HOUSTON -- After repeated delays, a military judge pushed forward with the trial of accused Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, scheduling jury selection in July for the case often stalled by Hasan’s legal maneuvering.

Hasan, 42, was most recently scheduled to stand trial in May, but jury selection was delayed after he fired his military lawyers and successfully petitioned the judge to represent himself, promising no further delays. He then requested a three-month delay to prepare.

On Tuesday, Hasan told the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, that he no longer needed extra time, and so instead of ruling on his original request, she set jury selection to start July 9, with opening statements expected no earlier than Aug. 6, according to a statement released by Ft. Hood.

TIMELINE: Ft. Hood shooting

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who worked at the central Texas base, is charged with premeditated murder and attempted murder in connection with the 2009 shooting that left 13 dead and 32...

In the wake of deadly Superstorm Sandy, New York officials have added 600,000 residents to the city's storm evacuation zones, according to maps released Tuesday.

The new designation divides the most endangered areas into six zones with 2.9 million people.

“Over the past six months, we have made remarkable strides in the city’s recovery from Hurricane Sandy, and as part of our review of the administration’s efforts before and after the storm, we have updated and expanded the hurricane evacuation zones that are part of the city’s comprehensive Coastal Storm Plan,” Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway said in a prepared statement.

“The new zones incorporate the best-available data and will help the City to more effectively communicate to those most at risk depending on the characteristics of a particular storm. New Yorkers should go to www.nyc.govor call 311 to find out if their homes or businesses fall within the boundaries of a new city hurricane evacuation...

A disabled woman and her child were beaten and forced to work while in captivity for more than two years, during which they were threatened with pit bulls and large snakes, federal officials in Ohio said Tuesday. They announced three arrests in the case.

“This is a case of modern-day slavery,” Steven M. Dettelbach, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, said at a televised news conference.

Jordie L. Callahan, 26; Jessica L. Hunt, 31; and Daniel J. Brown, also known as D.J. Brown, 33; were arrested Tuesday. The trio are accused of participating in a conspiracy in 2011 and  2012 during which they held a woman and her child in a basement in Ashland, Ohio, about 65 miles from Cleveland. They are charged with forced labor, and Callahan faces an additional count of tampering with a witness, officials said.

The woman, identified only by the initials S.E., managed to free herself in October by stealing a candy bar so she would be taken into custody by authorities.

Accordi...

Imagine if the diggers really do find Jimmy Hoffa.

That's a mental leap some Michigan residents are not quite ready to make, as the Federal Bureau of Investigation goes back to digging on the second day of its search for former Teamsters boss Hoffa, who became labor's version of Amelia Earhart when he disappeared in 1975.

"You're not finding him," one resident tweeted a video of himself saying, as the latest dig site at an Oakland Township field north of Detroit has attracted an array of onlookers and TV crews checking out the search.

Los Angeles Times readers agree: 93% of poll respondents for Monday's story about the never-ending search for Hoffa think the newest search will be similarly fruitless.

Everyone could be wrong, of course, and the discovery of Hoffa's body -- it's always been assumed he was killed -- would prove a huge story and provide presumably a few more answers for one of America's most enduring mysteries: Who killed Jimmy Hoffa?

Previous searches over the years have...

A bicycle-riding bomber who attacked a Times Square military recruitment station may have been involved in two similar unsolved bombings in New York City, the FBI and police said Tuesday as they released video of the suspect and offered $65,000 for information leading to his capture.

The video runs for 7 minutes and 8 seconds and shows the bomber cycling down 7th Avenue through the heart of Times Square at 3:38 a.m. March 8, 2008. When he reaches the Armed Forces Recruiting Station at 43rd Street, he places the bomb near its entrance, lights a fuse, and pedals away.

Despite the hour, several people and cars pass by the station, which is at one of the city's busiest intersections. The bomb explodes about 3:40 a.m., sending a massive white cloud into the sky. Within one minute, a police car swerves into view and stops at the scene. 

Nobody was wounded in the bombing, which broke windows and damaged walls. But officials said the blast -- built using ammunition commonly found on the...

WASHINGTON -- In the late 19th century and early 20th century, black troopers called the "Buffalo Soldiers" patrolled Yosemite and Sequoia national parks in California. But many visitors to the national parks are unaware of the role played by these troops.

A House-approved bill seeks to change that, requiring a study on ways to highlight the Buffalo Soldiers’ contributions to the parks.

Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough), who sponsored the measure, said it would call attention to an often-overlooked chapter in the nation’s history and enhance the parks experience for millions of visitors.

"These cavalry troops rode hundreds of miles from their post at the Presidio of San Francisco to Sequoia and Yosemite national parks in order to patrol and protect them," Peggy O’Dell, deputy director of operations for the National Park Service, said at a Senate hearing earlier this year on a similar bill awaiting action in the Senate. "The journey across the state took 16 days of...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court decided 2-1 on Tuesday to uphold an Arizona law that denies bail to immigrants who entered or remain in the country without documentation if they are arrested in connection with a felony.

The ruling by the U.S. 9thCircuit Court of Appeals upheld Arizona’s Proposition 100, a ballot measure passed 78% to 22% in 2006 to create bail exceptions for immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Two immigrants who were denied bail challenged the law in a class-action lawsuit. One of the immigrants was arrested for a drug offense, the other for assault, kidnapping and aiding a criminal syndicate.

“Because Proposition 100 is reasonably related to the legitimate goal of controlling flight risk, we hold that it is not excessive in violation of substantive due process under the Constitution of the United States," Judge Richard C. Tallman, a Clinton appointee, wrote for the court.

Judge Raymond C. Fisher, also a Clinton appointee, dissented, arguing the...

Six months after a lone gunman invaded a Connecticut elementary school and shot 20 children and six adults to death, the massacre in Newtown remains the symbol most often used by gun control advocates to push for tougher laws.

But for some, like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a former and likely future presidential candidate, it may also be a business opportunity.

Perry this week toured gun manufacturers in Connecticut as part of a five-day swing through the Northeast touting his state’s pro-business tax and regulatory policies in the hope of wooing jobs down to the Lone Star State. Along with gun manufacturers, Perry told reporters during a brief news conference Monday night that he has also spoken to financial and pharmaceutical industries about moving to Texas.

“Are your tax policies really in the best interest of your job creators?” Perry asked after meeting with corporate executives in Hartford. “Is your regulatory climate one of which really allows your citizens...

NEW YORK -- It's widely known that former New York Mayor Ed Koch planned every detail of his funeral and burial, and for good reason. The one thing he couldn't oversee -- the final etchings on his tombstone -- is wrong.

If he were alive to see it, Koch might laugh at the mistake. After all, it shaved 18 years off the age of the 88-year-old Koch, who died of congestive heart failure in February. 

The tombstone at Koch's grave in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan lists the three-term mayor's birthdate as Dec. 12, 1942, instead of Dec. 12, 1924, a mistake first reported Monday by NBC News in New York. 

"You could call it a grave mistake," the news anchor said in introducing the segment. According to that report, Koch's former chief of staff, Diane Coffey, and other close associates had been alerted to the error by the Trinity Church cemetery. 

"We were appalled to hear it had been transposed," Coffey said of the incorrect birthdate.

Everything else on the tombstone, which Koch...

BOSTON — Former hit man John Martorano has described more killings as he testifies for a second day Tuesday in the racketeering trial of James "Whitey" Bulger in Boston.

On Tuesday, Martorano gave chilling details about murders he committed after they were ordered by Bulger and his partner, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi. He also described a 1975 killing he said Bulger and Flemmi did themselves.

Martorano, who served 12 years in prison after he admitted killing 20 people, said Bulger and Flemmi shot Edward Connors in a phone booth because they were afraid he would tie them to the 1973 killing of a Bulger rival.

PHOTOS: The hunt for James "Whitey" Bulger

The 83-year-old Bulger is charged in a racketeering indictment with participating in 19 killings.

On Monday, Martorano first took the stand to testify against Bulger, a man with whom he was once so close he named his youngest son after him.

He said he was heartbroken when he learned in the late 1990s that Bulger and Flemmi had been...

Jimmy Hoffa, arguably America's missingest man, gets another dig.

Federal investigators, armed with shovels and a warrant, swarmed a field in Oakland Township outside Detroit on Monday in search of the body of the former Teamsters boss after yet another tip in the decades-long investigation.

And again, officials are optimistic that, this time, they'll find him.

On July 30, 1975, Hoffa, a famed union leader with mob ties, left the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Township, Mich., and was never seen again.

At various times, officials have scoured an organized-crime-controlled sanitation company, landfills, construction projects, a horse barn (which the searchers knocked down), a swimming pool and a driveway.

What happened to Hoffa has become one of America's most enduring questions -- to the point that his name has outlasted some of the institutions associated with his disappearance.

For years, pranksters phoned the Machus Red Fox asking the wait staff to page Hoffa, but then the...