RACHEL NGUYEN & JOSEPH ORBESO MISSING AFTER HIKE IN JOSHUA TREE PARK

RACHEL NGUYEN & JOSEPH ORBESO MISSING AFTER HIKE IN JOSHUA TREE PARK:

THE COUPLE ARE BOTH IN THEIR 20's.

PLEASE PRAY FOR THEIR SAFE RETURN.


Sources: Los Angeles Times, Fox News, Youtube


**** Search underway in Joshua Tree National Park for missing Orange County couple


An exhaustive search is underway for an Orange County couple reported missing Friday after they failed to return from a hike in Joshua Tree National Park.

Rachel Nguyen and Joseph Orbeso, believed to be in their 20s, never checked out of their Airbnb accommodations on Friday and left all of their belongings behind, said Dan Messaros, incident commander for the search.

After the pair were reported missing, authorities found their vehicle near the Maze Loop trail, in the northwest area of the park.

A ping from Orbeso’s cellphone was also recorded about 4 p.m. Thursday from within the park.

Authorities believe the couple went for a hike in the area, he said.

Nguyen and Orbeso have not been seen or heard from since, Messaros said.

“We have had a few clues here and there, but they all turn up with nothing,” he said.

About 100 volunteers, park employees and investigators from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department — along with six teams of search dogs — have spent hours and days hiking through rocky terrain in search of the missing couple.

But the triple-digit heat has been overwhelming for some volunteers. On Monday, a handful were airlifted out of the park due to the intense heat, according to the Joshua Tree Search and Rescue group.

"Caylee's Law" Movement Sparked By Casey Anthony's Release! Felony For Lying

Online Petition for 'Caylee's Law' Goes Viral


Many avid followers of the trial of Casey Anthony, the Florida woman accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, were incensed by Tuesday's not-guilty verdict. Unlike most others, though, Michelle Crowder did more than just fume about it.

By dinnertime, Crowder had hopped on the social-action site Change.org and launched a petition, aimed at President Obama and members of Congress, calling for a federal law that would make it a felony for parents to fail to notify police within 24 hours of a child's disappearance or within an hour of a child's death. Casey Anthony waited 30 days before reporting Caylee missing — one of several bizarre behaviors to which many pointed as evidence of Anthony's guilt.

A jury found Anthony not guilty of murder but convicted her of lying to police in the investigation of her daughter's death. Casey initially claimed that Caylee was kidnapped by a nanny, which spurred a nationwide search before the girl's skeletal remains were found in the woods near the Anthony family home six months later.

Within hours on Tuesday, more than 15,000 people had signed on to Crowder's petition, "Create Caylee's Law." The popularity of the petition prompted an e-mail from Change.orgto Crowder, an unemployed mother of two in Durant, Okla. "Every time I refreshed it, I saw more and more people were signing on," says Change.org communications director Brian Purchia. "Late last night, I e-mailed her that this was the fastest-growing petition we've had on the site."

Close to 5,000 people were adding their names each hour, and by early evening Wednesday, the petition had amassed 150,000 names. That puts it well on its way to overtaking the site's previous record of 170,000 supporters who signed on to a campaign to end corrective rape — in which lesbian women are raped to turn them "straight" — in South Africa. That document attracted the attention of the South African government, which has established a task force to address the problem.

Indeed, less than 24 hours after Crowder began her petition, legislators from at least two states, Oklahoma and Florida, expressed their intentions to sponsor bills that would require parents to report missing children swiftly.

On a federal level, however, it's not clear that the proposed statute would be constitutional. The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog reported:

Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law scholar at Harvard, points out that criminal laws usually fall within the realm of state jurisdictions. When Congress does enact them, however, it does so under the Constitution's commerce clause, which applies to cases that significantly impact interstate commerce. Tribe posits that the proposed "Caylee's Law" would fail to meet that test and would not hold up at the federal level.

"This is an understandable reaction to ... a verdict that people feel unsatisfied with, but violating the Constitution would hardly solve the problem," Tribe told the Law Blog. "There is no basis I can see for any congressional power to deal in this broad way with all cases of injury — and perhaps fatal injury — to children."

But Crowder, 30, says she is hopeful her petition will yield fruit. She says she can't know whether Anthony killed Caylee but feels certain that she had something to do with it. Crowder wonders, How could any parent not report her child missing for a month?

After poking around online, Crowder discovered that the failure to report a child missing does not appear to fall under child endangerment, child neglect or obstruction of justice laws. On Facebook, Crowder read a post urging that legislation be put in place. "I saw a bunch of people had agreed, but I thought, Is anyone really going to do anything?" she says.

"I was raised to stand up for what I believe in, and that's what I am doing," says Crowder, whose concern for Caylee and other children like her is made more poignant by the fact that she doesn't have custody of her own two daughters, ages 7 and 10.

Crowders' daughters live with their respective fathers — Crowder was married to one, but not the other — because she says she couldn't afford good divorce attorneys with the wages she earned working in retail and at call centers and fast-food restaurants.

The last she heard, her daughters were somewhere in northern Oklahoma. Crowder lives in the southern part of the state and has no contact with them. "I live my life hoping one day they will find me," says Crowder. Unfortunately, that's more than anyone can say for Caylee Anthony.



Proposed “Caylee’s Law” Generates Virtual Frenzy

More than 98,000 – and counting – people across the country have signed onto a virtual campaign calling for a new federal law that would make it a felony for parents not to alert police of a child’s disappearance.

The online petition, started by an Oklahoman woman less than 24 hours ago on a social change website, comes on the heels of the Casey Anthony trial in which the jury reached a “not guilty” verdict on first-degree murder charges Tuesday. (The jury convicted her on four counts of lying to investigators; she will be sentenced Thursday.)

The petition is the fastest-growing campaign that has ever been hosted on the site and is causing website traffic problems, a spokesman for Change.org told the Law Blog.

It calls for the creation of a new federal statute called “Caylee’s Law” – named after Anthony’s deceased daughter – that would make it a felony for parents not to report the death of a child to law enforcement within an hour of discovering the incident, or within 24 hours in the case of child disappearance.

But some question the constitutionality of such a proposed law. Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law scholar at Harvard, points out that criminal laws usually fall within the realm of state jurisdictions.

When Congress does enact them, however, it does so under the Constitution’s commerce clause, which applies to cases that significantly impact interstate commerce. Tribe posits that the proposed “Caylee’s Law” would fail to meet that test and would not hold up at the federal level.

“This is an understandable reaction to…a verdict that people feel unsatisfied with, but violating the constitution would hardly solve the problem,” Tribe told the Law Blog. “There is no basis I can see for any congressional power to deal in this broad way with all cases of injury – and perhaps fatal injury – to children.”

The proposal stems from details in the Anthony case: Caylee first went missing on June 16, 2008, but her grandmother only notified the police a month later. Trial spectators reacted with anger and disappointment to the jury’s verdict, upset by the prospect that Anthony might soon walk free after spending two and a half years in prison waiting for trial, the AP reports.

In the past hour alone, nearly ten thousand people have signed the virtual petition. Anthony’s lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment.


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Sources: Change.org, CNN, TIME, Wall Street Journal, Youtube, Google Maps

West Virginia's Coal Mining Tragedy Ends With 4 More Deaths

4 Missing West Virginia Miners Found Dead


Days of rescue efforts came to a grim end after crews found the bodies of four miners who had been missing since an explosion almost a week ago in a West Virginia mine, authorities said early Saturday.

"We did not receive the miracle we prayed for," said West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin. "This journey has ended and now the healing will start."

Authorities first notified the families of the four miners about their fate before revealing it to the media.

The death toll from Monday's blast at the Upper Big Branch mine now stands at 29, making it the worst mining disaster in the United States in nearly four decades.

On Friday, crews had reached a refuge chamber that had not been used, but the bad air forced them to evacuate before they reached the second chamber.

The airtight chambers were stocked with enough food, water and air to keep 15 miners alive for four days, but Manchin said none of the chambers had been deployed.

Rescue efforts have now turned to the difficult task of recovery, said Kevin Stricklin, of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).

Of the 29 dead, the bodies of 22 still remain inside the mine. Stricklin said most of them will have to be hand-carried out because of the lack of equipment.

"It's hard to turn a rescue into a recovery with the same group of people," he said.

As days of rescue came to an end, funerals were held Friday for some of the seven dead whose bodies have been removed from the mine.

At the funeral for Benny Willingham, the Rev. Gary Pollard said the 61-year-old miner had three loves in life: God, his family and his job. "He loved God so much that every day was a holiday, every meal was a buffet," Pollard said at Mullens Pentecostal Holiness Church in Mullens.

Willingham, who was married for 33 years, was devoted to his church, Pollard said, and had been a Christian for 19 years. And though Willingham had been set to retire soon, Pollard said he didn't know whether retirement would have suited him: He loved the work.

Three other funerals were held Friday and one is set for Saturday.

The cause of Monday's blast is unknown, and state and federal officials have pledged a full investigation.

The explosion has prompted renewed questions about mine safety. Obama said Friday that "it's clear more needs to be done" to improve mine safety.

He will meet next week with Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and a Mine Safety and Health Administration official to hear their initial assessment of the cause of the blast and their recommendations on steps the federal government should take to improve safety.

Richmond, Virginia-based Massey Energy Co., which owns the mine, said in a statement released Friday that it will conduct "extensive" reviews of the mine accident "to ensure that a similar incident doesn't happen again."

It said the mine has had less than one violation per day in inspections by the Mine Safety and Health Administration and added that that rate is "consistent with national averages."

"Most of the citations issued by MSHA to [Upper Big Branch] in the last year were resolved on the same day they were issued," it said. "The safety of our members has been and will continue to be our top priority every day."

One of the unaccounted-for miners and 18 of the dead were working in an area where long wall cutting was taking place. The technique uses a large grinder to extract the coal and creates large amounts of coal dust and methane, both of which are explosive.

Manchin said that even though it's not clear what caused the explosion, there needs to be a focus on better ventilation and sensors to alert mine personnel when gas levels become dangerous.

"There was no way to protect them against this," he said. "You just have to prevent it and make sure it doesn't happen again."

The West Virginia blast was the worst mining disaster since 1972 when 91 miners were killed in a fire at the Sunshine Mine in Kellogg, Idaho.


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Abraham Shakespeare, Florida Lottery Winner Found Dead

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Body Of Missing Lottery Winner Found


Winning $30 million in the Florida Lottery should have been the best thing that ever happened to Abraham Shakespeare.

But with his newfound wealth came a string of bad choices and hangers-on who constantly hit him up for money. Nine months ago, he vanished. Friends and family hoped he was on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.

On Friday, detectives confirmed that a body buried under a concrete slab in a rural backyard was his.

The home Shakespeare was found behind belongs to the boyfriend of a woman who befriended him in 2007, the year after he won the lottery. Authorities believe he was murdered and the woman may know something about it, but they do not yet know how he died and have not arrested anyone.

Shakespeare’s brother, Robert Brown, said Friday that Shakespeare often wished he had never bought the winning ticket.

“’I’d have been better off broke.’ He said that to me all the time,” Brown said.

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s detectives used fingerprints to identify Shakespeare’s body, which they found buried 5 feet deep and covered by a 30-by-30 concrete slab in the backyard of a two-story ranch house. There are no neighbors, save for an empty trailer next door and an orange grove across the street.

Life changed in a bad way

When Shakespeare won the lottery, he was an assistant truck driver who lived with his mother in a rural county east of Tampa. He was barely literate, had a criminal record and was extremely generous with his newly acquired wealth.

“He really didn’t understand it at all,” said Samuel Jones, who has known Shakespeare since both were 12. “It was moving so fast. It changed his life in a bad way.”

Jones said Friday that Abraham told him in March that he wanted to get out of Lakeland, where he had bought a million-dollar home. After he chose a lump sum payment of nearly $17 million, people gathered outside his mother’s home, clamoring for cash.

Jones said Abraham would tell him, “I thought all these people were my friends, but then I realized all they want is just money.”

Among those new friends was Dorice Donegan “DeeDee” Moore. Shakespeare met her in 2007, shortly after he bought his home. She told him she was interested in writing a book about his life.

But officials said she was interested in his money.

“DeeDee Moore is a con artist, and if she tried to sell me anything, I certainly wouldn’t buy it,” Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a news release earlier this month. “DeeDee Moore has cheated Abraham Shakespeare out of his money, and possibly his life.”

Moore — whose known phone numbers were all disconnected Friday — became something of a financial adviser to Shakespeare.

Property records show her company, American Medical Professionals, bought his home for $655,000 in January 2009. In February, she helped him open a company and gave herself the ability to sign for money, detectives said, including a $1 million withdrawal.

Moore told detectives Shakespeare gave her the cash as a gift. She bought a Hummer, a Corvette and a truck, and went on vacation.

Three months later, 26-year-old Shar Krasniqi — identified by Judd as Moore’s boyfriend — bought the home in Plant City that Shakespeare’s body was found behind. A tip led detectives there this week.

Howard Stitzel, who happened to be Shakespeare’s lawyer in a child support case, started working out of Krasniqi’s home after Shakespeare disappeared.

Stitzel said he could not comment when reached by The Associated Press on Friday. His lawyer, Glenn Lansky, said Stitzel rented space in the home in mid-2009.

“The landlord was DeeDee Moore,” Lansky said. “If the police have any questions, we’ll answer them.”

A phone number listed in public records for Krasniqi rang to Stitzel’s law firm Friday.


Rapid rise and fall

Shakespeare was last seen in April. Moore, who spoke several times to the Lakeland Ledger newspaper last year about his disappearance, said he was “laying low” because people constantly tried to get money out of him.

She also told the paper she helped Shakespeare disappear. But Polk detectives say she tried to make it appear that he was alive for several months, at one point using his phone to text his relatives and friends.

Detectives say Moore also paid one of Shakespeare’s relatives $5,000 to deliver a birthday card with cash to Shakespeare’s mother, suggesting it was from her son.

So far, only one person has faced charges in the case, but not for Shakespeare’s disappearance or death. Troy McKay Young, 42, a Lakeland police officer, was charged with unlawful compensation and misuse of confidential information after detectives said he provided Moore with information he obtained through law enforcement databases.

Meanwhile, friends and family puzzled Friday over Shakespeare’s rapid rise and fall. Jones said his friend lived a humble life, and just before he bought the winning ticket he joined a church and was baptized.

“When he won the lottery,” Jones said, “he forgot about being saved.”



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Sources: MSNBC, NY Daily News, Google Maps