India Floods: Helicopter Crashes During Rescue Mission, Killing 20

GAUCHAR, India (AP) — Paramilitary soldiers on Wednesday recovered 20 bodies from a steep hillside in northern India where a helicopter crashed while on a mission to rescue people stranded in monsoon floods, the country's air force chief said.

The helicopter crashed late Tuesday when its rotor blades hit the hillside while returning with survivors of flooding and landslides that have killed more than 1,000 people and washed away thousands of homes, roads and bridges since mid-June in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand.

Soldiers using ropes reached the crash site early Wednesday and found the bodies of 20 people, including five air force crew members, Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne told reporters.

The helicopter's cockpit voice recorder was recovered and an inquiry has been ordered to determine the cause of the crash, Browne said.

Some 45 aircraft have been used in rescue and relief operations, but intermittent rain and dense fog have dogged the efforts since Sunday.

Troops on Wednesday were trying to rescue about 5,000 people who remained stranded in the towns of Badrinath and Harsil 10 days after torrential rains triggered the flooding and landslides.

Browne visited the hill town of Gauchar, the center of the rescue and relief operations. He assured flood survivors that helicopters would rescue everyone stranded in Uttarakhand despite the bad weather.

About 92,000 people from hundreds of villages and towns hit by the floods have been rescued. Landslides and floods flattened entire towns, roads were washed away and communication links snapped, cutting off many people and necessitating air rescues.Hundreds of thousands of Hindus make the Char Dham Yatra pilgrimage to four temple towns in Uttarakhand each year, usually returning home before monsoon rains in July make the mountainous area much more treacherous, but unprecedented heavy rains fell around mid-June this year and caught many by surprise.

Selene Bahadoor, First Eyewitness, Testifies In George Zimmerman Trial

SANFORD, Fla. -- George Zimmerman's neighbor described hearing movement from left to right behind the town-house in which she lived, and when she looked out the window she saw arms flailing and what sounded like someone saying, "No" or "Uh."

Selene Bahadoor's testimony on Tuesday at Zimmerman's murder trial was the first by a witness who saw some of the struggle between the neighborhood watch volunteer and 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. On Wednesday, other neighbors could testify about what they saw on the rainy night last year when Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest during a struggle in the central Florida gated community where Zimmerman lived and Martin was visiting.

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"I saw figures, arms flailing," Bahadoor said. "It looked like arms moving."

Bahadoor said she left to turn off a stove and then heard a gunshot. The next time she looked out, she saw a body in the grass behind her townhome, she testified.

In cross-examining her, defense attorney Mark O'Mara accused Bahadoor of never mentioning the left-to-right movement in previous interviews. He also confronted her with a post she made on Facebook in which she "liked" a petition that championed the arrest of Zimmerman.

Zimmerman contends he lost track of Martin and was returning to his car when he was attacked. But Bahadoor's testimony appeared to suggest Zimmerman was moving away from his vehicle.

Prosecutors also may learn Wednesday whether they can introduce five police dispatch calls Zimmerman made in the six months before the shooting. Prosecutors want to use the calls to bolster their argument that Zimmerman was increasingly frustrated with repeated burglaries and had reached a breaking point the night he shot the unarmed teenager. Prosecutors played the calls for Judge Debra Nelson with the jurors out of the courtroom. The judge said she would issue a ruling after reviewing past cases.

The recordings show Zimmerman's "ill will," prosecutor Richard Mantei said.

"It shows the context in which the defendant sought out his encounter with Trayvon Martin," he said.

O'Mara argued that the calls were irrelevant and that nothing matters but the seven or eight minutes before Zimmerman fired the deadly shot into Martin's chest.

The prosecution is "going to ask the jury to make a leap from a good, responsible, citizen behavior to seething behavior," O'Mara said.

In the calls, Zimmerman identifies himself as a neighborhood watch volunteer and recounts that his neighborhood has had a rash of recent break-ins. In one call, he asks that officers respond quickly since the suspects "typically get away quickly."

In another, he describes suspicious black men hanging around a garage and mentions his neighborhood had a recent garage break-in.

Zimmerman, 29, could get life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder for gunning down Martin as the young man walked from a convenience store. Zimmerman followed him in his truck and called a police dispatch number before he and the teen got into a fight.

Zimmerman has claimed self-defense, saying he opened fire after the teenager jumped him and began slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk.

Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother is Hispanic, has denied the confrontation with the black teenager had anything to do with race, as Martin's family and its supporters have charged.

A Sanford police sergeant who was the second officer to arrive on the scene also testified Tuesday. Sgt. Tony Raimondo said he tried to seal a bullet wound in Martin's chest with a plastic bag and attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Bubbling sounds indicated air was escaping the teen's chest, Raimondo said. Martin was pronounced dead a short time later.

During Raimondo's testimony, prosecutors showed jurors a photo of a dead Martin face-down in the grass, another of Martin's body face up with his eyes slightly open, and a third of the bullet wound. Martin's father, Tracy Martin, walked out of the courtroom during the testimony.

Wendy Dorival, former coordinator of the Sanford Police Department's neighborhood watch program, testified how she had worked with Zimmerman to set up a watch in his neighborhood.

When asked by prosecutor John Guy if neighborhood watch participants should follow or engage with suspicious people, she said no.

"They are the eyes and ears of law enforcement," Dorival said. "They're not supposed to take matters into their own hands."

Similarly, Donald O'Brien, president of Zimmerman's homeowners association, said it was his understanding that neighborhood watch members are supposed to "stay at a safe distance" and "let the police handle it."

But Dorival said she was impressed with Zimmerman's professionalism and dedication to his community.

"He seemed like he really wanted to make changes in his community, to make it better," she said.

Chris Brown Charged With Hit-And-Run After Los Angeles Car Accident

Chris Brown has been slapped with a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge stemming from a minor car accident in May, CBS Los Angeles reports.

Brown was charged with hit-and-run as well as driving without a valid license by the Los Angeles City Attorney Tuesday, according to CBSLA. The singer allegedly refused to give his driver’s license to the other driver and offered fake insurance information before leaving the scene last month. He could face six months in jail for each offense.

On May 21, Brown got into a car accident while driving in Los Angeles near Toluca Lake. His Range Rover rear-ended a Mercedes, causing "medium" damage. Shortly after, Brown was accused of failing to give the proper information.

It is unclear if this case would violate Brown's probation in his 2009 assault sentencing, which carried a five-year probation term. The City Attorney will allegedly the matter to the LA County D.A., according to TMZ. If he is found in violation, the 24-year-old could face up to four years in prison.

The R&B star took to Twitter to defend himself Tuesday.

The latest incident comes just a day after Brown was accused of assaulting a 24-year-old woman after his show in an Orange County nightclub. The woman claims the singer knocked her to the ground, causing her to badly injure her knee, on Saturday night. He has since denied the allegations.

Trayvon Martin Crime Scene Photos Shown To George Zimmerman Jurors (GRAPHIC PHOTOS)

Jurors in George Zimmerman's murder trial on Tuesday were shown graphic photos of Trayvon Martin's body while a police officer testified about trying to resuscitate the teen.

Sgt. Anthony E. Raimondo, who works for the Sanford Police Department, testified he was one of the first officers to respond to Martin's shooting on the night of Feb. 26, 2012.

Raimondo said Martin was face-down and unresponsive. He said he turned the teen over and began to give him CPR but heard air escaping "in a manner that it was not supposed to."

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The police officer said he determined the air was escaping from the gunshot wound to Martin's chest. He continued in his attempts to resuscitate the teen until paramedics arrived and pronounced Martin dead.

Assistant State Attorney John Guy displayed several graphic photos of Martin and his injuries during Raimondo's testimony. Defense attorney Mark O’Mara also displayed graphic photos of Martin's body during his cross-examination of the witness.

The photos had an obvious impact on those seated in the courtroom and were so disturbing to Martin's family members that his mother averted her eyes and his father left the courtroom.

Zimmerman, 29, shot and killed Martin as the unarmed teen was walking back to the home of his father's fiancee from a Sanford, Fla., convenience store with a bag of candy on the night of Feb. 26, 2012.

The defendant has pleaded not guilty in Martin's death. The defense team says Zimmerman was attacked by Martin and acted in self-defense. Prosecutors allege Zimmerman profiled Martin before killing the teen.

Zimmerman faces a possible sentence of life in prison if he is convicted.

Barry Gilton And Lupe Mercado: Friends Speak On Couple Charged With Killing Daughter's Pimp

The 17-year-old girl was hysterical, screaming into her phone at her mother: What just happened? A few feet away, her boyfriend, Calvin Sneed, lay slumped in the driver’s seat of his rented Corolla, a .40-caliber bullet hole through his forehead, the socket of his left eye crushed. The sight was more than the girl could stomach—she retched, vomit dribbling down the front of her hoodie. “They didn’t have to do him like that!” she sobbed.

The teenager—we’ll call her Alicia—was a former cheerleader, petite and pretty, with dark eyes and caramel-colored skin. She had spent much of the evening of June 3, 2012, at a hospital in the far East Bay, visiting her grandmother, who was recuperating from a stroke. Then she and her family had driven back together to Bayview Heights, a working-class neighborhood over the hill from Candlestick Park, where her parents had recently moved with her three younger brothers. But the girl and her mom and dad weren’t getting along. Even though it was after midnight, Alicia had barely walked in the door before she was texting Sneed to come pick her up and take her back to Los Angeles, her home for the past seven months. This had triggered another fight with her mother and an icy dismissal from her father, who adored her but had finally reached his breaking point: “You grown. Before you leave, turn the lights off.”

Ninety minutes later, just before 2 a.m., Sneed texted Alicia: “Come out.” The girl walked around the corner, to the intersection of Jennings Court and Meade Avenue, to meet him. From that vantage point, under the streetlights, she saw a silver SUV parked down the block with its headlights on, waiting—then it drove away. She called Sneed to warn him that something seemed strange, and as she spotted his car coming toward her, the SUV reappeared, tailing him. His street savvy was useless on the unfamiliar turf, and he was easily outmaneuvered by the other driver. As Alicia watched, the SUV pulled parallel to Sneed’s window. Whoever was inside had at least two guns. As the shooting began, Sneed lost control of the Corolla, crashing into a van parked at the top of the street.

Two hours later, around 4 a.m., SFPD inspector James Garrity was walking toward the entrance of the Bayview police station when he saw them: a couple parked at the curb. The man in the passenger’s seat was African American; the driver, Latina. They seemed to be waiting for something, or someone. He approached the car. “Are you Alicia Gilton’s parents?” he asked.

The man nodded. He was Barry Gilton, 38, a Muni driver out on disability with a back injury. The woman was Lupe Mercado, 37, his high school sweetheart and the mother of their four children. They seemed calm.

“Was this prostitution related?” Garrity asked the parents.Garrity added up the facts so far. The girl was a runaway, reported missing a few days before. The boyfriend, now lying near death in San Francisco General Hospital, was older and, by the look of things, a thug and a pimp. This wasn’t his first time getting shot: One of his old bullet wounds had bits of paper money embedded in the scar tissue—he was literally made of cash. He had a tattoo on the back of his right hand that read, “If it doesn’t make dollars,” and one on his left hand that concluded, “then it doesn’t make cent.” Farther up his right arm was an image of stacks of money alongside the words “Fuck you pay me.”

Mercado did the talking. Alicia had been living in L.A., appearing in sex ads on the Internet. “She’s been exploited,” Mercado said over and over, Gilton nodding beside her. At 6 feet, 2 inches, and 205 pounds, he was a powerful presence. But Mercado seemed more comfortable handling herself with police. “How’d you feel if your daughter was exploited?” she asked the inspector, her voice steady but her words pleading.

“The guy who was shot—was he the one exploiting her?” Garrity continued. “Yes,” Mercado said. Later he asked where the couple had been that night. Mercado said she had been out looking for Alicia. Gilton said he had been home with their three sons.

To someone like Garrity, a 24-year veteran of the SFPD, Alicia’s story was all too common. There were countless teenagers selling sex for money around the Bay Area, many of them lost to the streets for good. What was unusual was the scene that confronted him now: two stable and seemingly loving parents camped out at a police station in one of the city’s roughest neighborhoods in the middle of the night, determined not to give up. “Most of the mothers I’ve dealt with in child exploitation cases are not good mothers,” Garrity’s fellow investigator, homicide inspector Kevin Jones, would tell Mercado a few days later. “They’re wrapped up in their own lives. Immature. Addicted. You’re not any of that.”

“I’m not perfect,” Mercado would reply.

For now, the couple just wanted to see their daughter. Garrity showed them to the room where the girl was waiting to talk to police. She had her mother’s small frame and flowing black hair. Her cheek was bruised where Sneed, she said, had smacked her on the drive up to San Francisco that morning.

But Garrity had miscalculated the situation. As soon as Alicia spotted her parents, she lost her mind, screaming at the top of her teenage lungs: “Fuck you! I don’t want to see you again! Leave!” Gilton and Mercado tried to speak, but Alicia’s tirade drowned out their words. “Get out of my life! I don’t want to see you people again! Get out!”

Clearly, something far more complicated than a young girl’s grief was at play. Mercado seemed at a loss. She turned again to Garrity, posing a question that was all but unanswerable. “What would you do,” she asked, “if it were your daughter?”

Jesse Friedman, Convicted Sex Abuser, Says His Fight Goes On Following Report Upholding Charges

MINEOLA, N.Y. -- Capturing the Friedmans, a New York prosecutor says, was the right thing to do.

But convicted child molester Jesse Friedman is vowing to continue his court fight to clear his name, despite the release of a report Monday concluding that police and prosecutors had sufficient evidence to pursue sex-abuse charges in the 1980s against the suburban New York man and his father.

Friedman, a 44-year-old Internet book dealer who now lives in Bridgeport, Conn., for more than a decade has maintained his innocence. His story was portrayed in a 2003 Oscar-nominated documentary called "Capturing the Friedmans."

But despite a high-profile public relations campaign to win his exoneration, the report issued after a three-year review reinforced prosecutors' position that they apprehended the right culprits.

"By any impartial analysis, the re-investigation process prompted by Jesse Friedman, his advocates and the 2nd Circuit, has only increased confidence in the integrity of Jesse Friedman's guilty plea and adjudication as a sex offender," said the 168-page report released by Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice.

A team of investigators in Rice's office, supplemented by an advisory committee that included noted defense attorney Barry Scheck, found that there was strong reason to investigate and prosecute both Jesse and Arnold Friedman. The inquiry confirmed the father's and son's guilty pleas to abusing young boys taking computer classes in the basement of their Great Neck, Long Island, home.

Both pleaded guilty in 1988 to abusing 13 children.

Friedman's attorney, Ronald Kuby, called the report a "whitewash." They said they intend to continue fighting for his exoneration.

"Today is not the worst day of my life," Friedman said at a news conference, accompanied by his wife, Lisabeth. "I've had many, many worse days than today and I'm standing strong and I've got as much fight in me – I've got more fight in me – than I've ever, ever had before. So, game on."

"Notwithstanding the appointment of a review panel, District Attorney Rice has been the investigator, interpreter of the evidence and sole decision maker. Such power should not rest in the hands of people who have demonstrated they cannot fairly review their own work."Kuby criticized Rice for having her own office investigate what prosecutors did:

Rice's review was undertaken after Friedman appealed his conviction following the release of "Capturing the Friedmans." A federal appeals court in 2010 refused to overturn the conviction but encouraged Rice – who was not the original prosecutor – to review the case.

Andrew Jarecki, who made the 2003 film, said he wasn't surprised by the report's findings. "Prosecutors do not like to undo the work of other prosecutors, especially in their own office," he said.

The review investigated claims raised in the film and in the appellate court filing that police used flawed interview techniques, employed hypnotism to elicit victims' memories and took advantage of a moral panic that was sweeping the country in the late 1980s. It also examined whether Friedman had caved to pressure from a county court judge and prosecutors to plead guilty.

Scheck and three other outside advisers said in a letter attached to the report that the review team "had to go behind the excerpts and sound bites that the producers used in the film." They concluded that "the district attorney made the best judgment under the circumstances."

The report found that during the first two weeks of the investigation, at least 35 children were interviewed by a team of 12 detectives working in two-person teams. No single detective dominated the investigation and different teams obtained incriminating statements from different victims, the report said.

"Given the compressed timeline, it is unlikely that detectives would have been able to repeatedly visit any one household for hours at a time to induce a child to make false accusations," the report said.

The review team said it found no credible evidence that hypnosis was used by investigators on any child.

The Friedman case has drawn comparisons to the 1980s California McMartin preschool scandal in which there were allegations of sex abuse, but the investigators said they "were in no way similar." The report noted in the Friedman case, the victims were more than twice as old as the McMartin preschoolers and many in the Friedman case disclosed abuse quickly.

The review also found that Friedman was not coerced into a guilty plea.

"Primary sources, including letters, audio and videotapes, show Jesse as a maker of his own destiny," the report said. "Jesse pled guilty because his own calculations showed it to be the optimal strategy in light of the choices available to him, not because someone else forced him to do so."

The panel also noted that after his plea, Friedman went on "The Geraldo Rivera Show" against his attorney's advice and re-affirmed his guilt and discussed the abuse he and his father inflicted on the children.

Arnold Friedman pleaded guilty to sodomy, sexual abuse and child endangerment charges and was sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. He committed suicide behind bars in 1995.

Jesse Friedman was released from prison in 2001. Prosecutors noted that prison officials disciplined him in 2000 for writing and distributing "fictional" stories that described violent and disturbing sexual acts, including incest involving a father and his children, sex with a dog and child rape. He was also disciplined for possessing a photograph of two pre-pubescent girls – at least one of whom is naked – torn from the pages of a magazine in violation of the terms of his sex offender counseling program.

The review said parents of some of the victims described their children having emotional problems, including bed wetting, defecating in their clothing, sleeplessness, nightmares, stuttering, a decline in school performance, separation anxiety and an overwhelming sense of fear.

"Jesse remained quiet until a movie brought him back into the limelight he craved," the report said. "Today his numerous statements are contradicted by many others. His explanations for doing things he did and saying the things he said are tortured and strain credulity.

"In short, there is no statement that Jesse makes today that can be trusted."

Chris Brown Accused Of Allegedly Assaulting Woman In Nightclub

A 24-year-old woman is accusing singer Chris Brown of allegedly assaulting her on Saturday after his show in an Orange County nightclub.

The woman, Deanna Gines, says as the Heat Ultra Lounge was closing, Brown reportedly knocked her to the ground, badly injuring her knee. According to Gines, doctors have told her there are torn ligaments in her knee and that she may need to have an operation.

Though nothing has yet been substantiated, Brown has had a string of assault accusations and unfortunate club encounters which don't help the singer's situation.

In January, Brown, 24, had an altercation with Frank Ocean which has yet to be put to rest completely. In March, Brown and his crew were reportedly involved in abottle-smashing brawl with Drake and his crew. Not to mention the most obvious, hisnow infamous 2009 incident with singer and then-girlfriend Rihanna.

Chris Brown's rep has yet to respond to the allegations.