Famed 'hatchet hitchhiker' arrested in NJ homicide

ELIZABETH, N.J. (AP) — A homeless, hatchet-wielding hitchhiker who became an Internet hero earlier this year was arrested Thursday for allegedly beating a New Jersey lawyer to death inside his home.

Caleb "Kai" McGillvary, whose star turn as "Kai the Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker" came after he intervened in an attack on a California utility worker, was arrested at a Philadelphia bus station,Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said.

"I believe that everyone is a little safer with this person off the streets," the prosecutor said. Philadelphia police could not immediately be reached for comment.

McGillvary was charged with killing Joseph Galfy, Jr., a Clark, N.J., attorney found dead Monday. Romankow said he will be processed and sent to back to New Jersey, where his bail is set at $3 million.

Galfy's body was found two days after authorities said he met McGillvary in New York City. Galfy, 73, was found wearing only his underwear and socks by police who went to his home to check on his well-being.

Statements posted on McGillvary's Facebook page following the homicide indicated the encounter was sexual in nature, Romankow said, though he declined to go into specific detail.

On his Facebook page, McGillvary's last post, dated Tuesday, asks "what would you do?" if you awoke in a stranger's house and found you'd been drugged and sexually assaulted. One commenter suggests hitting him with a hatchet — and McGillvary's final comment on the post says, "I like your idea."

A hatchet helped give McGillvary a brief taste of fame in February when he gave a rambling, profanity-laced 5-minute interview to a Fresno, Calif. television station about thwarting an attack on a Pacific Gas & Electric employee. The interview went viral, with one version viewed more than 3.9 million times on YouTube. He later appeared on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!"

Kimmel asked him what people were saying to him since the Feb. 1 incident. "Hey, you're Kai, that dude with the hatchet," he responded.

McGillvary, who said in his TV appearance he prefers to be called "home-free" instead of homeless, traded on his newfound celebrity to meet fans across the country, according to Romankow.

McGillvary met Galfy on Saturday in Times Square, then spent at least two nights at his home on a cul-de-sac in Clark, a quiet community about 20 miles west of New York, Romankow said. His movements after that included two trips to meet a fan in Asbury Park, a trip to Philadelphia and another to Glassboro in southern New Jersey before he took a train bound for Philadelphia, authorities said.

McGillvary swiftly gained notoriety in February after he intervened in an apparently unprovoked attack that led to charges including attempted murder.

McGillvary said he was riding in a car with a man who veered into the worker, got out of the car, then said "I am Jesus and I am here to take you home" before attacking. McGillvary said he then pulled a hatchet from his backpack and struck the driver in the head several times to subdue him, The Fresno Bee reported.

"That woman was in danger," Kai told KMPH-TV. "He just finished, what looked like at the time, killing somebody, and if he hadn't done that he would have killed more people."

Last month, the driver entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, according to The Fresno Bee.

In his television interview, McGillvary also said he'd once intervened in what he called a domestic violence situation.

A man "starts beating up on this woman who he calls his," McGillvary told the television station. "I started smashing him in the head and the teeth."

McGillvary also goes by the names Kai Lawrence, Caleb Kai Lawrence and Kai Nicodemus, prosecutors said.

Texas tornado devastation includes Habitat homes

A home in Cleburne, Texas has portions of its roof missing on Thursday May 16, 2013. Ten tornadoes touched down in several small communities in North Texas overnight, leaving at least six people dead, dozens injured and hundreds homeless. (AP Photo/Star-Telegram,Ron T. Ennis) MAGS OUT; (FORT WORTH WEEKLY, 360 WEST)

An empty driveway leads to what was once a home, with only the slab left of a house swept off of its foundation by a tornado, in Granbury, Texas, Thursday, May 16, 2013. A rash of tornadoes slammed into several small communities in North Texas overnight, leaving at least six people dead, dozens more injured and hundreds homeless. (AP Photo/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Paul Moseley) MAGS OUT; (FORT WORTH WEEKLY, 360 WEST)

GRANBURY, Texas (AP) — Habitat for Humanity spent years in a North Texas subdivision, helping build many of the 110 homes in the low-income area. But its work was largely undone during an outbreak of 16 tornadoes Wednesday night that killed six people and injured dozens.

On Thursday, authorities combed through debris in Granbury, while residents awaited the chance to see what was left of their homes. Witnesses described the two badly hit neighborhoods as unrecognizable, with homes ripped from foundations and others merely rubble.

Granbury, about 40 miles southwest of Fort Worth, bore the brunt of the damage. The National Weather Service's preliminary estimate was that tornado had wind speeds between 166 and 200 mph. Other tornadoes spawned from the violent spring storm damaged nearby Cleburne and Millsap.

"I tell you, it has just broken my heart," said Habitat for Humanity volunteer Elsie Tallant, who helped serve lunch every weekend to those building the homes in a Granbury neighborhood and those poised to become homeowners.

Hood County Commissioner Steve Berry said Thursday he couldn't tell one street from another in Granbury's Rancho Brazos Estates neighborhood because of the destruction. Half of one home was torn away while the other half was still standing, glasses and vases intact on shelves. Trees and debris were scattered across yards, and fences were flattened. Sheet metal could be seen hanging from utility wires.

The weather service said the preliminary storm estimate for the Granbury tornado was an EF-4, based on the Fujita tornado damage scale. An EF-5 is the most severe.

Of the homes in the Rancho Brazos Estates, 61 of them were built by Habitat for Humanity, according to Gage Yeager, executive director of Trinity Habitat for Humanity in Fort Worth. He said most of those homes were damaged, including at least a dozen that were destroyed.

Raul Rodriguez was among the lucky few: His Habitat for Humanity home was still standing. The 42-year-old mechanic rode the storm out in a closet with his wife and three children. They heard the windows shattering outside but realized their fortune when they emerged to see a heartbreaking scene.

"Injured people, bloody people, started coming to our house, asking us to call 911," said Rodriguez, who has lived in the neighborhood for more than two years. He assessed his own home, finding only shattered windows, lost roof shingles and a collapsed garage.

"My neighbors to the right, they lost everything," he said.

Habitat for Humanity homes, built for low-income buyers using volunteer labor and donations, are financed with affordable loans. The nonprofit selects homeowners based on their level of need, willingness to become partners in the program and ability to repay their loan. Homeowners invest their own time into building the homes as well.

Habitat for Humanity volunteer Bill Jackson said the damaged or destroyed homes were insured and can be rebuilt. But that doesn't alleviate Tallant's pain. She'd gotten to know the people who had waited for years to become homeowners.

"We were going to dedicate a house this weekend, and her home was destroyed," she said.

Hood County Sheriff Roger Deeds said Thursday afternoon that two of the dead were women and four of them men; one man and one woman in their 80s.

"Some were found in houses. Some were found around houses," Deeds said. Six or seven people have not been accounted for, he said at a news conference.

"I'm very confident we'll find those people alive and well," Deeds said, adding 37 injured people were treated at hospitals. "We're going to keep looking. We're not going to give up until every piece of debris is turned over."

Harold Brooks, a meteorologist at the weather service's severe storm lab in Norman, Okla., said May 15 is the latest into the month that the U.S. has had to wait for its first significant tornadoes of the year. Brooks said he would expect 2013 to be one of the least lethal tornado years since the agency started keeping records in 1954.

Earlier Thursday, about 20,000 homes and businesses in the region were without power. By the evening, it had dropped to nearly 3,500 homes and businesses.

Another tornado cut a mile-wide path through Cleburne on Wednesday, storm spotters told the National Weather Service. The weather service said it was estimated as an EF-3, which has winds between 136 mph and 165 mph.

Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain said Thursday morning that no one was killed or seriously hurt in the city of about 30,000 some 25 miles southeast of Granbury. Nine people suffered minor injuries, and upward of 150 homes were damaged and another 50 were destroyed.

Cleburne resident Derrek Grisham, 26, said he ran to his mother's home to check on her and his 10-year-old son, who was staying with her.

"I had to kick in the front door to get them out," he said, explaining the two had taken shelter in a bathtub.

On Thursday, he went through his mother's damaged home, salvaging items before the home is likely torn down. The roof had been ripped off and he said her belongings were a jumbled mass, but crosses had stayed in place on the living room wall.

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Brown reported from Granbury, Texas, and Stengle from Granbury and Cleburne, Texas. Associated Press writers Diana Heidgerd and Terry Wallace in Dallas; AP videographer John Mone in Granbury; and freelance photographer Mike Fuentes contributed to this report.

Suspect faces 20 charges in Mother's Day shooting

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The suspect in a Mother's Day parade shooting that wounded 19 people faces 20 charges of attempted second-degree murder, according to jail records.

Akein Scott, 19, was arrested Wednesday night in the Little Woods section of New Orleans. He was already facing a gun and drug possession charge and was out on bond at the time of Sunday's shooting at a parade through a neighborhood near the French Quarter.

It was not immediately clear why 20 counts were filed when authorities have said 19 people were injured. Police were expected to release more details on the case Thursday.

In the neighborhood where the gunfire shattered the festive parade known as a second line, residents awoke Thursday to the news that the manhunt apparently had ended. Police had been searching for Scott since identifying him as a suspect Monday from surveillance video.

Courtney Moles, whose apartment overlooks the shooting site, said she didn't feel her safety was in jeopardy while police searched the city.

"I didn't really think he would come back. It's more personal than that," she said. "He wasn't going to that second line to make national news. He was probably settling some kind of score."

Moles, 24, said the arrest underscores the city's crisis of violence among its young people. "His life is over now, too," she said of Scott.

Police have not established a motive and haven't said whether they know the identity of the shooter's target. Officials initially said three people were spotted running away from the shooting scene, but Scott has been the only suspect identified publicly.

Investigators launched an intense search for Scott, with police Superintendent Ronal Serpas urging him to surrender at a news conference Monday and warning the teen that "we know more about you than you think we know." At one point, SWAT team members and U.S. marshals served a search warrant at one location but did not find Scott.

Police offered a $10,000 reward in the case, and investigators received several tips after images from the surveillance camera were released.

Police also previously said Scott had an arrest record involving drug and weapon charges. Court records show some had been dropped, but he was facing a felony charge of illegally carrying a weapon while in possession of a controlled dangerous substance. Scott was scheduled for a court hearing on motions related to that case Thursday. It was not immediately known whether he would be present for that hearing or whether it would be rescheduled.

The video released Monday showed a crowd gathered for the parade suddenly scattering in all directions, with some falling to the ground. They appear to be running from a man in a white T-shirt and dark pants who turns and runs out of the picture.

As many as 400 people had come out for the event. Officers were interspersed with the marchers, which is routine for such events. The crime scene was about less than two miles from the heart of the city's French Quarter.

Two children were among those wounded.

The mass shooting showed again how far the city has to go to shake a persistent culture of violence that belies New Orleans' festive image.

Gun violence has flared at two other city celebrations this year. Five people were wounded in a drive-by shooting in January after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, and four were wounded in a shooting after an argument in the French Quarter in the days leading up to Mardi Gras. Two teens were arrested in connection with the MLK Day shootings; three men were arrested and charged in the Mardi Gras shootings.

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U.S. slams Japanese mayor's sex-slave comments as 'offensive'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States condemned as "outrageous and offensive" comments by the mayor of the Japanese city of Osaka who said this week that Japan's military brothels during World War Two were "necessary" to provide respite for soldiers.

The remarks by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto drew strong criticism from China and South Korea, two nations sensitive to what they see as any attempt to excuse Japanese abuses before and during the war.

Historians estimate that as many as 200,000 sex slaves, known as comfort women, were forced into submission in the Imperial Japanese Army's brothels during the war.

"Mayor Hashimoto's comments were outrageous and offensive," said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

"What happened in that era to these women who were trafficked for sexual purposes is deplorable and clearly a grave human rights violation of enormous proportions," she said, adding that Washington hoped Japan would work with its neighbors to address the mistakes of the past.

The Japanese government has sought to distance itself from Hashimoto's comments.

"The government's stance is, as we have said before, that we feel great heartache when we think about the indescribable suffering of those who experienced this," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said, although he declined to comment directly on Hashimoto's remarks.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Egyptians gloomier as country struggles after revolt: poll

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptians are getting gloomier about their country's future more than two years after an uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak, but most retain a favourable view of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, according to a poll released on Thursday.

Egypt's economy has been hammered by political turmoil and spasms of violence since the long-ruling autocrat's downfall, and has continued to deteriorate since President Mohamed Mursi of theMuslim Brotherhood was elected last June.

Facing currency and budget crises, the government has been struggling to secure a $4.8 billionInternational Monetary Fund loan.

The poll by the Washington-based Pew Research Center shed light on a fast-evolving political landscape before a parliamentary election due later in 2013. It was based on 1,000 face-to-face interviews conducted from March 3 to March 23.

The poll showed 30 percent of Egyptians think their country is headed in the right direction, down from 53 percent last year and 65 percent in 2011. Just 39 percent believe things are better off now than they were under Mubarak.

The parliamentary election expected towards the end of the year will decide on the shape of a new lower house that will replace the Brotherhood-led one dissolved by court order last June. The survey showed Egyptians almost evenly split over whether the polls would be fair.

The poll showed that the number of Egyptians with a positive view of the Muslim Brotherhood had slid to 63 percent from 75 percent in 2011. Fifty-three percent express a favorable view of Mursi, while 43 percent him negatively.

About half expressed a positive view of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party - its vehicle for fighting elections - while the National Salvation Front, a loose coalition of secular and liberal opposition forces, received more negative reviews.

Less than half of those polled express a positive opinion of Hamdeen Sabahi or Mohamed ElBaradei, two of the front's leaders.

The Nour Party, a hardline Islamist Salafi movement, was the second biggest group in the dissolved parliament. The survey showed that 40 percent viewed it favourably and 52 percent not.

Pointing to Islamic conservatism, about six in 10 of those surveyed said Egypt's laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Koran, while 28 percent believed they should echo Islam's values and principles rather than the Koran literally.

Only 11 percent - roughly equal to the percentage of Egypt's Christian population - thought the Koran should have no influence over laws.