A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

When Associated Press photographer Sue Ogrocki saw the tornado warnings for the Oklahoma City area Monday, she didn’t run into a storm shelter or take cover in her office.

She grabbed her camera equipment and her car keys. Then she rushed outside, got into her car and raced towards the approaching twister.

“We had advanced warning that tornadoes would probably be developing again yesterday afternoon,” Ogrocki told ABC News. “So I know I had to get down here quickly.  I had to get down here before it hit or at least be on my way before it hit.”

A fire burns in the Tower Plaza Addition in Moore, Okla., following a tornado, May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

Today, the National Weather Service said that Monday’s tornado, which killed at least 24 people and injured hundreds when it sliced a 12-mile-long path of destruction from Newcastle to Moore, Okla., is the first top-of-the-scale EF-5 tornado of the year. The EF-5 rating, based on wind speed and inflicted damage, means winds exceeded 200 mph.

The monster twister, reportedly 1.3 miles wide, flattened homes, schools and hospitals, blowing out walls and windows. It uprooted trees and power lines. It tossed cars onto roofs of building like toys.

Ogrocki was one of the first news photographers on the scene in Moore. The images she captured have become some of the most iconic to come out of the disaster.

Moore police dig through the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School following a tornado in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

When she arrived in Moore, Ogrocki said she saw devastation immediately. When she saw a group of people standing next to a mammoth pile of rubble, she parked her car and got out. She said a woman told her it was a school.

“When I ran to the corner and saw the building, I didn’t even know that it was a school.  I had to ask someone,” Ogrocki said. “But that’s where, I think, the best images came from, and they were images of children being saved.”

For the next 30 minutes, Ogrocki snapped photos of first responders working frantically to pull children, teachers and staff out of the mangled pile of bricks and metal that used to be Plaza Towers Elementary school.

Boy is pulled from beneath a collapsed wall at the Plaza Towers Elementary School following a tornado in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

A woman is pulled out from under tornado debris at the Plaza Towers School in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

“What I saw through my lens yesterday was kind of like a saving grace, because there was all this destruction here and bad things and people died, but what I got to see was people getting saved,” she said. “And you don’t get to see that very often as a news photographer.”

Ogrocki watched young kids being pulled one after another out of the debris, which she said was “so heavy and so thick” that it seemed amazing anyone was being found alive. Bystanders, some of them parents, waited anxiously with her as she focused her lens on each of the children’s faces when they emerged.

“Every time a child got pulled out of there it was just a sense of relief,” Ogrocki said.  ”‘Oh, another one, she’s okay, he’s okay.  They looked scared, but they don’t really look like they are hurt.’”

A child is pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., and passed along to rescuers, May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

Boy is pulled from beneath a collapsed wall at the Plaza Towers Elementary School following a tornado in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. Credit: Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

Of the at least 24 lives the storm claimed in Moore, the Oklahoma medical examiner said that seven of them were children. But Ogrocki said all of the kids she watched being pulled out of the flattened school were alive.

“To actually witness the saving, it’s an incredible feeling,” she said.

The Cobb family – Steve, LaDonna, and their 9 year daughter Jordan – shared their story for the first time in an interview that aired Tuesday, May 21 on a special edition of “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer.”

Steve Cobb: I just tried to be the best dad that I could at that time and I wanted her to feel like she was safe and that we were all going to be okay. I wished I could have split myself into two and stayed there and try to kind of help out some of those other kids because I can imagine how they were feeling at that time, when their parents weren’t there, they’re kind of wandering around. It’s like you’re in a movie and it’s like everybody’s playing a part and we’re all acting or something like that – it’s just not – it doesn’t seem real to you that this is occurring.

Diane Sawyer: And Jordan -

Jordan Cobb: Yes?

Diane Sawyer: How long did that tornado seem to last for you?

Jordan Cobb: Forever. It seemed like it was an hour. Like, it was crazy, I mean, I can’t even believe we survived that.

LaDonna Cobb: I was just grabbing onto whatever I could. Once the roof lifted off the building I felt myself being sucked and I knew that if I was taken, then all the little babies underneath me would be gone too, and so I just held on. I held on for dear life until the wall fell on top of me and knocked me out.

I couldn’t leave the other kids.  They all are special to me and I couldn’t leave them and I wanted my family to be safe but I also wanted everyone else’s family to be safe too.

Diane Sawyer: What was the hardest moment for you, Jordan?

Jordan Cobb: Just – when I tried to get up, I tried to move the bricks off of my leg and it hurt so much and I was like, and the tornado had not left yet, I was just screaming help my leg my leg and no one could hear me.

Diane Sawyer: Because it was so loud?

Jordan Cobb: Yeah.

Diane Sawyer: and what’s the most important thing about family to you?

Jordan Cobb: That we’re always there for each other, that we love each other, would take care of each other.  And that we believe in each other no matter what.

Courtesy Geoff Parker

The popular lyric, “Ain’t no mountain high enough to keep me from you,” certainly rings true for this newly engaged couple, after Mel Reyes proposed to Jordie Egbert high atop Rattlesnake Ridge, a mountain ridge in North Bend, Wash., on May 8.

Little did the happy couple know, however, that Geoff Parker, a complete stranger, was capturing their special moment on camera from the other side of a valley hundreds of feet away.  Parker and his wife were taking a hike to celebrate their own wedding anniversary when they noticed Reyes take a bended knee.

“We just hiked the trail and I always have my camera with me,” Parker, 34, of Seattle, Wash., told GoodMorningAmerica.com. “We got to the top of the summit and were looking out over. It was a really foggy day. My wife yelled from behind, ‘Hey, look over there.’ Down a little further was this couple. I took a couple photos, and then they stood up and hugged and kissed.”

ALSO READ: 15-Foot Pink Poodle Delivers Diamond Ring to Mud Pit Proposal

With such a beautiful landscape surrounding an even more beautiful moment, Parker figured it was a photograph the couple would want to cherish forever. So he took to social media in an attempt to track down the lovebirds.

“I posted it on Facebook first. They got a pretty big response from my friends, and a couple more people shared it,” said Parker. “Then, I put it on Instagram the next weekend. That’s when it blew up.”

It only took a few days before the photos caught Egbert’s attention.

“I was hanging out at my mom’s house and my sister came running over to me,” said Egbert, 21, of Puyallup, Wash. “A family friend of ours that lives in Washington, her friend that lives in Germany had re-posted it not knowing who I was. People were just posting it trying to find me.”

ALSO READ: Man’s Marriage Proposal, Plowed into a Field, Has 150-Yard-Tall Typo

Once Egbert realized how much effort Parker had gone through to get the photos to their rightful owner, she immediately contacted him.

“She sent me a really sweet email thanking me so much for the images and for trying so hard to find them. She cried all day,” Parker said.

Although Parker has received some criticism for intruding on the couple’s intimate moment, Egbert couldn’t be happier that he did.

“He said he doesn’t have that kind of picture from when he proposed,” said Egbert. “He has the memory in his head, but nothing concrete to show from it. To him, it was something special. He was living through us. He wanted at least someone to have a picture of that special memory. It was a good gesture. He did it for us. That is so cool.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

MOSCOW – A delegation of American lawmakers will travel to Russia next week in part to investigate last month’s Boston Marathon bombings, ABC News has learned.

The group, led by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., wants to find out why a 2011 Russian request that the United States investigate Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected Boston bombers, did not raise more red flags.

The Russians  offered a vague warning that Tsarnaev planned to link up with extremist groups abroad, but an FBI investigation yielded no evidence to support those claims at the time. The lawmakers also want to know why  subsequent U.S. requests for additional information about Tsarnaev went unanswered by the Russians.

“If there was a distrust, or lack of cooperation because of that distrust, between the Russian intelligence and the FBI, then that needs to be fixed and we will be talking about that,”  Rohrabacher, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, told ABC News by telephone.

“Our goal is to use Boston as an example, if indeed there was something more, that should’ve been done that wasn’t because of a bad attitude,” Rohrabacher added.

Rohrabacher said he hoped to use the trip to repair lingering mistrust between the former Cold War rivals. With that in mind, the lawmakers will also visit the Russian space center at Star City, outside Moscow, to discuss increasing cooperation between the Russian and U.S.  space programs.

“There’s no reason for us to be in the Cold War attitude anymore,” Rohrabacher, a former speechwriter for President  Reagan, said.

The lawmakers plan to meet political and security officials, including counterterrorism officials, during their week-long visit to Russia. They are also considering a trip to Dagestan, the restive region in Russia’s North Caucasus, where Tsarnaev spent six months last year and where investigators are digging into contacts he may have had with extremists and militants.

The other members of the congressional delegation include Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn;  Steve King, R-Iowa; Paul Cook, R-Calif.; Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; and William Keating, D-Mass., who is the ranking member on the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.

Several weeks ago Keating sent a member of his staff to Russia to investigate whether Tsarnaev had met with any extremists or militants in Dagestan. The staff member could confirm, from nongovernmental sources, reports from ABC News and elsewhere that Tsarnaev had been in touch with at least two such individuals,  Mahmoud Mansour Nidal and William Plotnikov, during his time there.

According to the staff member, it was Plotnikov who first mentioned Tsarnaev’s name to Russian investigators during an interrogation. That may have been the reason Tsarnaev first came under scrutiny. Both Nidal and Plotnikov were killed in police raids last year.

The students at Briarwood Elementary School in Moore, Okla., were just preparing to go home for the day Monday when the tornado that killed at least 24 people in their town made what authorities call a “direct hit” on their school.

“We had already prepared our backpacks and they had their bear binders and homework folders in their backpacks,” first-grade teacher Sheri Bittle said today on “Good Morning America.  “I had them take their backpacks and put them over their heads.”

In another first-grade classroom at the school, which had its roof and walls blown off in the storm, teacher Cindy Lowe laid her body on top of her students to protect them.

RELATED: How to Help Oklahoma Tornado Victims

“I actually saw the tornado coming and knew how serious it was,” Lowe said on “GMA.”  [I was] just laying my body on top of as many kids as I could to help out.”

Both Lowe and Bittle said a main focus of their heroic actions as the tornado blew over was to calm their students, who, living in a tornado zone, had been through countless tornado drills before.

“We practiced tornado drills and things like this and I had to tell them this is not a drill and we need to be safe,” said Lowe.  “I was just trying to calm the children down.”

PHOTOS: Oklahoma Tornado Levels Towns

Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of Oklahoma City, saw homes wiped away and businesses left in ruins after the tornado whipped through with wind speeds of up to 200 mph.  The medical examiner’s office’s current death toll of 24 includes seven children, some of whom were from Plaza Towers Elementary School, the other elementary school directly in the tornado’s path.

Bittle said the trauma for Briarwood’s students and their parents alike continued long after the tornado had passed as frantic parents, blocked by debris and recovery efforts, tried to reach their children.

“I had a student that stayed with me until 8 p.m. last night because his parents could not get to the location there by the school where we were at,” she said.  “Parents walked for miles just to get to their children. They were out of breath and crying but so happy to see them and just know that they were safe.”

“It was just heartbreaking to see the tears of joy, how happy they were that their child was safe and that they could finally get to them,” Bittle said of the reunions.

Moore resident Andrew Wheeler credits a Briarwood teacher with keeping his son safe as the tornado wreaked havoc on the building as students were preparing for their final days in school before summer vacation.

“The teacher held their heads, and bricks and everything were falling all over the kids. She got her arm injured. One of the other boys on her other side got a big gash in his head, but he’s OK,” Wheeler said.

VIDEO: Tornado Rips Through Moore, Okla.

The IDF's Chief of Staff Benjamin (Benny) Gantz conducted this morning an inspection on the Israeli Syrian border. He was joined by the CO Northern command Maj. Gen Yair Golan and the commander of the "Gaash" division, Brig. Gen. Tamir Heyman. Photo: Alex Marquardt/ABC News

TEL AVIV– The Syrian military said on Tuesday that it fired on an Israeli army jeep in the contested Golan Heights in the early hours of the morning, destroying it.

Israel said the jeep was slightly damaged and there were no casualties, but the incident raised fears that the long-time enemies could soon once again find themselves embroiled in renewed conflict.

Just after 1 a.m., the Israeli vehicle on patrol was fired upon by Syrian forces, both sides reported. Syria said the jeep had crossed the ceasefire line in the mountainous Golan Heights that divides the two countries and was heading to the village of Beer Ajam, on the ceasefire line. Israel said the jeep hadn’t crossed but was near Tal Fares, in the Golan Heights area that Israel captured in the 1967 six-day war.

Israel responded quickly to the Syrian fire with precision Tammuz rockets and “reported a direct hit,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. “Our policy is clear: we do not intervene in what goes on in Syria, or in its civil war,” said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on Israel army radio. “We do not and will not allow any Syrian fire to enter our territory. Last night a Syrian army target was destroyed as a result of such fire.”

Israel and Syria are technically in a state of war, but the border has remained relatively quiet during the four decades of rule by President Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez, before him.

Tuesday’s incident was the latest in a string of cross-border fire coming from Syria that Israel has largely dismissed as an unintentional spillover from the war raging next door between Syrian forces and the rebels. But for the first time in Syria’s two-year civil war, Syria claimed responsibility for the attack on Israel.

“Whoever thinks that he is able to test our strength, alert and readiness to maintain our dignity and sovereignty is mistaken,” the Syrian army’s statement read. The incident comes just days after what Israel said were two mortars from Syria that landed on Mount Hermon in the northernmost part of the occupied Golan Heights.  It was then partially closed to the Israeli public and a group calling itself the “Free Palestine Movement” claimed responsibility for the attack.

Fears that that the war in Syria will spill over and drag in neighboring countries are at their highest point in the 26 months since the uprising in Syria started. Tension between Syria and Israel is particularly high following three Israeli air strikes on Syrian targets in January and May. Israel has sought to tamp down the tension by not confirming or denying the strikes, believed to have been on a research center near Damascus and on shipments of Iranian missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

In response, both Assad and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, warned that a new “resistance front” would be opened in the Golan Heights. “We announce that we stand with the Syrian popular resistance and offer material and spiritual support as well as coordination in order to liberate the Syrian Golan,” said Nasrallah.

“ABC World News” Drawing its Most-Watched Season in 2 Years – Cutting Gaps with “NBC Nightly News” to Smallest Levels in 4 Years, Season-to-Date

For the week of May 13, 2013, “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” averaged 6.67 million Total Viewers and a 1.4 rating/7 share/1.67 million in Adults 25-54, according to Nielsen Media Research.

For the 4th week running, “World News” decreased its week-to-week Adults 25-54 gap with “NBC Nightly News” (-4%, 246,000 vs. 256,000),  delivering its smallest news demo margin with the NBC newscast in 7 weeks - since w/o 3/25/13.

Season-to-date, “World News” has increased its Total Viewing audience (+3%) compared to the same point last season, drawing its most-watched season in 2 years - since the 2010-11 season.  “World News” narrowed its margins with “NBC Nightly News” among both Total Viewers (-25%) and Adults 25-54 (-8%) to post its smallest margins in Total Viewers (792,000) and Adults 25-54 (327,000) with the NBC program in 4 years - since the 2008-09 season.

For the week, “World News” out delivered “CBS Evening News” by 881,000 million Total Viewers and by 143,000 Adults 25-54.

“ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” airs at 6:30 p.m., ET on the ABC Television Network.  Michael Corn is the executive producer of the broadcast. Follow Diane Sawyer and the “World News” team online: @DianeSawyer; @ABCWorldNews; facebook.com/DianeSawyer; facebook.com/WorldNews.  

EVENING NEWS (Week of May 13, 2013)

Source: The Nielsen Company, NTI Total Viewers and Adults 25-54 Live + SD weeks of 5/13/13, 5/6/13 & 5/14/12. Most Current – 2012-2013 Season (9/24/12 – 5/19/13) and 2011-2012 Season (9/19/11 – 5/13/12). All averages based on regular telecasts.

ABC News to Air a Special Edition of “Nightline” Dedicated to Oklahoma Coverage 

ABC News Radio to Broadcast a One-Hour Special Report Tuesday at 7:06 p.m., ET

ABC News continues to provide comprehensive coverage from Oklahoma where a mammoth tornado carved a trail of destruction through the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. ABC News has a team of correspondents and anchors reporting from the scene for all broadcasts and platforms including — ABC News Anchor David Muir, ABC News Weather Editor Sam Champion, Meteorologist Ginger Zee, Chief National Correspondent Byron Pitts, Mike Boettcher, Cecilia Vega, and Alex Perez. Boettcher has covered tornadoes in the Oklahoma area in the past; in May 1999 he reported on the historic EF-5 tornado that killed 42 people in the Oklahoma City area.

All ABC News broadcasts and platforms are delivering the latest information on the ongoing search and rescue operation as well as the stories of those who experienced the devastating tornado. Programming details for Tuesday, May 21 below:

• “World News with Diane Sawyer” will offer a special one-hour edition of the newscast to stations with reporting from ABC’s team of anchors and correspondents in Oklahoma.
• “Nightline” will air a special edition of the broadcast anchored by Cynthia McFadden dedicated to coverage of the aftermath. The program will feature reports the ABC team on the scene.
• ABCNews.com has live updates here: http://abcn.ws/12J1ik0 and live-streaming coverage available at abcnews.go.com/live.
• ABC News Radio Correspondents Steven Portnoy and Jim Ryan are reporting from Oklahoma.  ABC News Radio is providing four one-minute status reports each hour and will broadcast a one-hour special report tonight at 7:06 p.m., ET.
• ABC NewsOne, the network’s affiliate news service, will provide coverage for nearly 200 ABC affiliates, stations and clients throughout the day with Correspondent Marci Gonzalez on the scene.

On Monday night “World News” provided live updates for each time zone with the latest information from the scene in Oklahoma (Watch). In late night ABC News aired a special edition of “Nightline” anchored by Bill Weir dedicated to covering the developing story in Oklahoma (Watch).

For the latest information on ABC’s coverage of this story click here.

(John Bazemore/AP Photo)

A new version of a bill that targets fake war heroes easily passed the House of Representatives late Monday with a 390-3 vote.

The bill, H.R. 258 also known as the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, is the latest attempt by Congress to push through legislation that would punish people who falsely claim to have won military awards, such as the Congressional Medal of Honor, and profit from those lies.

“The awards, and the men and women who have earned them, in some cases posthumously, are worthy of the utmost respect and sanctity,” said Rep. Bill Heck (R-Nev.), who introduced the bill in January. “ Benefiting from lying about receiving one of these awards is an affront to all who have worn the uniform and especially to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.”

READ: Stolen Valor ‘More Than Just Lying,’ SEAL Watchdog Says

The original iteration of the bill, the Stolen Valor Act of 2006, had been in effect for six years before the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional. At the time the law was written to say it was a crime simply to lie about military service and awards – a broad characterization the Supreme Court said violated a person’s First Amendment right to free speech.

A new version of the bill, introduced by Heck in late 2012, narrowed the act to say the liar must be attempting to somehow materially profit from the lies, making the would-be crime more akin to fraud. Heck reintroduced tweaked legislation in January.

It’s companion bill in the Senate, S. 210, was introduced by Sen. Dean Heller (R.-Nev.) in February with 21 bipartisan co-sponsors. That bill has been referred to committee and has not yet seen a vote on the floor.

PHOTOS: Operation Stolen Valor

The new Stolen Valor Act’s sweep through the House comes just a week before the nation’s Memorial Day celebrations, a time when one watchdog said fake military heroes come “out of the woodwork.”

“This is like Christmas for a phony,” former U.S. Navy SEAL Don Shipley told ABC News last Memorial Day.

READ: Memorial Day Outrage: Feds on the Lookout for Fake War Heroes

4:27 p.m.: Speed and strength of the tornado upgraded to a top-of-the-scale EF-5 with winds of at least 200 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

FACT SHEET: The Deadliest Tornadoes in US History

3:53 p.m:  Survey crews find damage in one area equal to an EF5 tornado, according to the National Weather Service.

1:31 p.m.: 38,000 people are without power in areas around Oklahoma City, Gov. Mary Fallin says.

1:30 p.m.:  Total number of missing people still unknown, says Oklahoma governor.

1:21 p.m: “We will overcome. We will rebuild. We will regain our strength,” said Gov. Mary Fallin.

WATCH LIVE: Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin holds press conference.

1:15 p.m.:  FEMA director Craig Fugate is on the ground in Oklahoma, according to White House officials. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will fly there Wednesday.  No decision has been made on when President Obama might tour the damage.

11:58 a.m.: The National Weather Service predicts strong winds and hail for Moore, Okla., potentially complicating search and rescue efforts.

11:50 a.m: The Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office has revised the death toll to 24 people, including nine children.

11:35 a.m.: Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin will hold a press conference at 1 p.m. ET.

11: 30 a.m.:  Oklahoma University Medical Center says it has 85 patients,  50 of whom are children. Injuries range from minor to critical, according to hospital staff.

Teachers carry children away from Briarwood Elementary school after a tornado destroyed the school in south Oklahoma City.

10:10 a.m.: President Obama announces that FEMA search and rescue teams from three states have been ordered to Moore.   “The people of Moore should know their country will remain on the ground, beside them for as long as it takes,” the president said.

10:08 a.m.: “In an instant, neighborhoods were destroyed. Dozens of people lost their lives. Many more were injured and among the victims were young children trying to take shelter in the safest place they knew, their school,” says President Obama.

WATCH LIVE: President Obama addresses the nation about Oklahoma tornado.

9:55 a.m.: State Medical Examiner says confusion over  the number of deaths was the result of double counting victims.  Some 242 people have been treated for injuries, at least 58 of them children, according to authorities.

9:24 a.m.:  Oklahoma Medical Examiner reports 24 people dead, seven of which are children, dramatically lowering the number of people believed to have died in Monday’s tornado. On Monday night,  authorities estimated the number of deaths at 51.

7: 15 a.m.: Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin told “Good Morning America,” “It’s a very sad day in Oklahoma. A lot of hearts have been broken.”

6:43 a.m.: President Obama will deliver a televised statement regarding the Oklahoma tornado at 10 a.m. ET.

6:28 a.m.: Pope Francis tweeted, “I am close to the families of all who died in the Oklahoma tornado, especially those who lost young children. Join me in praying for them.”

5:33 a.m.:McClain County Animal Response Team spokeswoman Patty Mannas told ABC News affiliate KOCO-TV that at least 50 pets have been pulled from the rubble in Moore, Okla

“We’ve already reunited a few animals and animals with microchips have a very, very high percentage of being reunited with their families,” she said.

Steve Gooch/AP Photo

4:20 a.m.: The death toll remains at 51, but the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner said it expects to find about 40 more bodies.

2:50 a.m.: Moore officials tell ABC News the search and rescue operation at Plaza Towers Elementary School is now a recovery effort.

12:50 a.m.: Texas Task Force 1, the state’s elite search and rescue team, has been activated to assist local officials and first responders in Oklahoma. The team, which includes 84 total members, was deployed to New York City following 9/11 and to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was recently deployed to West, Texas, following the explosion of a fertilizer plant.

Monday’s devastating tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., killed at least 51 people, including 20 children, but authorities expect that number to rise. Spokeswoman Amy Elliott of the Oklahoma City Medical Examiner’s office said she believes at least 91 people are dead.

All times indicated in this live blog are in Eastern Daylight Time.

RELATED: Officials Expect Death Toll to Rise After Okla. Twister

PHOTOS: Oklahoma Tornado Levels Towns

VIDEO: 2 Schools Decimated by Oklahoma Twister

RELATED: Live Updates of Tornado Damage in Oklahoma Day 1

Paul Hellstern/The Oklahoman/AP Photo

Among the dead were children from one of two elementary schools in Moore, Okla., that were devastated by the twister, local officials said.

All across the region and the county, organizations are mobilizing to offer aid to the victims of the storm. Read on to see how you can help.

You can support #Moore response & other disasters by txting REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10, or online at redcross.org

— American Red Cross (@RedCross) May 21, 2013

You can help #OKwx efforts – give online at SalvationArmyUSA.org or text “STORM” to 80888 to make $10 donation

— Salvation Army USA (@SalvationArmyUS) May 20, 2013

The University of Oklahoma is opening up spaces in Housing for the displaced families! Call 405-325-2511

— OU Sooners (@UofOklahoma) May 20, 2013

#okwx: Use @redcross Safe & Well mobile safeandwell-mobile.communityos.org & text messaging to check-in with friends & family #tornado

— FEMA (@fema) May 21, 2013

#Tornado #severe storm tools: Shelter map redcross.org/find-help/shel… Register yourself/friend as Safe&Well: redcross.org/safeandwell

— American Red Cross (@RedCross) May 21, 2013

For On Going Live Coverage: Live Updates: Tornado Damage in Oklahoma Day 2

6:43 a.m.

President Obama will deliver a televised statement regarding the Oklahoma tornado at 10 a.m. ET.

6:28 a.m.

Pope Francis tweeted, “I am close to the families of all who died in the Oklahoma tornado, especially those who lost young children. Join me in praying for them.”

5:33 a.m.

McClain County Animal Response Team spokesperson Dr. Patty Mannas told ABC News affiliate KOCO-TV  that at least 50 pets have been pulled from the rubble in Moore, Okla.

“We’ve already reunited a few animals and animals with microchips have a very, very high percentage of being reunited with their families,” she said.

4:20 a.m.

The death toll remains at 51 but the Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner said they expect around 40 more bodies.

2:50 a.m.

Moore officials tell ABC News the search and rescue operation at Plaza Towers Elementary School is now a recovery effort.

12:50 a.m.

Texas Task Force 1, the state’s elite search and rescue team, has been activated to assist local officials and first responders in Oklahoma. The team, which includes 84 total members, was deployed to New York City following 9/11 and to New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It was recently deployed to West, Texas, following the explosion of a fertilizer plant.

11:57 p.m.

President Obama signed a disaster declaration in Oklahoma and ordered federal aid to supplement state and local recovery efforts in the area affected by severe storms and tornadoes.

10:59 p.m.

Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb confirmed to ABC News that at least 3 schools in the state were hit today. Lamb said that it may even be as many as 5 that were hit.

10:42 p.m.

Oklahoma’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed to ABC News that out of the 51 killed, at least 20 are children.  The office said that it does not know how many of the children that were killed were at school at the time. The total number of people killed is expected to rise.

10:30 p.m.

VIDEO: Father Reunited With Son After Oklahoma Tornado

Moore Medical Center released a statement saying that it sustained significant damage during today’s storm. At least 30 patients were there at the time were transported to hospitals in Norman, Okla.

“The Health System has been inundated with patients,” the hospital said in the statement. “So far we have treated 25 patients at that facility, including a 9-year-old girl. Kaileigh Hawkins was at an elementary school that was damaged during the storm. She is doing ok, but her parents are not with her. We are asking for help contacting her parents. Anyone who may be able to contact them should call 405.307.2713.”

Norman Regional Hospital is also treating as many as 35 “walking wounded.” At this time staff and patients at Moore Medical Center have been accounted for.

Those looking for loved ones may call our patient care hotline at 405.307.1366. You will be instructed what to do if your loved one is being treated at any of our facilities.

Paul Hellstern/The Oklahoman/AP Photo

10:15 p.m.

VIDEO: Surviving the Destructive Oklahoma Tornado

The American Red Cross released a statement that it has one shelter open in Moore, Okla., and is working on locating others. The organization said it will continue to operate three shelters that were opened Sunday in the Oklahoma City area following Sunday’s storms.

The organization’s volunteers are out tonight with food and supplies supporting first responders, it said. Over than 25 emergency response vehicles are positioned to move at first light Tuesday morning, and it is expected that the number will increase. The Red Cross is also sending in kitchen support trailers to support the upcoming operation to provide meals to those forced out of their homes.

10 p.m. ET

Statement by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano: “Our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone impacted by the tornadoes and severe weather in Oklahoma, especially the families and loved ones of those killed, injured or missing. As search and rescue efforts continue, this administration – including the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency – will bring all available resources to bear to support state and local emergency management teams and first responders in the affected communities. We encourage the public to listen to direction from state and local officials.”

UPDATED STORY: Children Among at Least 51 Dead in ‘Horrific’ Oklahoma Twister

PHOTOS: Tornados Slam Oklahoma

9:15 p.m. ET

The latest – at a glance:

• Fifty-one confirmed dead by Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office.
• “Confirmed casualties” at Plaza Towers Elementary School, fire chief of Moore, Okla., tells reporters at news conference
• The Associated Press reports 120 injured in various area hospitals, 70 of whom are kids.
• EMS says around 100 patients transported by EMS to area hospitals.
• Moore police chief says search and rescue efforts will continue throughout the night.

9:10 p.m. ET

Officials at news conference confirm unspecified number of casualties at Plaza Towers Elementary School.

WATCH: Gov. Mary Fallin Discusses Tornado at News Conference

8:57 p.m. ET

At least 51 are dead, Oklahoma’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner tells ABC News. Children are among the dead but the medical examiner’s office couldn’t confirm a number.

8:40 p.m. ET

NEW VIDEO: Tornado Rips Through Moore, Okla.

8:20 p.m. ET

In addition to 37 confirmed dead  (according to the Oklahoma Medical Examiner’s Office – see 8:15 p.m. entry), 105 casualties were being treated at area hospitals – 85 at OU Medical Center, 65 of whom were children and 20 of whom were adults.

8:15 p.m. ET

Thirty-seven confirmed dead in Moore, Okla., Medical Examiner’s Office in Oklahoma tells ABC News.

8:10 p.m. ET

New photos:

Moore police dig through the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School following a tornado in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo)

A boy is pulled from beneath a collapsed wall at the Plaza Towers Elementary School following a tornado in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo)

A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo)

Rep. Jim Brindenstine, R-Okla., from the House floor in Washington: “At this time, we don’t know the full extent of the damage and the potential human toll, but we are inspired. We are inspired by those who are sparing no effort to assist their neighbors and even many people that they don’t know.”

8 p.m. ET

The latest – at a glance:

• Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner’s Office tells ABC News at least 10 dead.
• Sixty patients admitted to area hospitals – 10 in a critical condition at Ingris Health Southwest.
• Two schools badly hit – Briarwood Elementary School and Plaza Towers Elementary School.
• Preliminary assessment by National Weather Service puts tornado at EF-4 with winds of up to 200 mph.
• Emergency Management Office says tornado cut a 12 mile swath through an area from Newcastle to Moore, Okla.

7:52 p.m. ET

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, according to ABC News Radio: “We want to do everything we can to search through these damaged areas, especially before it gets dark or before we have any more storms that might come through.”

7:39 p.m. ET

President Obama has told Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin that FEMA stands ready to provide all available assistance as the governor’s team responds to the storm and that he has directed his team to ensure that they are providing available resources as the response unfolds.

“The president has called me,” Fallin confirmed. “He has offered to do anything he can to help with red tape to help with the federal entities. We actually had someone from FEMA that arrived yesterday.”

7:34 p.m. ET

Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, according to ABC News Radio: “Right now, we’re in the search-and-rescue mode. We’re desperately trying to look through the buildings, the homes, the community itself to make sure we can account for people.”

7:32 p.m. ET

“We probably had five tornadoes (not sure about the number),” NOAA spokeswoman Keli Pirtle in Norman, Okla., emails to ABC News.

7:30 p.m. ET

Ten people confirmed dead in wake of tornado, Oklahoma Chief Medical Examiner’s Office says.

7:24 p.m. ET

Red Cross Oklahoma tweets: Please RT: Shelter opening at: St. Andrews Church, SW 119 & S May. Location will also serve as reunification site.

7:23 p.m. ET

Emergency Management Office plans to hold news conference at 8.30 p.m. ET at City Hall in Moore, Okla., with several agencies to be represented.

7:20 p.m. ET

All children at Briarwood Elementary School have been accounted for, first responders on the scene tell ABC News.

7 p.m. ET

Oklahoma Lt. Gov Todd Lamb tells ABC Radio:

“It’s devastating in Moore, Okla. It is absolutely devastating. This is horrific. The ferocity of the tornado. … We’re going to have fatalities. … We’re going to have significant injuries. … We just don’t know what those numbers are. Schools have been hit, a hospital has been hit, businesses have been flattened, neighborhoods have been wiped away. We don’t have the numbers in yet but it is going to be significant and it is going to be horrific.”

6:59 p.m. ET

This photo provided by KFOR-TV shows a car pile-up outside Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (KFOR-TV/AP Photo)

6:56 p.m. ET

This frame grab provided by KWTV shows a tornado in Oklahoma City, May 20, 2013. Television footage shows flattened buildings and fires after a mile-wide tornado moved through the Oklahoma City area. (Courtesy KWTV/AP Photo)

6:45 p.m. ET

A sixth grade student at Briarwood Elementary School told ABC News affiliate KOCO in Oklahoma City that school officials told students to prepare for the tornado.

“I was in my classroom and we were told to get in our tornado precaution systems,” the student, named Brady, told KOCO. “But when they moved us to the boys and girls bathroom, then some kids were not following directions, staying away from under the sinks and stuff, and they got under there and cinder blocks and everything collapsed on them. They were underneath, so that kind of saved them a little bit.

The student’s mother, a teacher at the school, lay over her son during the tornado.

“She was on top of me,” he said. “She was able to be with me.”

The school was full of debris when he finally evacuated, he added.

“It was just debris,” he said. “There was just cars beaten up. My mom was flipping out about her car.”

6:40 p.m. ET

This photo provided by KFOR-TV shows a house fire outside Moore, Okla., May 20, 2013. (KFOR-TV/AP Photo)

6:40 p.m. ET

An elementary school in an Oklahoma City suburb, is shown after it was flattened by a mile-wide a tornado, May 20, 2013. (Courtesy KWTV)

6:35 p.m. ET

Students at Briarwood Elementary School hid in bathrooms as the tornado swept over Moore, Okla., students told ABC News affiliate KOCO.

They were then evacuated to a nearby neighborhood, where parents were being advised to pick up their children. No fatalities have been reported.

At Integris Southwest Medical Center in Oklahoma City, 19 patients came in with injuries from the tornado, including two 6-year-olds and one other child, as well as an 86-year-old and 91-year-old.

Seven patients were in critical condition, seven were in serious condition, and five were in fair or good condition, the hospital said.

Injuries at the hospital ranged from minor lacerations to severe head injuries and abdominal wounds.

6:20 p.m. ET

First responders are combing the homes and buildings of Moore, Okla., for survivors after a mile-wide tornado swept through the town near Oklahoma City this afternoon.

There are not yet reports of fatalities.

The National Weather service said that a preliminary rating of an “E-4″ was given to the tornado, which ripped across Oklahoma today, destroying buildings and injuring dozens of individuals near Oklahoma City.

The National Guard has been activated in the state and was being sent to the Moore area to assist with disaster response.

Moore Medical Center, a 47-bed hospital in the town of Moore, Okla., was in the process of evacuating patients to two other hospitals in Norman, Okla., according to its spokesperson. The second floor of the hospital was ripped off as the tornado swept through Moore.

Schools in Moore did not release students at the end of school today in anticipation of the severe weather, the district said. One school, Briarwood Elementary School, was severely damaged, and the status of its students and faculty was not immediately known.

According to the Great Schools website, there were some 650 students in grades pre-K through 6 enrolled at the school. There are more than 22,000 students enrolled at 29 schools in the district, which has been highly-rated for excellence.

ABC News’ Anthony Castellano, Kevin Dolak, Michael S. James, Colleen Curry, Lauren Effron, Jon Williams, Mary Bruce, Maria Nikias and others contributed to this report.

                                                             (ABC News)

When you see African cheetahs, Chinese red pandas, Micronesian kingfishers and hooded cranes, you might think you’re in the wilds of Africa or Asia.

Watch a kingfisher show off fishing skills.

But in rural northern Virginia, little more than an hour from Washington, D.C., you can find all of those animals at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.

It is home to some of the most endangered animals in the world, including clouded leopards, originally from Thailand.

The institute currently has two clouded leopard cubs, a male and a female, that are a little more than 100 days old.

The population of clouded leopards has been decimated by hunters and poachers who sell their furs. The Smithsonian has bred 80 of the magnificent cats.

“When it comes to all these animals, the one common denominator is loss of habitat,” said Paul Marinari, the biology institute’s senior curator.

Many of the animals at the institute enjoy a level of freedom that is rare in captivity. They are kept in large, open spaces spilling over 3,000 acres. It is a refuge in rural Virginia where some of the world’s most endangered animals are being brought back from the brink of extinction.

Most of the animals come from zoos. Smithsonian researchers study to learn how to breed and rear them in captivity. Some are sent back to zoos but many animals are returned to nature.

The black-footed ferret, one of the most endangered species in North America, had been all but wiped out before a ranch dog found 18 in Wyoming.  Marinari said his team captured the solitary, nocturnal animals and brought them into captivity.

“This is our 25^th year of having black-footed ferrets,” he said. “They were thought to be extinct several times. … This is one species where we actually have the potential very soon to actually downlist and eventually  delist them off the endangered species list.”

The  institute has bred and released nearly 8,000 black-footed ferrets from that first group of 18. The Smithsonian currently has month-old, baby black-footed ferrets. They, too, will be released.

“These guys could end up in Arizona. They could end up in Kansas,” Marinara said. “They will be [back] in the wild.”

Members of a Connecticut high school class of 1943 finally got the prom they should have had 70 years ago, before their senior celebration was interrupted by World War II.

Anthony Pegnataro, the 1943 class president of James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Conn., remembers the attack on Pearl Harbor like it was yesterday. On Dec. 7, 1941, Pegnataro said, he and his friends were skating at an ice rink, with the Tommy Dorsey Band’s “Hawaiian War Chant” playing.

“They stopped the song and announced that the Japanese had just attacked Peal Harbor,” Pegnataro said. “We had never heard of Pearl Harbor.”

Pegnataro said he and his friends went home and heard President Franklin D. Roosevelt announce over the radio that America had entered a state of war.

“From there on we just mustered up, it was like no other experience in my life,” Pegnataro said. “We just wanted to get out there and take care of the Japanese.”

Going to war meant no prom. Pegnataro’s carefree high school life was suddenly halted.

“Most of us graduated to the man and went right into the service,” Pegnataro said. “I graduated in June and was in the Marine Corps in July, and was pretty much the case for most everybody.”

Of the 1,585 students at James Hillhouse High School, the remaining class today estimates between 250 and 300 of their classmates never made it back from war.

Pegnataro, who is now 87, decided that along with their 70-year class reunion, they would also hold that prom they never got to have. Approximately 70 people from around the country came to dance Sunday.

“It was excellent, it marvelous. It was well attended. Everyone there just had a great time,” Pegnataro said. “Those that came figured it might be their last one.”

Pegnataro said he was “proud as punch” to bring his wife of 53 years back to the prom. They met during the war. Pegnataro said the prom proved they’re still the “greatest generation” and that the war brought his class closer together.

“We missed out on the prom that we should have had. And the 70^th reunion was a milestone in our lives,” he said. “We all made it.”

One man’s recent plan to pop the question took an adventurous lesson from “The Little Mermaid,” after he decided to go under the sea.

“I booked a cruise for Christmas. It was a Christmas gift for her,” Joseph House, of Lynchburg, Va., told our “GMA Live!” anchors this morning about his recent proposal. “I wanted a proposal that was going to be something creative that I had never heard of or seen before.”

So House, 23, came up with the idea to tie the ring to his bathing suit using dental floss, and shock the love of his life underwater while she least expected it.

“We were going down to the Caribbean, and Grand Cayman is known for their scuba diving,” he said. “Neither of us had ever gone scuba diving before and it just seemed like a good idea.”

ALSO READ: Stunned Girl Says ‘Yes’ to Live Prom Proposal

House and Jessica Forbes, who have been dating for more than a year, were spending one of their days-in-port scuba diving for hidden treasure. But Forbes had no idea just how precious of a treasure she would uncover.

House took Forbes down to a treasure chest buried in the ocean floor, with a map inside that tracked what he calls, “the course of their relationship.” At the end of the map’s course was a simple question: “So, are you going to marry me or not?”

As tears streamed behind her scuba mask, Forbes said yes, while frantically pointing to her ring finger.

“When we were under water they showed us lots of other figurines in the ocean, and so when they showed us the treasure chest I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool, a treasure chest,’ and kept on swimming,” Forbes, 21, said.

“And then Joey went down to it, and I saw him trip over his flipper as he was getting on his knee, and I saw the ring on the map, and I saw ‘Marry’ and then I just knew.”

ALSO READ: Message-in-a Bottle Proposal Goes Awry

Although Forbes had a slight idea they might be getting engaged while on the cruise, she had given up hope after it didn’t happen on the first day.

“I honestly thought that it was going to be on the cruise,” she said. “But I figured it would be on the first day because he’s really impatient. So after the first day, I wasn’t thinking about it at all anymore because I thought he’ll just do it some other time then.”

The unexpected timing made the underwater surprise that much sweeter.

“You crazy kids, congratulations,” “GMA” news anchor Josh Elliott told the newly engaged couple.

No concrete plans have been made for a wedding date.

“I’m going to finish school first,” Forbes said.

Colorado Springs Fire Department

Firefighters in Colorado more used to pulling frightened cats down from high trees had a change of pace Sunday when a 200-pound bear was found in a tree high above Colorado Springs.

The female black bear made its way into the tree Sunday morning but was not discovered by local residents until around 3 p.m., according to wildlife officials.

READ MORE: Bear Gets Trapped Inside Car, Totals It

The bear’s ascent brought out both Colorado Springs’ firefighters and officers from the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Department. Their first attempt to subdue the bear with a tranquilizer proved unsuccessful, pushing the bear to climb even higher up the tree, according to local ABC affiliate KMGH.

WATCH: Why Are Bears Popping Up Everywhere?

Officers fired a second tranquilizer shot and then watched, joined by a crowd of bewildered residents , and waited until they were sure the bear was fully sedated.

Around 8 p.m., nearly five hours after the bear was first spotted, it was removed from the tree.

READ MORE: Alaska Man Fights Off Bear

Dramatic photos posted to the city’s fire department Twitter account show the bear being lowered by a fire truck ladder, which was required because the bear had climbed so high up the tree.

The bear will be rereleased into the wild but at a location at least 100 miles away from where it was found, wildlife officials said.

READ MORE: The Most Unusual Black Bear Sightings

Accidentally butt dialing someone is embarrassing or inconsequential to most, but for two Fresno, Calif., men, their cell phone mishap landed them in jail.

The call, which went to 911, started like any other call to the police dispatcher, with the operator asking, “What is your emergency?”

But when no one answered, the operator didn’t hang up, instead staying on the line and listening to the pair, who police identified as Nathan Teklemariam and Carson Rinehart, both 20, as they talked about wanting to do drugs. It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to breaking into a car.

“Get the bolt and give me the hammer just in case,” one of the two voices on the phone said.

Shortly after that statement, the dispatcher heard a window shatter and the people on the phone started yelling that they found prescription drugs.

As the two were driving away, police were already in the area searching for the men based on clues that the 911 dispatcher was feeding to them.

The police finally tracked the suspects down and pulled them over. The suspects acted confused and questioned what why they were being pulled over, police said.

“Oh, he’s following me, dog,” one of the suspects said in the recording. “Wow, what the [expletive] did I do?”

As they were being questioned, the suspects allegedly denied any wrongdoing, but after searching the car, police said they found items that allegedly were taken from the burglarized vehicle.

After being cuffed, the suspects were finally told how they were caught.

“This fool really called 911?” one of the suspects said. “Damn.”

“I have never heard of something like this,” Sgt. Jaime Rios of the Fresno Police Department told ABCNews.com. “There have been times where the dispatcher hears something like this, but never has a call come in before a crime being committed and staying on all the way to the end.”

Rios said the suspects are being charged with burglary, conspiracy and possession of stolen property.

(Image Credit: Brennan Linsley/AP Photo)

Colorado’s recently approved gun control laws, passed in response to the Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., massacres, are being challenged by a delegation of sheriffs who say the laws are unconstitutional.

In March, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper signed off on some of the toughest gun control legislation in the country, including a law mandating universal background checks for the purchase of firearms and another restricting the size of high-capacity magazines.

A lawsuit was filed on Friday  in Colorado’s U.S. District Court on behalf of 54 of the state’s sheriffs in an effort to block the laws from taking effect.

“This lawsuit is for your rights and for your safety,” Weld County Sheriff John Cooke said at a news conference on Friday.

“These bills do absolutely nothing to make Colorado a safer place to live, to work, to play or to raise a family. Instead these misguided, unconstitutional bills will have the opposite effect because they greatly restrict the right of decent, law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, their families and their homes,” he said.

All but 10 of the state’s 64 sheriffs, who are elected officials, signed their names to the lawsuit.

Tom Sullivan, who lost his son Alex Sullivan in the Aurora movie theater massacre, told ABC News’ Denver affiliate he didn’t understand the backlash to the laws.

“I do not understand why these politicians are picking guns over people,” he said, “and why they want to make it easier for criminals to get guns and for other families to go through what we did.”

Approximately 60 people were taken to hospitals this evening – five with critical injuries – when a New York-area commuter train derailed near Fairfield, Conn., knocking a second train coming the other way off the tracks, officials said.

Amtrak train service between New York and Boston was suspended indefinitely, as was service on the Metro-North Railroad’s New Haven commuter line in Connecticut, amid an investigation.

Officials said two of four tracks in the area were already out of service for extensive maintenance work on overhead wires, and the other two tracks and overhead wires were damaged during the collision of the Metro-North Railroad commuter trains.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy estimated normal service would not resume until at least Monday.

“These tracks have been torn up,” he told reporters. “There’s been extensive damage.”

(Christian Abraham/The Connecticut Post via AP Photo)

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending a team to investigate the crash, and was to be the lead agency in the investigation.

Local police initially put the number of injured between 20 and 25, but several hours later Malloy said 60 people had been taken to hospitals. Five of those 60 had critical injuries, he said, including one person who was considered “very critical.”

The accident occurred just east of the Fairfield metro station at approximately 6 p.m., when trains heading in opposite directions between New Haven, Conn., and New York’s Grand Central Terminal collided, officials said. The collision occurred after the derailment of the New York-bound train carrying an estimated 300 people. That train hit the other train, carrying an estimated 400 people, knocking it off the tracks.

Rob Oliver, a passenger on board the train that was struck, said he heard “a tremendous amount of metal and just an extremely loud sound.”

“We suddenly were screeching to a stop, but you knew it wasn’t a screech-normal stop … because there was just an awful burning smell and the cabin was filling with smoke,” he said.

He saw people being removed on stretchers with apparent neck or back injuries.

“I know some people breathed in some smoke, including myself, and I’m sure there’s people who have those sorts of [smoke] injuries,” he said. “Other people got injured coming off the train, because it’s a big jump down to the tracks and people were scrambling to get off the tracks as quickly as possible.”

Multiple reports of injuries initially prompted officials to scramble ambulances from all over the region to the site, police said.

The train cars involved were M8s, which were fairly new to the New Haven line.  This was the first serious accident involving the new cars, considered state-of-the-art.

ABC News’ Howard Price contributed to this report.

In comments to Russian media today, a spokesman for Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB (the successor to the KGB), confirmed that Russia had complained to the CIA station chief in Moscow about efforts to recruit Russian officers as spies as far back as 2011. The name of the supposed CIA agent appeared in a quote attributed to the FSB spokesman in a Russian language article by Russia’s Interfax news agency. The man’s identity was removed from the quote in an English language version.

The name could not be immediately confirmed  and it’s unclear if he’s still in the country. A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department said she had not seen the Russian reports.

The exposure comes on the heels of the latest spy scandal between the old Cold War rivals, and despite signs that the Kremlin was prepared to let that incident go.

Earlier in the week, Russia publicized the detention of an American diplomat they insist was really a spy attempting to recruit a Russian security officer as an informant. State-owned television quickly broadcast video of the man’s detention, as well as photos of his supposed spy kit. That kit included a pair of wigs, a map of Moscow, and a compass. It also included a letter instructing the potential spy how to communicate with his handlers.

The alleged spy, Ryan Fogle, is listed as a third secretary in the political section of the US Embassy in Moscow. According to Interfax, Fogle had been placed under surveillance when he arrived in Moscow two years ago, already suspected of being a spy. Interfax also reported that Fogle left the U.S. Embassy on Monday in the back seat of a car and wearing a wig. He changed wigs before going to meet his suspected contact, Interfax reported.

After Fogle’s arrest, Russian authorities revealed that another alleged American diplomat, identified by the Russians as Benjamin Dillon, was caught last December and expelled from the country in January.

Russian news reports have said that Fogle was attempting to recruit a source in the Russian security services with expertise in the North Caucasus, suggesting that he was attempting to gather information as part of the investigation in the Boston bombing suspects, who came from that restive region.

Fogle has been given until Monday to leave the country, according to RIA Novosti.

1. David Beckham announced his retirement from soccer this week. He’s married to Victoria – but what was her name in the Spice Girls?

2. A volcano outside Mexico City has begun erupting, threatening towns 40 miles from the capital. What is it called?

3. Which U.S. company started cross-border take-away deliveries from Egypt into Gaza this week?

4. This weekend, Burma’s President Thein Sein arrives in the United States to meet President Obama. In 1989, the country’s military government changed the country’s name to Myanmar. But what is the name of its capital?

5. The United States took on Iran this week. But in what sport and where?

6. This week the Turkish PM Erdogan visited President Obama at the White House. But what is the name of the Turkish border town where car bombs killed more than 40 people last weekend?

7. What is the name of the U.S. diplomat, detained in Moscow, accused of being an American spy?

8. Britain’s Prince Harry ended his visit to the United States with a game of Polo to raise money for his African charity. What is it called?

9. Which Pakistani politician was elected the country’s new Prime Minister last weekend?

10. Shane Rattenbury was knocked down during a morning jog in Canberra, Australia, on Thursday? But what was it that he collided with?

11. This week the Arctic Council met in Stockholm. Name the other 7 nations that make up the council in addition to Sweden.

12. Tomorrow 125 million people will tune in to watch one of the world’s biggest non-sporting events. What is it?

13. King Juan Carlos has given up what to show solidarity with austerity in Spain?

14. Which former Iranian leader has announced he wants to stand in next month’s election to succeed President Ahmadinejad?

15. The Cannes Film Festival began this week. But what is the name of the prize given to the film voted best movie?

Answers:

1. Posh Spice
2. Popocatepetl
3. KFC
4. Naypyitaw
5. Wresting at Grand Central Terminal
6. Reyhandli
7. Ryan Fogle
8. Sentebale
9. Nawaz Sharif
10. Kangaroo
11. Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Russia & the United States
12. Eurovision Song Contest
13. $27m yacht, Fortuna
14. Rafsanjani
15. Palme D’Or

The Tennessean plays golf four days a week and says he asked God to let him score a hole-in-one for a good cause. Robertson not only got a hole-in-one last month, he shot a hole-in-one three times in 29 days on the same hole.

He’s an Air Force veteran who had a stroke six years ago, which left him blind in one eye.

Robertson says the improbable golf shot wasn’t by chance. He planned it.

“I told God if he let me that win that money, that I’d donate that money to mission work and he let me win it,” Robertson said. “I know it might be hard to believe, but it’s true.”

Robertson’s granddaughter is studying to be a missionary and is leaving Saturday for a mission trip to Indonesia.

Robertson plays in a senior golf league at the Smyrna Golf Course every Tuesday. Two of his hole-in-one shots were during league play, making him the winner of a $500 pot to which 75 seniors contributed.

“After I got the hole in one for the prize money, one of my friends got awfully close to a hole in one, so I decided if they were going to slice up the prize money I wanted a second slice of it,” Robertson said.

He says even after a stroke and five heart-bypass surgeries, he wants to improve his golf game.

“What I’ve been trying to do is smooth out my golf swing. I was reading an article just now about how to get it right and yesterday I broke 80 for the first time since last summer,” Robertson said.

For all of the people who look to him for inspiration, “I tell them that I didn’t do it alone. Faith did it.”

The director of the Smyrna Golf Course, Hal Loflin, told ABC News that he can’t believe Robertson’s accomplishments.

“I’ve never seen anything like it and I’ve been a PGA pro for 23 years,” Loflin said. “I’m jealous and envious because I’ve playing since 13 and never made one.”

Loflin said Robertson is a celebrity on the golf course. The hole where Robertson has hit his multiple hole-in-one shots is a par 3 and roughly 109 yards. Robertson plays off the tee designed for older golfers.

As for another hole-in-one, Robertson says just wait and see.

“I’ve got some more coming,” he said.

With tiger moms, helicopter parents, and permissive and authoritarian models, parenting styles differ as much in the United States as they do in any country.

But can American parents learn something from their counterparts in different parts of the world?

The answer is yes, according to Christine Gross-Loh, author of the recently published book “Parenting Without Borders: Surprising Lessons Parents Around the World Can Teach Us.” The Harvard-educated mother of four traveled to and researched parenting styles in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, Japan, China, Italy and other countries.

American parents may not think they need any lessons. According to a study released in March by the Pew Research Center, moms and dads in the U.S. gave themselves good marks for how they raised their children. Almost 70 percent of parents with children under 18 said they have done a very good job or better. Only 6 percent rated themselves poorly.

In other parts of the world, American parenting styles stand out. When Gross-Loh and her husband were raising their four children in Japan, she noticed something unusual when they were playing in the park.
“I was the only parent following my children around the park and preventing disputes,” she said in an interview with Christiane Amanpour.

Japanese parents allowed their children to get into scrapes, she said, and felt that disagreements were character-building.

“Even though we in America prize independence and autonomy and freedom so much, children in Japan were being raised with a lot more of these qualities,” said Gross-Loh.

Without a doubt, good parenting means being involved in children’s lives. But Gross-Loh’s research led her to conclude that being over-involved is detrimental and undermining.

“We like children who can speak their own minds and give their own opinions and be their own person,” she said. “This is a part of being independent. But there’s a whole other part that I think we’ve been neglecting and that’s the idea of self-reliance and self-responsibility. Those are the sorts of ideas that I see being fostered in other countries that are not being fostered as well by many parents in the U.S. It’s not our fault. We’ve been told that it’s good to look out for our children and help them out.”

One facet in developing independent children seemed counterintuitive: co-sleeping. Gross-Loh pointed to a survey showing that out of 100 countries, the U.S. was the only one in which parents provided a separate sleeping place for their children. In other countries, when little children sleep in the same bed, the same room or nearby the parents, their levels of dependence better matched during day and night.

“The idea is that when you allow children to be dependent in this way when they are babies, then they can more easily move into age-appropriate independence as they get older,” said Gross-Loh. “And research does show that even American children who were co-sleeping with their parents were more independent in different ways.

“Parents who have this 24-hour relationship with their kids, in Japan, for example, were not as reluctant to ask more of their children during the daytime,” Gross-Loh added. “They could carry their own bags, walk to school on their own, do chores around the house. In the U.S., we have this tendency to think there are things they can’t handle during the day, but we ask them to do something different at night.”

Another aspect of self-reliance and independence is safety. But Gross-Loh argued that allowing children to take some risks is actually the best sort of protection to give them, something she saw in Japan and certain European countries.

“That is how they will form the judgments to deal with all sorts of situations,” she said.
Gross-Loh recounted visiting a kindergarten in the German forest and coming across a 5-year-old child whittling on a stick with a knife.

“He had been taught how to do it safely,” she said. “Meanwhile, a lot of children in the U.S. are not even allowed to pick up a stick at the school playground because it might hurt someone.”

Through raising her children abroad and her research, Gross-Loh said she has learned her own lessons for her family.

“For me, I learned that I could be more relaxed about parenting because there’s so many ways to be a good parent,” she said. “And a lot of them involve a lot less involvement than we believe we should be doing.”

But what about lessons that American parents can teach the rest of the world?

“One of the things that was really striking is that we strive to raise tolerant children,” said Gross-Loh. “In a way, it’s necessitated because we live in such a diverse society. But it’s the sort of thing I didn’t see in other cultures.”

(Courtesy Combat Flip Flops)

A member of the elite team that killed Osama bin Laden donated a knife he carried on the historic raid to a charity auction recently, raising $35,400 for the family of another Navy SEAL who perished in a training accident in March.

Mark Owen, the pseudonymous author of “No Easy Day,” which detailed the bin Laden mission, told ABC News he was approached by a friend who was setting up the auction and volunteered to part with the combat knife he’s carried with him on missions for over eight years.

“If there was something I could do, I wanted to be involved,” the former SEAL Team Six member said.

The auction in all raised more than $75,000 for several special operations charities, but the proceeds from the knife sale will specifically go the family of Brett “Shady” Shadle, according to Matthew Griffin, a former Army Ranger who helped organized the event. Shadle, who served in SEAL Team Six with Owen, was killed in late March in a training accident in Arizona.

READ MORE: SEAL Team 6 Member Killed in AZ Training Accident ‘One of the Best’

Owen’s knife, a folding Emerson knife that Owen said was his secondary blade, was one of several items in the charity put on by The Macalan Group along with Combat Flip Flops and Intelligent Waves IW simultaneously online and at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference and Exhibition (SOFIC) hosted this week in Tampa, Florida. The auction began May 1, exactly two years after President Obama announced the death of the al Qaeda leader.

Griffin, the co-founder of Combat Flip Flops, told ABC News that when the bids for the knife jumped in the last minutes of the auction, the audience at SOFIC was ecstatic.

“People were cheering, folks were in tears,” he said.

Griffin said he and the other organizers threw the auction together in just a couple weeks and sought out people like Owen willing to donate items. Since there was no overhead, Griffin said 100 percent of the proceeds will go to the special operations charities.

The winning bidder for the knife has not been identified but will also be presented with a letter of certification from Owen.

Click the links below to find out more about the organizations Griffin said were supported in the auction:

The Green Beret Foundation

The Lead the Way Fund

The Tommy V Foundation

The Station Foundation

The Team 5 Medical Foundation

To learn more about Combat Flip Flops and its work in Afghanistan, CLICK HERE.

Mount Vernon Police Lt. Chris Cammock told ABC News 17-year-old Kalob Tatum entered a McDonald’s with his backpack and violin after school. When he went up to the counter to order a burger, he turned around, and his 100-year-old Czechoslovakian copy of a Stradivarius violin was missing.

“When I saw the violin gone, my heart just dropped,” Tatum told ABC affiliate KOMO News. “I had this feeling that something terrible just happened.”

Tatum has been playing the violin since kindergarten, according to Lt. Cammock. The teen earned a scholarship to perform in New York this summer.

“I got a scholarship to a two-week camp and… I do not have a violin and I don’t have the money to get a new one right now,” Tatum told KOMO.

Officers searched for the violin immediately following the theft.

“On the security video that’s inside the McChevron (McDonald’s there is attached to a Chevron gas station), it showed a young girl who picked up the violin and left the restaurant with her mother,” Cammock said. “By depiction, it looks like the mother would have been aware that her daughter was taking it.”

Officers then took the footage obtained from the store and circulated the girl’s picture.

On Thursday, Cammock says an officer on patrol spotted the mother and daughter walking near one of the schools.

“The officer stopped her, had a conversation with her and asked for the violin,” Cammock said. “The violin was then returned to the victim.”

The mother, who was not identified, faces possible charges of theft, Cammock says.