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Feb 29, 2012

U.S. News: Murderer on the run after mistaken release

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U.S. News
Stories from NBC reporters around the country.
Murderer on the run after mistaken release
Feb 29th 2012, 16:23

By msnbc.com news services

Authorities were searching Wednesday for a convicted murder with an "extensive" criminal history who was accidentally released from custody while awaiting a court appearance in South Carolina, the sheriff's office says.

Thomas Aaron Whitlock, a 31-year-old convicted of second-degree murder in 2009, was let go Monday afternoon from the York County Detention Center -- which only realized the mistake nearly 24 hours later when arrangements were being made to return him to prison in Windsor, N.C., according to the York County Sheriff's Office.


Whitlock had been taken to York County for a court appearance on drug-related charges.

"I could go into a lot of discussions that we've had as to how this took place," Sheriff Bruce Bryant told The Charlotte Observer. "We deal with thousands and thousands of prisoners each year, book close to 7,000 prisoners each year. There has been a mistake made."

South Carolina records show Whitlock had previously been convicted on burglary, robbery and drug charges. He was arrested in April 2010 by FBI agents who found him hiding under a home in Dallas, Texas, and later sentenced to between 11 and 14 years in the death of Jamie Thompson in Charlotte, the newspaper said.

The sheriff’s office, which said Whitlock had an "extensive" criminal history, was working with other law enforcement agencies and the North Carolina Division of Adult Correction to find the fugitive. Bryant also has launched an investigation into how Whitlock was released.

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U.S. News: 13 killed as tornadoes rake Midwest states

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thumbnail 13 killed as tornadoes rake Midwest states
Feb 29th 2012, 07:57

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

Updated at 12 p.m. ET

BRANSON, Mo. -- At least 13 people were killed overnight as a line of tornadoes marched across the Midwest, flattening parts of several towns, officials said Wednesday. Hardest hit was Harrisburg, Ill., where 10 deaths were reported, along with nearly 100 injuries and at least 200 homes destroyed or damaged.

Forecasters warned more twisters could strike the Tennessee Valley and southern Appalachians through Wednesday evening as the storm system moved east.

Ten of the deaths occurred in Harrisburg, the local coroner told state officials. What is thought to have been a tornado swept through the town around 5 a.m. local time, destroying 35-40 homes, according to local TV station KFVS12.

Three other deaths were reported in Missouri, where storms included a suspected tornado that hit a mobile home park outside the town of Buffalo. One person died in the mobile home park and around a dozen people were injured. Two others died in the Cassville and Puxico areas of Missouri.


On Tuesday night, at least 8 people were injured when a suspected tornado ripped through Harveyville, Kan. At least three of the injured are in critical condition, according to weather.com, and 40 percent of the town suffered damage.

NBC affiliate KSHB TV reported that an apartment complex and a church were among the damaged buildings in the town of about 250 people.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback issued a disaster declaration for the area, parts of which were without power.

Other hard-hit areas included Branson, the tourist hub, and Lebanon in Missouri.

In Branson, 32 people were treated at one hospital for injuries, mostly cuts and bruises. An apparent tornado moved through downtown Branson, heavily damaging the city's famous theaters and hopscotching up Highway 76, uprooting road signs and scattering debris.

The injuries could have been far worse had the storm hit next week, when the tourist season begins.

"If it was a week later, it'd be a different story," said Bill Tirone, assistant general manager for the 530-room Hilton and adjacent Branson Convention Center, where windows were shattered and some rooms had furniture sucked away by high winds. Hotel workers were able to get all guests to safety as the storm raged.

Mark Schiefelbein / AP

Storm debris is piled near the entrance to the Dick Clark's American Bandstand Theater in Branson, Mo., on Wednesday.

John Moore, owner of the damaged Cakes-n-Creams '50s Diner, said the apparent twister appeared to "jump side to side" as it moved down the entertainment district, right through the convention center, across a lake and into a housing division.

"The theater next to me kind of exploded. It went everywhere. The hotels on the two sides of me lost their roofs. Power lines are down. Windows are blown out," Moore said. "There's major, major destruction. There has to be millions dollars of damage all down the strip.

Paul Newton / The Southern via AP

This neighborhood was among the areas of Harrisburg, Ill., damaged overnight.

"Jennifer Verhaalen said she saw a white funnel cloud followed by a wall of rain as the storm closed in on the town around 1 a.m.

She said she retreated to a back bedroom with her husband as the storm slammed into two hotel buildings, tearing the roof off one.

PhotoBlog of the destruction

Across the road, a strip mall lay in tatters, its roof missing and several walls collapsed.

Branson has long been a touristy outdoor destination for visitors who came to see the beauty of the surrounding Ozarks. But the city rose to prominence in the 1990s largely due to the theater district, where venues featured the star power of country music and celebrities including the Osmonds and Andy Williams.  

John Hanna / AP

Damage in Harveyville, Kan., includes this home.

In Lebanon, a tornado was reported at 12:25 a.m. and numerous reports came in of damage in the area.  A tractor-trailer was reported to have been blown off Interstate 44 nearby.

Newburgh, Ind., also saw damage from severe storms. Several homes and a business were hit, though no injuries or deaths were reported.

Mathew Fowler / Harveyville Gazette via AP

Damage is seen Wednesday morning in Harveyville, Kan., after an apparent tornado passed through Tuesday night.

Weather.com earlier said that "scattered severe storms" had been expected to sweep from the Plains eastward into the mid-Mississippi Valley and portions of the Mid-South Tuesday night into early Wednesday.

The National Weather Service said it was forecasting more tornadoes on Wednesday, including "one or two possibly strong" ones as well as "damaging wind over parts of the Tennessee Valley to southern Appalachians" into the evening.

The system also skirted northern Arkansas, bringing gusts of up to 60 miles per hour in the northwest. A wall cloud was reported in Cherokee Village, where trees were scattered along roads, the weather service said. Residents of Clay County in northeastern Arkansas reported hail the size of golf balls, and similar-sized hail was reported in Mountain Home.

In northern Oklahoma, gusts of up to 80 mph flipped trailers and damaged homes near Cherokee.

Tornado season normally starts in March, but it isn't unusual to see severe storms earlier in the year. Forecasters have a particularly difficult time assessing how serious a season will be in part because tornadoes are so unpredictable. This year, two people were killed by separate tornadoes in Alabama in January, and preliminary reports show 95 tornadoes struck that month.

NBC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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U.S. News: 24-year-old mayor's personal life story guides political career

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thumbnail 24-year-old mayor's personal life story guides political career
Feb 29th 2012, 15:55

By Kate Snow and Jessica Hopper
Rock Center

Svante Myrick, the new 24-year-old mayor of Ithaca, N.Y., shies away from increasingly frequent comparisons to President Obama, but he admits the president’s journey certainly influenced his decision to enter politics.

“Well, if this, you know, guy with that name and those ears can do it, then a guy with this name and these ears can do it,” Myrick said.

When he was just a teenager, Myrick’s grandmother gave him a copy of Barack Obama’s book, “Dreams From My Father.” As a biracial teenager, he found solace and motivation in reading Obama’s story.

“It was so full of things I saw in my own story.  I mean, his struggle with his identity growing up without his father and raised by a white mother in a largely white school district. I mean, he had been through things and he had wisdom,” Myrick said. 

Myrick’s mother is white and his father is African American.  The family was at times homeless. Myrick’s father struggled with drug addiction and faded from his life when he was six years old, Myrick said.   He was raised primarily by his mother and grandparents in a Earlville, N.Y., a tiny town with just one stoplight.  He and his three siblings were the only black kids in the town, Myrick said.

“Our family was the black neighborhood,” Myrick joked. 

Myrick entered politics while still a student at Cornell University.  He was elected to Ithaca’s City Council when he was a junior.  He served on the council for four years before running for mayor.

“Frankly, there’s nothing you can tell people that will show them that you’re ready to do it.  All you can do is point to what you’ve done already,” Myrick told Kate Snow in an interview scheduled to air Wednesday, Feb. 29 on Rock Center with Brian Williams.

While running for mayor, the democrat admits that his age was sometimes a hurdle. He wore out two pairs of shoes canvassing the town of 30,000 people to convince voters to support him.

“When somebody questions your age, it’s not that they’re wondering if you’ve had enough birthdays to do the job.  They’re wondering if you’re dedicated enough, they wonder if you know enough about the city.  They wonder if you have the experience it takes to get things done and if you show them those things, then the age is just a number,” Myrick said.

Along with his political experience, Myrick’s rise from humble beginnings also seemed to resonate with voters.  His mother, Leslie Myrick, worked multiple jobs to support the family. When NBC News interviewed her, she’d just finished an overnight shift at the front desk of a local hotel.

“He’s full of love and has always been full of love,” Leslie Myrick said of her son.


Myrick seems to have gleaned his own wisdom from his upbringing.

“I’m sure it makes you a little tougher.  I’m sure you learn to take advantage of every opportunity you’re given, you know?” Myrick said.  “Because you know what it’s like to not have those opportunities, you know? You learn to recognize an advantage when you see one, I think and it, I don’t know, it’s a motivator.”

Leslie Myrick said that a young Svante devoured books as a child and was a “real charmer.”

She quietly campaigned for her son during his mayoral run, rarely revealing she was his mom when she would knock on a door.

“Ordinarily, I would not tell them, but if I thought they were on the fence and if I thought the personal touch would help, I would tell them,” she said.

Svante Myrick calls his mom a superhero.

“I think she had superpowers to keep all five of us together and to keep us clothed and fed and housed and to get us our first jobs and to get us to practice and back and to get us to these meetings and to get us all off to college safely and soundly and sanely,” Myrick said. 

When Myrick tries to thank his mother, he says she shrugs it off and instead apologizes for what she couldn’t provide for him.

“It’s a feat of human endurance.  It’s up there with, you know, climbing Mount Everest. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” Myrick said of his mother. “It’s like she doesn’t know what she did. She saved our lives, all of us.”

Myrick credits his high school teacher, Jonathan Sherry, with pushing him to really think about his future. He said that he wasn’t much of student, but after getting near perfect scores on the SATs, Mr. Sherry encouraged him to apply to Cornell. Myrick had never heard of the Ivy League school which was less than 100 miles away from his family’s home.

“I saw from a young age what he was capable of,” Sherry said.

When Myrick left high school, he left a note behind in a yearbook for Mr. Sherry.

“P.S. In 2040, when I’m president, I’ll keep you in mind for secretary of education,” the note read.

Myrick, like any trained politician, now refuses to talk about any presidential ambitions.

“Ithaca is my home, you know.  This is the place I want to serve, so I’m excited about serving here,” he said.

He’d have to wait 10 years before he’d even be eligible to run for the presidency.

For now, the new mayor still lives like a college student. He has a handful of roommates who live in a house not far from Cornell.

“He doesn’t cook very much, but I know whose peanut butter spoons those are,” said roommate Eddie Rooker.

Myrick and his roommates, all in their twenties, jokingly call the home they share “the hall of justice.”  Under one roof lives Ithaca’s mayor, a city council member and a member of the county legislature.

Despite all of his hard work, Myrick does not consider himself a self-made man. He believes strongly in  the government programs that helped sustain him as a child.

“This is not the story of a self-made man.  This is a story of a community that conspired together to raise, you know, a child.  I mean, that’s the truth,” Myrick said.

Editor’s Note: Kate Snow’s full report, ‘Mr. Mayor,’ airs Wednesday, Feb. 29 at 9 pm/8 c on Rock Center with Brian Williams.

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post: The woes of the 1 percent

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post
Economy News: Get the latest headlines and in-depth coverage of economic news, policy, analysis and more from The Washington Post.
The woes of the 1 percent
Feb 29th 2012, 16:35

Wall Street's profits fell a whopping 51 percent last year, but compensation for those in the financial industry is only expected to drop by 14 percent, the New York Times reports. Nevertheless, the 1 percenters say they're still feeling the pinch.

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post: Last quarter’s GDP numbers were better than we thought

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post
Economy News: Get the latest headlines and in-depth coverage of economic news, policy, analysis and more from The Washington Post.
Last quarter's GDP numbers were better than we thought
Feb 29th 2012, 15:26

Whenever the government releases new economic data, one thing to remember is that the numbers typically get revised in the months that follow — often dramatically. Case in point: The Bureau of Economic Analysis now says GDP grew at a 3 percent rate at the end of last year, rather than 2.8 percent.

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post: N. Korea agrees to suspend uranium enrichment, nuclear tests

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post
Economy News: Get the latest headlines and in-depth coverage of economic news, policy, analysis and more from The Washington Post.
N. Korea agrees to suspend uranium enrichment, nuclear tests
Feb 29th 2012, 15:21

North Korea has agreed to suspend its uranium-enrichment program and its long-range missile and nuclear tests, the State Department said Wednesday. In return, the United States will provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid.

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post: Bernanke: Economy, job creation likely to stay sluggish for several years

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post
Economy News: Get the latest headlines and in-depth coverage of economic news, policy, analysis and more from The Washington Post.
Bernanke: Economy, job creation likely to stay sluggish for several years
Feb 29th 2012, 15:40

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned lawmakers Wednesday that, despite bright spots in recent economic reports, unemployment would likely stay high and the nation's recovery remain slow for the next several years.

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post: The primary is hurting Mitt Romney

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Economy: Economic News, Policy & Analysis - The Washington Post
Economy News: Get the latest headlines and in-depth coverage of economic news, policy, analysis and more from The Washington Post.
The primary is hurting Mitt Romney
Feb 29th 2012, 15:24

In Wonkbook today, I argued that the GOP primary has been bad for Mitt Romney, and the longer it drags on, the worse it'll be. Over at Slate, Dave Weigel says the same thing. But some disagree. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, for instance, told NBC News, "I'm in the camp that believes that these folks are being refined and improved by this very difficult process." The theory there is that the 2012 Republican primary is akin to the 2008 Democratic Primary, which many believe strengthened the Obama campaign and bettered the candidate.

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Breaking News: CBS News: "Idol": Fraker fearless as boys try to become men

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"Idol": Fraker fearless as boys try to become men
Feb 29th 2012, 14:00

Creighton Fraker was a standout among the 13 guys who performed for the judges Tuesday night

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Breaking News: CBS News: Letterman asks, "What's Worse, Angela Merkel," Beer or Bush?

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Letterman asks, "What's Worse, Angela Merkel," Beer or Bush?
Feb 29th 2012, 14:53

David Letterman wonders what's worse for German Chancellor Angela Merkel: having five beers spilled all over her shoulders, or a shoulder rub by former President George W. Bush.

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