Jim Spellman/WireImage(NEW YORK) -- Eduardo Saverin, a co-founder of Facebook and soon-to-be IPO multi-billionaire, defended relinquishing his U.S. citizenship, which led lawmakers to announce the Ex-Patriot Act Thursday morning, saying he “will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes” to the U.S.
“My decision to expatriate was based solely on my interest in working and living in Singapore, where I have been since 2009,” Saverin, 30, said in a statement released to ABC News. “I am obligated to and will pay hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to the United States government. I have paid and will continue to pay any taxes due on everything I earned while a U.S. citizen.”
Saverin, who helped Mark Zuckerberg develop the social network as Harvard students, is expected to save millions of dollars by not paying capital gains taxes on his shares of Facebook, which is expected to have the largest technology IPO ever on Friday.
His stake in the company is estimated to be worth over $3 billion of Facebook once the company goes public on Friday.
Last week, reports revealed Saverin filed in September 2011 to give up his citizenship which became official in September, before Facebook announced its plans in February this year.
“It is unfortunate that my personal choice has led to a public debate, based not on the facts, but entirely on speculation and misinformation,” he said in the statement.
Saverin paid a standard “exit” tax, which included approximately 15 percent of the pre-IPO value of his shares. Saverin is likely saving millions of dollars because he will not pay capital gains taxes while he lives in Singapore.
“As a native of Brazil who immigrated to the United States, I am very grateful to the U.S. for everything it has given me,” Saverin said. “In 2004, I invested my life’s savings into a start-up company that initially was run out of a college dorm room. Since then the company has expanded dramatically, has created thousands of jobs in the United States and elsewhere, and spawned countless new companies across the United States and other countries.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., have called Saverin’s move an “outrage.” Their proposed legislation calls for re-imposing a 30-percent tax on capital gains on expatriates like Saverin who take up residence in a foreign country.
Last year 1,700 people renounced their U.S. citizenship.
“I will continue to invest in U.S. businesses and start-ups, and believe and hope that those investments will create many new jobs in the U.S. and globally,” Saverin said. “I also hope that these investments will create opportunities for many other individuals to start companies and benefit society.”
Ben Mezrich, author of The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, defended Saverin. Mezrich, who interviewed Saverin for his book which was adapted into the film The Social Network, said saving money was likely a factor for his repatriation, but not the entire reason.
“To be fair, Eduardo wasn’t born in the U.S. and has really lived internationally for most of his life,” Mezrich said. “He will save some money on taxes, and especially on estate taxes down the line, so I’m sure that’s a factor, but he probably made the decision because he sees himself as an international businessman.”
Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- A day after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced strict flight restrictions for America’s most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, over safety concerns about the plane’s oxygen system, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., raised questions about how the move would affect America’s national security and operations abroad.
McCain, the ranking member of the Senate’s Armed Services Committee and vocal critic of the $79 billion F-22 program, noted that a number of the planes had recently been deployed to Southwest Asia -- reportedly to a United Arab Emirates base just 200 miles from Iran's mainland -- "to promote regional security.”
“Please describe what effect, if any, these measures will have on the ability of the F-22s deployed overseas to execute their intended missions,” McCain wrote in a letter to Panetta Wednesday.
The restrictions, which keep the planes in close proximity to potential landing strips in case of a mid-air emergency, were announced two weeks after an ABC News Nightline investigation found that the advanced $420 million-a-pop fighter jets have been plagued by a rare but potentially deadly oxygen problem for years. Despite multiple investigations, the Air Force has been unable to pinpoint the cause.
In another case, a malfunction that the Air Force has yet to identify caused one pilot’s oxygen system to shut off during a training mission in Alaska in November 2010 just a minute before he died in a fiery crash.
A senior defense official said the Pentagon will “certainly” respond to the letter and, without going into specifics, told ABC News the planes would “remain operational in areas where geographic proximity to landing strips permits it.”
“The full range of our capabilities will not result in any operational impact to Afghanistan or elsewhere,” the official said.
Despite being deployed abroad, no F-22 has ever taken part in a combat mission since the $79 billion fleet went combat-ready in late 2005. From Afghanistan and Iraq to the U.S.-led “no-fly zone” over Libya, the Air Force said the sophisticated jets simply haven’t been needed yet.
McCain’s question of combat-readiness also came a day before the American ambassador to Israel said the U.S. has done its military planning and is “ready” to strike Iran if diplomatic talks over the country’s controversial nuclear program fail.
In addition to the senior defense official’s comments, a spokesperson for the Air Force referred ABC News to comments made by Pentagon spokesperson Capt. John Kirby during a Pentagon briefing Tuesday.
“The majority of F-22 pilots are out there flying it every day,” he said, noting the planes’ deployment to Southwest Asia. “There have been no problems. It is flying.”
Thinkstock/Getty Images(HUMPHREYS COUNTY, Miss.) -- Authorities are questioning a man over suspicious highway stops in central Mississippi after two fatal shootings last week that apparently occurred during phony police stops in the northern part of the state.
As of late Thursday, the man being held in Humphreys County, Miss., James Lucas, was merely "under investigation," being questioned on two Wednesday-night incidents and not charged with a crime, a Humphreys County sheriff's official said. Police could not say whether the two recent incidents were related to the earlier fatal shootings.
"We're just going to say these are isolated incidents in our county and we're going to deal with that first," Sam Dobbins, an investigator with the Humphreys County Sheriff's Office, told ABC News.
However, Dobbins added, other police agencies in the state, including the Mississippi Department of Investigation, also were investigating, apparently giving the case a broader scope.
At least one detail may not match up to those reported in the fatal shootings from last week: Wednesday's incidents involved a blue Mercury Grand Marquis, possibly the one Lucas was driving when he was pulled over around noon Thursday in Yazoo City, Miss., according to ABC News affiliate WAPT in Jackson, Miss. The fatal incidents, however, were believed to involve a gold Ford Crown Victoria.
The Humphreys County incidents occurred after Mississippi authorities urged drivers to question whether anyone pulling them over really was a police officer.
"We urge everyone to be cautious while driving, especially at night," the Tate County Sheriff's Office posted on its Facebook page. "If someone attempts to pull you over with flashing lights and you feel unsure of stopping, DON'T PULL OVER. Use your cell phone and dial 911 and if it's a real officer then the dispatcher will confirm it for you and if it's not a real officer they will send help to you."
"Our deputies have been told not to overreact if someone does not immediately pull over," the sheriff's office wrote. "Your safety is our primary concern."
Two drivers were killed on northern Mississippi highways within days of each other and investigators in multiple counties and federal officials were working to find out who may be behind the killings.
The recent cases occurred along U.S. 49 in Humphreys County, which is in central Mississippi, between 9 p.m. and midnight Wednesday night.
"We received some calls last night for a blue car similar to a police car, a Mercury Grand Marquis, that attempted to stop two vehicles," Dobbins said.
Although Dobbins believed the person in the Grand Marquis approached the victims' cars in plain clothes, the suspicious car's occupant evidently made indications his was an official vehicle.
"He displayed flashing blue lights, yes he did," Dobbins said. "That's what we call impersonating a police officer."
Both pulled-over drivers grew suspicious and sped off toward Yazoo City in neighboring Yazoo County, where Lucas and the car later were found being brought back to Humphreys County.
One of the two victims grew frightened and fired a gun when he saw the Grand Marquis following him, Dobbins said.
Later, one of the victims identified the seized car as the one involved in the highway stop, Dobbins added.
Dobbins would not comment on whether or not Lucas or the occupant of the Grand Marquis displayed a weapon.
Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) -- The death of Mary Richardson Kennedy is another sad event in the long arc of the Kennedy family's story. The estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. died of an apparent suicide on Wednesday, sources confirmed to ABC News.
RFK Jr. -- Jack Kennedy's nephew, Bobby Kennedy's son -- had four children with his wife. They filed for divorce two years ago.
"We deeply regret the death of our beloved sister Mary, whose radiant and creative spirit will be sorely missed by those who loved her," Mary Richardson Kennedy's family said in a statement. "Our heart goes out to her children who she loved without reservation. We have no further comment at this time."
Along with political fame and power, tragedy has befallen the Kennedy clan for decades.
Ted Kennedy's death from brain cancer, in August 2009, is still fresh in the American memory. He was the last of four brothers -- Joe, Jack, Bobby and Teddy, all of whom served their country. His passing almost three years ago reminded a mourning country of Camelot's crests and troughs -- ascents to the pinnacle of American glory, assassinations, plane and car accidents, legislative accomplishments and obstacles, and family troubles.
They began well before the brothers' ascent to political power. Joseph Kennedy Sr. famously approved a lobotomy, then a rarely used procedure, to be performed on his daughter, Rosemary, in 1941. The surgery was thought to help Rosemary's violent moods. But the procedure didn't go as planned, and Rosemary was left mentally damaged. She died in 2005.
Not long after Rosemary's surgery, Joseph Kennedy Jr. was shot down in World War II, in 1944. Then, in 1948, Kennedy's older sister Kathleen died in a plane crash on a trip to France.
A little over 10 years later, Jack Kennedy ran for president. His youthful, vigorous campaign and presidency filled a nation with hope and promise. His assassination in 1963 sent shockwaves through a country that would take years to heal.
Just a year later, in June 1964, Ted Kennedy was in a plane crash that killed one of his aides, Edward Moss, as Kennedy was running for reelection in the Senate.
In 1968 Robert Kennedy brought the Kennedy charm, youth and idealism to a campaign and captured voters' hearts and minds as he sought the Democratic nomination for president. But in June he was assassinated in a Los Angeles hotel after a campaign event.
The following year, the family faced tragedy and public humiliation, when Ted Kennedy drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, drowning his 28-year-old female passenger, who had worked on RFK's campaign. Kennedy didn't report the accident for almost nine hours and was later charged with a misdemeanor for leaving the scene. He later called his decision "indefensible."
Tragedy did not bypass the next generation. In 1984, David Kennedy, the fourth of Bobby Kennedy's 11 children, died in a drug overdose. Fifteen years later, John Kennedy Jr., affectionately called John-John when he was a young boy and his father was president, died while piloting a small plane; with him was his wife, Carolyn, and his sister-in-law.
George Zimmerman is shown with lacerations to his face and the back of his head on Feb 27, 2012. (Florida State District Attorney's Office)(SANFORD, Fla.) -- Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose, according to police reports made public Thursday.
The reports also note that two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman's version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches.
It has been such a contentious case that even the evidence is being disputed. The documents start with a criticism of Zimmerman's decision to follow the teenager, who Zimmerman said was looking suspicious.
"The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement," an investigating officer wrote.
Zimmerman claims he got out of his vehicle to find a house number to let police know where he saw the allegedly suspicious person, and while returning to his car was knocked down by a punch in the nose and attacked by Martin.
The new information is part of a trove of documents released by the Florida State Attorney Thursday in the case against Zimmerman, who is charged with second-degree murder for the Feb. 26 killing of Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African-American male.
Zimmerman, 28, is a multi-racial Hispanic man who volunteered for the neighborhood watch committee and who claimed that he shot Martin in self-defense after the 6-foot tall, 160-pound teenager knocked him to the ground, banged his head against the ground and went for Zimmerman's gun.
Two police officers reported that when they arrived at the scene of the shooting, Zimmerman seemed to have a battered nose and bloodied face. One wrote that his "facial area was bloodied," and the back of his clothing was soiled with wet grass.
"Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and the back of his head," Officer Ricardo Ayala wrote.
Another officer wrote, "I saw that Zimmerman's face was bloodied and it appeared to me that his nose was broken."
Witnesses, whose names were redacted from the report, also lent support to Zimmerman's version of what happened.
"He witnesses a black male, wearing a dark colored 'hoodie' on top of a white or Hispanic male and throwing punches 'MMA (mixed martial arts) style,'" the police report of the witness said. "He then heard a pop. He stated that after hearing the pop, he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the male wearing the hoodie) laid out on the grass."
A second witness described a person on the ground with another straddling him and throwing punches. The man on the bottom was yelling for help, the witness told police.
The documents state that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight. Yet another witness described the confrontation in emotional terms. The witness heard "someone yelling, almost crying. Then I heard a gunshot." The witness wrote that he or she "saw a man on top of a guy laying on the ground. He was putting his hands on his neck or chest." The man asked the witness to call 911.
"He stood up and took a couple steps away and put his hands on his head and then walked back over to the guy on the ground. He looked at him for a minute, then started to walk away toward the road. That is when the police walked up," the witness wrote.
The lead investigator on the case, Officer Christopher Serino, wrote that Zimmerman could be heard "yelling for help as he was being battered by Trayvon Martin."
The police report also states that Trayvon Martin's father told an investigator after listening to 911 tapes that captured a man's voice frantically calling for help that it was not his son calling for help. But Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father, claims that is not true. The Martin family lawyer Ben Crump told ABC News that Tracy Martin initially listened to a distorted version of the 911 calls and said he could not identify the voice. But when he listened to a second tape that had been "cleaned," "he immediately broke down in tears because he knew it was his son calling for help," Crump said.
Martin's death sparked public outrage after police released Zimmerman without any criminal charges for the killing. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder, and the killing provoked widespread debate about racial profiling.
The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between 1 inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman's claim that he shot Martin during a close struggle.
Martin's autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle.
The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for a bag of marijuana being discovered in his possession. Martin had THC, the drug found in marijuana, in his blood on the night of his death, according to the autopsy. His family told ABC News that it was "trace amounts" of THC.
NOAA Okeanos Explorer Program(NEW YORK) -- Scientists have discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. They made the find during an expedition led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
Researchers, working from the NOAA ship Okeanos Explorer, found remnants of a wooden-hulled vessel that is believed to be about 200 years old.
Using underwater robots and high-definition cameras, scientists found a wealth of artifacts, including anchors, navigation equipment, glass bottles, ceramic plates, an iron stove, cannons and a box of muskets.
“This discovery was part of a larger mission to look at unknown or poorly-known areas in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Frank Cantelas, a maritime archaeologist with NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.
According to NOAA, “the 56-day expedition that ended April 29 was exploring poorly known regions of the Gulf, mapping and imaging unknown or little-known features and habitats, developing and testing a method to measure the rate that gas rises from naturally-occurring seeps on the seafloor, and investigating potential shipwreck sites.”
Using sonar technology, researchers had a first look last fall at what turned out to be the site of the shipwreck.
According to Cantelas, Shell Oil Company was conducting an oil and gas survey required by the government to be sure none of its projects are disturbing anything sensitive in the ocean.
“The site is in over 4,000 feet of water and we knew nothing about it -- we just had a fuzzy image from a sonar recording, which is like a camera but uses sound instead of light,” Cantelas said. “But we wanted to see what it was because it was shaped like it could be a shipwreck.”
So NOAA partnered with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), which issues permits for bottom-disturbing activities related to oil and gas exploration, to find the 200-year-old shipwreck.
The ship used telepresence technology to transmit what was happening on the ship live.
“Telepresence provides the ability to bring a lot of different specialists, who have various expertise, to the table during the dive,” said Fred Gorell, public affairs officer for NOAA’s office of Exploration and Research. “They could actually look at the wreck sites while it was happening. And this way research is not limited by the number of people who are actually on the ship.”
“Artifacts in and around the wreck and the hull’s copper sheathing may date the vessel to the early to mid-19th century,” said Jack Irion, a maritime archaeologist with BOEM, in a NOAA statement. “Some of the more datable objects include what appears to be a type of ceramic plate that was popular between 1800 and 1830, and a wide variety of glass bottles. A rare ship’s stove on the site is one of only a handful of surviving examples in the world and the second one found on a shipwreck in the Gulf of Mexico.”
And researchers hope this discovery will help in other areas.
“Archaeologically, this is a very significant find,” Cantelas said. “It appears to date back to the early 1800s and a lot was going on in the Gulf of Mexico around that time. You have the Louisiana Purchase, the Texas Revolution, the Mexican-American War -- a lot of conflict in that region -- so this research will hopefully help us fill in the blank pages of history. It will provide information that we don’t really know about the history of the Gulf region.”
Jose CABEZAS/AFP/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor had three opening words as she addressed the graduates of New York University on Wednesday who were holding their ceremony at Yankee Stadium.
“This is a-w-e-some," she said.
“I grew up in a public housing project in the Bronx just a few miles away from the old Yankee Stadium,” the nation’s first Latina Supreme Court justice told the graduates. “So, for me, this event at the new stadium is momentous."
"Nothing in my childhood hinted to me that I would be in a position someday to stand on this field and speak to such a large crowd,” she said. “As a child, I only saw the stadium on television when I watched baseball games next to my dad on the sofa. So it is not hard to understand how delighted I am to be here with you today."
Next, Sotomayor launched into a nostalgic tribute to her hometown.
“I have felt excitement in returning to New York,” she said. “My new home, Washington D.C., is lovely, and I have been warmly welcomed by my new colleagues, the court family and the residents of my new city, but every time I cross a bridge or a tunnel to return to New York for a visit my heart sighs with joy. I love this city and all it has given me."
“Stand in the middle of a New York City street and you sense immediately the magnitude of this city. I remember coming to Manhattan as a child to visit the Empire State Building, looking up and being amazed that I could not see its top. Walk around Manhattan and you will inevitably see tourists craning their necks upwards to find the tops of buildings and bumping into new Yorkers hurrying somewhere. The feeling of bigness can be overwhelming initially, but there is a magic in being a part of this city once you have lived here. I love having New York in me....The cacophony of New York is as overwhelming, at times, as its size. Nothing is small in this city. Everything is large, big and noisy -- including its problems. Yet the city does not merely survive -- it thrives.”
Sotomayor encouraged the audience to tackle challenges.
“I dreamed about graduating from college,” she said. “Up to that point, none of my family in New York had done that. Then I grew bold and dreamed about becoming a lawyer and, someday, becoming a judge. But the only kind of judge I knew about was a trial judge on Perry Mason. I did not know what the Supreme Court was, and you can’t aspire to do things you don’t know.”
She said that fear is a part of the game and admitted to being a little frightened during every step in her life, including becoming a Supreme Court justice.
“Just keep dreaming,” she concluded, “and keep enjoying the process of new discoveries.”
Trayvon Martin, 17, was fatally shot by neighborhood watch leader George Zimmerman. (ABC News)(SANFORD, Fla.) -- Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old who was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch volunteer, had the drug THC in his system the night of his death, according to new information obtained by ABC News.
The revelation came as prosecutors in the case prepared to release to the public hundreds of pages of new evidence along with videos and crime scene photos.
Martin's death sparked public outrage after police released Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman, without any criminal charges for the killing.
Zimmerman, 28, a multi-racial Hispanic man who shot the black high school junior at close range on Feb. 26, claimed self-defense, though Martin was unarmed. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder, and the killing provoked widespread debate about racial profiling.
The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin's blood and urine.
The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between one inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman's claim that he shot Martin during a struggle that landed Zimmerman on his back, Martin straddling him and banging Zimmerman's head on the ground.
Martin's autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle. The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for a bag of marijuana being discovered in his possession.
Later Thursday, a trove of documents that are part of the discovery in Zimmerman's trial are expected to be released on a website run by the state's attorney, including 67 CDs' worth of documents, video of Martin on the night of the shooting, his autopsy report and videos of Zimmerman's questioning by police.
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been robbed again. This time a housekeeper discovered that his Georgetown home had been burglarized while no one was home on May 4. The D.C. police is currently investigating the matter, a court spokesperson said.
It was only in February that Breyer was robbed at knifepoint in his vacation home on the Caribbean island of Nevis.
He’s not the first Supreme Court justice to become a victim of crime. In 2004, Justice David Souter was mugged while jogging, and in 1966, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had her purse snatched.
Supreme Court Justices receive government protection when outside Washington, D.C., and when traveling abroad, from the U.S. Marshals Service.
Sara D. Davis/Getty Images(GREENSBORO, N.C.) -- John Edwards was a bad husband who cheated on his wife while she died of cancer, but he never broke the law, his lawyer said in closing arguments Thursday.
The prosecution said Edwards was more than a bad husband. The former presidential candidate was the chief architect of a criminal scheme to illegally use campaign contributions to cover up the love affair.
Edwards, 58, is on trial for allegedly using nearly $1 million in donations from wealthy donors Fred Baron and Rachel "Bunny" Mellon to keep secret his affair with mistress Rielle Hunter in order to protect his 2008 presidential ambitions and later his hopes of winning a spot as vice president or attorney general. The jury is being asked to decide whether the money was political donations used to dupe the government or gifts from friends who helped Edwards fool his wife. If convicted, Edwards could be sentenced to as much as 30 years in prison.
John Edwards remained unemotional during closing arguments, much the way he has throughout the trial, keeping his chin pressed against his crossed hands, and only occasionally looking at the jury.
Edwards never took the stand in his own defense. Nor did jurors hear directly from Rielle Hunter.
Edwards' defense lasted just three days and consisted mostly of a forensic accounting of bank statements and phone records. That testimony contrasted sharply with three weeks of prosecution witness who detailed Edwards' sordid affair, but never said Edwards had any direct knowledge that he was violating campaign finance laws.
KRDO/ABC News(DENVER) -- A second grader was removed from school by his parents after the principal objected to him showing up in black face to do a presentation on the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Sean King had a vision for his project, part of “Wax Museum Day” at Meridian Ranch Elementary School in Peyton, Colo., said his mother Michelle King-Roca.
“He said, ‘Mom, I want to wear a black suit because that’s what he wore, a black tie, a white shirt and also I want to do my face black and wear a mustache,” she told ABC affiliate KRDO.
As parents and their pint-sized historical figures waited to file into a classroom on Wednesday, the principal asked King-Roca to remove her son’s make-up, she said.
Instead, she ignored the request and waited for Sean’s presentation.
King-Roca said she was then called to the principal’s office where she, her husband and Sean had a discussion with three school officials. Unsatisfied with the situation, King-Roca pulled her son out of school for the day.
School officials could not be reached for comment, but blackface has historically been used by minstrel shows and burlesque for offensive caricatures of black people.
School officials told KRDO the principal was just doing her job.
“When other students are offended by something, it is the principal’s role that the educational environment is safe for all students,” said school spokesperson Stephanie Meredith.
FBI(WASHINGTON) -- An Alabama mother whose son joined an al Qaeda group in Africa said she can't turn her back on her boy even though he advocates attacking America and hasn't been in direct contact with her in years.
"If I could touch him for five minutes, I would be thrilled," Debra Hammami of Daphne, Ala. said of her son Omar who this week published a 127-page account of his road to terrorism from a small town in the American South.
"The silence has been devastating," she told ABC News. "I don't agree with the ideology of any of that, but I do love my son and I do have that motherly love."
Her son's account, "American Jihadist," comes two months after he released a video online in which he said he feared for his life after a falling out with other members of the al Qaeda group, called al-Shabaab. In the document he describes the roles and deaths of numerous Americans, mostly from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, who also joined with the al Qaeda group.
"Minnesota represented!" he writes. "Those Minnesota brother have almost all left their mark on the [jihad] and most have them received martyrdom; while the rest are still waiting [sic]."
Debra Hammami said that even though she doesn't agree with what her son has become, the memoir was something of a comfort considering it's the fullest account yet of what her 27-year-old has been doing in the shadows for the last few years. The two have had no direct contact since he disappeared in 2006 after telling his family he was going to Dubai for work and instead headed to the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
Omar Hammami, who later took on the moniker Abu Mansoor al-Amriki or "The American," recounts in his book his arrival in Somalia and how he fumbled his way through the city for days before meeting the militants he hoped to join.
"At any rate, I took them to the house and they told me that they were the Shabaab... and that they had come to take me to the place of the mujihadeen," Hammami says in the book. "I was extremely excited again."
Hammami describes the training he received, including from one instructor just called "The Spy," and joked that the American drones buzz overhead a "racist" against the white people in Somalia.
"They just want to kill off every white [fighter] they can," he says.
Throughout, Hammami is unrepentant for his decision to join the jihad and for his calls for violence against the West.
Amended to the book are his answers to questions posed by a journalist. When he is asked if he has any final remarks, Hammami just says, "Viva la Revolution!"
For her part, Debra Hammami said she still fears for her son's life and wants him back home.
"It is very devastating, [but] it's a day to day process," she said. "But I do love my son. I have that motherly love."
Charles Eshelman/FilmMagic(NEW YORK) -- Mary Richardson Kennedy, the wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., died of asphyxiation by hanging, according to New York's Westchester County Medical Examiner's office.
Mary Richardson Kennedy's body was found Wednesday in an outbuilding on the couple's property in Bedford, N.Y. Her death marked the final event in a life that had turned tumultuous of late and adds yet another dark moment to the Kennedy family's history.
Kennedy, 52, had four children with her husband, the son of Robert and Ethel Kennedy, to whom she'd been married for 16 years.
In September 2007, the Westchester Journal News reported that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., worried about his wife's mental state, had tried to drive her to a psychologist's office. She resisted and ran from the car into the road, according to police reports.
The couple filed for divorce in 2010, a day after police arrived at the couple's Bedford home in response to a "domestic incident" during which Mary Kennedy was allegedly intoxicated, according to the Journal News.
Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock(MAYER, Ariz.) -- Firefighters in Arizona are battling a growing problem, as high winds overnight caused a handful of wildfires to nearly triple in size.
“The next three days are critical in fire weather, as far as the winds that are coming through,” said incident fire official Karen Takai. “We have a lot of concerns about how the fire is going to move and what is going to happen.”
The so-called Gladiator fire in central Arizona is being considered the most dangerous of the four fires currently burning in the state. It has consumed more than 5,400 acres and has forced the evacuation of the historic mining town of Crown King.
Fire officials told ABC News on Thursday that the fire burning near Crown King appears to be growing away from the tiny town and firefighters have become increasingly confident that they will be able to save it. Crown King is situated southwest of the fire, and the wind is currently blowing north.
But shifting 35-mile per hour winds have made the path of the fire tough to predict, officials said earlier.
“They're still not out of the woods,” said Michelle Fiddler of the southwest incident management team. “This is still an ongoing fire and conditions change periodically.”
“At this point the fire's progressed into more remote areas where it's more challenging to get to,” she said.
“Our strategy all along has been to corral this fire, keep it small, put it out," Fiddler explained. "Unfortunately the winds have really worked against us and its pretty steep, rugged terrain in there."
About 400 firefighters are trying to contain the blaze and officials say the fire is unusually dangerous. It's not just the smoke and heat that have officials concerned; the area is known for rattlesnakes and abandoned mines.
A much larger fire, the so-called Sunflower fire, has burned approximately 12,500 acres, but is burning in a much more remote location. That fire is 10 percent contained.
Comstock Images/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- For the first time since it began keeping records, the Census Bureau reported on Thursday that more babies are being born collectively to Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed races than to white families.
During the 12-month period that ended in July 2011, births of minority babies reached 50.4 percent compared to 49.6 percent for non-Hispanic whites.
It’s expected that whites will remain the majority until mid-century. However, William H. Frey, the senior demographer at the Brookings Institution, described the ongoing shift to The New York Times as a “transformation from a mostly white baby boomer culture to the more globalized multiethnic country that we are becoming.”
Census Bureau figures reveal there are nearly 350 U.S. counties in which whites are no longer in the majority. Minorities have become the majority in four states and the District of Columbia, as well as large metro areas that include New York, Las Vegas and Memphis.
This changing face of the nation has already started a generational divide, with young minorities on one side and older white people on the other.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- A day after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced strict flight restrictions for America’s most expensive fighter jet, the F-22 Raptor, over safety concerns about the plane’s oxygen system, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., raised questions about how the move would affect America’s national security and operations abroad.
