School scrubs photo of professors burning book- Texas judge rules for cheerleaders in bible banner suit

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  San Jose State University's Dr. Alison Bridger holds a lit match beneath a book that claims global warming is "natural" as assistant professor Craig Clements looks on last month. The photograph has since been removed from the university's website. (SJSU.edu)

What could prompt two college professors to burn a book? Disagreement with the contents, of course.

Two San Jose State University professors took a picture as they held a match to a book that takes on the idea of global warming, and the photo landed on an official school website until some realized the idea of academics burning books is not exactly scholarly. The image depicted Alison Bridger, a professor and chairwoman of the university’s department of meteorology and climate science, holding a lit match beneath “The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania” as the 312-page paperback was held by assistant professor Craig Clements.

“This week we received a deluge of free books from the Heartland Institute,” the original caption read, according to an archived version of the webpage. “ … Shown above, Drs. Bridger and Clements test the flammability of the book.”

“The Department of Meteorology and Climate Science ... regrets what was clearly an ill-conceived attempt at satire."

- San Jose State University, Department of Meteorology and Climate Change

The picture and the accompanying caption, which was posted late last month, were later removed from the university’s servers after a popular climate change website, Watts Up With That?, noticed it and referenced Fahrenheit 451, the 1953 novel by Ray Bradbury in which books are outlawed and widely burned.

“When I first got the tip on this, I thought to myself ‘nobody can be this stupid to photograph themselves doing this’ but, here they are, right from the San Jose State University Meteorology Department web page,” blogger Anthony Watts wrote on Thursday.

Watts also included links to the university’s meteorology and climate change department, as well as phone numbers and an email address to contact school officials.

A day later, on Friday, department officials acknowledged the photograph and apologized to those who voiced their concerns.

“The Department of Meteorology and Climate Science has removed the material in question from its website, and regrets what was clearly an ill-conceived attempt at satire,” the website read. “Please be assured the university does not condone book burning for any reason.”

Messages left with Bridger and Clements early Wednesday were not immediately returned. A university spokeswoman later told FoxNews.com that the school would have no further comment on the matter.

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Remains ID'd as 13-year-old Hailey Dunn, Texas cheerleader missing since 2010

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  Hailey Dunn, a student and cheerleader at Colorado City Middle School in Colorado City, Texas, was reported missing on Dec. 28, 2010. (Colorado City Police Department).

The remains of a 13-year-old Texas cheerleader Hailey Dunn have been found more than two years after she was reported missing, an attorney for the girl's mother says.

Hailey's remains were found in a remote West Texas location last month, and the Texas Department of Public Safety informed her mother, Billie Jean Dunn on Friday that the remains are her daughter's, attorney John Young said.

"She's trying to process the entirety of this," Young said. "She has to process that Hailey isn't coming home."

Officials are expected to hold a news conference Friday afternoon.

The remains were found about 20 miles north of the girl's hometown of Colorado City. She had been the subject of months of intensive searches in and around Colorado City and surrounding fields and landfills.

More than 100 billboards featuring her picture and information about the case have been set up along interstates in West Texas and other states.

Hailey was last seen walking to a friend's house and was reported missing Dec. 28, 2010, when her mother discovered the girl had never arrived.

Billie Jean Dunn told officials she had gotten into a fight with her daughter the night she disappeared. She was arrested a few months later for lying to police about the whereabouts of Adkins, her live-in boyfriend.

Dunn was given a year's probation and reportedly moved to Austin. Adkins had been named a person of interest in the case but was never charged.

Police records revealed Adkins had made troubling statements before Hailey disappeared. According to a police affidavit filed in the investigation, Adkins had remarked to a relative that hurting a teenager would be "like killing a deer." The affidavit also noted that Dunn and Adkins had an apparent fixation on slasher movies and serial killers -- something Dunn called a "hobby."

The affidavit mentioned that in February 2010, police responded to a domestic violence call at the house. Adkins allegedly threatened to kill Billie and Hailey Dunn during a heated argument. After telling police he never issued these threats, he later allegedly confessed to police that he threatened the two. However, both Adkins and Dunn denied having any involvement in the girl's disappearance.

Adkins told The Associated Press that he would "never ever do anything to harm Hailey."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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CHILLING EFFECT: Prosecutor Quits Case After Texas Lawmen Murders

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  Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland, who was murdered at his home on March 30, 2012.MyFoxDFW.com

The murders of two prosecutors in Kaufman County, Texas, apparently has prompted a federal prosecutor to withdraw from a major racketeering case in Houston, the latest sign that attacks on lawmen are having a chilling effect on the judicial system.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hileman sent defense attorneys an email Tuesday saying he was withdrawing from the case against the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas due to safety concerns.

“I understand why someone would want to step back, and it makes sense to me, especially people who have families,” defense attorney Richard Ely, who is representing one of the defendants in the case, said. “Jay is a friend of mine, and this was a personal decision.”

The Aryan Brotherhood case, which netted 34 indictments last November, was followed by a statewide warning that the white supremacist prison gang may be planning retaliation. Ely doesn’t know the origins of the threat, but he thinks it was probably someone just “spouting off.”

The Kaufman County District Attorney's Office was named in the threat because it joined several other agencies on a task force aimed at cracking down on white supremacist groups. Since then, District Attorney Mike McLelland and Deputy DA Mark Hasse have been murdered in brazen attacks.

The murders in Kaufman County have prompted tighter security for a number of other prosecutors in the state of Texas, including Harris County District Attorney Mike Anderson.

A high-profile attorney told MyFoxHouston.com that he started seeing a group of U.S. Marshals escorting Hileman around the city two months ago, which coincided with the Jan. 31 murder of Hasse.

The recent murders, including the killing of Colorado prisons chief Tom Clements, which investigators believe may be linked, have raised questions of security for prosecutors across the country.

“There are 40,000 prosecutors in the country, and anyone who has spent some time trying a case will probably tell you that they receive threats all the time,” Scott Burns, executive director for the National District Attorneys Association, told FoxNews.com. “What happened in Kaufman County is not only an assault on these attorneys but it is also an assault on the rule of law and the judicial system.”

He added: “This is unfortunately something we deal with all the time. The only good news is that to be murdered because of your position as a prosecutor is still very (unlikely).”

Others say that there has been a recent rise of attacks against attorneys at their homes, which has gone largely unnoticed until recently.

“There is some research that suggests these acts are increasing,” Steven Jansen, VP and CEO of the Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, told FoxNews.com. “It may be due to addresses of district attorneys now being available online.”

Incidents like these adversely affect the judicial system’s functioning when people are targeted simply to slow or stop a case from going forward.

Heath Harris, an assistant district attorney in Dallas, told the Los Angeles Times that the recent murders could have lasting effects.

"I've always reassured them (new attorneys) you really don't have to fear retaliation,” he said. "I definitely think people will think twice about becoming a prosecutor."

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Government study finds security risks at US bio labs- Vial of hemorrhagic fever virus missing from Texas lab

WASHINGTON –  Three years after a federal agency warned that the country was at risk due to sloppy standards at its labs that handle bioterror germs, such as anthrax, little has been done to fix the problem.

A 56-page report released Monday by the Government Accountability Office says federal officials have failed to develop adequate standards for lab design, operation and construction.

The report also says that the facilities, called high-containment labs, are being built to local standards because there are no national safety guidelines for them. The study released Monday is a follow-up to a similar study done five years ago.

Another government report released late last year by the USDA inspector general found several violations of regulations in bioterror labs went undetected for years. And two years before that, laboratories at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeatedly were called out for failing to properly secure bioterror agents, like anthrax, in private government audits.

The CDC and the USDA share responsibility for security at more than 300 government, academic and commercial organizations registered to work with toxins or germs that have bioterror potential.

The news of the lax government standards comes after officials at the University of Texas Medical Branch said a vial containing a virus that can cause hemorrhagic fever went missing from a research facility in Galveston over the weekend.

On Saturday, the Galveston National Laboratory said there was no indication of wrongdoing, but it still could not account for the missing vial at its research facility. The medical branch says the virus, native to Venezuela, is transmitted only through contact with Venezuelan rats. Experts say the disease is not transmitted person-to-person nor is it able to survive in U.S. rodents. 

CDC Director Tom Frieden told USA Today he fears the department’s budget will be slashed even more if the federal government cuts funding, which it is on course to do. He told the paper his agency will lose more than $300 million -- a painful financial hit at a time when the agency is struggling to keep up with bioterror threats and new germs.

Concerns surrounding a bioterror attack took hold of the country after the October 2001 anthrax attacks. The powdery substance was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida. By November 2001, five people were dead and 17 others sickened.

Ten years after the attacks, a report from the National Research Council said the source of the anthrax could not be verified. That conclusion contradicted some of the evidence from the FBI at the time that supported the conclusion that it came from Fort Detrick, a U.S. Army installation outside Frederick, Md. In all, the investigation into the anthrax case spanned six continents, involved more than 10,000 witnesses, 80 searches and 26,000 email subpoenas and used 29 government, university and commercial laboratories for scientific analyses.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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TEXAS CONNECTION? Car Chase May Be Tied to Killing of Colorado Official

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DECATUR, Texas –  A paroled Colorado inmate who may be linked to the slaying of the state's prison chief led Texas deputies on a 100 mph car chase that ended Thursday after he crashed into a semi and then opened fire before being shot down by his pursuers.

Evan Spencer Ebel, 28, was driving a Cadillac in Texas that matched the description of the vehicle seen leaving the neighborhood where prisons chief Tom Clements was shot. Ebel was hooked up to equipment for organ harvesting and authorities say he is not expected to survive.

Colorado investigators immediately headed to Texas to determine whether Ebel was linked to Clements' slaying and the killing Sunday of Nathan Leon, a Denver pizza delivery man. Police in Colorado would only say the connection to the Leon case is strong but would not elaborate or say if they believe Ebel killed Clements and Leon.

The Denver Post first reported Ebel's name, and that he was in a white supremacist prison gang called the 211s. A federal law enforcement official confirmed his identity and gang affiliation to The Associated Press. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

The killing of Clements, 58, shocked his quiet neighborhood in Monument, a town of rolling hills north of Colorado Springs, for its brutality: He answered the door of his home Tuesday evening and was gunned down. Authorities wouldn't say if they thought the attack was related to his job, and all Clements' recent public activities and cases were scrutinized.

The Texas car chase started when a sheriff's deputy in Montague County, James Boyd, tried to pull over the Cadillac around 11 a.m. Thursday, authorities there said. They wouldn't say exactly why he was stopped, but called it routine.

The driver opened fire on Boyd, wounding him, Wise County Sheriff David Walker said at an afternoon news conference in Decatur. He then fled south before crashing into a semi as he tried to elude his pursuers.

After the crash, he got out of the vehicle, shooting at deputies and troopers who had joined the chase. He shot at Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins four times as the chief tried to set up a roadblock.

"He wasn't planning on being taken alive," Hoskins said.

Boyd, the deputy who was shot, was wearing a bulletproof vest and was at a Fort Worth hospital, authorities said. Officials had said he wasn't seriously injured but later said his condition was unknown.

The car is so far the main link authorities have given between the Colorado case and the Texas shootout. El Paso County sheriff's investigators have been looking for a dark, late-model car, possibly a Lincoln or a Cadillac, that a neighbor spotted near Clements' home around the time of the shooting.

"We don't know yet exactly whether this is the guy," Gov. John Hickenlooper told reporters Thursday afternoon. "There's some indication. I hope it is."

El Paso County sheriff's officials did not return repeated messages Thursday. In a statement, Lt. Jeff Kramer said investigators will inspect evidence in Texas and would need crime lab analysis before they're able to determine whether the suspect is linked to Clements' shooting.

"These efforts take time," Kramer said.

Other links between Ebel and the Colorado killings aren't clear. Legal records show he was convicted of several crimes in Colorado dating back to 2003, including assaulting a prison guard in 2008. He apparently was paroled, but Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alison Morgan said she could not release information on prisoners because of the ongoing investigation into Clements' death.

Scott Robinson, a criminal defense attorney and media legal analyst, represented Ebel in 2003 and 2004. He said Ebel had been sentenced to a halfway house for a robbery charge in 2003 before he was accused in two additional robbery cases the following year that garnered prison sentences of three and eight years.

"I thought he was a young man who was redeemable, otherwise I wouldn't have taken the case," Robinson said, saying he didn't recall the details of the case.

Robinson said he knew Ebel before he got in trouble. He said Ebel was raised by a single father and had a younger sister who died in a car accident years ago.

Clements came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri prison system. Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mandi Steele said Thursday the department was ready to help in the probe if asked.

"Tom regularly commented that corrections is inherently a dangerous business, and that's all that I'll say," Morgan, who worked closely with Clements, said earlier.

Officials in positions like Clements' get a deluge of threats, according to people who monitor their safety. But it can be hard sorting out which ones could lead to violence. A U.S. Department of Justice study found that federal prosecutors and judges received 5,250 threats between 2003 and 2008, but there were only three attacks during that time period.

The last public official killed in Colorado in the past 10 years was Sean May, a prosecutor in suburban Denver. An assailant killed May as he arrived home from work. Investigators examined May's court cases, but the case remains unsolved.

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TEXAS CONNECTION? Car Chase May Be Tied to Killing of Colorado Official

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  March 20, 2013: Searchers use a dog to search the area around the Monument, Colo. home of Colorado Department of Corrections Executive Director Tom Clements, pictured left.AP/Colorado Department of Corrections

DECATUR, Texas –  A man who may be linked to the slaying of Colorado's state prison chief led authorities in Texas on a harrowing, 100-mph car chase Thursday that ended after he crashed into a semi and then opened fire before being shot down by his pursuers, authorities said.

The man is still unidentified and is "basically legally deceased" while still hooked up to equipment for organ harvesting at a Fort Worth hospital, Wise County Sheriff David Walker told an afternoon news conference in Decatur.

The possible link to the Tuesday night slaying of Colorado prison director Tom Clements is tentative but intriguing enough to put Colorado investigators on a plane to Texas. The black Cadillac the man drove, with Colorado license plates, matches the description of a car spotted outside Clements' home just before the Department of Corrections chief was fatally shot while answering his front door.

"We don't know yet exactly whether this is the guy," Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told reporters Thursday afternoon. "There's some indication. I hope it is."

A deputy in Montague County, Texas, tried to pull the Cadillac over at about 11 a.m. Thursday on a routine traffic stop, though officials wouldn't elaborate on the reason.

The driver opened fire on the deputy, wounding him, Walker said. He then fled south before crashing into a semi as he tried to elude his pursuers.

Walker says Colorado investigators are heading to Texas to determine whether the man is connected to Clements' killing. The wounded deputy was wearing a bulletproof vest and is at a Fort Worth hospital, authorities said. Officials earlier said he wasn't seriously injured, but now say his condition is unknown.

Decatur Police Chief Rex Hoskins said the man appeared to be a white man in his 30s. The man shot at Hoskins four times as the chief tried to set up a road block to halt him. The man left his car after it crashed and opened fire on the authorities around him, Hoskins said.

"He wasn't planning on being taken alive," Hoskins said. In a brief interview, he added that the man had no identification on him.

El Paso County, Colo., sheriff's investigators have been looking for a dark, late-model car, possibly a Lincoln or a Cadillac, that a neighbor spotted near Clements' home around the time of the shooting. Lt. Jeff Kramer refused to say what other clues may have been found after Clements' neighborhood was canvassed by officers.

Clements, 58, was killed as he answered the door to his home Tuesday night in Monument, a town of rolling hills and alpine trees north of Colorado Springs. His death stunned law enforcement colleagues in Colorado and Missouri, where he spent most of his career as a highly respected corrections official.

Police haven't said if they think his death was linked to his job.

Denver's KMGH-TV reported Thursday that Clements may have put a bicycle up for sale for $1,200 on Craigslist. Kramer told the station, "I can't speak to the efforts behind this tip, or the level we are giving it."

In recent weeks, Clements had requested chemicals to plan for the execution of a convict on Colorado's death row and denied a Saudi national's request to serve out the remainder of a sentence in his home country. Officials refused to say whether they were looking at those actions as possible motives.

Clements came to Colorado in 2011 after working three decades in the Missouri prison system. Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Mandi Steele said Thursday the department was ready to help in the probe if asked.

"Tom regularly commented that corrections is inherently a dangerous business, and that's all that I'll say," said Alison Morgan, a Colorado corrections spokeswoman who worked closely with Clements.

Officials in positions like Clements' get a deluge of threats, according to people who monitor their safety. But it can be hard sorting out which ones could lead to violence. A U.S. Department of Justice study found that federal prosecutors and judges received 5,250 threats between 2003 and 2008, but there were only three attacks during that time period.

The last public official killed in Colorado in the past 10 years was Sean May, a prosecutor in suburban Denver. An assailant killed May as he arrived home from work. Investigators examined May's court cases, but the case remains unsolved.

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Texas 'Cruz Missile': Pol Standing by His Principles, Ready to Take the Heat

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has earned a few nicknames in the brief seven weeks he’s been in Congress – including the unflattering “Senator No.” But nobody can say the freshman senator has broken his campaign promise to shake up Washington upon arrival.

The Tea Party-backed candidate has so far made good on vows to be combative and uncompromising in his adherence to conservative principles.

The 42-year-old Cruz has already voted against Senate rule changes to modestly curb filibusters, aid for Superstorm Sandy victims and the Violence Against Women Act.

He also was one of only three "no" votes against Massachusetts Democratic Sen. John Kerry's nomination to be secretary of State. And he publicly skewered President Obama’s nominee for Defense secretary, former Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

All of that has helped Cruz earn such nicknames as “Cruz Missile,” “Senator No” and even “The GOP's Nasty Newcomer.”

He also was featured in the past few weeks by Politico and The New York Times.

Senior Texas Sen. John Cornyn and voters across the state have praised Cruz for his brashness and sticking to his principles.  

"He's been a terrific partner," Cornyn said. "What he's finding is there's a lot of critics in Washington when you try to change the status quo."

At a stop last week at Lodge Lumber, in Houston, owner John Lodge said Cruz seems like the first elected official in a long while who is on his side.

He's gotten down to business," Lodge said. "He's the man."

However, Cruz’s actions have also resulted in sharp criticism from both parties.

Republicans worry about whether the Cuban-American lawmaker, whose father was tortured in Castro's Cuba, went too far by challenging Hagel’s integrity and if he will spoil their efforts to reach out more to Hispanic voters.

MSNBC host and Democrat Chris Matthews went as far as to compare Cruz’s suggestion that Hagel has been too cozy with Iran and North Korea to former Sen. Joseph McCarthy accusing politicians and other public figures of being Communist sympathizers.

“My view is simple: Washington is a rough-and-tumble place,” Cruz said last week. “If folks want to attack me personally, they're welcome to it. Texans elected a senator to go to Washington and speak the truth."

This weekend, Cruz, a Harvard Law School graduate and former clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist, doubled down on past remarks about Marxist professors at his former law school, revisited in a recent story in The New Yorker.

“The New Yorker is shocked -- shocked -- to discover that there are Marxists on the Harvard faculty,” said Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier. “It's curious that the New Yorker would dredge up a 3-year-old speech and call it ‘news.’ "Regardless, Senator Cruz's substantive point was absolutely correct: In the mid-1990s, the Harvard Law School faculty included numerous self-described proponents of ‘critical legal studies’ -- a school of thought explicitly derived from Marxism.”

Still, Cruz allows the Hagel grilling might have resulted in negative consequences.

"The flurry of attacks on me has had their intended effect, which was to shift the conversation away from Chuck Hagel," he said. "Away from his record, away from his refusal to provide financial disclosures, and toward the direct, nasty, personal attacks leveled at me."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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