Obama Visits Scorched Colorado Town

President Obama visited the wildfire-ravaged landscape in the foothills of Colorado Springs today, calling it a "major disaster," and pledged to release federal funding to the counties affected.

"The devastation is enormous," Obama said. "This community is obviously heartbroken."

The Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs, now considered the most destructive in the state's history, has devoured 346 homes and killed at least two people.

The president traveled through the Mountain Shadows subdivision of Colorado Springs today, where many of the homes have been burnt to the ground. During his three-hour visit to the state, he also met with firefighters, first reponders and evacuees.

More than 16,000 acres have been destroyed since the blaze started Saturday. Only 15 percent of the fire has been contained.

There was some good news today, though. After several days of severe heat and high winds that fueled the flames, weather conditions were expected to improve and cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy were allowed to return to their campus.

The Air Force announced this afteroon that it would activate all eight of its C-130s Saturday to spread fire retardant on the area. Just four had been used this week.

The Air Force said it had not used all eight of its firefighting planes since 2008.

"It's like someone just took their thumb and smudged each house out," said resident Glenn Scott.

Rich Dunagan said his home was among 20,000 structures still in harm's way.

"It's an ominous feeling and beauty to see fire threatening what you've come to know and enjoy, and frankly take for granted," Dunagan said.

The cause of the fire is unclear but officials will investigate to determine whether arson played a role, El Paso County Undersheriff Paula Presley told ABC News in an exclusive interview.

"It's really important that they [firefighters] get to the point of origin before we can ever get to that determination," Presley said.

Click here to read the entire exclusive interview with Undersheriff Paula Presley.

"Anytime we have a fire of undetermined origin, we're going to treat it as arson. ... To ensure that it is thoroughly investigated and we get to the point of origin and make sure that either rule out arson, or determine that it is arson," Presley said.

The investigation will have to wait, though, until the fire is under control.

"This in many ways is a type of terrorism where somebody is trying to destroy an entire city, essentially," Presley said. "I'm a native here. I've never seen anything like this."

Aerial photos revealed the scope of the devastation.

Tempers flared among anxious residents waiting to find out the fate of their homes and some fought with officials to check on their homes to see if anything was salvageable.

"You don't have the authority to tell me I can't go back into my house," one angry homeowner said. "I looked this up. I'm not flying off the cuff here. I have rights as a property owner."

Evacuees were called to a meeting at the University of Colorado campus. Anne Marie Borrego of the Red Cross said a list was passed around with the homes that were damaged or destroyed.

"It was a really tough meeting," Borrego said. "I kept thinking to myself how difficult it must be to wait for that list to actually be handed out to look for your own address and see if it was on it."

Police continue to guard evacuated areas after two arrests were made for looting.

ABC News' Mary Bruce, ABC News Denver affiliate 7 News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Peter Madoff Pleads Guilty in Brother Bernie's Scheme

Peter Madoff, the younger brother of Bernard Madoff, was has pleaded guilty to securities fraud related to his brother's infamous Ponzi scheme and will serve 10 years in prison.

"The Madoff investment empire, built on a foundation of deceit, was a house of cards that grew to skyscraper proportions. As Peter Madoff has admitted today, he was one of the chief architects," FBI Assistant Director Janice Fedarcyk said. "Peter Madoff played an essential enabling role in the largest investment fraud in U.S. history. He made a pretense of compliance; he was really about complicity."

A former Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC chief compliance officer, the 66-year-old agreed to forfeit $143.1 billion, which represents every penny prosecutors believe passed through the firm during the time of the conspiracy. He helped run the firm for nearly 40 years, since 1965. His older brother Bernie is already serving 150 years in prison for a laundry list of financial crimes.

The younger Madoff told the court he was in "total shock" when he learned of his brother's fraud.

"I was shocked and devastated but nevertheless I did as my brother had said, as I had consistently done for decades," he said, apparently reading from a prepared statement. "I knew that the conduct was wrong and I am deeply ashamed."

"My family was torn apart as a result of my brother's atrocious conduct," he said. "I was reviled by strangers as well as friends who assumed that I knew about the Ponzi scheme."

Peter Madoff is the eighth person to plead guilty in connection with the four-year probe into the fraud scheme, in which $20 billion vanished, costing many investors their life savings.

"Peter Madoff enabled the largest fraud in human history. He will now be jailed well into old age, and he will forfeit virtually every penny he has," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said. "We are not yet finished calling to account everyone responsible for the epic fraud of Bernard Madoff and the epic pain of his many victims."

Click here to return to The Blotter homepage.

As part of the forfeiture agreement, Peter's wife Marion and daughter Shana are required to forfeit their assets. Marion must sell the couple's homes in New York, but is allowed to keep $772,000 to live on.

ABC News' Erin Galloway and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Zimmerman's Dad: Pleading Voice Is His Son

George Zimmerman's father listened to frantic howls for help overheard in a 911 call today and told a Florida courtroom that the voice "was absolutely George's."

Zimmerman's father, Robert Zimmerman, took the stand during a bail hearing for his son. Zimmerman is charged with second degree murder in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.

Both the father and the son appeared in court with the distinct outline of bullet proof vests beneath their suits.

The judge did not immediately rule on Zimmerman's request to be let out on bond.

During the hearing, Zimmerman's lawyer Mark O'Mara played a tape of a 911 call in which a woman tells police that someone is yelling and she thinks they are calling for help. In the background of the call can be heard frantic screams for help, at least 14 calls for help in a 40 second period.

The howls stop and the woman tells the 911 dispatcher that she just heard a shot.

Robert Zimmerman listened to the tape with the rest of the courtroom and was then asked if he could identify the voice calling for help.

"It was definitely George's," the father said.

Listen to the 911 Call That Includes Pleas for Help

The parents of Trayvon Martin insist that the voice calling for help that their son.

Earlier in the hearing, a member of a Sanford, Fla., ambulance crew told a court that Zimmerman's head, including his moustache and beard, were covered in blood after the shooting of Martin.

EMT Kevin O'Rourke testified during Zimmerman's bond hearing this morning that "45 percent" of Zimmerman's head had blood on it and that the lacerations on Zimmerman's head "would probably need stitches."

O'Rourke also testified that Zimmerman's nose was broken and urged him to see a doctor within 24 hours.

The EMT examined Zimmerman after having checked on Martin, who had died after being shot by Zimmerman.

Zimmerman, 28, has said that he shot the unarmed teenager after being knocked down, having his head banged on the pavement and then believing that Martin was going for Zimmerman's handgun.

Zimmerman's lawyers today tried to establish that their client might have thought he had suffered a "life-threatening injury."

In addition, a forensic accountant for the defense, Adam Magill, walked the court through the donations to Zimmerman's legal defense fund.

Under cross examination, however, accountant Adam Magill testified that Zimmerman and his wife had shifted about $132,000 between four accounts, often transferring sums of $9,999. Transfers of $10,000 or more are required to be noted by banks and a prosecutor suggested it was intended "to make it look like he didn't have the money."

Zimmerman hopes a judge will agree to let him out of jail today. The judge revoked Zimmerman's $150,000 bond earlier this month when prosecutors told the judge Zimmerman and his wife misled the court about how much money they had.

He appeared in court today without the shackles he wore in his last appearance, but the outlines of a bullet proof vest under his gray suit was clearly visible. He faces the prospect of a prolonged stay in jail if his plea to get out on bond is rejected.

Also present was the family of Trayvon Martin.

It is Zimmerman's second appearance before Circuit Court Judge Kenneth Lester . During the last one on April 20 he sat stone faced as his wife brazenly lied to the court about the Zimmerman's finances.

Top Court: You Can Lie About Military Service

The Supreme Court struck down the Stolen Valor Act today, saying that the First Amendment defends a person's right to lie -- even if that person is lying about awards and medals won through military service.

The case started in 2007 when California man Xavier Alvarez was convicted under the Stolen Valor Act of 2006 -- federal legislation that made it illegal for people to claim to have won or to wear military medals or ribbons they did not earn. Alvarez had publicly claimed to have won the country's highest military award, the Medal of Honor, but was later revealed to have never served in the military at all.

WATCH: Supreme Court Looks at Stolen Valor Act

Alvarez was sentenced to three years probation, a $5,000 fine and community service, but he and his lawyer appealed the decision, saying that the Stolen Valor Act is unconstitutional -- essentially that it violates a person's right to lie.

"The Stolen Valor Act criminalizes pure speech in the form of bare falsity, a mere telling of a lie," Alvarez's attorney, Jonathan Libby said in February. "It doesn't matter whether the lie was told in a public meeting or in a private conversation with a friend or family member."

An appeals court agreed and called the Stolen Valor Act "facially unconstitutional."

In its argument before the Supreme Court, the government said that such specific lies fall under a special category of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment -- when the speech could do harm.

"False claims make the public skeptical of all claims to have received awards, and they inhibit the government's efforts to ensure that the armed services and the public perceive awards as going only to the most deserving few," the government said.

VOTE: Protecting Medal of Honor Imposters, What's Your Verdict?

In its 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court justices said today that as written, the act is too broad and ignores whether the liar is trying to materially gain anything through his or her false statement, which would be more akin to fraud.

"The Act by its plain terms applies to a false statement made at any time, in any place, to any person," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his written opinion. "' [T]he sweeping, quite unprecedented reach of the statute puts it in conflict with the First Amendment. Here the lie was made in a public meeting, but the statute would apply with equal force to personal, whispered con¬versations within a home."

"Permitting the government to decree this speech to be a criminal offense, whether shouted from the rooftops or made in a barely audible whisper, would endorse govern¬ment authority to compile a list of subjects about which false statements are punishable," he said.

According to several veterans well acquainted with false war stories, claiming you're a medal-winner can be "more than just lying."

"It's not the barroom loudmouth that anyone is interested in," said Don Shipley, a former SEAL who has been given unique access to the SEAL personnel database so he can root out fakers. "People tend to believe what they're told, they use that... They do an awful lot of damage."

Brandon Webb, another former SEAL and founder of the special operations website SOFREP.com, agreed with Shipley that the law was important for going after more than the occasional barstool liar.

Supreme Court Health Care Ruling: The Mandate Can Stay

In a landmark ruling with wide-ranging implications, the Supreme Court today upheld the so-called individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, the key part of President Obama's signature health care law.

The court ruled 5 to 4, wiith Chief Justice John Roberts siding with the majority, that the mandate is unconstitutional under the Constitution's commerce clause, but it can stay as part of Congress's power under a taxing clause. The court said that the government will be allowed to tax people for not having health insurance.

"The Affordable Care Act's requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling. "Because the Constitution permits such a tax, it is not our role to forbid it, or to pass upon its wisdom or fairness."

In a speech today, Obama said from the White House that he wanted to move on, even as House Republicans vowed to vote symbolically to repeal it, and as his main opponent argued that the best way to ditch the law is to kick Obama out of office.

"The highest court in the land has now spoken," Obama said. "We will continue to implement this law. And we will continue to improve on it where we can."

Obama insisted that the debate over the political benefits from the court's ruling "completely misses the point."

"It should be pretty clear by now that I didn't do this because it was good politics," he said. "I did it because I believed it was good for the country."

The ruling is a clear victory for the Obama administration and a defeat for Republicans, who had anticipated that at least some of the law would be struck down. But it also means the debate will continue.

"It actually settles nothing. By shifting the debate to the tax arena, and with a four-justice dissent, the decision guarantees only that the broader fight over a suitable national health policy will continue," said Richard Saltman, a professor at the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. "In effect, the court decided this was too hot to handle. The focus will (has already) shift back to the political arena, where a deeply divided electorate will have to decide which policy path they want the country to pursue."

The court's ruling upholding the main part of Obama's law means that people must buy health insurance or pay a tax up to several thousand dollars a year. Other popular provisions of the law will stay, including:

-- If you are under 26, you can get health insurance from the plan your parents use. -- If you're on Medicare, you can get free mammograms. -- If you have what's called a pre-existing condition, you can get health insurance. -- Insurance companies can't deny you coverage even if you get sick or make a mistake on your health insurance application.

Watch: Obamacare ruling is bad law, says Mitt Romney.

The vote from the high court was five to four. Roberts, who was appointed by George W. Bush, joined the more liberal four justices in upholding the mandate. Justice Anthony Kennedy was thought to be the swing vote, but he sided with the conservative bloc.

"Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in section 5000 A under the taxing power and that section 5000 a need not be read to do more than impose a tax," Roberts wrote.

Read the court's full decision.

Pundits sailed off statements all morning espousing their views. From supporters:

"By authoring an opinion joined by the more liberal justices, upholding the so called individual mandate, Chief Justice Roberts has helped to strengthen the American Public's faith in the Court as an impartial institution of Justice," said Elizabeth Wydra, the chief counsel to the Constitutional Accountability Center, who supports the law. "The court today has affirmed the federal government's constitutional power to provide national solutions to national problems."

From the opposition: "I am disappointed with today's Supreme Court decision because the court has cleared the way for what looks like a very broad use of the tax power. But we can still be very thankful that the court has defended the contours of the commerce clause," said Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network.

Reading the dissent from the bench, Kennedy said the Affordable Care Act is invalid in its entirety."

"It is true that if an individual does not purchase insurance, he or she affects the insurance market to a degree," he said. "But the Government's theory would make one's mere existence the basis for federal regulation. There would be no structural limit on the power of Congress. As a result, the Government's theory would change the relation between the citizens and the Federal Government in a fundamental way."

Lyle Denniston, a Supreme Court expert who writes on the influential Scotus Blog, noted that the White House's main argument failed -- but that its Plan B case won out.

"Essentially, a majority of the court has accepted the Administration's backup argument that, as Roberts put it, 'the mandate can be regarded as establishing a condition -- not owning health insurance -- that triggers a tax -- the required payment to IRS,'" he wrote. "Actually, this was the Administration's second backup argument: first argument was Commerce Clause, second was Necessary and Proper Clause, and third was as a tax. The third argument won."

The ruling has immediate effects on the presidential race. Obama has called his health care law "the right thing to do," even as polling has determined that the law is unpopular. Mitt Romney, meanwhile, had vowed to repeal "ObamaCare" as soon as he became president, despite championing remarkably similar legislation as the governor of Massachusetts.

Even Karl Rove, the GOP uber-strategist who founded an outside spending group to defeat Obama in 2012, said the ruling helps Obama.

"If this is actually the decision, it's a boost for the president, but it doesn't make the controversy go away," Rove said on Fox News. "In fact, it probably enhances the controversy."

Reacting two hours after the ruling was handed down, Romney repeated his pledge to repeal the law on the first day of his would-be presidency.

"If we want to get rid of ObamaCare, we're going to have to replace President Obama," he said.

Obama was expected to make a statement within the hour.

While just 36 percent of people in the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll had a favorable opinion of the health law, a similarly low number of people ' 39 percent ' had a favorable opinion of the health care system as it stands now. And while the GOP has trumpeted polling that shows Americans unsatisfied with the law as a whole, the White House has boasted of surveys that show that people are warmer to individual parts of the law, like letting young adults stay on their parents' plans until they're 26 and barring insurers from denying coverage to people with so-called pre-existing conditions.

House Holds AG in Contempt of Congress

After a bitter partisan debate today, the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding certain documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-walking operation.

Led by Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, 108 Democrats skipped the vote, storming out of the chamber in protest.

The measure passed 255-67, with one member voting 'present.' Seventeen of the Democrats who didn't walk out voted with the Republican majority to hold Holder in contempt of Congress. Two Republicans, Reps. Steven LaTourette of Ohio and Scott Rigell of Virginia, opposed the resolution.

What 'Contempt of Congress' Means

The vote marks the first time in the history of Congress that it has found a sitting U.S. attorney general in contempt of Congress.

Read More About Obama's Attempted Intervention in the Contempt Proceedings

What happens to Holder next? If Congress wants to impeach him, ABC's Matt Negrin reported last week, it will have to go through the Justice Department, which holder leads.

The Justice Department isn't compelled to prosecute the attorney general, according to a Reagan-era memo from the Office of Legal Counsel. Peter Shane, an expert of executive privilege at Ohio State, noted that this could lead to a standoff between Congress and the agency.

Later Thursday, the House voted on a second civil contempt resolution, which authorized the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to initiate or intervene in judicial proceedings to enforce its subpoena.

Attempts ' And Failures ' At Compromise

Congressional GOP sources say the Oversight and Government Reform committee will now work with the House general counsel to pursue the case in federal court and ultimately compel Holder to hand over the documents.

 'We are still fighting for the truth and accountability ' for the family of murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, for whistleblowers who have faced retaliation, and for countless victims of Operation Fast and Furious in Mexico,' Rep. Darrell Issa, the chairman of the committee, said in a statement after the vote.  'Unless President Obama relents to this bipartisan call for transparency and an end to the cover-up, our fight will move to the courts where we will prevail in getting the documents that the Justice Department and President Obama's flawed assertion of executive privilege have denied the American people.' 

Get more pure politics at ABC News.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

Nora Ephron, Remembered by Cynthia McFadden

Nora Ephron in 2006. Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post/Getty Images

It never occurred to me that Nora Ephron could die.  But she did, yesterday.

She didn't seem the type.  She was such a constant, such a  North Star, such a force of nature that the idea she might not be around explaining and cajoling those of us who counted on her just doesn't seem real.

I knew her for 25 years.  And that was nothing.  She had lots of friends who'd taken the whole ride with her, from the early days in Washington, to the New York Post to Hollywood and back again.

People have asked all day, 'What was she really like?'  Well, what she was really like is like no other.  She was a woman who talked with knowledge and insight about such a wide range of topics you had to pay attention not to be left in the dust.   She loved to talk about politics and trials and once in a while, Hollywood.  She loved to gossip.  She loved beauty products and shoes and anything having to do with good food.   And just for the record,  it seemed to me she remembered everything, unlike her claim in print.

I was in a lunch group with her.   We call ourselves ' lest anyone else does ' 'The Harpies.'   It's a swell group of women, all of whom have plenty to say.  Many of the names you'd know.  We frequently find that we are all talking at the same time, but when Nora spoke we hushed ourselves and listened up.   No one wanted to miss a word.

She was known for her humor as both a writer and director.   In person she was funny, too.  Not the yuck-yuck kind of funny but a wry, slow-burning humor, sometimes tinged with honey, sometimes vinegar.   She had what used to be known as wit, an ability to capture the essence of a situation and its inherent truth.   And of course, in a very few words, she'd nail it.

Lesley Stahl and I host a talk show in Sirius Radio on Wednesdays and Nora appeared a couple of times in the  last year.   She was a great guest.   We knew when Nora was on the set we could sit back and relax.   I asked her one day what she'd learned from failure.  'Failure is overrated, ' she sighed.   'Everybody always says, 'I learned so much from my mistakes.'  Rubbish.  What I learned is I don't like failing.'  She paused.  'I guess I did learn that if you can survive three days everybody else has forgotten about your failure.'   See what I mean?

As she got older she had plenty to say about women and aging, famously making fun of her neck and many other features.  Her book, 'I Feel Bad About My Neck,' was a winner.   Actually,  I rarely saw her neck (she was prone to wearing scarves) but my glimpse of it suggested it was actually a pretty nice neck, willing to stick itself out with abandon.

She was famous for her one-liners.  Many have compared her to Dorothy Parker.   Only nicer.   Here are a few favorites of mine:

'Marriages come and go, divorce is forever.'

Or how about, 'In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind.'

Here's a good one: 'If pregnancy were a book they would cut out the last two chapters.'  Amen, sister.

Another favorite: 'Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was 26.  If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you are 34.'

Well, you get the idea.   I wasn't taking notes at lunch, of course, but I am sure if I had been I could give you dozens more.  Stuff  just poured out of her.  Her delivery was part of the appeal.  She always said stuff as if she had no idea it were funny.  She always played it totally straight.  It must had something to do with having gone to Beverly Hills High.  She got that drama is not dramatic.

But of all the insights, my favorite has to be this one:  'Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.'  She lived that one.  And made it look great.  Neck and all.

Google Nexus 7 Tablet: First Impression

Image credit: Joanna Stern / ABC News

It's not the iPad Google is trying to kill with the Nexus 7, it's the Kindle Fire.

Like the Kindle Fire, the Nexus 7 is priced at $199, has a 7-inch display, and, perhaps more importantly, is focused on content consumption. But can it put out Amazon's Fire?

At first blush, I'd say so. The 7-inch, 1280 x 800 IPS screen is crisper and brighter than the one on the Fire. On top of that it is more comfortable to hold; the rubberized back is easy to grip and the curved edges make it more comfortable than the Fire's squared-off ones. It also feels a bit lighter in one hand. And yes, like the Fire, you can even fit it into your back pocket.

The tablet also feels faster than Amazon's, which makes sense since it has a faster quad-core Tegra 3 processor and 1GB of RAM. The Fire, in comparison, has a dual-core processor and 512MB of RAM. Scrolling on the tablet is very smooth and watching a YouTube video over WiFi was extremely fluid. Both tablets lack rear cameras, though the Nexus 7 has a front-facing camera for video chatting.

Back of the Nexus 7. Image credit: Joanna Stern/ ABC News

It's not really a specification or hardware war between the two, though: it's a software and media content feud.

Jelly Bean ' the nickname for the new Android 4.1 operating system ' sails along on the tablet and the new notification tray and Chrome browser are very nice additions. But Google made a big push at the announcement today about its Google Play store and how the device was built for reading magazines, watching TV or video, and playing games. I can attest that videos on the screen look great and magazines, like Men's Fitness, are visually appealing. But Google simply doesn't provide the same selection as Amazon; I came up empty handed when looking for US Weekly and People Magazine. (Don't judge me on my magazine choices.)

The same goes for TV shows. No 'Glee.' No 'Gossip Girl.' (Both are available on the Kindle Fire.)  Of course, you can download Amazon's Kindle app or music app for the Nexus from the Google Play App store, but there isn't a movie or video option.

And apps is the last place the two compete. While Google has a fully stocked Google Play store with lots of apps, many of them haven't been optimized for larger screens. (Flipboard told me a couple of weeks ago it didn't see a major market demand yet for Android tablets and was waiting to see if it should develop and Android tablet app.)

Google's own Currents app is exactly the type of app there should be more of for Android tablets, but it's one of the few examples of nice apps for Android tablets. While phone apps look fine on the 7-inch screen, the app experience cannot compare to what you get on the iPad. Apple's tablet continues to provide the best tablet apps; they've been designed with the larger screen in mind and have nicer interfaces.

But, as I said, the Nexus 7 isn't trying to kill the iPad, it's after the Fire. And for now, I'd give your $199 to Google if you're not committed to Amazon.

TV Reporter Loses Her Smile after a Bell's Palsy Attack

It was a terrifying moment for Mary King. On June 1, sitting on the runway in Charlotte, N.C., on a plane bound for Baltimore where she planned to celebrate her upcoming wedding with friends, the 25-year-old television reporter realized she couldn't rub her lips together. Then, she couldn't move the right side of her face or blink her right eye.

She paged the flight attendant for help, and a doctor on board the plane said King had better get to a hospital. The pilot took the plane back to the airport, and King's father rushed her to the nearest emergency room.

King feared she was having a stroke, but the doctor had an even more unexpected diagnosis: she had Bell's palsy.

When King finally looked at her face in the mirror at the hospital, she said she felt a wave of despair: The right side of it was frozen, her eye was unblinking and the side of her mouth drooped, even when she tried to smile.

"All of a sudden it hits you how different you look," she said. "I kept thinking, What if I still look like this on my wedding day?"

People with Bell's palsy aren't typically stricken for life, but recovery can take weeks to months. The condition, a temporary facial paralysis, strikes when the seventh cranial nerve, the tiny nerve controlling the face, gets inflamed or damaged, perhaps from some kind of trauma or viruses such as Epstein Barr or the varicella zoster virus, the virus that causes chicken pox and shingles.

Health Care Law Lacks Support, So Does Status Quo

Yuri Gripas/AFP/Getty Images

Americans are equally dissatisfied with the current health care system and with the federal law intended to improve it ' suggesting that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on that law will by no means end the country's sharp political debate over health care policy.

Just 36 percent in this ABC News/Washington Post poll express a favorable opinion of the health care law under Supreme Court review. But ratings of the health care system as it currently stands are about as weak, 39 percent favorable. That means that while the intended fix is unpopular, so is the status quo ' leaving the public still in search of solutions.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

One key challenge is that while Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the system overall, vastly more ' 75 percent ' rate their own quality of care favorably. The difficulty thus remains where it's been all along: Forging solutions to the current system's problems that don't leave people fearing they'll lose what many see as their own good quality of care now.

The high court's ruling on the health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as the ACA, is expected Thursday. While the law's popularity is weak, barely more than half, 52 percent, see it unfavorably, including 38 percent who have a 'strongly' unfavorable opinion. With key provisions yet to take effect, 12 percent are undecided.

Other polling has indicated that a variety of aspects of the ACA are broadly popular ' but that these are outweighed by the unpopularity of the so-called individual mandate, requiring nearly all adults to purchase insurance or pay a fine.

Another difficulty for proponents of the ACA is that dissatisfaction with the health care system now, or with current care, doesn't boost support for the new law. Among people who rate the current system unfavorably, just 35 percent have a favorable opinion of the ACA. And among those who give a negative review to their own care, the ACA's popular with just 32 percent.

Still, while the ACA is not popular, an ABC/Post poll in May found weak support for Mitt Romney's call to repeal it ' a 40-40 percent division in favorable vs. unfavorable views. And in another measure, in April, just 38 percent said the Supreme Court should reject the law in its entirety. Twenty-five percent wanted it entirely upheld; 29 percent said it should be upheld in part, rejected in part.

POLITICAL LINES ' This poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds sharp political differences, with the ACA seen favorably by 59 percent of Democrats, falling sharply to 36 percent of independents and just 14 percent of Republicans. Ideological divisions are similar, with liberals nearly three times more supportive of the law than are conservatives.

Divisions on the current health care system are more muted. Republicans divide, 47-49 percent, in favorable vs. unfavorable opinions of the system as it is now. Positive views are 10 and 13 percentage points lower among Democrats and independents, respectively.

Among one group ' conservative Republicans ' favorable views of the current system inch over the halfway point, to 51 percent, while positive ratings of the ACA crater in this group at just 11 percent. Across the spectrum, among liberal Democrats, the current system is less popular by 19 points, while the ACA is more popular by a vast 60-point margin vs. conservative Republicans.

Get more pure politics at ABC News.com/Politics and a lighter take on the news at OTUSNews.com

A difference in intensity of sentiment boosts critics of the health care law: It's seen 'strongly' unfavorably by 63 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of conservatives, but strongly favorably by just 30 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of liberals.

OTHERS ' Among other groups, views of the ACA are more strongly negative by 15 points among full-time workers vs. those who are employed part time; by 18 points among middle-aged and older adults (40 and up) vs. those who are younger; and by 10 points among people with middle or higher incomes vs. those with household incomes less than $50,000 a year.

Positive ratings of current care, for their part, peak among senior citizens, at 86 percent ' perhaps ironically, given their enrollment in the government-run Medicare program. Current care ratings also are higher, by 15 points, among people with $50,000-plus incomes, vs. their lower-income counterparts. And strongly favorable ratings of current care spike, in particular, among people in $100,000-plus households.

In all, however the Supreme Court rules, views on health care leave most Americans in a long-familiar place: torn between satisfaction with their own quality of care and unhappiness with the current system overall ' and dissatisfied with the solutions as yet put forth.

METHODOLOGY ' This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cell phone June 20-24, 2012, among a random national sample of 1,022 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points. The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by SSRS/Social Science Research Solutions of Media, Pa.

Queen, Ex-IRA Chief Plan Meeting

Queen Elizabeth II and a former Irish Republican Army commander offered each other the hand of peace Wednesday in a long-awaited encounter symbolizing Northern Ireland's progress in achieving reconciliation after decades of violence.

The monarch and Martin McGuinness met privately inside Belfast's riverside Lyric Theatre during a cross-community arts event featuring many of Northern Ireland's top musicians, poets and artists. Media were barred from seeing their first handshake, but the two shook hands again a half-hour later for a TV camera and two photographers.

Underlying the sensitivity of the occasion, no live footage or sound was permitted to be broadcast. Outside, flak-jacketed police shut down all roads surrounding the theater and told residents to stay inside their homes.

The first soundless TV footage showed a serious-faced McGuinness walking, hands behind his back, behind the queen as she met poet Michael Longley and pianist Barry Douglas in front of newly painted portraits of them and other Belfast artists. Also in the group was McGuinness' Protestant colleague atop Northern Ireland's unity government, Peter Robinson; the head of state of the Republic of Ireland, President Michael D. Higgins; and the queen's husband, Prince Philip.

Then, more delayed footage showed McGuinness and Robinson standing first in line to shake the queen's hand, then Philip's. McGuinness and Elizabeth exchanged smiles and brief pleasantries.

McGuinness said he told the queen, in Gaelic, "Goodbye and godspeed," and translated the phrase for her. She didn't appear to say anything, just smiled and listened.

The event marked the latest, perhaps ultimate, moment in two decades of Northern Ireland peacemaking that have delivered a series of once-unthinkable moments of compromise.

Experts say McGuinness, 62, was the IRA's chief of staff when the outlawed group assassinated the queen's cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, in 1979, one of the most high-profile victims of a four-decade conflict that has claimed 3,700 lives.

The IRA formally abandoned its campaign to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom and disarmed in 2005. Two years later, McGuinness became the senior Catholic politician in a new unity government, the central objective of Northern Ireland's 1998 peace accord. His coalition with Robinson has governed Northern Ireland in cooperation with Britain in surprising harmony since.

McGuinness' Irish nationalist party, Sinn Fein, had refused all contact with British royals until Wednesday. Its leaders were heavily criticized last year for boycotting the queen's first-ever state visit to the Republic of Ireland, a widely celebrated event that demonstrated overwhelming Irish desire for strong relations with Britain.

The queen came to Belfast on Wednesday as part of U.K.-wide celebrations of her 60th year on the throne. She is scheduled later in the day to see the city's new Titanic exhibition and attend an open-air party involving more than 20,000 locals at Stormont, the hilltop base for Northern Ireland's power-sharing government.

IRA die-hards opposed to the group's 2005 decision to renounce violence and disarm sought to express their disapproval of the queen's visit before she arrived.

Police said nine officers were injured, none seriously, during overnight rioting on the edge of Catholic west Belfast. They said a crowd of about 100 teens and young men bombarded police units with 21 petrol bombs and other makeshift weapons. No arrests were reported, though police cameras videotaped the masked, hooded attackers in hopes of identifying them later.

And in a separate confrontation Tuesday night, one Catholic man was hospitalized after rival Protestant and Catholic groups clashed on the hilltop overlooking Catholic west Belfast. The Protestants were trying to vandalize a massive political display erected by the Catholics featuring an Irish flag and a slogan rejecting the queen.

Writer, Director Nora Ephron Dead at 71

Nora Ephron, the writer, producer and director of such American film classics as "When Harry Met Sally" and "Sleepless in Seattle," died today. She was 71.

Ephron died in a New York City hospital after a long battle with leukemia and taxing chemotherapy treatment, friends of hers told ABC News.

Her family released this statement, "Nora Ephron passed away June 26, 2012 at 7:40 p.m. at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center surrounded by her family. The cause of death was acute myeloid leukemia. She was 71. Donations can be made in her honor to The Public Theater and The Motion Picture and Television Fund. We thank you all for your thoughts."

The three-time Academy Award nominee was a prolific author, screenwriter, playwright and director who was a pioneer in Hollywood, where she was one of the first women to write and direct her own films. She contributed essays and reporting to outlets including the New York Times and the Huffington Post, for which she last wrote a story in June 2011.

Numerous notables, including New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, are mourning Ephron's passing.

"The loss of Nora Ephron is a devastating one for New York City's arts and cultural community," Bloomberg said in a statement. "From her earliest days at New York City's newspapers to her biggest Hollywood successes, Nora always loved a good New York story, and she could tell them like no one else."

Ephron had most recently written the play "Lucky Guy," a drama based on the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike McAlary, which was expected to open on Broadway in 2013 with Tom Hanks as its star.

Ephron left an indelible mark on the field of romantic comedy. Icons like Hanks, Meryl Streep, and Meg Ryan, often fronted her films. Streep starred in Ephron's first hit, 1983's "Silkwood," which was directed by Mike Nichols and earned Ephron her first Oscar nomination for screenwriting.

Nora Ephron's Most Memorable Movies

The pair worked together again on Ephron's autobiographical film "Heartburn" in 1986, which was based on her tumultuous relationship with her second husband, journalist Carl Bernstein. Bernstein, who helped crack the Watergate story open at the Washington Post in the early 1970s, reportedly cheated on Ephron during their marriage, which ended in divorce. The couple had two sons before they split, Jacob, now a journalist, and Max, a musician.

Ephron then went on to get two more Oscar nominations for the hit films "When Harry Met Sally" and "Sleepless in Seattle."

A native New Yorker, Ephron was raised by screenwriters in Beverly Hills, Calif. before attending Wellesley College in Massachusetts. She interned for President John F. Kennedy in the White House after college, but soon decided to pursue journalism rather than politics.

"I realized to my sadness that I was probably the only person in the entire Kennedy White House that JFK had not made a pass at," Ephron wrote in her 2006 book, "I Feel Bad About My Neck." "I like to think it was because I had a really bad permanent wave. But I don't know. After I was an intern for JFK, it was very clear to me that Washington was probably not a great place for women."

Ephron made many contributions to American film in the past three decades, including "Michael," "You've Got Mail," and, most recently, "Julie and Julia," but she was also a bestselling author and, late in life, a playwright.

Ephron's 2006 collection of essays about aging, "I Feel Bad About My Neck," was a New York Times bestseller, and was followed up by her 2010 collection, "I Remember Nothing." She co-authored a hit Off Broadway play, "Love, Loss, and What I Wore," with her sister Delia Ephron.

Ephron is survived by her sister, her sons, and her filmmaker husband Nicholas Pileggi, whom she married in 1987.

Grosse Pointe Husband Accused of Trying to Kill Alleged Hit Man

The Detroit man who is a person of interest in his wife's killing has been arrested for allegedly trying to kill the man whom he allegedly hired to kill his wife.

In an already confusing case, police have charged Bob Bashara with trying to have his former handyman, Joe Gentz, killed from inside a local jail. Gentz has been behind bars since March and is awaiting trial after confessing to strangling Bashara's wife, Jane.

'He had no idea why he had been arrested,' David Griem, Bashara's lawyer, said Monday. 'He was shocked when I told him what the charge was going to be. I think he believes this was all part of a setup.'

Jane Bashara, a marketing executive, was found strangled in the backseat of her Mercedes in a Detroit alley Jan. 25, hours after her husband reported her missing.

Attention quickly turned to Bob Bashara, who repeatedly broke down in tears and denied any involvement in his wife's death. Gentz told police Bashara offered him money and then forced him at gunpoint to kill his wife in the garage of their home, an accusation he denies.

'I don't own a firearm,' Bashara told ABC News. 'I absolutely had nothing to do with this. That is a sick assessment on his part. It just shows how deranged he is.'

Bashara has said he had nothing to do with his wife's death and blamed the killing on Gentz, whom he said was angry at Bashara because of a business deal. Gentz turned himself in to authorities shortly after the discovery of Jane's body.

Bashara failed a police-administered polygraph test, but passed one arranged by his attorney. He has also been accused of having a mistress and was linked to a secret S&M club located beneath his bar.

Jane Bashara's mother, Lorraine Engelbrecht, filed a police report against her son-in-law in May, stating she was in fear of him because she believed his character changed, according to ABC News station WXYZ-TV. Bashara's purported mistress, Rachel Gillet, filed a personal protection order, claiming she was afraid for her life as well.

Griem says his client will likely be charged with solicitation to murder a witness and could face life in prison if convicted. Griem calls these latest accusations bewildering.

'It doesn't happen to me often,' he said, 'but I'm speechless.'

'Pimp Hunters' Rescue 79 Children

When the sun goes down on the streets of Denver things are just heating up. With guns drawn police swoop in on a man they suspect is a pimp after he drops two young women, ages 19 and 20, for trysts.

Hidden among the nation's leafy suburban streets is an epidemic of sex trafficking, authorities say, especially of underage girls and boys lured into the life by pimps.

The arrest in Denver was one of 107 suspected pimps busted in a three-day weekend sweep in 57 cities. In all, 79 underage children were rescued, more than ever before in a nationwide sweep.

ABC News gained exclusive access inside Operation Cross Country, journeying deep inside a hidden world of cat and mouse between law enforcement and those who traffic young women.

"A pimp is everybody and anybody. White, black, Hispanic, purple, green, doesn't matter. Man, woman, old, young," Sgt. Dan Steele of the Denver Police Department said.

Steele runs a new Denver task force that teams local cops with the FBI. They call themselves the "Pimp Hunters." Their mission is to put a dent in the growing number of women and underage kids forced into the sex trade, an estimated 100,000 children.

Cops say the average age of a girl entering this life is 12. Once on the streets, experts say one-third of girls are approached by a pimp within 48 hours.

"People have a tendency to believe that this is foreign countries and it's all about people being brought in from Indonesia, which happens, but it's also our kids, our neighborhoods, our children," Steele said.

Austin, 20, a former teen prostitute, was rescued by the "Pimp Hunters" two years ago. Austin grew up in the well-to-do suburb of Highlands Ranch.

"I lived a pretty life, I went to some of the best schools," she said. "I never, like, wanted for anything."

Despite her privileged upbringing, Austin's teen years turned ugly. She got hooked on drugs and alcohol and was in and out of jail. At her most vulnerable, she was taken in by a man offering help. He was a pimp, she was 17.

"He came in and was like, 'I will take care of you. I know you just lost your job, we will fix that, we can be business partners,'" Austin said. "[When he said business partners], I thought he was going to help me get a job, not what he actually did."

Austin said she was able to get through the calls by shutting down inside.

"I blacked it out, like it wasn't even happening," she said. "This isn't really life, you disassociate from it, just not thinking about it."

Pimps succeed, experts say, by luring women and girls who are emotionally vulnerable and easily manipulated. The task force is trying to offer a way out.

Austin was only able to escape prostitution after her pimp was arrested by Denver police. He was convicted and sent to prison. Today, Austin says she's sober, planning on going to college and is engaged.

"What a terrible feeling that is to feel like at 14, 15, 16, 17, that your life is over. That no one wants to see you like you want to be seen. Now my life is totally different," she said, starting to cry.

"I never would have seen myself getting out of the situation and on top of that going on and being successful in the way that I am."

In Just 2 Weeks, Immigration Became the Big Issue

For the past two years, immigration as a political issue was rarely given front-page treatment. But in the past two weeks, President Obama and the Supreme Court have served up a one-two punch that has not only launched immigration to the fore, but given Hispanic voters renewed reason to vote on Election Day.

Even as the high court struck down key parts of a hotly debated Arizona law, immigration reform advocates warned of the danger in setting a precedent of upholding a provision that lets police officers check the immigration status of anyone they stop.

"Oftentimes it's someone who's brown, speaks another language or has an accent, so that's a clear indication that it's likely a Latino person or perhaps an Asian person, basically people of color," said Jessica Gonza`lez-Rojas, a leader on female immigrants' rights. "For the Latino community, they know that they're seeing their people being stigmatized, being blamed, being treated as second-class citizens, and dehumanized."

Immigration is one issue that Obama and Mitt Romney differ on, but it's unclear where ? because Romney won't say whether he supports the Arizona law. As the court passed down its decision on Monday and it was dissected, Romney offered only a vague statement about states' rights, and a spokesman repeatedly refused to answer reporters' questions on whether Romney supported it.

The ambiguity reflects the path that Romney has walked toward the nomination. In the GOP primary, Romney adopted a more conservative stance on illegal immigration, but as he now seeks votes from independents, Romney is less eager to hammer the nationalistic chords.

Romney, who later told donors that the court's decision created a "muddle," was panned by Democrats for not articulating his position. (Ironically, the Republican National Committee sent an email fixated on the botched gun-tracking operation in Mexico and mocked Obama for saying, "I Will Always Tell You Where I Stand.")

Jennifer Korn, the conservative head of the Hispanic Leadership Network, defended Romney's non statement and said he should continue to push for a larger fix to illegal immigration rather than commenting on state issues.

"They're trying to give him bait," Korn said of Democrats. "To me, it's just a trap. They're trying to make him fumble on it or something. I think what he said on it is just fine."

Many Hispanics celebrated Obama's recent announcement that he would no longer formally deport illegal immigrants who were brought to the country at a young age and have since not broken the law. Republicans were quick to paint the announcement as a political play for the Hispanic vote so close to an election.

Then, on Monday, the Supreme Court galvanized Hispanics again, ruling that police officers in Arizona will be allowed to ask any person they stop for proof of citizenship. Critics of that controversial state law, known as SB 1070, have said it amounts to racial profiling.

Politicians from around the spectrum were writing reactions to the ruling. Rick Santorum and Rick Perry released statements, as if the Republican primary hadn't ended long ago.

Tropical Storm Debby Drenches Fla.

Tropical Storm Debby spun drenching rains Monday over northern Florida as it hung nearly stationary over the Gulf of Mexico, making its biggest threat flooding rather than winds.

Tropical storm warnings were in effect along the Florida Panhandle as the storm parked offshore. Even with the storm's center far from land, it lashed Florida with heavy rains and spawned isolated tornadoes that killed at least one person.

And in Alabama, crews planned to continue searching for a South Carolina man who disappeared in rough surf Sunday afternoon. The man, whose name and hometown were not immediately released, was vacationing with his family when he went underwater around 1:45 p.m. Sunday, said Melvin Shepherd, director of beach safety for Orange Beach, Ala.

The storm also prompted the closing of a bridge to St. George Island, popular vacation island in Florida.

Residents in several counties near the crook of Florida's elbow were urged to leave low-lying neighborhoods because of the threat of flooding. High winds forced the closure of an interstate bridge that spans Tampa Bay and links St. Petersburg with areas to the southeast. In several locations, homes and businesses were damaged by high winds authorities believe were from tornadoes.

Authorities in the Tampa Bay area were asking residents and tourists to stay away from flooded streets. Some streets were still under water early Monday, while others were blocked with debris.

The constant barrage of wind and rain triggered fears of the widespread flooding that occurred across the Florida Panhandle during Hurricane Dennis in 2005. Officials on Monday said the main bridge to St. George Island was closed as the storm loomed. Power was already out on the island and authorities said it could be out for days.

As of 8 a.m. EDT Monday, Debby's center was essentially stationary about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south-southwest of Apalachicola, Fla. Debby's top sustained winds were around 50 mph (85 kph) with little change in strength expected over the next day or so. The forecast map indicated the storm could inch forward through the week, eventually coming ashore over the Panhandle. However, a storm's path is difficult to discern days in advance.

Underscoring the unpredictable nature of tropical storms, forecasters discontinued a tropical storm warning Sunday afternoon for Louisiana after forecast models indicated Debby wasn't likely to turn west. At one point, forecasters expected the storm to come ashore in that state.

"There are always going to be errors in making predictions. There is never going to be a perfect forecast," said Chris Landsea, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.

A major concern will be flooding from heavy rainfall. The storm is moving slowly, allowing its clouds more time to unload rain. A public advisory said parts of northern Florida could get 10 to 15 inches of rain, with some areas getting as much as 25 inches.

The Highlands County Sheriff's Office said in a news release that several tornadoes moved through the area southeast of Tampa, damaging homes.

Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Nell Hays said a woman was found dead in a house in Venus that was destroyed in the storm. A child found in the same house was taken to the hospital. No further information was available on the child's condition or either person's age.

Victim 1's Mother Says Son Still Struggling

The 45 guilty verdicts made it clear: The jury believed the eight young men who testified against Jerry Sandusky.

But before the jury read the verdicts to the court, the biggest fear for the victims and their families was that Sandusky would walk away a free man.

"That was my biggest fear ... that he would not be found guilty," said Victim 1's mother, who spoke exclusively to ABC News over the weekend.

She shared the fears and emotions of her son -- an 18-year- old boy whose testimony helped send the former Penn State football coach away for possibly 400 years.

"It was very hard on him," said Victim 1's mother. "Even after therapy, he doesn't feel comfortable saying what happened to him to me. ..."

Victim 1, who has just graduated from high school, was on his way to work when his mother called him with the news of the guilty verdicts.

"I, of course, called my son right away and told him ... guilty, guilty, guilty," she said. "He had to pull over his car. ... We talked about it for a few minutes, and he was extremely happy."

Victim 1 was the first boy to come forward and accuse Sandusky of sexual abuse, which triggered a grand jury investigation against the former Penn State football coach. Victim 1 testified that Sandusky performed oral sex on him after meeting him through Sandusky's charity, the Second Mile.

The boy described staying in Sandusky's basement bedroom, where a water bed and television were sequestered away from a pool table. It was there that Sandusky began abusing him, he said. The mother and her son say they've been haunted since the verdict, seeing Sandusky's picture everywhere even though his mug shot signals life in prison for him.

"I'm just disgusted. I really don't want to look at him," said Victim 1's mother. "[I] didn't want to look at him then ... really don't want to look at him now."

She said her son was working through his anger and disgust in counseling and had become involved with a foundation called Let Go ... Let Peace Come In. Victim 1 appeared in a fund-raising video for the foundation.

"What people don't really understand is when we're touched like that as a child ... part of our brain just shuts down and we need mental help and care to connect those brain stems, which were completely burned out," said Peter Pelullo, who runs the foundation, which is counseling two of Sandusky's victims. "We cannot process what's happening to us as a child."

Pelullo, a victim of sexual abuse himself, said this trial had helped people realize the pandemic numbers of children -- one out of three girls and one out of four boys -- who are subjected to this kind of abuse.

"We don't die, but we develop such nervous ticks and addictions that we overburden the health care system," said Pelullo.

Victim 1's mother says she is relived the trial is over and that while the damage has been done, her son will move on.

"He's a strong one," she said. "He's a survivor and he'll get through it."

Click here to read more about the Let Go...Let Peace Come In foundation.

Wildfires Spread to Colo. Tourist Centers

Flames forced thousands of Colorado residents from their homes over the weekend and disrupted vacation plans for countless visitors as smoke shrouded some of the state's top tourist destinations, including majestic Pike's Peak and tranquil Estes Park.

Colorado is having its worst wildfire season in a decade, with more than a half dozen forest fires burning across the state's parched terrain. Some hotels and campgrounds are emptying ahead of the busy Fourth of July holiday.

One of the newest fires, a blaze near Colorado Springs, grew to more than 6 square miles Sunday after erupting just a day earlier and prompting evacuation orders for 11,000 residents and an unknown number of tourists.

The fire sent plumes of gray and white smoke over the area that obscured at times Pikes Peak, the most-summited high-elevation mountain in the nation and inspiration for the song "America The Beautiful."

Winds had started to push smoke away from Colorado Springs and evacuations orders were lifted for the 5,000 residents of nearby Manitou Springs, but area residents and tourists still watched nervously as haze wrapped around the peak.

"We're used to flooding and tornadoes, nothing like this," said Amanda Rice, who recently moved to the area from Rock Falls, Ill. Rice, her husband, four children and dog. They left a Manitou Springs hotel late Saturday.

Rice, scared when she saw flames, took her family to the evacuation center before she was told to go.

"It was just this God-awful orange glow. It was surreal. It honestly looked like hell was opening up," Rice said Sunday.

Even while other large fires burn across the West, Colorado's blazes have demanded half the nation's firefighting fleet, according to Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. He said C-130 military transport planes from Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs would begin assisting Monday.

"People recognize this is going to take a big push" to extinguish, Hickenlooper said Sunday from a Colorado Springs grocery store, where volunteers were passing out burritos, sandwiches and drinks to 350 firefighters working near Pikes Peak.

A statewide ban on open campfires and private fireworks has been in place for more than a week.

While no homes were reported damaged in the Colorado Springs-area fire, a forest fire near Rocky Mountain National Park destroyed structures near the mountain community of Estes Park. The Larimer County Sheriff's Office said Sunday that 22 homes and two outbuildings had been burned.

The Estes Park fire destroyed vacation cabins and closed the most commonly used entrance to the park. Clouds of smoke blew toward the 102-year-old Stanley Hotel that inspired Stephen King to write "The Shining."

Also over the weekend, residents of a subdivision near the northern Colorado city of Fort Collins learned that 57 more homes in their neighborhood had been lost to the High Park Fire, which already had claimed 191 homes, authorities said.

The High Park Fire is the second-largest wildfire and among the most expensive in Colorado's history. It has scorched more than 130 square miles and was just 45 percent contained on Sunday, The Denver Post reported.

With Colorado midway through its worst wildfire season in a decade, travelers have seen some of their favorite sites closed to the public, obscured by smoke and haze. Some travelers were awoken with evacuation orders.

Romney's Playbook on Immigration, Everything: Pivot to the Economy

Just when you think identity politics is back, Mitt Romney does his best to squash it.

Now that the Obama administration says it will no longer deport young illegal immigrants, pundits have wondered whether Romney's criticism of the move ' and the ambiguity over whether or not he would actually reverse the policy, if elected ' will hurt him among Latino voters. The former governor and his campaign have an answer: the economy.

On Friday, the campaign unveiled a slew of 'Juntos con Romney' Latino supporters, and their message was mostly about jobs.

'President Obama has let down our Hispanic community. Instead of spurring economic growth and job creation, his policies have held back Hispanic small businesses and led to higher unemployment,' said Victor Cabral of Virginia, in the campaign's roll-out news release.

Romney for President also debuted this infographic highlighting Latinos' economic struggles during Obama's presidency (click for full-sized version):

Romney's maneuver is basic: Criticized for policies unpopular with a particular demographic group, he has pointed to unemployment rates in that group, diverting attention back to the campaign's top issue and suggesting that, regardless of immigration policy, Obama's presidency has harmed Latinos.

If this move sounds familiar, it should. Romney and his campaign employed the same strategy this spring, when Republicans faced criticism for policies that affect another group ' women.

In March and April, Democrats accused Republicans of prosecuting a 'war on women,' painting the GOP as anti-female in its attempt to block the mandate for contraception coverage in health insurance plans and for the ensuing Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke controversy. As Romney's critics attacked him for not condemning Limbaugh more forcefully ' 'It's not the language I would have used,' he told reporters - the candidate and his campaign changed the subject, accusing Obama of engaging in a different 'war on women': an economic one.

Romney incorporated female unemployment in his stump speeches, pointing out that women had been disparately affected by the recession. Romney slammed Obama for women's hard times on April 10, when he took the stage to acknowledge Rick Santorum's exit from the primary. 

'Over 92 percent of the jobs lost under this president were lost by women. His policies have been really a war on women. He wants to divert from that,' Romney said in a Fox News interview the next day.

Ann Romney, meanwhile, hit the trail to reinforce the campaign's message.

'Women are talking about the economy and jobs and about the legacy of debt that we are going to leave our children and we are mad about it. And we are going to do something about it in November,' she said two days later, as the Romney campaign deployed other female political surrogates to say that women 'cannot afford' four more years of Obama.

The GOP media machine insinuated that Obama's policies had discriminated against women economically.

Polling supports Romney's strategy in an election year when the economy dominates all other issues. In late May, the last time ABC News asked respondents which issue concerns them most, 52 percent listed jobs and the economy; the No. 2 issue was health care, with only seven percent.

With unemployment above eight percent and not getting better, jobs are a denominator so common that Romney can use them when caught in nearly any bind.

Sandusky Trial Did Not Include All His Alleged Victims

The fate of Jerry Sandusky ended with a guilty verdict Friday night in Bellefonte, Pa.

Following 20 hours of sequestered deliberations, the jury of seven women and five men read 45 "guilty" verdicts as Sandusky stood and looked at the jury. There were three not-guilty verdicts.

After court was adjourned, the former Penn State defensive coordinator was led in handcuffs to a police car to be taken to the local county jail. He faces a maximum sentence of 442 years and will be sentenced in approximately 90 days.

"The legal process has spoken and we have tremendous respect for the men who came forward to tell their stories publicly. No verdict can undo the pain and suffering caused by Mr. Sandusky, but we do hope this judgment helps the victims and their families along their path to healing," Penn State president Rodney Erickson said in a statement.

Sandusky's attorney, Joe Amendola, said the defense plans to appeal the guilty verdicts, arguing it was not prepared to go to trial as soon as the judge ordered.

"The Sandusky family is very disappointed, obviously, by the verdict of the jury but we respect their verdict," he said. "We had a tidal wave of public opinion against Jerry Sandusky."

Are There More Victims?

While Sandusky likely will be sentenced to life in prison, waiting in the wings of the sex abuse case are a group of men who say that they, too, were abused by the former Penn State football coach.

"Other victims have come forward after the grand jury presentment in this case, and we intend to continue to look into those matters," Pennsylvania Attorney General Linda Kelly said.

The men said they would have testified in a new case if Sandusky was acquitted on Friday.

An attorney for two men who say they were abused by Sandusky told ABC News that "more than a few" new accusers who were ready to testify.

"The state and federal authorities have investigated. He has not been charged, but he could be charged (with these crimes)," said attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who represents two new accusers. One of Anderson's clients, Travis Weaver, spoke publicly about the abuse for the first time this week.

"Travis came forward after the original eight, and since that time Travis is one of several to have come forward to report similar rape and abuse," the lawyer said.

Weaver and the other men came forward to police after Sandusky's arrest in November, but were left off the current case because of Sandusky's right to a speedy trial, Anderson said.

"He is not the only one, and I am working with and know of more than a few," Anderson said. "Time wouldn't allow (for them to be included)."

Weaver told NBC this week that Sandusky took him to the Penn State football locker rooms, where he showered with him, rubbed his back and blew on his stomach, acts that eventually progressed to oral sex and attempted rape. He filed a lawsuit against Penn State University and the Second Mile foundation, the charity that Sandusky helped create, last year.

Ben Andreozzi, an attorney representing the man known as Victim 4 in the current case, also represents two other accusers whom he said have spoken to authorities.

Weaver and the other alleged victim represented by Anderson have also informed federal investigators about their claims, as part of a federal investigation into whether Sandusky molested boys outside of Pennsylvania, which would rise to the level of a federal crime.

Weaver said in his lawsuit that he was molested outside of Pennsylvania while accompanying Sandusky on trips to bowl games with the Penn State football team.

In addition, Sandusky's adopted son Matt told prosecutors in recent days that he was also molested by the man who adopted him and is willing to testify against him. It's not clear whether he would press charges, however.

And an analysis of the timeline of the eight men who are involved in the current trial shows that Sandusky was allegedly involved with several boys for most of 15 years, but the indictment does not include any victims from February 2001 through 2003.

Fla. Woman's House Swallowed by Sinkhole

Susan Minutillo will likely never just run out to knock a few errands off her to-do list the same way again.

The last time she did that the 79-year-old Florida woman returned home to find her house underground.  Minutillo, of Hudson, Fla., a Tampa suburb, left her home around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday to run a few errands for her friend.  When she returned just 30 minutes later she found emergency vehicles surrounding her home that was now partially swallowed by a giant sinkhole.

The Science of Sinkholes: Are You at Risk?

'I never thought this would happen to me,' she told the Lakeland Ledger Wednesday afternoon. 'I don't know where I'll go now.'

A survey crew had been at Minutillo's home to do a routine test but, at around 3 p.m, the crew had to call in emergency officials when the ground beneath the back half of the house opened, the Ledger reported.

About 70 percent of the home, a size described by Pasco Fire Rescue officials 'as big as a two-car garage,' is in the sinkhole, according to local ABC affiliate WFTS.

Minutillo was not allowed back inside her house on Wednesday and had to rely on firefighters to bring out her essential items like medications and private documents.  The house, officials say, is a total loss.

Minutillo, a widow, plans to stay with a nearby sister until she learns more, she told the Ledger.

Some of Minutillo's neighbors were also evacuated as a precaution yesterday while officials conduct tests to determine what caused the sinkhole and whether it is continuing to spread.

The sinkhole is the latest to strike the Sunshine State in recent months.  In May, a family in Windermere, Fla., near Orlando, was evacuated after a 100 feet wide and 50 feet deep sinkhole threatened their home.

Sandusky's Son Says He Was Abused, Too

Jerry Sandusky's sex abuse trial went to the jury today amid a bombshell revelation that his adopted son told prosecutors he was willing to testify against the former Penn State football coach.

Following seven hours of deliberations on 48 charges of sex abuse, the sequestered jury of seven women and five men has stopped discussing the case for the night and will resume deliberations on Friday morning.

The break came at the suggestion of Judge John Cleland after the jury requested to see the testimony of the state's key witness, Michael McQueary, and McQueary's family friend, Dr. John Dranov.

Earlier, as the jury met behind closed doors, Matt Sandusky -- who had defended the man who adopted him throughout the investigation -- issued a statement saying that he had been prepared to tell the jury that he had been sexually abused, too.

"Matt Sandusky, one of Jerry Sandusky's adopted children, asked us to confirm with you ... that he was prepared to testify truthfully as a commonwealth witness," said the statement issued by lawyers Andrew Shubin and Justine Andronici.

"During the trial, Matt Sandusky contacted us and requested our advice and assistance in arranging a meeting with prosecutors to disclose for the first time in this case that he is a victim of Jerry Sandusky's abuse. At Matt's request, we immediately arranged a meeting between him and the prosecutors and investigators," the statement said.

"This has been an extremely painful experience for Matt ... There will be no further comment at this time," the lawyers said.

Matt Sandusky is one of six children Jerry Sandusky and his wife adopted. He had been one of his father's staunchest supporters despite his birth mother Debra Long's testimony before a grand jury that her son was upset about staying with Sandusky. Matt Sandusky attempted suicide several months after moving in with Sandusky in 1995.

In addition, Matt Sandusky's wife got an order of protection on behalf of their children against the elder Sandusky.

Sources close to the case said that Matt Sandusky contacted prosecutors late last week to say that he was willing to testify. Prosecutors couldn't call him to the stand for direct questioning because he was not included in the charges against his father.

But they could have called Matt Sandusky to the stand as a rebuttal witness if Jerry Sandusky took the stand, sources said.

Lawyers for Jerry Sandusky said they were considering allowing him to testify up until the last day of testimony Wednesday.

Today, Cleland dispatched the jury to begin deliberating Sandusky's guilt or innocence after the closing arguments. If convicted of 48 counts of sex abuse against 10 boys, the former Penn State football coach, who is 68, could be sentenced to life in prison.

The jury will be sequestered during their deliberations and is expected to work through the weekend if they have not returned a verdict by Friday.

McQueary and Dranov, whose testimony the jury asked to review, both testified about an incident in 2001 when McQueary said he walked into the Penn State football locker room showers and saw former defensive coordinator Sandusky showering with a young boy in a position that seemed "extremely sexual."

The boy in question is known as Victim 2, though prosecutors were never able to find him and the jury did not hear from him.

McQueary's testimony was more than two hours long, prompting Judge Cleland to suggest that it was too long to begin reading back to the jury at the time of request, around 8:30 p.m. Dranov's testimony was only about 20 minutes long, Cleland noted.

The jury will be transported to a local hotel, where the jurors have been instructed to not watch television, use any telephones or computers, or speak about the case to one another. They are expected to be back in court at 9 a.m. Friday.

Zimmerman's Reenactment of Trayvon Martin Shooting

"He took my head and slammed it against the concrete several times, and each time I thought my head was going to explode and I thought I was going to lose consciousness," George Zimmerman told police the day after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin.

"I started screaming for help," but Martin pressed his hands over Zimmerman's mouth and nose, he said. "He told me to shut the fk up, and I was suffocating."

Zimmerman told police he was lying on the ground, but his head was on the concrete.

"I didn't want him to keep slamming my head on the concrete so I kind of shifted. But when I shifted my jacket came up'and it exposed my firearm. That's when he said you are going to die tonight. He took one hand off my mouth, and slid it down my chest. I took my gun aimed it at him and fired."

The latest and most detailed account yet of what happened in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26 comes from a voice stress test that Zimmerman passed, along with a video re-enactment, a handwritten statement and audio interviews conducted in the days after the shooting by investigators.

The material was released by Zimmerman's attorney today on the website gzlegalcase.com, a website managed by the Zimmerman defense team.

Watch George Zimmerman Reenact the Shooting of Trayvon Martin

The relatively consistent statements portray a man trying to convince investigators that he was in a life and death struggle that left him with little choice but to kill the unarmed teenager.

The documents also show that in the days following the shooting, the lead investigator was not accepting Zimmerman's version of events and recommended that charges be filed against Zimmerman.

"I shot him, and I didn't think I hit him because he sat up and said, 'Oh you got me. You got me, you got it,'" said Zimmerman during a nearly 20-minute re-enactment shot by investigators at the scene of the shooting the next day.

Watch George Zimmerman's Lie Detector Test

In the video Zimmerman, 28, gives a blow by blow description of how the fight began and depicts Martin as the aggressor, a key point as his legal team builds his defense on Florida's controversial "stand your ground" law.

Zimmerman said he was driving to buy groceries when he spotted the unarmed teen walking near a house that he knew Martin did not live in and called police to report a suspicious person.

"I just felt like something was off about him'and there's been a history of break-ins ... so I said you know just better to call. I kept driving and I passed him, and he kept staring at me and staring around," Zimmerman said.

Read George Zimmerman's Handwritten Statement

He took investigators to the house where he first spotted the teen and got on the phone with police. At that point he says he lost sight of Martin.

With bandages clearly visible on the back of his head and nose in the video, he took investigators through the neighborhood showing them where he was when the responder told him that he did not have to follow Martin. Zimmerman says by the time of the request he was no longer in his car and wanted to figure out exactly where he was in the subdivision, so that the officer dispatched to the scene could find him.

"I was walking back. I didn't see anything again, came back to my truck and when I got to right about here, he yelled from behind to me."

"He said, 'Yo, you got a problem?' and I turned around and said no I don't have a problem," said Zimmerman.

Jerry Sandusky Seeks Dismissal of Some Charges

Before Jerry Sandusky's fate is turned over to the 12 jurors in his child sex abuse trial today, the defense team for the former Penn State football coach will find out about its one last request to have some of the charges of abuse dropped.

Sandusky, 68, currently faces 51 counts of child sex abuse charges and could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty. The defense withdrew one count earlier this week after determining that the alleged sex act occurred before a law had been enacted.

Defense attorney Karl Rominger petitioned the judge Wednesday morning to drop the charges stemming from alleged victim 8, who was the subject of an eyewitness account by a Penn State football locker room janitor who said his colleague saw Sandusky performing oral sex on a young boy in the showers in 2000.

Rominger argued that because the state had not identified a victim and the only witness to testify to the incident in court did not witness a sexual act firsthand, that there was not enough evidence to bring a charge.

Judge John Cleland met with the defense attorneys and prosecutors Wednesday afternoon to hear arguments and is expected to issue a ruling this morning as court begins. He will also give the jury instructions on how to proceed during deliberations before each side offers its closing arguments.

The prosecution feels "confident" about the case they brought against Sandusky, while the defense team feels they made significant progress casting doubt in the minds of the jurors, sources have told ABC News.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations by 12:30 p.m. today and is expected to work through the weekend if they have not returned a verdict by Friday. They will be sequestered at a hotel with no outside contact during breaks from deliberations.

ABC News' Aaron Katersky contributed to this report

Sex Toy Sold as Magical Mushroom

It was probably inevitable. When there is money to be made in China, strike while the iron is still hot.

No sooner had the video segment of intrepid Chinese reporter Ye Yunfeng and an entire Chinese village mistaking a soft rubber, double-ended sex toy for a mystical taisui mushroom gone viral around the world did a cellphone video appear of a street hawker attempting to sell the same sex toy as the magic mushroom.

This new video, apparently uploaded Wednesday onto the Chinese video-sharing site 56.com, shows a street cleaner ' probably moonlighting as hawker ' sitting next to a makeshift spread of sex toys on an unidentified city sidewalk.

The man is trying to pass the rubber sex toys as taisui mushrooms ' the fungus of legend that the First Emperor of China so desperately sought as a longevity drug.

Ever the salesman, the hawker even has printed literature for his prospective customers, introducing the health benefits of the mushrooms along with Ye Yunfeng's original viral-status 'Xi'an Up Close'  TV segment playing on loop on his portable DVD player.

To top it off, his asking price for these soiled sex-toys-posing-as-path-to-longevity? The equivalent of $2,800.

'It's on the news. How can it be fake?' the hawker snapped back without a hint of irony when asked by the crowd how the mushrooms could be real.

One has to admire his audacity. He's even got extras taisuis floating in a bucket of water next to him. You know, to keep them fresh.

The new video can be seen by clicking here.

Mubarak Reportedly Has Stroke Amid Egypt Protests

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was rushed to a military hospital after suffering a stroke today, stoking public confusion over his condition.

State media reported that Mubarak was clinically dead, but his lawyer denied this. A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said the 84-year-old Mubarak was moved from the hospital in Torah Prison to nearby Maadi Hospital in southern Cairo.

There have been conflicting unconfirmed reports about Mubarak's worsening condition, including that his heart stopped briefly and that he had suffered a stroke.

This all came on a day that has been a mix of anger and defiance, and a real sense of déjà vu in Cairo's Tahrir Square, birthplace of the Egyptian revolution. Tens of thousands of Egyptians have jammed the square, a huge and thus far peaceful show of strength against the Egyptian military.

"Look at all the people here," a man in the crowd told ABC News. "You know that the Egyptian revolution will succeed."

The pace of events is nothing less than stunning. In the last forty-eight hours, the military has grabbed more constitutional powers, the presidency has been weakened, the long-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood has declared victory for its candidate, Mohammed Morsi, and today the campaign of his rival ' former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq ' says in fact he has won.

Following the military's power, the Muslim Brotherhood asked followers to go to the streets, and tonight tens of thousands of Egyptians heeded the call. They returned to Tahrir Square, where so much passion and blood was expended a year and a half ago. Most are supporters of Morsi, widely believed to have won the weekend vote. The Tahrir rally is part celebration, part warning shot to the ruling military council. In effect it's a people's declaration: if the military tries to hold power after the vote, they will return to the streets to safeguard their revolution.

"The first word comes from here," one man told ABC News in Tahrir Square. "The power comes from the people."

The scene in Tahrir was almost identical to scenes witnessed during last year's uprising. Adding to that feeling of déjà vu, the other newsmaker tonight was none other than former President Hosni Mubarak, who was rushed to a military hospital as the Tahrir crowds were gathering. Various reports said Mubarak had suffered either heart failure or a stroke. Even given the many twists and turns of the Egyptian uprising, it was a bizarre confluence of bulletins from Cairo: Mubarak returning to the headlines, just as his enemies returned to the streets where they fought to bring him down. One tweet put it this way: "Mubarak trying to upstage Egypt, again."

For now the crowds appear peaceful, though many told us they would not leave until their fight was won ' again, language remarkably similar to that of the early days of the revolution.

Meanwhile, all kinds of questions hang over Tahrir Square tonight. How long will the protestors stay? Will security forces act against them? Will the competing claims of victory lead to violence? What will the military do? And will Hosni Mubarak survive to see this latest crisis to its end?

A lot of uncertainty, for a critical nation in the Middle East. Nothing less than the revolution itself hangs in the balance.

Sandusky Wife Testifies, and So May He

Jerry Sandusky's lawyers are leaning toward putting him on the stand in his own defense tomorrow, though the final decision has not yet been made, sources tell ABC News.

Sandusky would be called as the final witness for the defense, which is expected to rest its case on Wednesday. He is expected to deny that he ever had any sexual intent in his "horseplay" with the eight men who say they were sexually abused by him.

Prosecutor Joseph McGettigan, who has aggressively cross-examined defense witnesses this week, will have the opportunity to question Sandusky if they decide to put him on the stand.

Sandusky is charged with 51 counts of child sex abuse and could face life in prison if convicted.

His testimony could be a final chance for the defense, led by attorney Joseph Amendola, to place a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. The case is expected to go to the jury of seven women and five men following closing arguments on Thursday.

Sandusky's legal team had its strongest day yet today countering the claims of the eight accusers as Sandusky's wife, Dottie, took the stand in his defense, and helped poke holes in the accounts of two lead investigators in the case against him.

A poised Dottie Sandusky testified that she never saw anything sexual occur between her husband and any of his accusers.

Mrs. Sandusky, who winked at her husband as she took the stand, said in a soft voice that they will have been married for 46 years in September.

In a patient grandmotherly style, she described most of her husband's accusers as "very nice," but remembered some as "conniving" and "very clingy."

Sandusky, 68, is charged with 51 counts of sex abuse of 10 boys.

Dottie Sandusky bluntly denied the accusation of one accuser who told the court last week that during the Alamo Bowl she walked in on her husband trying to force the boy, now known as Victim 4, to perform oral sex on him. He claimed she interrupted her husband by asking, "What's going on in there?"

Mrs. Sandusky's version was quite different.

"I came in one day. It was like a bathroom and dressing area. They were standing there. I said 'what's going on' because Jerry was very upset and we had asked (Victim 4) if he wanted to go to a luncheon which was $50, and he said he'd really like to go. And Jerry said OK, and it was the day of the luncheon and (Victim 4) wouldn't go and Jerry knew I'd be very upset about spending the money."

Dottie Sandusky told the court room that nothing seemed inappropriate about the exchange.

"They were just standing in little hallways, they were fully clothed," she said.

Dottie Sandusky also rejected repeated testimony by the alleged victims that Jerry Sandusky would molest them at night in the family basement, an area they said his wife never went.

Mrs. Sandusky told the jury today that she and her husband had always shared a bed and that her husband would usually go to bed first. She also testified that she would often go down to the basement to get food out of a freezer there.

In response to the allegation from Victim 10 that he once yelled for help while being sexually abused in the basement while Dottie Sandusky was upstairs, Amendola asked whether someone on the ground floor would be able to hear someone yelling from the basement. "Yes," she responded and added that her hearing was very good.

She also described Victim 4, who testified powerfully about the sex abuse he allegedly endured, as "demanding, and he was very conniving, and he wanted his way and didn't listen a whole lot."