U.S. News

Lawyers for men who sued the New York Police Department are asking for major changes to how the department conducts street stops that could affect policing nationwide.

Thousands of bridges around the United States may be one freak accident or mistake away from collapse, even if the spans are deemed structurally sound.

They say you should never make a big decision when you're emotional. But what if there's barely a moment to think and a life-or-death choice looming?

President Barack Obama's new chief speechwriter is a 32-year-old fellow Chicagoan who believes in public service.

EPHRATAH, N.Y. — A small airplane operating as an Angel Flight has crashed in upstate New York, killing two passengers as investigators search for the pilot, who is missing.The Federal Aviation Administration says the flight originated in Massachusetts and crashed about a half-mile west of Caroga, N.Y., just after 5 p.m. Friday.

The ex-girlfriend of a man suspected kidnapping two Iowa girls this week worried that he would harm her and her family before his impending release from prison in 2011, citing prior sexual and physical abuse and threats, according to court records released Friday. The woman once lived with Michael J. Klunder, who police believe abducted 15-year-old Kathlynn Shepard and her 12-year-old friend Monday as they walked home from school. Klunder committed suicide after the younger girl escaped, but Kathlynn is still missing. His ex-girlfriend had a child with Klunder and they lived together in 1991, when he was arrested for two kidnappings and later sentenced to 41 years in prison. When seeking a no-contact order a month before his release from a work-release facility in February 2011, she alleged that Klunder had subjected her to "sexual trauma" and physical abuse during their relationship. He had pushed her into a wall, grabbed her by the throat, threatened her with a raised fist, punched a hole in the wall behind her head and threw her across a room, she said. The documents also show that Klunder admitted having "a violent history," but he denied abusing her and said he'd been rehabilitated. The documents add more detail to Klunder's violent past and show that corrections officials were aware of the woman's concerns before he was released without supervision in 2011. Department of Corrections spokesman Fred Scaletta said Friday that officials helped the woman obtain a no-contact order but that there was little more they could do to protect the public when Klunder's term expired. Police said Klunder, 42, abducted Kathlynn and her friend in Dayton, a small town about 60 miles north of Des Moines, after asking if they wanted to make money mowing lawns. Investigators said he took them to a hog confinement building where he worked, but the 12-year-old girl was able to escape when Klunder took Kathlynn to another part of the property. The search for Kathlynn expanded Friday to an area north of another rural Dayton property where Klunder hanged himself Monday. Investigators said they had new information suggesting he was driving in the area after the abduction. But their hopes of finding Kathlynn alive were dampened Thursday, when authorities said her blood was found on Klunder's truck and at the hog confinement site. Still, some 150 law enforcement officials and 200 volunteers continued searching throughout parts of three rural counties Friday, a spokeswoman said. In the documents obtained Friday, Klunder admitted he was addicted to cocaine and had a violent temper when they lived together, but claimed his past did not reflect who he was today because he had received Christian-based treatment for offenders and surrounded himself with "positive people." He also he had "no interest whatsoever to see, talk to, or have anything to do with" the former girlfriend, but that he wanted to mend his relationship with their son. In April 2011, Klunder agreed to an injunction that permanently barred him from contacting the woman but allowed him to see his son out of the woman's presence. With his prison sentence winding down, Klunder had warned the woman in September 2010 that he would soon be "coming for our son and would find him," she said in court records. Klunder said that comment wasn't meant to be threatening and was "misconstrued." Still, the manager of the work-release facility in Marshalltown where Klunder was living warned the woman that Klunder was going to be released without supervision in February 2011, and told her she should consider getting a no-contact order. "She is fearful of him," residential manager Jon Groteluschen wrote. "Now that he is back in the community and especially after he is off supervision he has the opportunity to harm (her) that he has not had prior to this time. I certainly can understand (her) concerns and feel that an order limiting his contact with her appears warranted." The Associated Press is not naming the woman under its policy of generally not identifying alleged victims of sexual abuse. Another record obtained Friday shows the woman and her son changed their last names in 2010. A judge initially said the son needed permission from his biological father, but granted the request after the woman said Klunder was incarcerated and, "It would increase the risk of our safety to establish contact with him." Klunder had been convicted in two kidnappings on back-to-back days in December 1991. Police said he lured a woman on a highway near Mason City out of her vehicle by claiming she was missing a taillight, and then forced her into his car and tried to assault her. The next day, he snatched two 3-year-old toddlers from a Charles City apartment complex, put them in a trunk and left them 50 miles away at a secluded garbage bin, where they were found alive hours later. Scaletta, the corrections spokesman, said Klunder's 41-year prison term expired in 2011 after it was reduced under an Iowa law that gives inmates credit for every day they serve. Corrections officials declined to seek his continued confinement for treatment after determining he did not meet the criteria to be declared a "sexually violent predator" who was likely to reoffend, he said. A law requiring sex offenders such as Klunder to face lifetime supervision by parole officials was not in place when he was convicted, he said. "Our hands were a little tied," Scaletta said.

President Barack Obama left plenty of ambiguity in new policy guidelines that he says will restrict how and when the U.S. can launch targeted drone strikes, leaving himself significant power over how and when the weapons can be deployed.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde says a Paris court has named her as a key witness in an investigation into a controversial payoff to an outspoken businessman arranged while she was…Click to Continue »

No one answered the tax-help hotline at the IRS. Forget about getting advice on avoiding foreclosures at any of the Housing and Urban Development offices nationwide.

A man accused of killing five members of a central Illinois family with a tire iron has wiped away tears as he painted a horrifying picture of the murder scene…Click to Continue »

Police are searching a high school in the northern Denver suburbs after a report of a man with a rifle outside the school. The search was under way midday Friday at Thornton High School and students were being evacuated. No injuries were reported, and there were no immediate reports of shots fired. Thornton police spokesman Matt Barnes says some students have been evacuated and others remain inside the school. The school has 2,000 students and 130 staff members. Thornton High student Ezequiel (ee-ZEE'-kee-uhl) Cordova says he left the building at the order of police. He says an automated message came over the public address system announcing a security problem. Fourteen-year-old Niejha (NEE'-juh) Andersen says her sister texted her from inside the school that she was hiding under her desk.

Four girls killed in an Alabama church bombing during the civil rights movement are receiving the highest honor Congress gives to civilians.

Gun owners in the only state still banning concealed weapons would win that right under a plan approved by the Illinois House on Friday, but the governor and other powerful Democrats oppose the plan because it would wipe out local gun ordinances _ including Chicago's ban on assault weapons.