Cousin of Accused Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev Probed as Source of Radicalization

Investigators have widened their search into possible contacts between one of the alleged Boston bombers and extremist militants in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region. This time, they are looking into whether the suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was influenced by a distant cousin who is said to have ties to extremist Islamist groups in Dagestan.

The cousin, Magomed Kartashov, is said to be the founder and leader of a group called The Union of the Just, which reportedly promotes the application of Islamic Sharia law and has protested against the United States.

A lawyer for Kartashov confirms that Russian security agents recently interviewed her client about his links to Tsarnaev.

The possible ties were first reported by TIME Magazine, which noted that while The Union of the Just publicly renounces violence, several of its members have ties to militants

The lawyer, Patimat Abdullaeva, confirmed to ABC News that her client met with Tsarnaev last year, but denied that Kartashov was an extremist. Instead she says it was Tsarnaev whose views were extreme. She said the two met several times because they are family, but denied claims by Tsarnaev's mother to TIME that the two had a close relationship.

Kartashov is currently in jail on charges of resisting police in an unrelated matter. His lawyer expects he will remain there for at least two more months.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a violent standoff with police on April 19, days after he and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, allegedly planted homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured alive and has been charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. He faces the death penalty.

Investigators continue to burrow into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's six month visit to Dagestan, a restive region in southern Russia that is home to an Islamist militant insurgency. They want to know if and how Tamerlan attempted to join militant groups there.

Earlier, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that investigators are also looking into Tamerlan's contacts with a young militant named Mahmud Mansur Nidal. The two were reportedly seen leaving a controversial Salafist mosque in the capital of Makhachkala that has been popular with militants over the years. They also want to know about possible contacts with a Canadian-Russian militant named William Plonikov, who was killed in a police shootout last July, just days before Tamerlan suddenly left the country.

American officials have praised recent cooperation with Russia in the investigation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller visited Moscow for talks on Tuesday that were described as "productive." The same day, Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in the Russian capital for meetings with President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Their discussions centered on resolving the conflict in Syria, but they also discussed the investigation into the Boston bombing.

All of that followed two calls between Putin and President Obama since the attack took place, during which the leaders pledged to continue counter-terrorism cooperation, according to White House statements.

The relationship has not always been so rosy.

American and Russian law enforcement and intelligence services still regard each other with suspicion, a holdover from the Cold War. While each side has provided the other about terror tips, including a 2011 request to look into Tamerlan Tsarnaev's intentions to join extremist groups in Russia, U.S. officials have said that Russia only provided them all of the information about their concerns about him after the April 15 attack took place.

Jane Richard, Sister of Marathon Bombing Victim, Ends 11th Surgery

Jane Richard, Sister of Marathon Bombing Victim, Ends 11th Surgery (ABC News)

The family of Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed in the Boston Marathon bombings, said today that his sister Jane, 7, has undergone 11 surgeries in the last 23 days and soon may be ready for rehabilitation.

Their parents, Bill and Denise Richard of Dorchester, Mass., were among the approximately 200 people who suffered injuries that day.

In a statement released today by a family spokesman, Larry Marchese, the parents said that their daughter Jane was making improvement.

"While she has more trips to the O.R. ahead of her, last night's operation marked an important milestone, as doctors were finally able to close the wound created when the bomb took her left leg below the knee," wrote the Richards. "Part of the procedure involved preparing Jane's injured leg to eventually be fitted for a prosthesis.

"By closing the wound, the incredible medical team at Boston Children's Hospital laid the groundwork for Jane to take an important step forward on the long and difficult road ahead of her."

READ: Boston Lays to Rest Martin Richard

Family members said that through the trauma, they have learned "not get too high or too low. We take today's development as positive news and look ahead with guarded optimism."

They are hopeful that Jane might be ready for rehabilitation in the coming weeks.

"Getting to this point has not been easy for Jane," they said.

The little girl has fought off infections and other medical complications.

"After not being able to communicate with Jane for the first two weeks, she woke up with difficult questions that needed to be answered," her parents said. "There are not words to describe how hard sharing this heartbreaking news was on all of us."

One of the questions was about her brother, Martin, who died in the explosions at the finish line of the marathon. Friends said he was a typical boy who loved to ride his bike and play baseball. They called the boy's death "an unfathomable loss."

WATCH: Remembering Martin Richard

His parents are prominent members of the community, and Denise Richard works as a librarian at the Neighborhood House Charter School, where Martin was a third-grader and Jane attends first grade.

The Richards were discharged from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center a week after they were admitted, according to the statement.

Denise Richard, 43, still has no sight in an injured eye, but doctors have said they are "pleased" with how she has healed from surgeries.

"Bill is healing from the shrapnel wounds and burns to his legs, and we remain hopeful there will be improvement over time from the hearing loss he suffered," said the family statement. "It will be several months before we know what, if any improvement Denise or Bill will experience."

Their 12-year-old son, Henry, is now back at school, "which gives him a needed sense of routine and normalcy," according to the family. "We will continue to stay together in the Longwood Medical Area until Jane is discharged. Our focus as a family remains on healing from our injuries, both physical and emotional."

The family admitted that it faces challenges ahead, and psychological experts agreed.

Some of the most difficult times will be adjusting to their "new normal," according to Dr. Paula K. Rauch, a psychiatrist and founding director of the PACT (Parenting at a Challenging Time) program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

"If you imagine some of what it's like to be managing so many medical complications and emotional issues, it's like climbing a rock face: You are not feeling all the feelings until you are done with that mountain climb," said Rauch. "Often, we get to emotional safety and then the feelings percolate up. They have so much to manage day-to-day and hour-by-hour - that's where the focus will be. When the family ultimately settles in to their new normal, there will be waves of emotion to cope with."

The family members thanked the community for all its support, saying it had been "uplifting … in this most painful and difficult time."

They also credited first-responders and "Samaritans" who "stabilized and comforted" them at the scene of the bombings.

"We particularly want to thank the people who quickly got to Jane and addressed her injury in the street because they saved her life," they said. "We also salute those who stood guard over Martin's body so he was not alone."

They acknowledged that well-wishers wanted to "do more" to help the family, but they asked that their privacy be respected.

"As hard as it is for us to do so, we ask for your continued patience as we work through something for which there is no roadmap, and there are no instructions," they said, promising more updates about Jane's recovery.

Psychiatrist Rauch said that the family's statement demonstrated "how hard they are working to stay together as a family, and how appreciative, on one level, they are for the outpouring of care and support, but how much they need their privacy.

"When families face terribly difficult experiences, they often feel they have to take care of their well-wishers," she said. "One of the errors of kindness is doing something intrusive. … Give people the time to focus on day-to-day, small victories, and it sounds like there have been lots of wonderful victories in their daughter's care. I am sure there have been moments of relief as well as moments of great sadness and frustration."

Many well-wishers have been struck by the strength of a family that has suffered so much loss, but Dr. Eugene Beresin, director of training and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General and Mclean hospitals, said people can be resilient.

"Resilience is not intrinsic," he said. "It's not something you are born with. It includes biological attributes. But, apart from your own nature, the most important elements are engagement with others, awareness and self-reflection.

"That's why families, community and spiritual support are important," he said. "They need to reflect on their past and present and where they go now. And people need that space to reflect."

Sheriff: Search for Calif. suspect like 'warfare'

Religion Is Not Welcome: How a Prayer Wrecked a Graduation

The debate over school prayer has reared it's head in Arkansas this week.

Two sixth grade graduations were cancelled in Riverside Unified School District after a parent protested against a prayer that was to be recited during the ceremony.

“Those campuses for the last several years had discussed whether we should continue with sixth grade graduation or not,” Tommy Knight, the superintendent of the Riverside School District toldFox News. “The controversy arose out of this one. When it came to my attention, the board and I decided to go ahead and discontinue sixth grade graduations.”

The school received a letter from Freedom From Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin’s nonprofit with a mission to educate the public “on matters relating to nontheism, and to promote the constitutional principle of separation between church and state.”

A group of Arkansas freethinkers called the cancellation “selfish.”

“The Arkansas Society of Freethinkers is disappointed that Riverside school cancelled its graduationsimply because the school couldn’t sponsor a prayer,” Anne Orsi, a member of the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers, told TakePart. “We think that the students are the big losers in this astonishing display of religious selfishness on the part of the school’s administration. There is absolutely no reason the graduation ceremony cannot continue without forcing the attendees to submit to a public prayer. There is no reason to punish these children.”

School prayer and religion in public schools remains a hot button issue that has resulting in numerous court cases. Many schools throughout the country are trying to delicately deal with religion during upcoming graduation activities.

In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that public schools cannot sponsor prayer at graduation ceremonies, citing a violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. But students can express themselves during graduation and that might include prayer.

In Georgia, a school was recently forced to stop saying prayers or playing songs with religious references at graduation ceremonies after the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent a warning letter.

“Public schools should not be seeking out songs that exclude students and create a divisive environment,” FFRF attorney Andrew Seidelan wrote in the letter.

In Kentucky, the Lincoln County High School principal is trying to find middle ground on the prayer front. Traditionally, the school’s graduating class has had student-led prayer during the ceremony. But, to do so, graduating students had to okay the prayer with a unanimous vote. This year, six students said they did not want the prayer. It has since been cancelled.

Earlier this month, a former Navy chaplain offered a $1,000 reward to any student who says a prayer during a graduation ceremony at a school in St. Johns County, Florida.

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee told TakePart that there is a current fear of prayer in this country.

“How very sad that our culture is collapsing under the weight of religious intolerance that it is fearful of a prayer,” he said. “Prayers are said in Congress, at presidential inaugurations, and by chaplains in our military. To forbid a prayer at a school activity because one person objects is just sad. Can one person protest our accommodating Muslim food and prayers at Gitmo and get that stopped?”

In Lake City, Arkansas, parents are meeting Thursday night to decide on a church that will host a private graduation ceremony for Christian students who attend the public school.

This thrills Arkansas school prayer supporters.

“I am personally definitely a proponent of prayer, even prayer in school. I believe guiding our children to seek a relationship with God is the ultimate in community service,” Laurie Lee, a conservative activist in Arkansas, told TakePart. “What inspires me most, is how these parents are handling the situation. It's wonderful that they are taking what could have been a very disappointing event and it is evolving into a celebration based on faith and inclusion for all in the community.”

Related Stories on TakePart:

• ACLU Demands Mississippi Principal Stop ‘Pervasive’ School Prayer

• Sing It, Don’t Say It? Preschool Owner Finds Loophole in Arkansas Law Banning School Prayer

• Is This Just a New Way to Get Prayer Inside Schools?

Southern California woman fatally mauled by pit bulls

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 63-year-old woman was fatally mauled by a pack of pit bulls while walking near her home in Southern California on Thursday and authorities were still searching for the dogs as darkness fell, law enforcement officials said.

A driver called police Thursday morning to report that four dogs were mauling the woman by the side of a road in the small unincorporated community of Littlerock, near Palmdale, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Captain Mike Parker said.

When a sheriff's deputy arrived on the scene a few minutes later, he found the woman being attacked by one dog, which repeatedly circled and moved aggressively toward him as he approached, Parker said.

The deputy fired twice at the animal, apparently missing, before it ran into the desert. There was no sign of the other three dogs, Parker said.

The victim, who was not immediately identified, died in an ambulance while being rushed to a nearby hospital, Parker said, who said the Los Angeles coroner would conduct an autopsy to determine cause of death.

Authorities were still searching on the ground and by helicopter for the tan-colored dogs on Thursday evening and issued warnings to residents in and around Littlerock, about 65 miles east of Los Angeles.

"Sheriffs deputies are knocking on doors in the neighborhood, patrolling and warning people in the area, but we have not picked up any leads since the deputy fired the shots," Parker said.

Sheriff's detectives, aided by Los Angeles County animal control officers, served a search warrant on a home in the Littlerock area, removing eight dogs, a sheriff's spokesman said in a statement.

It was not yet known if those dogs were involved in the fatal attack, the spokesman said.

The owners of the dogs who attacked the woman could face charges in the case, Parker said.

Members of the woman's family had told police that she walked daily in her Littlerock neighborhood, he said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Doina Chiacu)