Ohio rape case grand jury adjourns for 3 weeks

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An eastern Ohio grand jury has adjourned for three weeks while investigators go back to analyzing evidence and interviewing witnesses to determine whether other laws were broken in the case of a 16-year-old girl raped by two high school football players last summer.

The panel in Steubenville had met three days in a row before the adjournment was announced after the grand jury wrapped up Thursday afternoon.

The delay will allow investigators from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation "to continue evidence analysis and witness interviews," Attorney General Mike DeWine's office said in a statement.

It's the second such delay for the panel, which was seated April 15 but didn't begin work for two weeks while investigators continued their work.

One of the issues before the panel is whether adults like coaches or school administrators knew of the rape allegation but failed to report it as required by Ohio law.

Also Thursday, two teenage girls were sentenced to probation after guilty pleas in the case of threatening tweets sent after the guilty verdict in the rape case was announced March 17.

One girl had been charged with aggravated menacing for a tweet that threatened homicide and said "you ripped my family apart," according to the attorney general's office. The girl is a cousin of defendant Ma'Lik Richmond, one of the football players found guilty.

A Twitter message from the second girl threatened the rape victim with bodily harm, leading to a menacing charge. One of the messages was later reposted on Facebook.

The girls acknowledged in court Thursday they "made bad tweets."

Charges of intimidation of a witness and aggravated menacing were dropped and the two 16-year-olds admitted to a single misdemeanor charge of telecommunications harassment and received six months' probation, said Sara Gasser, an attorney for one of the girls.

Before Thursday's adjournment, DeWine had said the 14-person panel would meet three or four times a week with no deadline to finish its work. DeWine has said nothing is off the table for the panel.

Speculation that school officials could be targeted increased last week after investigators searched Steubenville High School and offices of the city school board.

Text messages introduced as evidence in the football players' March trial indicated that head football coach Reno Saccoccia may have known about the rape early on.

The coach "took care of it," defendant Trent Mays said in one text introduced by prosecutors.

"Like he was joking about it so I'm not worried," Mays said in another text.

Saccoccia has not commented and school officials say he won't be made available until after the grand jury concludes.

Saccoccia is in the third year of a five-year coaching contract and earlier this year had a two-year contract renewed for his job as an administrator in a Steubenville alternative school.

Mays, 17, was convicted of raping the West Virginia girl and of photographing the underage girl naked and sentenced to two years in the state juvenile prison system. Richmond, 16, was convicted of raping the girl and sentenced to a year in juvenile prison.

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Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.

Via Yahoo News!

Floodwaters could linger for weeks

Vicksburg, Mississippi (CNN) -- Residents eager to put behind a historic flood that submerged much of Vicksburg face a long and slow goodbye, forecasters said Friday, predicting that the river could remain out of its banks until at least mid-June.

The Mississippi River is not expected to return to its 43-foot flood stage in Vicksburg until after June 14, which is 46 days after it climbed out of its banks, said Amanda Roberts, a National Weather Service hydrologist said.

It crested at 57.1 feet Thursday, and the weather service predicts the crest will hold through at least Saturday morning in Vicksburg.

The flood also claimed the first victim in the state -- Vicksburg resident Walter Cook -- who died after being pulled from floodwaters, according to the Warren County coroner, who said Thursday it's not clear how Cook ended up in them.

For some, the cresting floodwaters, which damaged hundreds of homes and displaced 2,000 Vicksburg residents, was cause for relief. For others, it was a reason to celebrate.

Eddie Monsour, who owns a waterfront restaurant, threw a "River Crest Party" on Thursday night.

It was a big success, he said.

"Usually we've got a good crowd, but nothing like it is now. We're probably 200 people more than we usually are," Monsour told CNN affiliate WJTV.

"There's tourists here. People from all over the state just coming to see the water. They've never seen anything like it."

The patrons also included local evacuees such as Louise Roland of Eagle Lake.

"(I'm) just here to celebrate the river cresting," Roland said. "Hopefully, it'll start going down soon."

All but about a dozen of Eagle Lake's 600 residents evacuated, according to CNN affiliate WLBT.

"We talked about it and thought about it, but this really wasn't a decision at all," one of the holdouts, Cindy Roberson, told WLBT. "This is home, this is where our stuff is."

Local officials caution that some area residents may have to wait to return to their homes.

Flooded houses, they say, pose a variety of dangers, including debris, hazardous waster, gas leaks and the presence of snakes or other potentially dangerous animals forced out of their habitats and into residential areas by the rising floodwaters.

"Right now we're moving to the recovery stage," Vicksburg Mayor Paul Winfield told CNN.

"Our first priority, I believe, should be public safety, to continue to encourage our residents and onlookers to stay free of the water."

Winfield said that law enforcement officials are patrolling evacuated areas of the city to help ensure that abandoned homes and businesses aren't burglarized. Each flooded property must be "assessed" before an owner can return to it, he said.

Residents who live along the river should be vigilant, said Marty Pope, a senior hydrologist with the weather service.

Warren County, which includes Vicksburg, has "several hundred homes that have water" and about 2,000 residents have been displaced, Sheriff Martin Pace said.

County residents are accustomed to flooding and know what to do, but none have experienced it at this magnitude, according to Pace.

The river began cresting ahead of schedule Wednesday night probably because an old levee system in the Mississippi city of Greenville was breached May 13 and spread the flood's flow, Pope said.

The Mississippi River is more than 14 feet above flood stage at Vicksburg and more than a foot over the record set in the city in 1927.

Water levels in Natchez, a city about 70 miles south, are nearly 4 feet beyond the record, with the river at 61.9 feet Thursday night -- and the crest isn't expected to arrive until Saturday.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers kept a watchful eye on the Yazoo Backwater Levee, which residents near Vicksburg were counting on for protection. It is designed to keep water from backing into parts of the Yazoo River delta.

A slide was detected on the mainline Mississippi levee at Albemarle Lake, the Corps of Engineers said Thursday. It occurs when the integrity of a levee is undermined because dirt and sand are being eroded, said Corps spokeswoman Eileen Williamson.

"It will take about a full week to repair," she said.

Farther south, where the Mississippi River has not yet crested, residents were working to clear out their homes and find ways to get by.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has asked for federal assistance in grappling with flooding resulting from the Morganza Spillway, where 17 bays have been opened in hopes of sparing New Orleans further downstream.

Mandatory evacuations will be in effect Saturday -- beginning at midnight Friday -- in Butte La Rose, Happy Town and the Sherburne Wildlife Management Area, the St. Martin Parish Sheriff's Office said.

By Saturday morning, "the area will be secured and no one will be allowed to enter," the parish said in a news release.

Officials said spillway gates are likely to be open for weeks. It will be weeks before the river falls below flood stage, allowing evacuees to return.

The flood is the most significant to hit the lower Mississippi River valley since at least 1937. It has affected nine states so far: Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

CNN's Phil Gast and Ed Payne contributed to this report.

CNN

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Teams seek man whose wife survived 7 weeks in bush

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Sheriff's deputies searched for the husband of a Canadian woman who survived for seven weeks on water and trail mix after they became stranded in remote mountains in Nevada, holding out hope Saturday that he could still be alive.

Rita Chretien, 56, told investigators the last she saw of Albert Chretien, 59, was on March 22, when he set off for help on foot with a GPS unit just a few days after their van got stuck in the mud on a national forest road in northern Elko County, Sheriff Jim Pitts said.

While it seemed unlikely he could have survived all this time, sheriff's Detective James Carpenter said crews weren't ready to turn the rescue mission into a recovery operation.

"I want to wait to see what they come up with," Carpenter told the Associated Press. "It's pretty nasty up there, and there's no communication."

Deputies from Nevada and Idaho's Owyhee County searched the rugged river canyons and mountain sides along the north border of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, about 15 miles northeast of the federally protected Jarbidge Wilderness Area. Bad weather prevented them from using aircraft on Saturday.

"That area is pretty remote," said Tom Montoya, U.S. Forest Service district ranger for the area. He described it as "miles from anything. It's kind of canyon lands, a lot of gorges out there" that would make it easy to get lost.

Rita Chretien was listed in fair condition on Saturday at St. Lukes Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho. Hospital staff declined to release additional information.

Officer Dan Moskaluk, spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia, said she reportedly was up and walking around.

"Her family said she lived off water and small amounts of trail mix," losing 20 to 30 pounds during the ordeal, Moskaluk told the AP.

The Chretiens disappeared in late March during a trip to Las Vegas and last were seen in Baker City, Ore.

"We're stunned," Raymond Chretien, the couple's son, told The (Portland) Oregonian in a telephone interview Friday night. "We haven't fully digested it. This is a miracle."

Detectives in Idaho intended to meet with Rita Chretien and her doctors again over the weekend, Carpenter said.

During brief questioning Friday, she told investigators her husband was walking to State Highway 225 in an attempt to find help.

That highway is more than 10 miles away from the area where hunters found the van on Friday. It forced search crews to consider the possibility Albert Chretien was confused and did not walk in that direction.

"I'm trying to figure out how the van ended up where it did," Montoya told AP. "It doesn't make sense."

The van was found along the border of the national forest and Bureau of Land Management land about 5 miles south of the state line, where Idaho's high desert collides with Nevada's snow-capped Independence Mountains.

Rivers and streams with headwaters mostly in the wilderness area drain off 10,000-foot peaks to the north on their way to the Snake River.

"I don't know how much snow is up there, but it's really wet and heavy," Carpenter said. Because of the snow and mud, the only way currently to access the site is from Idaho, he added. "We can't get in from the Elko side."

The couple left their Penticton, British Columbia, home on March 19, and reached Baker City in eastern Oregon that afternoon, where they were captured on a store's surveillance camera.

Raymond Chretien told The Oregonian they made it to Nevada later that day, sightseeing on back roads when their van got stuck in mud. Three days later, Albert Chretien set out on foot.

Officials said weather over the past month in that area has included snow, rain and chilly temperatures.

"I don't believe they were prepared for winter weather," Raymond Chretien said. "They don't go camping."

The Chretiens were reported missing when they didn't return home March 30.

The RCMP, Baker City police and other agencies mounted a search in April but failed to turn up any sign.

Moskaluk described it as an extensive search covering 3,000 square miles "from March 31 onward."

He said the family is well regarded in Penticton and operates a heavy equipment excavation business.

Raymond Chretien said his mother doubts whether she would have made it three more days. She had been keeping a journal to let her family know what had happened.

Her son said she immediately apologized for the anguish she caused him, his two brothers and other relatives.

"She felt extremely bad for us all," he said.

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NASA delays next space shuttle launch by 1 1/2 weeks

By Michael R. Brown, AP

NASA is delaying its next space shuttle flight.

EnlargeCloseBy Michael R. Brown, AP

NASA is delaying its next space shuttle flight.

The flight was postponed because the original April 19 date conflicts with Russia's plans to send a cargo ship to the International Space Station.

Endeavour is now scheduled to blast off April 29 with Mark Kelly at the helm. It will be the next-to-last shuttle mission. Shuttle Atlantis will close out the 30-year shuttle program this summer.

NASA announced the postponement Monday, after conferring over the weekend with the Russian Space Agency and other space station partners.

An unmanned Russian cargo ship is set to blast off at the end of April. NASA did not want the craft docking at the space station while Endeavour was still there. Now, the cargo ship will arrive first.

NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said the Russians were reluctant to postpone the supply run because of a time-sensitive biological experiment aboard the craft.

Kelly and five crewmates will deliver a $2 billion physics experiment to the space station, as well as critical spare parts to keep the orbiting outpost running for another decade.

The two-week mission will be the last for Endeavour, the baby of NASA's shuttle fleet. It was built to replace Challenger, which was destroyed during liftoff in 1986.

The postponement puts the launch, scheduled for 3:47 p.m., on the same day as the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Endeavour is checking out fine at the launch pad following last week's severe storms that brought high wind, lightning strikes, hail and even funnel clouds to Kennedy Space Center. Only inconsequential damage was found on the insulating foam of Endeavour's external fuel tank, officials said.

Kelly returned to training in February after taking time off to be at his wife's hospital bedside. Giffords was shot in the head in Tucson, in early January. She is recuperating in Houston, home to Kelly and the rest of NASA's astronaut corps. Kelly said last week that he's awaiting doctors' final approval for his wife to attend his launch.

In Kazakhstan, meanwhile, two Russians and an American were poised to blast off Monday as the newest station crew. They will join three astronauts already in orbit.

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

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