-old Matthew Ryan Buquet that accuses him of sending threatening communication to U.S District Judge Fred Van Sickle at the federal courthouse on May 14. FBI agents arrested Buquet on Wednesday afternoon and he appeared in federal court in Spokane. He pleaded not guilty. If convicted of mailing the threatening letters, he could face up to 10 years in prison.
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Sen. Gillibrand: Sex Assaults Undermine Military
Democratic New York Sen. Kristen Gillibrand comments on recent reports of sexual assaults in the military.
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Jobless Claims Drop More Than Expected
AP
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, according to newest figures out of the Labor Department on Thursday, Reuters reported. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits are down by 23,000 to a seasonally adjusted 340,000, falling below the 350,000 mark that economists normally view as a sign of an improving job market. That's close to the five-year low of 338,000 registered during the first week of May. On Wednesday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers that that the job market is improving, but that higher taxes and government spending cuts likely will slow economic growth this year. He said it was too early for the Fed to abandon its efforts to boost economic growth by keeping short-term interest rates near zero and buying $85 billion in bonds every month to pump money into the economy and push down longer term interest rates, according to Reuters.
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