Philippines police arrest four over phone scam

Police in the Philippines working with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation have arrested four people over a premium-line phone scam that targeted customers of the American telecommunications giant AT&T to funnel money to a Saudi-based militant group.
The four arrested last Wednesday in Manila were paid by the same group that the FBI accuses of having funded the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, the Philippines' Criminal Investigation and Detection Group

(CIDG) said.
The hacking activity resulted in AT&T incurring almost $2m (£1.3) in losses, the CIDG said.
The Philippines police said money from the scams was diverted to accounts of a Saudi-based group that was not identified. India blames Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba for carrying out the attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.
FBI spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said hackers targeted customers of AT&T, not the carrier itself.
Though the FBI declined to give official details of how the group took the money, one person familiar with the situation said that the hackers broke into the phone systems of some AT&T customers and made calls to international premium-rate services whose payments would be diverted.
Such scams are relatively common, often involving bogus premium-service phone lines set up across Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia. Fraudsters make calls to the numbers from hacked business phone systems or mobile phones, then collect their cash and move on before the activity is identified. Telecommunications carriers often end up footing the bill for the charges.
Jan Rasmussen, a spokeswoman for AT&T, said it wrote off some fraudulent charges that appeared on customer bills. She declined to elaborate or comment on the $2m figure.
Earlier last week, AT&T said it was investigating an attempt to access customer information but did not believe any accounts had been breached.
The CIDG said the FBI sought the help of its Anti-Transnational and Cyber Crime Division (ATCCD) in March after it found the Saudi-based group had targeted AT&T using the hackers.
Among the four people arrested was Paul Michael Kwan, 29, whom ATCCD chief Police Senior Superintendent Gilbert Sosa said had been arrested in 2007 after the FBI began an international crackdown on groups suspected of financing militant activities.
Sosa said the Filipinos were being paid by a group originally run by Muhammad Zamir, a Pakistani arrested in Italy in 2007. He said Zamir was a member of Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian militant network with links to al Qaeda.
"Zamir's group, later tagged by the FBI to be the financial source of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, on November 26, 2008, is also the same group that paid Kwan's group of hackers in Manila," Sosa said in the statement.
Last month, Philippine police said weak laws against cybercrime and poor technical capabilities had made the country an attractive base for organised crime syndicates involved in cyber pornography, cyber sex dens, illegal gambling, credit card fraud and identity theft.
One of the biggest worms to affect Windows computers, called "Love Bug", is believed to have been written by a Philippines resident, who despite being identified was never prosecuted because there were then no laws against unleashing the harmful code.

Dad: I’m here waiting for Celina’s return

The father of Celina Cass pleaded for his little girl’s safe return yesterday as investigators searched by air, land and water for the 11-year-old missing for one week.

“We are all wondering where my daughter is and hoping the best for her safety,” Adam Laro told reporters

yesterday. “I’d appreciate it if we get her back very soon.”

Laro said he had recently been hospitalized but did not say why.

“If she hears me now, tell her Daddy’s OK now,” said Laro. “I’m doing much better, and whenever you’re ready to come home, Celina, daddy will be here waiting for you.”

Authorities have investigated more than 400 leads, but the grim possibility has begun to sink in that Cass may not be found alive.

“Ain’t nobody hopeful,” said Robbie Kimball, the owner of Wayne’s Lanes and Jo’s Grill. “The only hope we have is that she’s going somewhere and maybe will get in touch with us.”

Divers scoured Back Pond in tiny Stewartstown, N.H. — population 800 — for any sign of the missing fifth-grader, said Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young.

“We’re searching for Celina Cass as a missing person,” she said. “We have no evidence to categorize this any other way.”

The small pond is less than a mile from Cass’ home. She was last seen playing on her computer last Monday night and had vanished by the next morning.

“She’s a very good friend, and she never lets anybody down,” said 11-year-old Makayla Riendeau, one of Cass’ best friends, who said she wouldn’t run away.

The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information in the case, and a community member has added $5,000.

AWOL soldier defiant in court(Photo-Video)

The AWOL soldier accused of planning an attack on Fort Hood defiantly cried out "Abdeer Qassim al-Janabi, Iraq 2006! Nidal Hassan, Fort Hood 2009!" at the end of his initial appearance Friday on a weapons charge.

Pfc Nasser Abdo, 21, was referring to an Iraqi girl who was raped and killed by U.S. soldiers in

Mahmudiyah five years ago and to the attack by Hassan, who is facing death penalty court martial in the massacre two years ago at a Fort Hood deployment facility.

Abdo, a Muslim conscientious objector, has been accused by Killeen's police chief of preparing a terrorist attack that would have been directed at soldiers on and possibly off Fort Hood.

According to a criminal complaint filed Friday, Abdo, who was absent without leave from his post at Fort Campbell, Ky., admitted he planned to assemble two bombs in his Killeen hotel room using gunpowder and shrapnel packed into pressure cookers to detonate inside an unspecified restaurant frequented by soldiers at Fort Hood.

James Runkel, an FBI special agent assigned to Austin, filed the complaint alleging that Abdo possessed a firearm and a destructive device.

Runkel also stated Abdo "made statements to the arresting officer that he intended to conduct an attack against Killeen and Fort Hood" and that he "also indicated in response to questioning that there were explosives in the backpack and in his room."

FBI agents joined a search of Abdo's hotel room along with Killeen police and Fort Hood's criminal intelligence division. During the search, FBI Special Agent Bomb Technician Stephen Hauck, based in Austin, said that the components found by authorities "are those which can be used to construct a destructive device."

Abdo's initial court appearance on the weapons charge lasted about five minutes.

As U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Manske came into the courtroom with a bailiff calling "All rise," Abdo sat.

Four U.S. marshals came to his side, took him by the arms and made him stand before the judge.

Manske then proceeded to question him about his educational status. Abdo, who is from Garland, told the judge that he had graduated from high school and had one year of college.

Manske then asked if he was unable to understand why he was in the courtroom and if he was under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. Abdo replied "no." The judge read him his rights as Abdo stood before a lectern with two U.S. marshals at his side.

When he was asked by the judge if he understood his right to remain silent, Abdo replied, "I sure do."

Abdo faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $10,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

Abdo, who is being held without bail because of his AWOL status, was remanded into the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, where he will remain until his trial.

The judge set another hearing for 2 p.m. Thursday in Waco and closed the hearing.

A group of marshals surrounded Abdo as the judge rose from his bench and left.

Abdo, wearing a short military haircut, stood, startling everyone as he called out his defiant statement in a strong voice. Then he was gone.

FBI arrests 14 alleged members of hacker group Anonymous

In what it said was the largest sweep of Internet "hactivists" in the U.S., the FBI arrested 14 alleged members of hacker group Anonymous, which last fall took responsibility for knocking out the websites of several large companies.

The 14 people arrested, including two from Southern California, may be the first alleged members of Anonymous to be arrested by the FBI, said a law enforcement official not authorized to speak on the matter. The raids may also mark the first time that federal agents arrested individuals for cyber crimes that may have been committed as a form of political protest.

The arrests came as a result of a distributed denial of service attack — when attackers try to jam a company's website by getting large numbers of computers to contact it at the same time — on PayPal Inc. late last year, federal officials said. Anonymous claimed to have attacked PayPal and other companies including Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. in December as part of "Operation Avenge Assange." The attacks were launched after the companies suspended the accounts of whistleblower organization WikiLeaks, run by Julian Assange, after it began releasing classified information to the public.

The recent arrests are unusual because cyber protesting, a niche segment of cyber crime, is a relatively new phenomenon, said Stan Stahl, president of the Los Angeles chapter of trade group Information Systems Security Assn..

"I don't recall cyber protesting as something that has come up before Anonymous came up with their denial of service attacks against PayPal and Visa," he said.

Law enforcement agencies tend to target hackers based on the amount of financial havoc wreaked or their potential risk to national security, Stahl said. When Anonymous hacked huge corporations such as Visa or government entities such as the Spanish police, they pretty much guaranteed law enforcement scrutiny and action, Stahl said.

Not since 32 people were arrested in Turkey last month had so many alleged members of Anonymous been arrested. The arrests came a day after the group was involved in several attacks on websites belonging to media company News Corp.

Early Tuesday, however, at least one Anonymous member said the arrests would not stop hacker attacks.

"It doesn't matter how many people the FBI arrest," a tweet from the account @ThaiAnonymous said. "#anonymous have (sic) started something unstoppable."

The FBI said agents arrested alleged Anonymous members in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio.

The FBI released the names and online aliases of all but one of the arrested individuals. The alleged members of Anonymous range in age from 20 to 42, though most are in their 20s.

The arrests were part of a broader ongoing investigation of cyber attacks in recent months.

Separately, the FBI said it arrested 21-year-old Lance Moore of Las Cruces, N.M., who it said may have either worked for or aided the hacker group LulzSec last month. The individual is believed to have stolen information belonging to AT&T Inc. valued at more than $5,000, according to a court document released by the FBI. The stolen information was later published by the hacker group, the FBI said in a release.

The FBI also said Scott Matthew Arciszewski, 21, was arrested and will appear in federal court in Orlando, Fla. Arciszewski is suspected of hacking the Tampa Bay Infragard website, which is affiliated with the FBI.

Five alleged hackers were arrested in Europe but the FBI, which worked with authorities in Britain and the Netherlands, did not say if they were involved with Anonymous.

FBI opens inquiry into hacking of Sept. 11 victims

In response to requests from members of Congress and to at least one news report, the FBI in New York opened a preliminary inquiry on Thursday into allegations that News Corp. journalists sought to gain access to the phone records of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to several people briefed on the matter.

The investigation is in its earliest stages, two of the people said, and its scope is not yet clear. It also is unclear whether the FBI has identified possible targets of the investigation or possible specific criminal violations.
The inquiry was prompted in part by a letter from Rep. Peter King, a Long Island Republican, to Robert Mueller III, the FBI director, in which he asked that the bureau immediately open an investigation of News Corp., citing news reports that journalists working for its subsidiary, News of the World, had tried to obtain the phone records of Sept. 11 victims through bribery and unauthorized wiretapping, the people said.
The decision to open a case in New York stemmed from the expanding hacking scandal that has wracked Britain for days, ever since disclosures that News of the World had illegally intercepted the voice mail of Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old girl abducted and murdered in 2002.
It also follows a decision by News Corp.'s CEO and chairman, Rupert Murdoch, to withdraw from the biggest media takeover bid in British history.
The investigation was expected to be handled jointly by two FBI squads in the bureau's New York office: one that investigates cybercrimes and another that focuses on public-corruption and white-collar crimes, one of the people said. They all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.
It was not immediately clear whether federal prosecutors in Manhattan were involved in the case; they would most likely have jurisdiction over any prosecution because the Sept. 11 victims and their cellphones were in Manhattan when they died. Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Manhattan, also declined to comment.
Laura Sweeney, a Justice Department spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said: "The department does not comment specifically on investigations, though any time we see evidence of wrongdoing, we take appropriate action. The department has received letters from several members of Congress regarding allegations related to News Corporation, and we're reviewing those."
Jack Horner, a spokesman for the company, declined to comment.
King said in his letter on Wednesday that he was requesting the investigation not only as the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Homeland Security, but also as a congressman whose district lost more than 150 people in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"It is my duty to discern every fact behind these allegations," he wrote.
He cited recent news reports, apparently referring to an article first published on Monday in The Daily Mirror, a chief competitor to News of the World, which closed Sunday as a result of the scandal.
The article said reporters working for the paper had contacted a private investigator, a former New York police officer, and offered to pay him to retrieve the phone numbers of Sept. 11 victims and get details of the calls they had made and received in the days leading up to the attacks.
"If these allegations are proven true," King wrote, "the conduct would merit felony charges for attempting to violate various federal statutes related to corruption of public officials and prohibitions against wiretapping. Any person found guilty of this purported conduct should receive the harshest sanctions available under law."
It is not clear if the person referred to in the Daily Mirror article was a police officer at the time of the attacks.
Murdoch began his media career in Australia in 1952 after inheriting The News newspaper after the death of his father, and he has built News Corp. into one of the world's biggest media groups. Assets include Fox News, the 20th Century Fox movie studio, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and three newspapers in Britain — down from four with the death of the News of the World.

Jurors suspect Blagojevich was tailoring testimony to them(Photo-Video)

Last year’s jury thought the prosecution’s case against Rod Blagojevich lacked a smoking gun.
This year’s jury called the same evidence “overwhelming.”
What changed?
Rod Blagojevich took the witness stand in his retrial. And the 11 women and one man on the former governor’s jury not only didn’t buy what he said — they thought he was in full spin mode.

Jury forewoman Connie Wilson, 56, of Naperville, said she thought she recognized what Blagojevich was up to when he started picking and choosing details from his personal history. The details appeared to mirror personal information that came out when the judge questioned the jury pool before testimony began, she said.
“I said, ‘Do you remember what he talked about . . . [while testifying about his home] library?’ ” Wilson said she told other jurors during their deliberations. “He pointed to something in the library that pertained to almost everybody on the jury.”
She said jurors started piecing it together.
Over his seven days of testimony, Blagojevich mentioned books, targeting a librarian on the jury; pointed out an interest in music, directing the comment toward Wilson, the former choral director at Holy Spirit Catholic Community in Naperville; and discussed the importance of education, to connect with a teacher, Wilson said. “He even brought out at one point something about Boston, and of course our gentleman was a huge Boston fan,” she said with a laugh, remembering the male juror’s many Boston-themed T-shirts.
That juror, John McParland, was the lone male in the group. He wasn’t having any of Blagojevich’s testimony.
Particularly unconvincing, he said, was the politician’s attempt to explain what he “meant” by comments caught on tape by the government.
“You’re talking in, like, two different languages, then?” McParland said in an interview.
The target-your-audience strategy may work with voters in politics, but it didn’t fly with this group.
It made juror Karen Woj­cieszak, 64, of Tinley Park, downright angry.
“We had heard seven days of Mr. Blagojevich’s ‘blah, blah, blah,’ ” Wojcieszak said. “I don’t care if he grew up poor on the North Side of immigrant parents. We’re all immigrants unless you’re a Native American.
“He really cheated the people of Illinois, or tried to,” she continued. “He took an oath to do what was best for the people of Illinois and he didn’t do it. So we’ll have another governor in jail.”
Even though they believed he was lying, many of the jurors still liked him.
“I almost feel like I’d want to apologize to him, but it’s not my fault, so why do I have those feelings?” said Maya Moody of Hyde Park. “Sometimes I think he was just surrounded by people that just didn’t have the heart to speak the truth to him. It’s either that or . . . that’s just how the political machine in Illinois is, and he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. But, either way it goes, you know, when you look at the law . . . it was all illegal.”
Juror Maribel DeLeon, 45, of West Dundee, described her decision to convict as “heartbreaking,” particularly after Blagojevich, during his testimony, frequently mentioned his love for his wife and two daughters. His testimony did little to sway her views, she said. “His answers weren’t consistent,” she said. “There [were] many times it was clear he lied.”
She said Blagojevich’s own words secretly recorded by investigators were critical in convincing her that Blagojevich tried to extort campaign cash and was looking to personally benefit by trading President Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat.
“The tapes were very convincing,” DeLeon said.
Deliberations took nearly 10 days because jurors worked hard to keep their personal feelings about Blagojevich out of their discussions.
“We really followed the letter of the law,” DeLeon said. “We kept going back to that, we were like ‘this is exactly what it says, this is what we’re going to do.’ That’s why it took so long.”
“I believe Rod was out there helping the people,” said DeLeon, who believes Blagojevich became “disgruntled” in office and started looking for a way out. “Everything was a snowball effect and he made poor choices,” she said.
Jessica Hubinek, of Carol Stream, said about 3 p.m. Thursday, on their ninth day of deliberations, she and her fellow jurors had decided: He was guilty of 17 of the 20 counts.
And in the careful, deliberate way they had discussed, reviewed and analyzed the evidence, they wanted to sleep on it and send their final decision to the judge Monday morning, said Hubinek, a 32-year-old librarian and married mother of a teenager.
Rosemary Bennett, 73, of Aurora, said the morning of the verdict she did something she did every morning before that.
“I prayed every morning that the Lord would help each one of us jurors to base our decision of evidence and nothing else,” she said. “It’s easy to judge on preconceived notions.”
While McParland said he feels for Blagojevich’s two daughters, he has little sympathy for Blagojevich.
“It’s hard to feel sorry about him,” McParland said, “because, why are you doing this in the first place?”
Karin Wilson, 48, of Palatine, wouldn’t say whether she voted for Blagojevich in his gubernatorial elections. But this summer, while hanging out with her daughter and 18-year-old son, she’s eager to read about Blagojevich’s first trial, which ended in a hung jury, and find answers to a few questions she wondered about during the second.
“It was the most interesting thing I’ve ever done,” Wilson said. “And the most boring thing I’ve ever done.”
Because Hubinek took the judge’s orders to avoid the media so seriously, she missed a bunch of other big news, too. A colleague asked her late in April if she watched the wedding?
“What wedding?” she said, unaware of Prince William’s royal extravaganza.

In Boston gangster story, a tale of 2 brothers(Photo-Video)

BOSTON—It has all the hallmarks of a Greek tragedy: two brothers whose lives diverge radically—one into an underworld of crime, the other into the upper echelons of state politics—yet whose fates remain inextricably linked.
Generations of Boston residents have watched that story play out in the real-life drama of former Democratic Senate President William "Billy" Bulger and his older brother, alleged gangster James "Whitey" Bulger.

At the heart of the story, at least for the younger Bulger, was a fierce loyalty to family and the shared experience of growing up in the working class Irish-American enclave of South Boston, where the line between brawling and bare-knuckled politics was easily blurred.
The two brothers also shared one more thing: a willingness to use whatever power was available to them.
In William's case, that was a savviness for street-smart politics that propelled him into one of the most powerful positions on Beacon Hill, where he earned a reputation for arm-twisting that rarely saw him lose a battle.
For Whitey, according an inch-thick pile of indictments, that power came at the barrel of a gun and a coterie of enforcers.
Whitey's surprising arrest after 16 years on the run to face 19 murder charges this week has again thrust the brothers' story into the spotlight.
It's a relationship that would dog William Bulger throughout his career, ultimately forcing his resignation as president of the
University of Massachusetts system in 2003 after he testified before a congressional committee investigating the FBI's ties to his brother, who by then had been revealed as an FBI informant.
After receiving immunity, William acknowledged receiving a call from Whitey shortly after he fled.
"The tone of it was 'Don't believe everything that is being said about me,'" William Bulger said. "I think he asked me to tell everybody he was OK. ... I think I said I hope this has a happy ending."
Two years earlier, William Bulger had told a grand jury he didn't urge his brother to surrender because he didn't "think it would be in his interest to do so," according to a transcript of his testimony obtained by The Boston Globe.
"It's my hope that I'm never helpful to anyone against him," the younger Bulger said, according to the transcript. "I don't feel an obligation to help everyone to catch him."
Among those pressing William Bulger to resign from his university post was then-Republican Gov. Mitt Romney.
For William Bulger it was a role as defender of his brother that he'd long ago accepted, even as Whitey allegedly disappeared into an increasingly violent criminal netherworld.
In his 1996 memoir "While the Music Lasts," William Bulger described Whitey, five years his senior, as being in "a constant state of revolt," and as "restless as a claustrophobic in a dark closet."
Whitey kept himself in top physical shape, neither smoke nor drank, shunned addictive drugs, and had "an abundance of good humor and a wildly creative talent for impish mischief," his brother wrote.
But William Bulger also said Whitey found himself in trouble with police and once ran away to join the circus—signing on with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus as a roustabout. The older brother joined the Air Force but had trouble conforming and was later discharged.
"He was just being Jim," Bulger wrote.
William Bulger said that it was around this time that Whitey fell in with a crowd involved in bank holdups and in 1956 was convicted of involvement in three bank robberies and sentenced to 20 years. He served part of what turned out to be an 11-year sentence in Alcatraz.
Four years after Whitey's conviction, William was first elected to the Massachusetts House.
In the years following Whitey's release, William blamed the press for spreading what he called "lurid allegations" about his brother, speculating that some of the "dark rumors" were nothing more than political attacks on him.
As Whitey's criminal activities allegedly turned more brutal, William Bulger rose through the Statehouse ranks. In 1970 he won a Senate seat and eight years later was elected Senate president by the 40-member chamber, a position he would hold for a record 17 years.
Even after Whitey fled in 1995 of the eve of his indictment on racketeering charges, William remained loyal, accusing overzealous prosecutors of buying testimony with promises of early release from prison.
"It has been known for many years that a 'get out of jail' card has been available to anyone who would give testimony against my brother," he wrote.
At the same time, William was earning a reputation as a tough-minded leader who rewarded supporters and punished critics.
Warren Tolman, a former Democratic senator who was among those critics, served briefly under him.
Tolman said that although he often found himself at loggerheads with William Bulger, he felt Bulger treated him fairly and could be "a charming guy" when he wanted.
Still, Bulger wasn't shy about using his political might.
Tolman said after he was able to prevent a transportation funding proposal from passing by a single vote, Bulger, who opposed the measure, used his muscle to flip a vote, forcing the proposal through.
"By and large he got his way whenever he wanted," Tolman said. "You knew that if you took him on it was going to be an uphill battle."
Tolman said he never recalled open discussions about Bulger's brother even his Senate colleagues "certainly knew of the legend of Whitey Bulger."
"I don't think anyone ever realized the scope of the dastardly deeds he's accused of," Tolman said.
Occasionally the lines between politics and the underworld blurred.
In 1994, then-state Sen. William Keating led a group of like-minded liberal lawmakers in an attempt to oust Bulger as Senate president.
Although the challenge failed, the campaign against Keating was fierce. Keating said his supporters from South Boston told him that Whitey had paid people to travel to Keating's district to hold signs for his Republican opponent.
Keating said he had his own brief run-in with the reputed mobster, who approached him and lit into him with a barrage of profanity-laced insults for trying to take down his brother.
Keating, who went on to become Norfolk District Attorney before being elected to Congress last year, said he's friends with a family who lost a loved one to Whitey's violence, according to the indictments against him.
"There's a tendency to glamorize abuse of power and a tendency to glamorize the gangster life, but as a district attorney I was there as they were unearthing the bodies of (Whitey Bulger's) victims," Keating said. "It's not funny and it's not glamorous. It was savage and it was brutal."
In a written statement following Whitey's arrest this week, William Bulger said he wished to "express my sympathy to all the families hurt by the calamitous circumstances of this case."
Then, during Whitey's brief appearance in federal court in Boston on Friday, the aging brothers had a fleeting reunion of sorts. Whitey, now 81, smiled at his younger brother and mouthed the word 'Hi.' William smiled back.


William, speaking briefly to reporters as he left the courthouse, appeared emotional.

Casey Anthony defense tries to put Florida prosecutors on trial(Photos-Video)

Defense attorneys for Casey Anthony are seeking to put the prosecution on trial, alleging an at times incompetent investigation into Caylee's death. The tactic could be working with some jurors.
The defense in the Casey Anthony murder trial is seeking to turn the tables on the prosecution, attempting to put the state itself on trial for conducting what defense lawyers suggest was a lackluster and, at times, incompetent investigation into the death of Ms. Anthony’s two-year-old daughter, Caylee.

Although Chief Judge Belvin Perry is trying to head off the tactic by sustaining frequent prosecution objections at the trial, defense attorney Jose Baez is managing to raise substantial questions that could trouble at least some members of the jury.
The jurors have heard testimony that a “shoddy” autopsy was performed by the county medical examiner, that an FBI lab technician’s own DNA contaminated a piece of duct tape that the state alleges is the murder weapon, and that a crime scene investigator placed a bag of wet trash with live maggots from Ms. Anthony’s car into a drier to preserve the contents for long-term storage.
They have heard about heart-shaped residue that mysteriously disappeared from the surface of the duct tape/alleged murder weapon before it could be photographed. They also heard that investigators waited 3-1/2 months after tests showed the possible presence of chloroform in Anthony’s car before obtaining a warrant to search the Anthony home for evidence of chemicals, mixing instructions, chemistry equipment, or store receipts related to chloroform. Nothing was found.
In addition, the defense is suggesting that the state missed opportunities to conduct DNA testing on the maggots found in the trash bag in Anthony’s car. Two entomologists and a DNA expert have testified that such testing would have been possible. It was apparently not done.
The defense has also suggested that after the FBI discovered a second partial but inconclusive DNA profile on the duct tape/alleged murder weapon, the state could have had the item retested using more sophisticated technology. It did not.
Defense gambit not unique
Mr. Baez’s gambit is not unique. The defense tactic of attacking detectives and prosecutors as sloppy or worse is a standard feature of many trials. But this is no ordinary case. The state has charged Anthony with first-degree murder and is seeking the death penalty.
In addition, the saga of Anthony and her daughter, Caylee, has attracted a national following of self-appointed detectives, moral arbiters, and others who are parsing every utterance in Judge Perry’s Orlando, Fla., courtroom. Interest in the trial is so high that fistfights have broken out among those waiting in long lines outside the courthouse for a chance to witness the unfolding drama inside.
Although the state’s case moved forward quickly and efficiently for nearly three weeks, the defense side of the trial during the past five days has been slowed by a high number of prosecution objections and resulting sidebar conferences outside earshot of the jury. The in-court tension arises against a backdrop of an increasingly bitter struggle between the two camps behind the scenes.
At several points Perry has condemned what he termed “gamesmanship” and rivalry among the lawyers during the trial.
When a potential witness from a DNA laboratory in the Netherlands, Richard Eikelenboom, presented himself at the state attorney’s office last weekend for a possible deposition in advance of his expected testimony this week, Assistant State Attorney Jeffrey Ashton refused to see him. He told him to go away.
Mr. Ashton has sought to block portions of Mr. Eikelenboom’s testimony because he says the defense did not comply with a court order in December to fully disclose all opinions that each expert witness would offer at the trial.
Baez says he sought to comply with the order but that a trial is a dynamic process and he is trying to respond to unexpected issues. The judge said his order was clear and that Baez had willfully violated it.
The judge's unusual punishment

As punishment, immediately before Eikelenboom began his testimony on Tuesday, Perry gave a special instruction to the jury that certain reports outlining the witness’s testimony had not been delivered prior to a court-imposed deadline and that as a result the jury “may consider this in considering the credibility of the witness.”
Such an instruction is highly unusual, particularly in a death-penalty case. A witness’s credibility usually speaks for itself without any pretestimony demerits assigned by a trial judge seeking to punish a defense attorney.
The punishment did not stop there. The judge also barred Baez from questioning Eikelenboom about the possibility of obtaining DNA profiles from a stain in the trunk of Anthony’s car. Prosecutors have suggested that the stain is from fluid that leaked from Caylee’s decomposing body onto the carpet lining the trunk. FBI tests found no DNA. And the state did not seek to perform more sophisticated tests.
Eikelenboom was expected to say that using the more advanced techniques in his lab, such testing might be possible. That testimony could be important to the defense because it would suggest the state has been less than diligent in using available science to help prove its case. At the same time it would highlight the circumstantial and speculative nature of some of the state’s evidence against Anthony.
Despite that pending issue, Eikelenboom was permitted to testify in general about DNA testing. He told the jury that even though the duct tape found with Caylee’s remains was severely weathered, with his techniques “you could expect to still find DNA.”
Pioneer of 'touch DNA'
Eikelenboom is best known in the DNA community as a pioneer in the detection of “touch DNA” – skin cells left behind by an assailant or criminal as a result of rough-handling during criminal activity.
In 2006, Mr. Eikelenboom helped free an innocent man serving a life sentence in Colorado for a murder he didn’t commit. After re-creating precisely how the victim was dragged into a field by her killer, Eikelenboom and his laboratory were able to identify “touch DNA” on the victim’s shirt 20 years after the crime.
The innocent man, Timothy Masters, was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school at the time of the killing. He told police that he had seen the dead body in the field on his way to school but did not report it to police because he wasn’t sure it was real, according to a report in the Denver Post.
Police considered him a murder suspect in part because he did not call 911 and he seemed emotionless, according to the Post report. He was convicted in a circumstantial case with no physical evidence.
Eikelenboom identified three full DNA profiles from the victim’s shirt. It eliminated Mr. Masters and pointed, instead, to someone else on the detectives’ list of suspects.
In 2008, prosecutors moved to vacate Master’s conviction and he was released after serving nearly 10 years of his life sentence.
Work in JonBenet Ramsey case
Eikelenboom was also asked by police in Colorado to investigate the unsolved murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Again, he identified DNA profiles by examining the precise points where the assailant grabbed the little girl’s clothing. The resulting DNA profile eliminated JonBenet’s parents as suspects in the killing.
During cross-examination, Ashton belittled Eikelenboom and his Dutch-based laboratory. He compared the company to a “mom and pop operation," and suggested he was working in a “barn.”
Eikelenboom said he and his wife converted a farm into a high-tech crime laboratory.
Ashton insisted that any DNA that might have been on the duct tape with Caylee’s remains would have long since degraded and been unusable in the hot, wet Florida weather.
“We only need a small amount of cells to get a DNA profile,” Eikelenboom said.
At the conclusion of his cross-examination Ashton asked Eikelenboom whether the defense team had asked him to retest the duct tape containing the as-yet unidentified DNA remnant.
"We mentioned that we could investigate this piece of tape,” Eikelenboom said.
Ashton shot back: “Are you aware if items at the defense’s request were sent for additional DNA testing?”
“No,” Eikelenboom answered.
The exchange was important because it potentially suggested to the jury that the defense did not want to retest the duct tape even though Baez was arguing that it should have been retested by the state.
“You were willing and able to test items from this case and you were willing and able to do it pro bono,” Baez asked during his redirect examination.
“Correct,” Eikelenboom said.
“The only reason you didn’t do it in this case is because the prosecution objected to you taking it,” Baez said.
The comment drew an immediate objection from Ashton before Eikelenboom could answer. The judge sustained the objection.
What the jury does not yet know is that a defense request to submit “items” to the Dutch laboratory was rejected by Perry. Instead, the defense team was directed to use a lab in Pennsylvania.
Baez apparently submitted for testing a pair of shorts and a laundry bag recovered with Caylee’s remains. But, according to Ashton, the defense never asked that the duct tape/murder weapon or carpet samples from the trunk of the car be retested for possible DNA.

Inside the Anonymous Army of 'Hacktivist' Attackers

Netherlands—In this sleepy Dutch town last December, police burst into the bedroom of 19-year-old Martijn Gonlag as he hurriedly pulled on jeans over his boxer shorts. He was hauled away on suspicion of taking part in cyber attacks by the online group calling itself Anonymous.
Mr. Gonlag admits taking part in several attacks on websites, but he recently had a change of heart as some hackers adopted increasingly aggressive tactics.

"People are starting to grow tired of" the hackers, he said in an interview. "People are also starting to realize that Anonymous is a loose cannon."
Now he appears to be a target himself. A chat room he hosts faces frequent hack attacks, he says.
Mr. Gonlag's role reversal provides a glimpse of the unruly hunt-or-be-hunted world underpinning a string of online attacks against major companies and government bodies—incidents that have sparked a digital manhunt by law-enforcement agencies in several countries.
What once was just righteous rabble-rousing by Anonymous in the name of Internet freedom has mutated into more menacing attacks, including by a splinter group of Anonymous called LulzSec, which is alleged to have moved beyond paralyzing websites to breaking in to steal data.
The tumult over online agitators like Anonymous comes at a time when the world's computers are under unprecedented attack. Governments suspect each other of mounting cyber espionage and attacks on power grids and other infrastructure. Criminal gangs using sophisticated viruses cull credit-card and other sensitive data to steal from bank accounts.
Now "hacktivists" who populate groups like Anonymous and LulzSec, mostly young males from their teens to early 30s, have also ignited increasing concern among computer experts over the security of corporate and government systems.
Authorities in the U.K., Netherlands, Spain and Turkey have made more than 40 arrests of alleged Anonymous participants. In the U.S., the Federal Bureau of Investigation has conducted sweeping searches as part of a continuing probe into various attacks. On Wednesday, U.K. police charged a 19-year-old believed to have ties with both Anonymous and LulzSec, a group whose name is a blend of "lulz," or laughs, and "security."
Anonymous and LulzSec pose a problem for law enforcement partly because their membership and operations are difficult to pin down. They are amorphous entities with scant leadership structure or formal process for making decisions.
Anonymous is "an idea" rather than a group, said Gregg Housh, a 34-year-old Web designer from Boston. "There is no one group, no one website. That is what makes it so powerful in my eyes." Mr. Housh said he helps Anonymous with logistics but doesn't take part in attempts to shut down websites or do anything illegal.
Waves of infighting spring up periodically within Anonymous, Mr. Housh added. "This is very natural. It's what happens."
A watershed in its tactics came in February when it hacked a California-based Internet-security firm called HB Gary Federal LLC, which sells investigative services to companies and government agencies, and released tens of thousands of internal emails.
The incident sent a chill through the security industry. "Computer-security specialists are afraid to challenge Anonymous," said Mikko Hypponen, of computer-security firm F-Secure Corp. "No one is that confident in their own systems."
Some participants involved in that hack formed the LulzSec splinter group, according to security specialists and participants. LulzSec has claimed credit for a string of computer break-ins, intensifying the response from law-enforcement groups.
Anonymous grew out of an online message forum formed in 2003 called 4chan, a destination for hackers and game players fond of mischievous pranks. Its followers became more politically focused, embracing an ideology of Internet freedom. In 2008, it made headlines with a campaign against the Church of Scientology, protesting what Anonymous claimed was the religious group's effort to control information about itself online.
The campaign included "denial-of-service" attacks—bombarding websites with data to try to knock them offline. Later attacks targeted the movie and music industries, because of their efforts to stop piracy.
In December, the group hit on a cause that propelled it into the spotlight: WikiLeaks. Anonymous began attacking organizations and people who tangled with WikiLeaks and founder Julian Assange, who had been arrested in London over sexual-misconduct allegations in Sweden, which he denies.
Anonymous attacks shut or slowed websites of businesses that had cut ties with WikiLeaks, including MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc. and PayPal, a unit of eBay Inc. All said their systems weren't compromised. PayPal said the attacks temporarily slowed payments via its website but not significantly.
The campaign, Operation Payback, brought Anonymous new followers from around the world. Via online chat forums and social-media websites, participants disseminated instructions about how to download attack software and about sites to target. Software called LOIC, or low-orbit ion canon, was downloaded tens of thousands of times, security specialists say.
Among recruits was Mr. Gonlag, under the nickname Awinee, an online handle the Dutch youth had used during a lifetime of intensive video-game playing. Spurred by talk of the WikiLeaks campaign in chat rooms, he piled in, at one point writing: "Fire, fire fire."
Mr. Gonlag has admitted he participated in attacks including one against the website of a Dutch prosecutor who announced the arrest of a 16-year-old in connection with the WikiLeaks campaign.
Returning home in the early hours of Dec. 10, Mr. Gonlag said in an interview, he typed the address of the prosecutor's website into the attack software and let his computer fire data for about half an hour. That afternoon, Dutch police arrested him and seized his desktop computer and phone.
Mr. Gonlag, who awaits trial, is charged with crimes related to destroying a computer network and inciting others to cause an attack, which carry a possible six years in prison.
Tapping at his keyboard recently in jeans and a green T-shirt, Mr. Gonlag said that he took part in several pro-WikiLeaks attacks, which he likened to a "digital sit-in," but that he wasn't guilty of the charges because he didn't destroy or steal anything.
He indicated he grew disenchanted as some arms of Anonymous allegedly moved from paralyzing websites to stealing from them, putting the group in "a very, very bad position."
Alluding to the cyber attacks he himself now faces, he said that when his computer server that powers the online chat rooms comes under fire, he takes the server offline and waits until his attackers tire of the effort. Then he connects back online again.
Each online Anonymous forum, such as AnonOps and AnonNet, has multiple chat rooms or "channels," typically focused on a particular operation or theme.
While there may be a hundred or so active followers of a network on a regular basis, numbers swell into the thousands during popular campaigns.
Many channels are public, but participants can also set up invitation-only chat rooms or send each other private messages. Participants often speak online using audio or camera software, and they also can share videos and other files. Many participants are U.S.-based but there is also a significant following in Europe and elsewhere.
Discussion ranges from political theory to technical chatter to juvenile banter. In one chat log, a participant promised to push a company "so far into orbit that they'll transmute into a gravitational dip and exude Hawking radiation."
Anonymous does have a hierarchy of sorts, with a core group of about 15 leaders who run the online chat rooms, participants say. They can issue sanctions, including banning someone from a channel or an entire network.
"There are nodes of power and authority, but it is pretty decentralized, and no one is calling the shots for all the operations," said Gabriella Coleman, an New York University academic who follows Anonymous.
The Anonymous attacks turned more ominous in February, when some members broke into HB Gary Federal's systems.
The Internet-security company's then-chief executive, Aaron Barr, noticed the problem one morning when he was unable to access corporate email via an iPhone.
He instantly suspected Anonymous, as he had been quoted in a newspaper article saying he had uncovered key participants. Soon, his Twitter account was hijacked and used to post racial slurs and his Social Security number. Then Anonymous announced it had hacked his email and would make the contents public.
"I was shocked and consumed by it," Mr. Barr said.
By hacking into the company's public Web page and stealing passwords, attack participants obtained about 70,000 emails, which they posted online. The traffic included details of a proposed effort to gather information on critics of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in an attempt to prove illegal activity by labor-union members. Mr. Barr said the initiative was only intended to show what information could be retrieved.
The attackers also exposed minutiae of Mr. Barr's marital issues. He said the personal communications were taken out of context.
Mr. Barr stepped down from his job in late February.
Anonymous participants say the attacks expose weaknesses in the systems of computer-security companies and large organizations. "They should be scared," said Corey Barnhill, a 23-year-old New Jersey native who uses the online nickname Xyrix and who said he took part in the attack on HB Gary Federal. "You're college-educated and you can't secure a server? How hard is it? They can't keep a kid out?"
Mr. Barnhill said the HB Gary Federal hack was designed to teach Mr. Barr a lesson for suggesting he could unmask Anonymous. "Whacking him down a peg was pretty funny," he said.
In April, an Anonymous denial-of-service attack against Sony Corp. was followed by a breach of its computer system that resulted in the theft of names and birth dates and other personal information on about 100 million people who play online video games through Sony's online gaming services.
Sony shut down its PlayStation online network for nearly a month and has estimated the attack cost it $171 million, including costs for enhanced security.
Sony has said that it isn't clear that any credit-card data were ever accessed. The company said it has added security to its systems.
Sony told U.S. lawmakers it found a file left on its servers called "Anonymous," the contents of which said "We are Legion," a tagline often used by Anonymous.
Anonymous participants claim responsibility for the denial-of-service attacks, in press releases and via their Twitter account. They said the group didn't orchestrate the data breach but didn't rule out that someone from the group could have been involved. Meanwhile, the LulzSec group formed.
Security experts who follow LulzSec say it has about 10 core participants and is known for its hacking expertise. In recent weeks it has claimed responsibility for breaking into computer systems of several organizations, including the U.S. Senate and an FBI affiliate called InfraGard.
Last week, LulzSec said it had knocked the Central Intelligence Agency's website offline for about an hour. The CIA said no internal or classified networks were affected.
A call to a phone number set up by the group, 614-LULZSEC, wasn't returned. One LulzSec follower called "tflow" responded to a Wall Street Journal reporter in an online chat room, saying: "Unfortunately the gnomes are too busy to pick up your clearly inferior call."
"For the past month and a bit, we've been causing mayhem and chaos throughout the Internet, attacking several targets," LulzSec said in a statement last week. "This is the Internet, where we screw each other over for a jolt of satisfaction."
This week, LulzSec claimed to rat out a couple of individuals it said had "tried to snitch" on it. In a document addressed to the "FBI & other law enforcement clowns," the group appeared to reveal the full names, addresses and other contact information of two U.S. men it claims were involved in some hacks. "These goons begged us for mercy after they apologized to us all night for leaking some of our affiliates' logs," according to the document, accessed via a link on LulzSec's twitter page. "There is no mercy on the Lulz Boat."

Pentagon Bomb Scare: Is the Suspect a Lone-Wolf Terrorist?

An international investigation is under way today to find out whether the Marine Corps Reserve lance corporal who was arrested early Friday morning for carrying suspected bomb making materials near the Pentagon is simply an unstable, misguided young man, or a cold-blooded lone wolf terrorist. "We don't know what a lone wolf, al Qaeda-inspired operative looks like. We don't know where they hang out, we don't know really what motivates them," former FBI agent Jack Cloonan said. "So when you don't know that,

you've got a talent pool of people that is so huge, it stresses law enforcement. We just don't know what they look like and what they want to do." The United States was lucky in this incident, because police were able to arrest the man in question, 22-year-old Ethiopian-American Yonathan Melaku, who was recently charged with breaking into 27 cars in suburban Washington. But so-called lone wolf terrorists are generally very difficult to catch. "It gets very close to that whole issue of profiling," Cloonan said. "We don't want to say as law enforcement that we're going to look for every Arab male age 21 to 35. We really can't do that. Profiling is not that effective in this regard." FBI investigators have been dissecting Melaku's life since his arrest, but as of yet have found no links to terrorist organizations, although he was carrying pro-al Qaeda literature. "We do believe at this time that this individual acted alone," said Brenda Heck, a special agent in charge of counterterrorism for the FBI. But while he may have been acting alone, the recent appearance of a "hit list" on a jihadi web site that names 40 prominent figures from government, the U.S. military and the media who should be attacked, has officials concerned about people who might have no formal links to al Qaeda but still be inspired by their rhetoric. Among the names on the hit list, which includes photographs of the targets and biographical information, are a member of Congress, Pentagon officials, a conservative pundit, executives of an American company involved in the production of drone aircraft, and two prominent French executives. According to a bulletin circulated by the FBI, the hit list appeared on the website Ansar al-Mujahideen after one poster highlighted Al Qaeda leader Adam Gadahn's call in a June 3 message for lone wolf attacks on American public figures and corporate institutions. "When al Qaeda ... [puts] a hit list out ... I think that they're trying to issue an open-ended fatwa, a religious order, for people to go act on their own," Cloonan said. "The person who is sitting out there, the lone wolf ... we just don't know. That's what stresses law enforcement ... because we just don't know." With the anniversary of 9/11 approaching, we can expect to see more of these attacks, according to Cloonan. "Al Qaeda and other likeminded groups are adapting to what we've done," he said. "We've degraded their leadership, we've degraded their operational capability, they will take what we give them -- the lone wolf, the single operative, is probably the modus operandi they're relying on."  

The Arrest

Melaku was arrested around 2 a.m. Friday, when an army policeman confronted him at Arlington Cemetery. It is unclear what he was doing there in the middle of the night, but his actions set off alarm bells. Melaku fled, but the police ran him down and found four zip-lock bags with a substance labeled ammonium nitrate, a key bomb-making material, in his backpack, officials said. Also inside were spent 9mm ammunition and a notebook containing the words "al qaeda," "Taliban rules," "mujahidin" and "defeated coalition forces," according to police. Police worried that Melaku had planted bombs at the cemetery and the Iwo Jima memorial located just a mile from the Pentagon. All traffic was shut down around the Pentagon while authorities raced to Melaku's suburban home in Alexandria, Va., to search for bomb making material. Searches of Melaku's home and car turned up no explosives, and the material in Melaku's backpack tested negative as a potential explosive, sources said. Melaku was arrested last month for smashing windows and stealing valuables from 27 cars in Leesburg, Va., and charged with four counts of grand larceny. A man by the same name and birth month was also arrested in Fairfax County for reckless driving and failure to stop. He pleaded guilty and paid a $200 fine for the former charge and $30 for the second charge. Melaku, who joined the Marine Corps Reserve on Sept. 4, 2007, according to the FBI, had been awarded the National Defense Service Medal and the Selected Marine Corps Reserve medal.

Casey Anthony trial: Defense launches case with attack on forensic evidence

Three years to the day after Caylee died, the defense began to make its case in the Casey Anthony trial. Seven forensic scientists and crime scene investigators were called to the stand. An FBI forensic document examiner testified on Thursday that she found no evidence of a heart-shaped sticker or heart-shaped residue on a piece of duct tape that prosecutors say was the murder weapon used by Casey Anthony to suffocate her two-year-old daughter Caylee. Lorie Gottesman, a 20-year forensic specialist

at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, also told the jury that she found no match between black plastic bags containing a portion of Caylee’s skeletal remains and similar black plastic bags seized from the Anthony home. The testimony came on the first day of the defense case and Day 20 of the Casey Anthony murder trial, as defense attorney Jose Baez called to the witness stand seven forensic scientists and crime scene investigators in an attempt to cast doubt on the state’s case. The action came three years to the day – June 16, 2008 – that both the prosecution and the defense say Caylee died. Ms. Anthony has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of the toddler. If convicted she faces a possible death sentence. In an unusual twist, Ms. Gottesman also testified that the only traceable DNA evidence found on the duct tape discovered near Caylee’s remains belonged to her. “How did it happen,” Mr. Baez asked. “I have no idea how it happened or when,” Gottesman told the jury. Baez asked if she sneezed on the evidence. “No sir.” “Throughout the entire time you had these items you exercised great care,” Baez asked. “Yes,” she said. Outline of a heart In earlier testimony Gottesman told the jury that when examining the duct tape she used a high-tech device with special lights and filters that is capable of identifying images that are beyond the range of the human eye to see. During the prosecution’s case, earlier this week, an FBI fingerprint expert testified that she observed what appeared to be a dime-sized residue outline in the shape of a heart on a portion of the duct tape that allegedly covered Caylee’s face. A supervisor also said she saw the residue outline. The expert, Elizabeth Fontaine, continued conducting fingerprint tests. Later, when she attempted to photograph the outline, she said she was unable to see it. The testimony is important because it raises doubt about one of the most vivid and brutal suggestions in the case – that Caylee’s killer may have adorned the murder weapon itself with a heart-shaped sticker. Heart stickers found The disappearing heart on the duct tape isn’t the only heart-shaped piece of evidence in the case. Prosecutors also introduced a pink raised heart on a piece of soiled cardboard that crime scene investigators located in the same woods where Caylee’s remains were found. Investigators found and seized heart stickers in a drawer in Casey’s bedroom. But it is unclear whether any of them match the raised pink heart found on the soiled cardboard or are similar to the dime-shaped image reported by the fingerprint expert. Baez called three crime scene investigators who testified for the prosecution back to the witness stand to ask them how far away the pink heart on the cardboard was from Caylee’s remains. Ron Murdock of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office estimated that the sticker was found about 30 feet from Caylee’s skull. Another witness testified that the wooded area was littered with trash. The defense effort was aimed at convincing the jury that the pink heart was just a piece of refuse unassociated with Caylee’s remains or the crime scene. In another potentially important development, a DNA expert at the FBI revealed that she had been asked by investigators to confirm whether Casey Anthony’s brother, Lee, might be Caylee’s father. Shocking claims reintroduced The expert, Heather Seubert, said her analysis of the relevant DNA excluded Lee from being Caylee’s biological father. The revelation is important because it reintroduces shocking claims made by Baez during his opening argument last month. He had suggested that one of the reasons Casey Anthony seemed emotionless after Caylee’s death was that she’d been conditioned to react that way through years of sexual abuse by her father, George Anthony. Baez suggested she’d also been abused by her brother. In testimony during the state’s case, Mr. Anthony denied that he sexually abused his daughter and also denied a defense claim that he was present when Caylee allegedly drowned in the family swimming pool. Baez has said that rather than calling 911, both George and Casey Anthony participated in a coverup to hide Caylee’s body. The trial is set to continue Friday morning.

Casey Anthony trial resumes in FL after short day (Photos)

Previously released documents show that heart-shaped stickers of a similar size to what Fountaine described were found during a search of the Orlando-area home Casey shared with her daughter and parents. The 25-year-old Florida mother is standing trial on a first-degree murder charge and could face the death penalty if convicted. Caylee's skeleton was found on December 11, 2008 in woods near the Anthony home after a five-month, nationwide search. The defence says Caylee accidentally drowned in the family's

backyard pool, and no one reported her death. Prosecutors contend Casey killed Caylee on June 16, 2008 by wrapping duct tape three times around the toddler's head, nose and mouth. Crime scene specialists recovered duct tape hanging from Caylee's skull and additional tape several feet away where animals had dragged her body parts. Fountaine testified that when the FBI examined the duct tape, they found three separate pieces that were each six to eight inches long. Fountaine was one of the final prosecution witnesses in the trial, which kicked off its fourth week on Monday. At lunchtime, Judge Belvin Perry adjourned the proceedings until Tuesday

afternoon when the next prosecution witness will be available. Perry told the jury the prosecution will wrap up its presentation on Tuesday or Wednesday, and the defence will begin presenting its evidence by Thursday. The judge predicted jurors could begin their deliberations as early as June 25 or June 27, a few weeks earlier than initially expected. HEART-SHAPED STICKERS Fountaine's testimony may help plug a hole in the state's case. So far, prosecutors have tied the distinctive brand of duct tape found at the crime scene to tape used to patch a hole on an old metal gas can in the Anthonys' outdoor shed. George Anthony, Casey's father, testified he believed he patched the can with the tape about a week after Caylee died. Prosecutors last week tried to admit into evidence a photograph of heart-shaped stickers they said were found in Casey's bedroom, but they were stopped by defence objections discussed in private with the judge. Fountaine testified she saw the heart outline while examining the duct tape with the aid of a reflective ultraviolet imaging system that can highlight existing fingerprints. Fountaine said she showed the heart outline to a supervisor, but did not photograph it because her job was to look for fingerprints. Fountaine said her work required her to coat the tape with super glue and a traditional black fingerprint powder. She said she attempted to photograph the heart outline after she finished, but it was no longer visible. In her report, Fountaine noted that she saw the heart shape on the tape but found no fingerprints. Most of the testimony on Monday was dominated by a single strand of hair found in Casey's car trunk. Numerous witnesses have provided evidence indicating Caylee's decomposing body spent time in Casey's trunk before being dumped in the woods. A previous FBI expert testified that the strand of hair showed "post-mortem banding", which is a dark band of color near the root sometimes seen on hair from the deceased. The strand also was found by FBI analysts to be "consistent" with a hair from Caylee's hair brush. But the science of hair banding and its use as evidence at a trial is new. FBI hair analyst Stephen Shaw testified on Monday about his ongoing research on whether banding can ever occur on hair from a living person. Shaw said his study - which he said was expedited to shore up testimony in the Anthony trial - so far indicates that it does not. "Post-mortem root banding is already what I would say valid," Shaw testified.

Sony Says Parts of Playstation Network Will Be Back Online This Week

Sony said Sunday that parts of its PlayStation network will be back online “this week” after hackers infiltrated the service, made off with detailed personal information and forced a catastrophic system shutdown.

But it could take until the end of the month for a full reboot of the PlayStation Network, which links 77 million gamers worldwide, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company announced at a press conference in Tokyo.

“I am deeply sorry for worrying, and inconveniencing, our users,” said Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s executive deputy president, bowing deeply.

The security debacle has dealt a serious blow to Sony’s bid to build an online network that brings gaming and music content to its universe of gadgets. Sony has lagged behind in building an online presence behind the likes of Apple and its popular online iTunes and App Store services.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company has also faced questions about whether it moved quickly enough to inform its users of the breach. The PlayStation network went down on April 20, but Sony did not disclose that personal data had been stolen until a full week later.

A subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives has sent a letter to Sony asking for information about the attack, including when the intrusion occurred, if Sony knew who was responsible for the attack and when the company notified law enforcement.

According to Sony, an “unauthorized person” hacked into Sony servers last month and obtained personal information on PlayStation and Qriocity account holders, including their names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and user names and passwords for the PlayStation Network.

The company said that other confidential information, including credit card numbers, could have been compromised, warning customers to “remain vigilant” by monitoring identity theft or other financial loss.

The hacker attack targeted Sony severs over three days in mid-April, Mr. Hirai said. The company first became aware of the unauthorized access on April 19, and shut down its servers the following day.

Sony said usernames and passwords to the network were not encrypted, but the credit card information it had for about 10 million users had been encrypted and that there was yet no evidence that this data was taken.

The company was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as legal enforcement agencies in other countries, in investigating the attack, it said.

Mr. Hirai acknowledged that Sony had been slow in providing information on the network breach to its users. It had taken the company time to gather accurate data on the breach, he explained.

“Inspecting and analyzing a vast amount of data unfortunately took a lot of time,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that the information we provided was accurate as possible.”

Mr. Hirai said that Sony’s online networks would remain central to the company’s business. Sony’s new Qriocity service, which is used to stream audio and video to high-end Sony televisions, Sony Blu-ray players and other Web-enabled Sony devices, was also knocked offline in the attack.

Once the network is up and running, Sony users will be forced to change their passwords before they can connect. Sony will offer free content and other freebies as part of an “appreciation program,” the company said.

Many features will be back up this week, but its PlayStation Store, where users buy games, movies and other downloadable content, will not be available until later this month, Sony said.

“Sony continues to place utmost priority on its network strategy,” Mr. Hirai said. “We intend to continue our global expansion.”

Police watch LA synagogues, seek suspect after blast

Police have stepped up patrols around synagogues and Jewish centers in the west Los Angeles area after a homemade bomb blast triggered a hunt for a suspect described as "extremely dangerous."

Detectives issued a mugshot of a 60-year-old homeless man, Ron Hirsch, wanted over the explosion Thursday near the Chabad House Jewish temple in Santa Monica, west of Los Angeles.

"We're making routine patrols four or five times during our watch," said Sergeant Richard Parks of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Pacific station, which covers an area west of LA.

Some 100 peope were evacuated after early morning blast, which officials initially said was due to some kind of industrial accident.

But intensive analysis by bomb experts over 24 hours found material linked to a known transient in the debris of a 300-pound (135 kg) metal post cased in cement which landed on a nearby roof.

The blast shattered windows, damaged an outside wall of the synagogue, and propelled the metal pipe onto a neighboring house, where a boy was sleeping, police said.

The suspect was identified as Hirsch -- who also goes by the name of Israel Fisher, and who is wanted on charges of possessing a destructive device -- late Friday. By Sunday he had still not been found.

Hirsch "is known to frequent synagogues and Jewish community centers seeking charity from patrons," said a Santa Monica police spokesman, adding that he was known to beg across the LA's Westside to Santa Monica, on the seafront.

"Based on his suspected involvement in this incident, Hirsch is considered extremely dangerous," added the spokesman, Jay Trisler, who issued a mugshot showing Hirsch with a full beard and green eyes.

Nobody was injured in the early morning blast, which triggered initial reports of a pipe bomb before police said it due to "some type of mechanical failure" -- but then confirmd late Friday that it was an explosive device.

A statement on the Chabad House website said a service was going on at the time of the scare, adding that those praying inside "did not hear or feel anything" and were alerted to the incident by police.

An update later said: "Some individual was attempting to separate concrete and pipe.

"He left the debris next to Chabad House and some chemical reaction took place which made the pipe shoot up and hit the roof of the next door property," it added, saying there was "some small damage to our outside wall."

Janti Rashti, 59, whose home was damaged when the concrete mass fell on her rooftop, said she recognized Hirsch among a number of photos police showed her after the incident.

He sometimes slept by the side of the synagogue, she told the LA Times newspaper, but added: "I just don't believe it was him ...The synagogue was never mean to him. I certainly never did anything to him."

A spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said the type of explosive device was very unusual. "This is clearly not a traditional type of explosive device," spokeswoman Laura Eimiller told the LA Times.

"This was a huge mechanism with construction-type materials that were painstakingly taken apart by experts" before they confirmed what it was, and launched a manhunt for the man suspected of making it.

Southwest Grounds 79 Planes After Scare

Southwest Airlines grounded 79 airplanes on Saturday after a piece of the fuselage on one of its Boeing 737s ripped open during a flight the day before, leaving a hole in the cabin ceiling and rapidly depressurizing the aircraft.

“We’re taking them out of service to inspect them over the next few days,” Whitney Eichinger, a Southwest spokeswoman, said Saturday. She said they would be “looking for the same type of aircraft skin fatigue.”

In a news release, Southwest announced that it would cancel about 300 flights on Saturday because of inspections, and that customers should expect delays of up to two hours.

“The safety of our customers and employees is our primary concern,” Mike Van de Ven, Southwest’s chief operating officer, said in a statement. “We are working closely with Boeing to conduct these proactive inspections and support the investigation.”

The Southwest plane, a 15-year old Boeing 737-300, was cruising at around 35,000 feet on Friday afternoon en route to Sacramento from Phoenix when passengers heard an explosion. The Associated Press reported that one woman described it as “gunshot-like.”

Oxygen masks were released, and two people, a passenger and a flight attendant, passed out as the pilot descended to make an emergency landing at a military base in Yuma, Ariz. Nobody was seriously injured, Ms. Eichinger said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation told The Associated Press that there was no reason to suspect terrorism.

All 118 passengers on board chose to continue on to their destination Friday evening aboard a replacement jet, Ms. Eichinger said.

Southwest Airlines’ fleet is made up entirely of Boeing 737s, and the 79 planes the company grounded were all 737-300s.

Pictures of the airplane show that a flap of the aircraft’s skin near the overhead baggage compartments was peeled back.

“You can see completely outside,” one passenger, Brenda Reese, told The Associated Press. “When you look up through the panel, you can see the sky.”

This was not the only incident in American skies on Friday.

In a separate episode, an American Airlines flight from Reagan National Airport in Washington to Chicago made an emergency landing in Dayton, Ohio, after two flight attendants told the captain they were feeling dizzy. Jim Faulkner, a spokesman for American Airlines, said they were investigating whether the plane had depressurized improperly. No other planes had been taken out of service.

And an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight from Atlanta to Little Rock, Ark., made an emergency landing after hitting a flock of birds. None of the 48 passengers or three crew members on the regional jet were injured, and the plane was operating normally when it landed in Little Rock, said Kate Modolo, a spokeswoman for Atlantic Southeast.

CNN reported that the aircraft sustained substantial visible damage to its nose and that at least one dead crane was stuck to the front when it landed.

Regarding the Southwest incident, James E. Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the company worked its airplanes especially hard, scheduling flights with very quick turnaround times. “They pound their airplanes daily,” Mr. Hall said.

Two years ago, Southwest faced a similar episode when a hole ripped open in a plane’s fuselage and forced an emergency landing on a flight bound for Baltimore. Earlier that year, Southwest was fined $7.5 million for safety violations by the Federal Aviation Administration.

In 1988, a flight attendant was swept to her death and scores of passengers were injured when an Aloha Airlines Boeing 737 suffered a 20-foot rupture in its fuselage during a flight in Hawaii. The flight, carrying 89 passengers and a crew of five from Hilo to Honolulu, was at 24,000 feet when the tear occurred.

The pilots sent an emergency message to air traffic controllers and then guided the aircraft to a safe landing at the Kahului airport on the island of Maui. The right under-wing engine had been knocked out of commission by debris from the fuselage section that ripped away.

Though one flight attendant was swept from the plane, passengers held on to a second to keep her from being pulled out. Sixty passengers were injured.

Despite Friday’s episode, Mr. Hall said, “My experience with Southwest is that they have a good safety program.”

Suspect in Yale killing to plead guilty, attorney says

A lab technician charged in the strangling of a Yale graduate student less than a week before she was to be married plans to plead guilty Thursday, his attorney said.

Raymond Clark III will plead guilty at a court in New Haven, Connecticut, as part of a plea bargain, according to public defender Joseph Lopez.

Lopez would not divulge the details of the agreement.

The 26-year-old had pleaded not guilty in January 2010.

He is accused in the killing of Annie Le, 24, who was pursuing a doctorate in pharmacology at Yale when she went missing on September 8, 2009.

Le's body was discovered inside a wall of a Yale lab building four days later after an extensive search by the FBI and police.

She had planned to marry Columbia graduate student Jonathan Widawsky on the day her body was found.

Clark was not a Yale student, but had worked as a lab technician at the university since 2004, after graduating from high school. He lived with his girlfriend, who also is a Yale lab technician, according to police.

A Yale faculty member described Clark's job as maintaining colonies for animals used in research.

A motive in Le's killing was unclear, but police said they were treating the case as workplace violence.

Calls to the New Haven district attorney's office and Yale University seeking comment were not immediately returned.