Monday, April 22, 2013

Boston suspects did not have valid handgun licenses

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) - The two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, who police say engaged in a gun battle with officers early Friday after a frenzied manhunt, were not licensed to own guns in the towns where they lived, authorities said on Sunday.

In the confrontation with police on the streets of a Boston suburb, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were armed with handguns, at least one rifle and several explosive devices, authorities say.

But neither brother appears to have been legally entitled to own or carry firearms where they lived, a fact that may add to the national debate over current gun laws. Last week, the U.S. Senate rejected a bill to expand background checks on gun purchases, legislation that opponents argued would do nothing to stop criminals from buying guns illegally.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in the shootout with police, would have been required to apply for a gun license with the local police department where he lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

But there is no record of him having done so, according to Cambridge Police Department spokesman Dan Riviello.

Even if he had earlier received a gun license from somewhere outside Cambridge, that license would have to be registered with Cambridge police upon becoming a resident of the city, Riviello said. In Massachusetts, gun licenses are issued by municipal police departments.

"There is no record of him having a license to carry," Riviello told Reuters.

Tsarnaev's younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, who was captured alive on Friday after the manhunt, would have been too young to get a handgun license. Under state law, residents under 21 may only apply for a so-called firearms identification card, which allows the holder to own only rifles that hold 10 rounds or less and shotguns.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had no record of a firearms ID card in Cambridge. The police department in Dartmouth, where Dzhokhar was a student, said they had no record of gun licenses or ID cards for either brother.

Police in nearby New Bedford, where the younger brother may have lived in the past, could not confirm on Sunday whether they had issued Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a firearms ID card.

Federal law enforcement agencies have not confirmed a full tally of the brothers' arsenal.

Within hours of their images being released on Thursday, the two brothers are accused of shooting dead a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer in his car, hijacking at least one car at gunpoint, and of shooting at least one police officer during the gun battle in nearby Watertown.

(Reporting By Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Eric Beech)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/boston-bombing-suspects-did-not-valid-handgun-licenses-234648018.html

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Photos Of The Week: April 13 - April 19

Every week, we bring you some of the most fascinating photos from around the world.

This week, we've got celebrations in Israel, a spectacular army parade in Iran and Buddhist prayers in India.

Check them out below and vote for your favorite:

  • Young Buddhist monks pray for the speedy recovery of a 5-year-old girl who was raped and tortured in Delhi, in Bodhgaya, India, Saturday, April 20, 2013. Officials say the child is in serious condition after being raped and tortured by a man who held her in a locked room in India's capital for two days. Police say the girl went missing Monday and was found Wednesday by neighbors who heard her crying in a room in the same New Delhi building where she lives with her parents. (AP Photo/Manish Bhandari)

  • A Bahraini masked young protester poses during clashes with riot police following a protest against the Formula One Grand Prix on April 19, 2013 in the village of Sanabis, west of Manama. ( MOHAMMED AL-SHAIKH/AFP/Getty Images)

  • A village woman reacts after her house was damaged by an earthquake in Lushan county, Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan province on Saturday, April 20, 2013. The powerful earthquake struck the steep hills of China's southwestern Sichuan province Saturday, nearly five years after a devastating quake wreaked widespread damage across the region. (AP Photo)

  • A young Syrian boy holds a bag as he collects plastic and metal items in a garbage dump in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on April 17, 2013. (DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP/Getty Images)

  • Taylor Richard, center, of Belmont, Mass., and Alyssa Kohler, 17, of Cambridge, Mass., wrap themselves in the American Flag in Watertown, Mass., Friday, April 19, 2013. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

  • Palestinian youth hurl rocks at Israeli soldiers during clashes following a protest against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the West Bank village of Silwad, east of Ramallah on April 19, 2013. (ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

  • Iranian army's special forces march during the Army Day parade in Tehran on April 18, 2013. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)

  • In this Thursday, April 18, 2013 photo, students at the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School, in Pyongyang, North Korea sit under portraits of the late leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. The school is run by the military and school administrators say it was originally set up in 1947 for children who had lost their parents during Korea?s fight for liberation from its Japanese occupiers. (AP Photo)

  • A South Korean soldier holding his machine gun runs in front of an advertisement board during an anti-terror drills at Government Complex in Sejong, south of Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, April 17, 2013. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

  • Isrealis look at fireworks in the Mediterranean coastal city of Netanya, on April 15, 2013 during Israel's 65th Independence Day celebrations. Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared the existence of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv in 1948, ending the British mandate. (JACK GUEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/20/photos-of-the-week_n_3122822.html

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Sunday, April 21, 2013

Reese Witherspoon charged with disorderly conduct

ATLANTA (AP) ? Oscar-winning Actress Reese Witherspoon was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after a state trooper said she wouldn't stay in the car while her husband was given a field sobriety test in Atlanta.

Witherspoon was released from jail after the Friday morning arrest and was in New York Sunday night for the premiere of her new film "Mud." She posed for cameras on the red carpet but did not stop to talk to reporters.

The trooper noticed the car driven by her husband wasn't staying in its lane early Friday morning, so a traffic stop was initiated. Her husband, James Toth, had droopy eyelids and watery, bloodshot eyes, and his breath smelled strongly of alcohol, according to the report.

Toth told the trooper he'd had a drink, which Witherspoon said was consumed at a restaurant two hours before the traffic stop, the trooper writes.

Before the field sobriety test began, the 37-year-old Witherspoon got out of the car, was told to get back in and obeyed, the report said. After the "Walk the Line" star got out a second time, the trooper said he warned her that she would be arrested if she left the car again.

As the test continued, "Mrs. Witherspoon began to hang out the window and say that she did not believe that I was a real police officer. I told Mrs. Witherspoon to sit on her butt and be quiet," Trooper First Class J. Pyland writes.

Toth, 42, was then placed under arrest. He was charged with driving under the influence and failure to maintain the lane.

At that point, the report says, Witherspoon got out and asked the trooper what was going on. After being told to return to the car, she "stated that she was a 'US Citizen' and that she was allowed to 'stand on American ground,'" the report states.

The trooper then began to arrest Witherspoon. The report says Witherspoon was resistant at first but was calmed down by her husband.

"Do you know my name?" Witherspoon is quoted as asking the trooper. She also said: "You're about to find out who I am" and "You're about to be on national news," according to the report.

Toth and Witherspoon were then taken to jail.

A message left at the office of Witherspoon's publicist, Meredith O'Sullivan Wasson, wasn't immediately returned Sunday.

In New York on Sunday, "Mud" director Jeff Nichols said he first heard the news on the red carpet. Matthew McConaughey, who plays the title character and is represented by Toth, declined to comment "because it's too fresh."

__

AP reporter Lauri Neff contributed to this report from New York.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/reese-witherspoon-charged-disorderly-conduct-225554627.html

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Boston drama grips television networks

Heavily armed police officers do house to house searches in the neighborhoods of Watertown, Mass. Friday, April 19, 2013, as a massive search continued for one of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. A second suspect died in the early morning hours after an encounter with law enforcement. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Heavily armed police officers do house to house searches in the neighborhoods of Watertown, Mass. Friday, April 19, 2013, as a massive search continued for one of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. A second suspect died in the early morning hours after an encounter with law enforcement. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

(AP) ? So much for scripted police procedurals. The marathon manhunt in Boston was a real-life drama that kept the biggest television networks and their viewers on edge for most of the day and into Friday evening, with a city's safety hanging in the balance.

It had a prime-time conclusion, too. Shortly before 9 p.m. ET, and three hours after the sound of gunfire indicated the end might be near, Boston police announced that the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had been taken into custody.

Cameras caught Boston residents celebrating the end of a long, tense day.

"I feel like I've been watching a bad movie that I couldn't turn off," said one resident, Rita Colella, interviewed on NBC.

Viewers woke up to the news Friday that one suspect in Monday's bombing had been killed overnight, with another still at large. ABC, CBS and NBC took the unusual step of casting aside regular programming to cover the story throughout the day, joined by the cable news networks.

The coverage mixed moments of real excitement with tedium as the search continued for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who escaped during an overnight shootout with police that killed his older brother Tamerlan.

TV was a window to the world for residents of Boston and some surrounding areas, who were asked by authorities to stay in their homes as the search went on.

"It's unbelievable, unprecedented to see a major metropolitan area essentially called to a halt," Chris Jansing said on MSNBC.

The evening action came as attention to the story was beginning to lag. After a full day of coverage, NBC switched to Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. Massachusetts authorities lifted their order that everyone in Boston and some suburbs stay at home.

The gunfire and rushing police cars around 7 p.m. ET snapped the networks back to attention. After confirming that police had found someone hiding under a boat stored in a backyard, CBS quickly found a Google Map image from above the yard that showed the boat stored there for the winter.

ABC's Diane Sawyer interviewed a witness who calmly said his neighbor had gone into the backyard when police eased restrictions and found blood on his boat and saw someone hiding there. He quickly called authorities. The homeowner was upset that his boat was riddled with gunfire after police arrived.

"I have a feeling around the country that there will be a lot of people who will want to help him get his boat back," Sawyer said.

During the long day of coverage, networks seemed to keep in mind Wednesday's embarrassment, when some news organizations erroneously reported that a suspect in the bombing had been arrested. The scarcity of solid information did lead to moments of confusion, though. In midmorning, MSNBC was reporting that a second suspect was being hunted. CNN flashed on its screen that police were searching for a Honda that the suspect may be driving in Connecticut.

Other networks didn't follow those reports and they were dropped as the search remained shrouded in mystery.

Pete Williams of NBC reported in midmorning that authorities believed they had the suspect cornered in a house and ABC's Pierre Thomas similarly reported that police were moving in. But hours went by without any news.

Shortly after 8 a.m., Fox News Channel reported explosions and indicated the drama might be coming to a head. Two hours later, NBC's Kerry Sanders was crouching on the ground talking on his cellphone, ordered down by police. It was pulse-quickening drama that led nowhere.

Both CNN and NBC told viewers that they were putting live pictures of the manhunt on a five-second delay to protect viewers in case the drama turned bloody.

Networks found friends and relatives of the suspects to talk about them, with Dzhokhar almost universally described as sharp and friendly. But in a news conference, an estranged uncle of the men, Ruslan Tsani, described his nephews as losers.

The suspects' Chechen background led to talk about whether the marathon bombing had something to do with Chechnya's longtime conflict with Russia. Others noted that Dzhokhar had been in the United States for many years, perhaps moving when he was only 9.

"The more we find out about him, the less we seem to know him," CBS' Bob Schieffer said.

As the day went on, networks found it harder to fill the time. Video of the overnight firefight was played over and over. NBC's Brian Williams had a fascinating interview with a couple who lived overlooking the street where the gunplay took place, describing bullets that came into their home. But it turned long-winded.

Williams later reacted with aplomb when NBC briefly cut to a simulcast of a New England cable news network, only to be greeted by a man who uttered an expletive.

"Well, that was a fortuitous time to dip into the coverage of New England Cable News," Williams said, apologizing to viewers as NBC quickly switched away.

Individual networks were able to show strengths during the coverage. ABC's Bianna Golodryga used her fluency in Russian to conduct interviews with the suspects' father. On CBS, John Miller and Bill Bratton displayed their police connections in a knowledgeable and low-key manner.

NBC's star-crossed "Today" show had sent Matt Lauer to Texas on Friday to the scene of a fertilizer plant explosion, where he was largely forgotten. Earlier in the week, Savannah Guthrie's interview with President Barack Obama was overlooked because it happened hours before the marathon bombings.

Lauer's absence gave Guthrie her greatest visibility since she joined "Today" last summer, however, as she led NBC's coverage.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-04-19-US-Boston-Marathon-Media/id-a9cad625c33644eb969201103cba5785

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9 killed by gunman in Kenya, near Somali border

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) ? A police chief says that a masked gunman believed to be a member of an al-Qaida-linked Somalia militant group stormed a hotel in a Kenyan city near the border with Somalia and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing nine people.

Vitalis Okumu said Friday that the Thursday night attack could have been in retaliation for military activity carried out by African Union forces, which Kenya is a part of, against al-Shabab militants in Somalia.

Garissa lies near the border with Somalia and has suffered a string of attacks over the last 18 months by gunmen believed to be associated with al-Shabab.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/9-killed-gunman-kenya-near-somali-border-103422193.html

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Saturday, April 20, 2013

COLLEGE SOCCER: Radomski picked for Breakers Academy squad

Boston Breakers College Academy, led by Head Coach Mitch Doherty and Assistant Coach Andrew Coppola, begin their inaugural women?s soccer season in late May and feature some of the top college talent from the region.

Silver Lake Class of 2012 graduate Paige Radomski, a freshman at Boston College, has been invited to be a part of the team. This year?s team also features Boston College forward Stephanie McCaffrey, Boston College midfielder Patrice Vettori, and Boston University midfielders Kylie Strom and Megan McGoldrick.

?I am very excited to have an opportunity to work with such a talented group of athletes. The aim of the program is to continue the development of these players throughout the summer and to provide a professional, structured, and challenging environment for them to work in,? Doherty said. ?The league itself will offer a high standard of competition, and our role is to make sure the players are all prepared and ready for the season ahead with an emphasis on development. The Boston Breakers organization and full-time staff have made a fantastic commitment to enable this program and everyone involved is looking forward to the inaugural season.?

Boston Breakers College Academy opens its season on Wednesday, May 29 vs. the New England Mutiny at 7:30 p.m. at Dilboy Stadium in Somerville.

?The College Academy program is a natural fit for our organization. We are always looking for young talent, and if we can create a program where top college players can be in front of our coaching staff, it is beneficial to us,? Boston Breakers General Manager Lee Billiard said. ?The program will also allow college players to practice and compete in a high-level environment during their summer break. The team is an extension of our brand, and the roster has a lot of quality to it from a lot of top collegiate programs. It will be exciting to watch the next generation of soccer stars perform in a Breakers jersey.?

This year?s team features more than two dozen players, including Radomski and two other Boston College players, forward Stephanie McCaffrey and midfielder Patrice Vettori, as well as Boston University midfielders Kylie Strom and Megan McGoldrick.

?I am thrilled to be a part of the new Breakers College Academy team,? McCaffrey said. ?I am lucky to have such a competitive option so close to home and to have the chance to play in the WPSL. It?s going to be a great summer, and I couldn?t be more excited to start the season.?

Boston Breakers College Academy will play a 10-game season, and all home games will be at Dilboy Stadium. The remaining schedule is as follows: Monday, June 3 at Aztecs (7 p.m. at Endicott College), Saturday, June 8 at Seacoast Phantoms (time and location to be determined), Wednesday, June 12 vs. Seacoast Mariners (7:30 p.m. at Dilboy), Saturday, June 15 at Seacoast Mariners (time and location to be determined), Wednesday, June 19 vs. CFC Passion (7:30 p.m. at Dilboy), Saturday, June 22 at New England Mutiny (7:05 p.m. at East Longmeadhow High School), Saturday, June 29 at CFC Passion (time and location to be determined), Monday, July 1 vs. NE Aztec (7 p.m. at Dilboy), and Saturday, July 6 vs. Seacoast Phantoms (3 p.m. at Dilboy).

Source: http://www.wickedlocal.com/kingston/topstories/x1641166217/COLLEGE-SOCCER-Radomski-picked-for-Breakers-Academy-squad?rssfeed=true

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Boston Marathon suspect cornered in backyard boat

A police officer reacts to news of the arrest of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Boston. Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured in Watertown, Mass. The 19-year-old college student wanted in the bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

A police officer reacts to news of the arrest of one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Boston. Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured in Watertown, Mass. The 19-year-old college student wanted in the bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

ALTERNATE CROP - This still frame from video shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev visible through an ambulance after he was captured in Watertown, Mass., Friday, April 19, 2013.A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. (AP Photo/Robert Ray)

Joseph Eli Libby, 20, of Boston, carries a flag near a makeshift memorial on Boylston Street, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Boston. Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured in Watertown, Mass. The 19-year-old college student wanted in the bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Andre Savazoni, 38, of Brazil, who participated in his second Boston Marathon this week, takes a photo of a crowd gathered at Boston Common after the final suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing was arrested, Friday, April 19, 2013, in Boston. Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured in Watertown, Mass. The 19-year-old college student wanted in the bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

This photo released Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a suspect that officials identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, being sought by police in the Boston Marathon bombings Monday. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation)

(AP) ? For just a few minutes, it seemed like the dragnet that had shut down a metropolitan area of millions while legions of police went house to house looking for the suspected Boston Marathon bomber had failed.

Weary officials lifted a daylong order that had kept residents in their homes, saying it was fruitless to keep an entire city locked down. Then one man emerged from his home and noticed blood on the pleasure boat parked in his backyard. He lifted the tarp and found the wounded 19-year-old college student known the world over as Suspect No. 2.

Soon after that, the 24-hour drama that paralyzed a city and transfixed a nation was over.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's capture touched off raucous celebrations in and around Boston, with chants of "USA, USA" as residents flooded the streets in relief and jubilation after four tense days since twin explosions ripped through the marathon's crowd at the finish line, killing three people and wounding more than 180.

The 19-year-old ? whose older brother and alleged accomplice was killed earlier that morning in a wild shootout in suburban Boston ? was hospitalized in serious condition Saturday, unable to be questioned to determine his motives. U.S. officials said a special interrogation team for high-value suspects would question him without reading him his Miranda rights, invoking a rare public safety exception triggered by the need to protect police and the public from immediate danger.

President Barack Obama said there are many unanswered questions about the Boston bombings, including whether the two men had help from others. He urged people not to rush judgment about their motivations.

Dzhokhar and his brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were identified by authorities and relatives as ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who had been in the U.S. for about a decade and were believed to be living in Cambridge, just outside Boston. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in the shootout early in the day of gunshot wounds and a possible blast injury. At one point, he was run over by his younger brother in a car as he lay wounded, according to investigators.

During a long night of violence Thursday and into Friday, the brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman during a gun battle and hurled explosives at police in a desperate getaway attempt, authorities said.

Late Friday, less than an hour after authorities lifted the lockdown, they tracked down the younger man holed up in the boat, weakened by a gunshot wound after fleeing on foot from the overnight shootout with police that left 200 spent rounds behind.

The resident who spotted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his boat in his Watertown yard called police, who tried to talk the suspect into getting out of the boat, said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis.

"He was not communicative," Davis said.

Instead, he said, there was an exchange of gunfire ? the final volley of one of the biggest manhunts in American history.

The violent endgame unfolded just a day after the FBI released surveillance-camera images of two young men suspected of planting the pressure-cooker explosives at the marathon's finish line, an attack that put the nation on edge for the week.

Watertown residents who had been told in the morning to stay inside behind locked doors poured out of their homes and lined the streets to cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene.

Celebratory bells rang from a church tower. Teenagers waved American flags. Drivers honked. Every time an emergency vehicle went by, people cheered loudly.

"They finally caught the jerk," said nurse Cindy Boyle. "It was scary. It was tense."

Police said three other people were taken into custody for questioning at an off-campus housing complex at the University of the Massachusetts at Dartmouth where the younger man may have lived.

"Tonight, our family applauds the entire law enforcement community for a job well done, and trust that our justice system will now do its job," said the family of 8-year-old Martin Richard, who died in the bombing.

The FBI was swamped with tips ? 300,000 per minute ? after the release of the surveillance-camera photos, but what role those played in the overnight clash was unclear. State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their night of crime.

The search by thousands of law enforcement officers all but shut down the Boston area for much of the day. Officials halted all mass transit, including Amtrak trains to New York, advised businesses not to open, and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to unlock their doors only for uniformed police.

Around midday, the suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., pleaded on television: "Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness."

Until the younger man's capture, it was looking like a grim day for police. As night fell, they announced that they were scaling back the hunt and lifting the stay-indoors order across the region because they had come up empty-handed.

But then the break came and within a couple of hours, the search was over. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured about a mile from the site of the shootout that killed his brother.

A neighbor described how heavily armed police stormed by her window not long after the lockdown was lifted ? the rapid report of gunshots left her huddled on the bathroom floor on top of her young son.

"I was just waiting for bullets to just start flying everywhere," Deanna Finn said.

When at last the gunfire died away and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was taken from the neighborhood in an ambulance, an officer gave Finn a cheery thumbs-up.

"To see the look on his face, he was very, very happy, so that made me very, very happy," she said.

Authorities said the man dubbed Suspect No. 1 ? the one in sunglasses and a dark baseball cap in the surveillance-camera pictures - was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, while Suspect No. 2, the one in a white baseball cap worn backward, was his younger brother.

Chechnya, where the brothers grew up, has been the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.

The older brother had strong political views about the United States, said Albrecht Ammon, 18, a downstairs-apartment neighbor in Cambridge. Ammon quoted Tsarnaev as saying that the U.S. uses the Bible as "an excuse for invading other countries."

Also, the FBI interviewed the older brother at the request of a foreign government in 2011, and nothing derogatory was found, according to a federal law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the case publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official did not identify the foreign country or say why it made the request.

Exactly how the long night of crime began was unclear. But police said the brothers carjacked a man in a Mercedes-Benz in Cambridge, just across the Charles River from Boston, then released him unharmed at a gas station.

They also shot to death a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, 26-year-old Sean Collier, while he was responding to a report of a disturbance, investigators said.

The search for the Mercedes led to a chase that ended in Watertown, where authorities said the suspects threw explosive devices from the car and exchanged gunfire with police. A transit police officer, 33-year-old Richard Donohue, was shot and critically wounded, authorities said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his already wounded brother as he fled, according to two law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation. At some point, he abandoned his car and ran away on foot.

The brothers had built an arsenal of pipe bombs, grenades and improvised explosive devices and used some of the weapons in trying to make their getaway, said Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., a member of the House Intelligence Committee.

Watertown resident Kayla Dipaolo said she was woken up overnight by gunfire and a large explosion that sounded "like it was right next to my head ... and shook the whole house."

"It was very scary," she said. "There are two bullet holes in the side of my house, and by the front door there is another."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev had studied accounting as a part-time student at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston for three semesters from 2006 to 2008, the school said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was registered as a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Students said he was on campus this week after the Boston Marathon bombing. The campus closed down Friday along with colleges around the Boston area.

The men's father, Anzor Tsarnaev, said in a telephone interview with AP from the Russian city of Makhachkala that his younger son, Dzhokhar, is "a true angel." He said his son was studying medicine.

"He is such an intelligent boy," the father said. "We expected him to come on holidays here."

A man who said he knew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Krystle Campbell, the 29-year-old restaurant manager killed in Monday's bombing, said he was glad Dzhokhar had survived.

"I didn't want to lose more than one friend," Marvin Salazar said.

"Why Jahar?" he asked, using Tsarnaev's nickname. "I want to know answers. That's the most important thing. And I think I speak for almost all America. Why the Boston Marathon? Why this year? Why Jahar?"

Two years ago, the city of Cambridge awarded Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a $2,500 scholarship. At the time, he was a senior at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, a highly regarded public school whose alumni include Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and NBA Hall of Famer Patrick Ewing.

Tsarni, the men's uncle, said the brothers traveled here together from Russia. He called his nephews "losers" and said they had struggled to settle in the U.S. and ended up "thereby just hating everyone."

___

Sullivan and Associated Press writers Stephen Braun, Jack Gillum and Pete Yost reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Mike Hill, Katie Zezima, Pat Eaton-Robb and Steve LeBlanc in Boston, Rodrique Ngowi in Watertown, Mass. and Jeff Donn in Cambridge, Mass., contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-04-20-US-Boston-Marathon-Explosions/id-a8129893c02047e8b5b8566b112837de

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