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Former FBI agent missing in Iran By PAT MILTON, Associated Press Writer NEW YORK - An American who disappeared in Iran while on a business trip is a former FBI agent in New York and Florida known as a meticulous investigator and an expert in busting Italian and Russian mobsters. The retired agent was identified as Robert Levinson, 59, of Coral Springs, Fla., a U.S. official familiar with the case told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He was last heard from around March 11 while in a coastal area of southern Iran, where he was working for an independent filmmaker,...

U.S. seeks info on American missing in Iran Former FBI agent was last seen in early March Associated Press April 2, 2007 WASHINGTON - The government is seeking information from Iran about a former FBI agent reported missing while on a business trip to the Islamic republic several weeks ago, officials said Monday. FBI spokesman Rich Kolko said the agent retired nearly a decade ago, and appeared to be in Iran on private business. He said the missing man was last seen in Iran in early March, and was not working for the FBI as a contractor. “At this time,...

An internal audit has discovered that twenty computers have disappeared from a critical counterintelligence agency tasked with protecting America's nuclear secrets. Fourteen of the computers contained classified material, marking yet another in a string of embarrassments for the Department of Energy: The office in charge of protecting American technical secrets about nuclear weapons from foreign spies is missing 20 desktop computers, at least 14 of which have been used for classified information, the Energy Department inspector general reported on Friday. This is the 13th time in a little over four years that an audit has found that the department, whose...

The Harris County Sheriff's Office reversed course Friday, agreeing to move forward with a landfill excavation to find the body of Tynesha Stewart, even as investigators acknowledged Friday "there is a good possibility" her suspected killer may have dismembered her body and placed her in several garbage bins. Homicide detectives also revealed more details about Timothy Wayne Shepherd's actions following the slaying, including the mysterious discovery of burnt meat at his apartment and a neighbor's report of smoke billowing from his patio the day after Stewart's disappearance.

Mossad implicated in missing defector mystery By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 1:43am GMT 09/03/2007 An Iranian former spy chief is being debriefed by Western intelligence officials after defecting, sources claimed yesterday. Speaking to The Washington Post, the sources said Ali Reza Azkari, 63, turned himself over to foreign spy agencies and was providing intelligence about Iran's close links with Hizbollah, the Shia militia from Lebanon. One of the sources said Mossad, the Israeli foreign intelligence agency which is known to have extensive contacts in Iran, coordinated his defection although there was no official confirmation from the Jewish State....

LONDON (Reuters) - A team of British scientists has set sail on a voyage to examine why a huge chunk of the earth's crust is missing, deep under the Atlantic Ocean -- a phenomenon that challenges conventional ideas about how the earth works. The 20-strong team aims to survey an area some 3,000 to 4,000 metres deep where the mantle -- the deep interior of the earth normally covered by a crust kilometres thick -- is exposed on the sea floor. Experts describe the hole along the mid-Atlantic ridge as an "open wound" on the ocean floor that has puzzled...

Earth's Crust Missing In Mid-Atlantic"Scientists have discovered a large area thousands of square kilometers in extent in the middle of the Atlantic where the Earth’s crust appears to be missing. Instead, the mantle - the deep interior of the Earth, normally covered by crust many kilometers thick - is exposed on the seafloor, 3000m below the surface." Click to Read More About Missing Crust Could the event that caused this huge section of crust to go missing have been responsible for the change in thermohaline circulation that occurred at the end of the period known as the "Younger Dryas" in...

US accused on 'missing' prisoners The CIA allegedly flew secret detainees in unmarked jets Thirty eight people believed to have been held in secret CIA prisons - or black sites - are missing, according to a report by a US human rights group. The Human Rights Watch (HRW) report also details allegations of torture by a terror suspect who was held in secret custody for more than two years. The group has asked US President George W Bush to reveal the location of these detainees and close all US black sites. Last year Mr Bush said the prisons had all...

Ground Search For Tara Grant Begins SaturdayPOSTED: 1:36 pm EST February 21, 2007 UPDATED: 11:19 pm EST February 23, 2007 MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. -- Investigators said Friday that they will begin a full-out search for Tara Grant on Saturday, who has been missing for two weeks. Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said a task force is being formed with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Michigan State Police. Hackel said they are also in contact with authorities in Puerto Rico. The ground search will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday where search dogs, all-terrain vehicles, air-support units and riders on...

The husband of a missing Michigan mom — last seen 13 days ago getting into a car at the end of her driveway — says that although she has run off before, he's worried that this time something may have happened to her. "I pray she's with some guy than any of the other options," Stephen Grant told The Detroit Free Press in an interview, adding that he had no role in her mysterious disappearance. "I have nothing to do with it," he said. "I miss her with everything I have." Tara Lynn Grant was last seen the night of...

A 3 1/2-ton yellow submarine has fallen off the radar. The 10-foot-long sub, built by a resident to patrol Monterey Bay during the 1940s and 1950s, was reported missing Feb. 15 from its Santa Cruz Mountains berth on Steinmaier Road by owner Carl Barker. "It sounds bizarre," said Detective Kevin Coyne of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office. "All I know is ... there's no suspects." Irven Thomson built the vessel from an old propane tank about 60 years ago. He added a turret, hatch, windows and a cement keel, rudder and navigational instruments. "I think they launched it a...

February 5, 2007 AUSTIN, Texas (Crime Library) — Tomorrow will be the seven-month anniversary of 18-year-old Roxanne Paltauf's mysterious disappearance. The case, which gained national attention on America's Most Wanted this past weekend, is becoming a hot topic on Internet message boards and blogs alike. Yesterday evening, I had the opportunity to speak with Roxanne's mother, Elizabeth Harris, about the circumstances surrounding her daughter's disappearance and this is how she described the situation: "I had talked to her the night before she disappeared. She was staying with her boyfriend at the Budget Inn Hotel on I-35 in Austin. They were...

<p>It was just a normal shopping trip when Jaeyana Beuraheng bade farewell to her eight children as she left to cross the border into Malaysia, but it would be 25 years before she would find her way home.</p> <p>Now, at the age of 76, she has been reunited with her family and has finally told how her misfortune began when she boarded the wrong bus.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Authorities were scouring the waters off Northern California on Monday, looking for a man who embarked alone on a day sailing trip to the Farallon Islands to scatter his mother's ashes and never returned. Jim Gray, 63, a noted computer scientist who founded Microsoft's Bay Area Research Center, last spoke to a family member at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, when he called from his 40-foot yacht called Tenacious to say he was sailing out of cell phone range, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. He had left for the Farallons, about 27 miles west of the Golden Gate...

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a prize-winning computer scientist who failed to return from a quick trip to the Farallon Islands on Sunday. Coast Guard spokeswoman Lt. Amy Marrs, said Jim Gray, 63, was reported missing by his wife at 8:35 p.m. A ten-year veteran of Microsoft and winner of the prestigious A.M. Turing Award, Gray is a technical fellow whose work focuses on databases and transaction processing systems. Gray set out from San Francisco alone on Sunday morning in his 40-foot sailboat named ``Tenacious.'' The conditions were good, and Gray was expected back Sunday evening. Gray's wife...

Police said this weekend they weren't discarding the possibility that human trafficking played a role in the disappearance of a former Miss Brazil who hasn't contacted her family since September. Taiza Thomsen, 24, represented Brazil at the 2003 Miss Universe pageant in Panama. The last time she spoke to her parents, she said she was in London. "At this moment we can't rule out anything, not even the possibility she was a victim of human trafficking," police investigator Marcos David Salem told Brazilian TV. Police began investigating the case Friday, after Thomsen's family reported her missing the previous day. Police...

Hundreds of volunteers joined police officers Thursday in an hours-long search around the Purdue University campus for a freshman missing since the weekend. Wade S. Steffey, 19, of Bloomington was last seen early Saturday leaving a party at the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity house on the north side of campus, police said. Searchers spent Thursday checking campus buildings, along with places such as the campus golf courses, Purdue's horticulture park and some near-campus neighborhoods and wooded areas. The search concluded at nightfall without Steffey being found, Purdue spokeswoman Jeanne Norberg said. "It's really humbling and very heartwarming to see all...

Cell phone location tip for Kims not heeded Police report - An Edge Wireless employee gave state officers precise data two days before Kati Kim was found Thursday, December 21, 2006 MICHELLE ROBERTS The engineer whose cell phone records helped find the Kim family in a search-and-rescue drama that riveted the nation told police the Kims were "most likely in the vicinity of Bear Camp Road" two full days before they were found, according to a Portland police detective's report. The Edge Wireless engineer provided a far more precise idea of where to look for James and Kati Kim and...

It starts with mumbling and stumbling. Then come violent shivers and then, paradoxically, a false sense of warmth that makes some people strip their clothes off. Eventually, they may curl into a fetal position as their muscles go rigid, their skin goes waxy, and the heart slows down, then stops. Whether two climbers missing on Mount Hood for more than a week are still alive is not clear. But if they are somehow still hanging on in the brutal cold and howling winds, perhaps hunkered down in a snow cave, they may be going through what veteran climbers say is...

No one found in snow cave on Mt. Hood By JOSEPH B. FRAZIER The Associated Press Related Missing climber's trail in China elusive HOOD RIVER, Ore. – Rescuers searched a snow cave just below the summit of Mount Hood on today but didn't find any of the three climbers missing since last weekend, an official said. A sleeping bag, ice axes and rope were found in the snow cave, said Sgt. Gerry Tiffany, spokesman for the Hood River County Sheriff's Office. "I'm sure it is very frustrating for those guys on the mountain," Tiffany said at a news conference. "I...