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A spokesman for the McCann family has refused to comment on allegations they used some of the Madeleine fund to pay their mortgage. The statement comes after the Daily Mail reported that the family’s spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, confirmed: "part of the donations ... had been used to help with mortgage payments". Mitchell told Sky News the use of the money was in line with the fund's objectives, "to provide support, including financial assistance, to Madeleine's family". The Find Madeleine Fund has attracted more than £1 million (over $2 million) in public donations, to help find Madeleine McCann. However, use of...

BONNEY LAKE, Wash., Oct. 24 (UPI) -- D.B. Cooper, who infamously hijacked a plane and escaped by parachute with $200,000, lived the rest of his life in Bonney Lake, Wash., a new report said. In an upcoming article, Lyle Christiansen, 77, claims his late brother, Kenneth, was able to elude federal authorities after committing the sensational crime 36 years ago, The Tacoma (Wash.) News Tribune said Wednesday. The hijacker, who was given the name D.B. Cooper by investigators, hijacked a plane in 1971 and parachuted out of the aircraft after receiving a $200,000 ransom. The article details the late airline...

California authorities are trying to determine the whereabouts of at least 9 drivers involved in the deadly I-5 tunnel crash. Ten people injured in the crash were taken to area hospitals, another 10 escaped the flames uninjured, three others, including a 6 year old were killed in the crash. That totals 23 people, but the CHP says 31 vehicles were involved in the crash which leaves at least 9 drivers unaccounted for at this time. Warren Stanley of the California Highway Patrol, "We have to identify all the vehicles and determine who they belong to and based on registration we...

Spring Lake — Harnett County authorities said they located the remains of a missing 11-month-old girl in the attic of her house Saturday. She had apparently been dead for weeks. Authorities had issued a statewide Amber Alert on Friday after Harmony Jude Creech's grandmother reported her missing at 11:30 a.m.

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- An autistic 18-year-old lost in the wilderness for four days was found alive Thursday, weak but apparently fine, and reunited with his family, searchers said. Jacob Allen, described as severely autistic, has reunited with his family. "To the best of our knowledge, he was just hungry and thirsty and fatigued," said Jim Reneau, one of the nine searchers who found Jacob Allen. Reneau spoke at a news conference at the command post near Davis, about 90 miles south of Pittsburgh. Allen, who wandered away from his parents while hiking Sunday, was found lying in a...

Authorities were working Monday to learn the identities of a number of survivors who apparently walked away from this weekend's fiery crash in an Interstate 5 truck tunnel, and, as far as officials are concerned, disappeared into thin air. At least nine unaccounted-for drivers are presumed to have been in the tunnel at the time of the massive chain-reaction crash that temporarily severed California's primary north-south traffic artery Friday night.

<p>CAMPBELLSBURG, Ky. — Kentucky State Police say a car belonging to an Ohio woman missing since April has been found along with skeletal remains on a farm in north-central Kentucky.</p> <p>Kentucky Trooper Chip Perry told The Associated Press today that the silver 2000 Chevrolet Impala is registered to 80-year-old Ada Wasson.</p>

BAGHDAD PROVINCE, Iraq -- From a makeshift office at Patrol Base Dragon, Capt. Shane Finn prepares for an air assault mission across the Euphrates River. "Everything, every conversation with locals and sheiks, is about gathering intel to get the soldiers home," said Finn, 31, of the Army's 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum. He's referring to two men from his unit who have been missing since May 12, when it's believed they were captured by al-Qaeda. Working from a base converted from an abandoned Russian power plant in southern Baghdad Province, Finn's unit is...

It was discovered in an area next to a suburban Richmond apartment complex under construction and near a mall, Richmond police spokeswoman Karla Peters said. The state medical examiner was examining the brain, she said. It wasn't clear how long it had been there. "We're waiting for the medical examiner to determine how we should proceed," Peters said.

He was in rehab for unknown reasons. Looks like the city is moving forward with plans on coping without him. It’s slim pickings, though: Since then, officials have said he is in an undisclosed hospital receiving unspecified treatments. They have refused to disclose more, citing federal health privacy laws that experts said have been misapplied. Levy vanished amidst resignation rumors tied to an ongoing federal investigation into his military records. In November, Levy admitted to The Press of Atlantic City that he had never served in the U.S. Army’s Special Forces, despite years of claims that included his 2005 campaign....

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) — A search began Monday in the rugged central Washington Cascades for a missing plane with up to 10 people from a skydiving company on board. The Cessna 208 Grand Caravan left Star, Idaho, about 7 p.m. Sunday en route to Shelton, Wash., but did not arrive as scheduled, said Mike Fergus of the Federal Aviation Administration. A hunter in the White Pass area told police he saw a plane flying low and heard a crash about 8 p.m. Sunday. The plane is registered to Kapowsin Air Sports of Shelton. Ten people from the skydiving company Skydive...

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. - Under federal investigation for embellishing his Army service in Vietnam, a groggy-sounding Mayor Robert Levy called in sick at City Hall, climbed into his city-issued Dodge Durango and seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth. The mystery and the gathering scandal over Levy’s military record have worried civic leaders in this seaside casino resort, which has a long history of corruption, with four of the last eight mayors busted on graft charges and one-third of last year’s nine-member City Council in prison or under house arrest.

A search is under way in southern Colorado's San Juan Mountains for a missing medical plane that crashed near Alamosa with three people aboard. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Mike Fergus says flight controllers last had radio and radar contact with the twin-engine Beech King Air C-90A at about 11:20 p.m. Thursday. Glendale-based HealthONE spokeswoman Leslie Horna says the Eagle Air Medical plane was based out of Chinle, Arizona. Horna says a search and rescue effort is under way, but weather at the suspected crash site is unfavorable. Those aboard the plane were the pilot, a flight nurse and a paramedic.

Hours after his wife was found clinging to life in a wrecked car, Tom Rider struggled to restrain his rage at the King County Sheriff's Office, which on Friday defended its decision to wait five days to ask for the cell phone records that led to her rescue. For a week, 33-year-old Tanya Rider -- her left leg crushed in the Sept. 20 wreck -- hung upside down inside her mangled Honda SUV. Thousands of drivers passed by on state Route 169 only feet away, but did not see the car, which fell 12 feet down a brushy hillside....

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 27/09/2007 Police with dogs, dozens of neighbours and a helicopter spent two hours searching for a missing five-year-old boy who eventually turned up — asleep under his bed. A search was launched for Alex Olver — during which 11 people rummaged through his bedroom — after his parents reported him missing on Tuesday evening in Saltash, Cornwall. The town mayor, a local football team, troupes of teenagers and elderly residents all turned out to help search. But Alex was eventually discovered by a sniffer dog safe and well covered by a blanket under his bed. Alex's...

CARSON CITY, Nev. - Relying on new leads from Air Force experts, crews looking for famed aviator Steve Fossett plan to comb a rugged area near Death Valley by air and foot, authorities said Tuesday. Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety official in charge of the search, said the Air Force analyzed images picked up by radar and satellite and "picked up what could be Mr. Fossett, his track." "It gives us an idea, if it's him, what direction he was going," Derks said of the wealthy adventurer, missing for more than three weeks. Derks said the area...

A snatched picture purporting to be of Madeleine McCann in north Morocco was published last night, generating new momentum in the search for her. Gerry and Kate McCann called last night for the picture, taken on August 31 by a Spanish tourist and handed to the McCanns’ lawyers yesterday morning, to be fully investigated. The picture shows a light-skinned, blonde-haired girl being carried in a sling on a Moroccan woman’s back near the town of Zinat. It is the fourth reported sighting of a girl fitting Madeleine’s description in Morocco since she disappeared on May 3 but the first published...

A former West High School student teacher whose affair with a student led to murder snatched her children from her mother’s Nashville home last week and hasn’t been seen or heard from since, her estranged husband’s attorney confirmed today. Erin McLean climbed through a window of her mother’s home on Gale Lane in Nashville last Saturday, grabbed her two sons, ages 11 and 8, and left, defense attorney Bruce Poston said, citing information from Erin McLean’s grandmother and younger sister. “She told an uncle she was going to California to meet a man she met over the Internet,” Poston said....

The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Pfc. Carl A. West, U.S. Marine Corps, of Amanda Park, Washington. He will be buried Oct. 4 in Arlington National Cemetery near Washington, D.C. West was a member of Weapons Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Regiment, of the 1st Marine Division deployed near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. On Nov. 27, 1950, three Communist Chinese divisions launched an attack on the...

According to local Cincinnati radio, the Maupin family of Batavia, Ohio, heard that the search for their missing son, PFC Matthew Maupin, is now being considered a search for his remains.