John E. Jackson, 37, and Carolyn Jackson, 35, worked at the Picatinny Arsenal Installation in Morris County, N.J. Because the alleged crimes occurred on a military base, they will be tried in a federal court.

The Jacksons are charged in a 17-count indictment with one count of conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child, 13 counts of endangering the welfare of a child and three counts of assault.

“Carolyn and John Jackson are charged with unimaginable cruelty to children they were trusted to protect,” Fishman said in a statement. “The crimes alleged should not happen to any child, anywhere, and it is deeply disturbing that they would happen on a military installation. Along with the FBI, we will continue to seek justice for our communities’ most vulnerable victims.”

A Picatinny Arsenal Installation spokesman told ABC News that Maj. Jackson resided there from 2007 until late last year.

“We’ve been cooperating with investigators for some time and will continue to do so, ” the spokesman said.

The alleged abuse occurred from 2005 until 2010 when the Jackson’s engaged in a “constant course” of neglect and cruelty to their three adopted children and told their three biological children not to report the physical assaults, saying the punishments were “training” the adopted children how to behave, according to the indictment.

The indictment alleges that the Jacksons withheld water from their children and assaulted them with objects, causing fractured bones. The report also says the parents caused the children to consume food meant for suffering, including red pepper flakes, hot sauce and raw onion. They also allegedly caused one child to ingest excessive sodium or sodium-laden substances while being deprived of water, leading to a life-threatening condition.

The defense teams for the parents did not return a request for comment.

The children are  in the custody of the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency.

Several support websites and online groups for Carolyn and John Jackson have been developed since the abuse allegations first became known in 2010.

One website, ReuniteJackson7 , maintains the Jackson’s are innocent and asks for donations for legal fees. New Jersey attorney Grace Meyer’s address  is listed on the website as the place to send in donations. When ABC News contacted Meyer, she said she doesn’t know who is behind the website. She added that she had not received any donations and was unaware that her name was on the website.

Meyer said she represented the family from 2010 through last year.

“I represented them for two years in court. I believe God is in control of this and I just know they’ll be exonerated,” Meyer said.

If the Jacksons are convicted, each faces a maximum potential penalty of 10 years in prison on each of the 17 counts. Each count also carries a maximum $250,000 fine.

Both are scheduled to appear in  a U.S. District Court Thursday 11 a.m. before Judge Mark Falk.

The hotel, which has held its duck marches twice a day for the past 11 years, had its last march on Tuesday for its feathered friends before it converted to a Marriott.

Every day at 11 a.m., the ducks were led down the elevator to the lobby by the hotel’s duckmaster, said Andy Groveman, senior vice president of Belz Enterprises, which is affiliated with the Peabody Hotel Group.

Credit: KATV

The mallards then waddled down the hotel’s red carpet to a John Phillip Sousa march before making their way into a fountain in the lobby, Groveman told ABC News.

At 5 p.m., the duck master would lead the ducks back down the red carpet, and up into the elevator.

Crowds gathered at the hotel to watch the final duck march, which was a beloved local tradition at the Little Rock hotel.

Groveman said the ducks at the Peabody Hotel locations in Memphis, Tenn., and Orlando, Fla., will continue to march on.

Jane Bashara was found strangled to death in her Mercedes SUV in Detroit in January 2012. Bob Bashara’s handyman, Joe Gentz, confessed to murdering Jane Bashara and said that Bob had hired him to do it.

Bob Bashara has previously pleaded guilty to trying to hire a hit man to kill Gentz and is serving a six-to-20 year sentence.

Now Bashara will face charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder,  solicitation to commit murder, witness intimidation and obstruction of justice, according to ABC News affiliate WXYZ. He  faces life in prison.

During today’s hearing, Bashara told the judge that he was not currently represented by an attorney and was trying to raise money to hire one, WXYZ reported.

“May I ask for some more time? At this point I’m trying to raise funds for an attorney. At this point I do not have an attorney,” he said.

He is due back in court on May 7.

Before his wife’s murder, the pair lived at home with their two children and Bob Bashara owned local businesses.

A spokeswoman for CBS Radio confirmed the firing to ABCNews.com today but declined to release any further details, saying only, “The blogger who wrote the story is no longer working with the station.”

The blogger, “Claire Crawford,” targeted Oklahoma City Thunder cheerleader Kelsey Williams’ looks on the court after the Houston Rockets faced off against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

The Houston Chronicle reported that Crawford was a pseudonym for Anna-Megan Raley, who once blogged for the paper and posted a video of her audition to be a Houston Dynamo soccer team cheerleader. The spokeswoman for CBS Radio would not release the blogger’s name or comment on the Chronicle’s report.

Attempts by ABCNews.com to reach Anna-Megan Raley were not successful.

“The Rockets looked terrible in Game 1, but some say they weren’t the only bad-looking people on the court,” Crawford wrote in the April 22 post on Houston’s SportsRadio 610, also noting that Oklahoma City fans had criticized Williams for “having ‘pudginess’ around her waistline.”

Crawford conceded Williams was a “pretty blonde” and concluded her post by writing, “We think she’s beautiful,” but her blog drew criticism nonetheless.

Drawing perhaps the strongest outrage was the poll attached to the six-paragraph article that asked readers if “this chick is ‘too chunky’ to be a cheerleader.”

Voters could choose that Williams either had “the perfect look to be an NBA cheerleader,” “she could use some tightening up in her midsection,” or, “she has no business wearing that outfit in front of people.”

Williams politely fired back at the post on Twitter.

“To be womanly always, discouraged never,” she wrote.

“We wouldn’t know what blessings were if we didn’t go through trials. Thank you to EVERYONE for the compassion and love today. I’m in awe,” she tweeted on April 24.

CBS Houston has since removed the post from its website, but a cached version of the page is still available online.

ABC News’ Alexis Shaw contributed to this report.

A crash between two bicyclists and a motorcyclist on a dangerous stretch of California roadway known as “the snake” was caught on camera Saturday.

Two bicyclists were traveling along the scenic Mulholland Highway in Malibu, Calif., Saturday afternoon when a motorcyclist drifted onto the road’s shoulder and hit them from behind.

The motorcyclist, who was not identified, “hit his foot and stood the bike up causing the bike to go wide,” according to a description on the YouTube video showing the crash.

The two cyclists both suffered only minor injuries.  According to the YouTube description, one of the cyclists was visiting from England and was discharged from a local hospital the same day as the crash with no broken bones.

“I asked him what hurt the most and it was his elbow and lower back,” Dr. Ramin Modabber said of one of the cyclists, whom he treated at the scene.  “He was sitting up in pain.”

The particular 2.4 mile-long stretch of Mulholland Highway where the crash occurred has earned the nickname “the snake” because of its tightly coiled curves and hairpin turns.

Motorcycle wrecks are so common along the roadway that two photographers and one videographer come to the stretch every weekend to capture the slide-outs.   The videos are then posted to a YouTube channel where the compilation of crashes has garnered hundreds of thousands of views.

Amanda Knox  said today she is “doing great” but said that it took a while for her get that way after spending four years in an Italian prison and being “so hated for so long.”

Knox discussed her years after prison today with “Good Morning America” anchor Robin Roberts, her voice at times quavery with emotion.

“I’m doing great and it’s incredible to feel that again because I felt so stunted and so limited and so hated for so long,” Knox, 25, said.  “It’s nice not to have to have that all the time.”

During the investigation and trial for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher  in Perugia, Italy, Knox was called a devil and reviled in tabloid press, accused of killing Kercher in a sex game gone wrong.

Knox, now a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, describes her life today as full of “wonderful” friends, a “wonderful” boyfriend and “great teachers.”  She is not, however, the same 20-year-old who traveled to Perugia, Italy, in 2007 to study abroad.

FULL COVERAGE: The Amanda Knox Case

“I’m just a little more sober, a little more somber,” Knox said.  “I almost felt that I was disappointing my family because of how serious [I was].”

“I almost couldn’t get out of my head when I first came home,” she said.  “That was the only thing that I had left in prison was my own mind, and that’s where I hid myself.”

While on trial and in prison for Kercher’s murder, Knox kept detailed recollections that are now laid bare in her new book, “Waiting to Be Heard.”

BOOK EXCERPT: Read a Chapter of Amanda Knox’s ‘Waiting to Be Heard’

The book holds nothing back, detailing everything from Knox’s drug abuse to her sexual encounters to her struggles to understand what was happening to her in a foreign land.

“I wanted people to know who I was because I felt that I was lost in the middle of this storm and I was taken over,” she said.  “There’s no use to me writing this if I wasn’t completely honest and completely bare.”

“I felt like I’ve been laid bare for so long that I’m only happy to give that,” Knox said.  “I poured my heart into it and I gave it everything I had.”

READ MORE: Top 10 Points of Amanda Knox’s Murder Trial

Knox says she always wanted to be completely honest in her book to help the family of Meredith Kercher.

“Meredith Kercher died and her family deserves answers and the prosecution didn’t give them,” she said.  “I also want them to be able to come away with my perspective because they’re seeking answers and they deserve to have answers and give every answer that I can in my book.”

Kercher’s sister issued a statement following the release of Knox’s book Tuesday that the family would not be reading the book.  The family has also spoken out in support of the March 26 decision by the Italian Supreme Court to overturn the acquittal and order Knox to stand trial again.

Despite what lies ahead, Knox says she still hopes to connect with the Kerchers.

“It’s the first way that I can reach out to them,” she said of her book.  “I really hope that we can connect one day.”

Amanda Knox’s memoir, “Waiting to Be Heard,” can be ordered HERE and HERE.

(Vanessa Lee, AIM Equipments)

Thanksgiving is still months away, but the wild turkeys in Jefferson, Ore., are facing the gun barrel early.

Officials were shooting wild turkeys, citing complaints that the birds have become an annoyance. Some of the complaints about the turkeys are that they scratch the paint off of cars and build their nests on rooftops.

“The city received turkey complaints [and] the city sought solutions to resolve turkey problems they had reports from local citizens about,” said Steve Marks, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife‘s South Willamette watershed manager. “We were aware of the situation and kind of advised the city and local residents of the types of actions you would take to resolve turkey damage and kind of worked in a technical capacity to advise what their options are.”

Marks said that Jefferson City recently adopted a no-feeding ordinance because turkeys will generally congregate where food is available.

“If residents are feeding turkeys, it can cause large congregations of turkeys and they can start roosting and scratch the roofs of vehicles,” Marks said.

However, not everyone in the small town agrees that the wild birds are a nuisance.

Shauna Martin, a local resident who works at AIM Equipments, the property where most of the turkeys tend to congregate, said she is against killing the turkeys.

“They’re not a nuisance at all,” Martin said. “They came to our land about six years ago and every year they come back, roost and lay their eggs here. And after the babies are 2 weeks old, the mama starts walking them around. And that’s when they start going to other people’s area.”

Martin said the entire ordeal has taken an emotional toll on her and other residents.

“I wish I could net them myself and protect them – but they’re wildlife, I can’t do that,” Martin said. “They’ve become my pets, my friends and they are tugging on my heartstrings right now.”

The permit, which allows a skilled hunter to shot the turkeys, was given to Jefferson by the state, and is expected to be used to kill several of the toms – the bigger male turkeys – in the hope that other turkeys will scatter. The appointed hunter was to be chosen by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Jefferson City Mayor Ben Pickett said late Tuesday that three toms already were “harvested” Tuesday morning.

“It is my understanding that ODFW [Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife] made it clear trapping and relocation efforts were not an option and issued the city three turkey harvest permits,” he said in a written statement.

Martin blamed the mayor for what she believes is an unnecessary plan.

“The mayor will tell you there are 70, but I haven’t seen more than 12 turkeys ever,” Martin said.

Jefferson Area Chamber of Commerce President Bill Fricke said that he personally doesn’t see any harm in keeping the turkeys around, but is trying to stay objective because of his position.

“As the president, I’m trying to take a neutral stance,” Fricke said. “I don’t want to pressure our board members from feeling one way or another. I put the details out as we get them and allow our members to make their own decisions.

“We are kind of used to the turkeys being part of the [AIM Equipments] property, and the owners always made it known the property is safe for them,” Fricke added. “I see them all over the neighborhood, and they don’t bother anybody. I think it’s cool to have wild turkeys roaming the neighborhood like neighbors.

“People are saying these turkeys tend to be aggressive,” Fricke said. “I’ve never seen any aggression from these turkeys, whether they’re babies or fully grown. If you step out there, they’ll just move out of your way.”

In addition to killing the birds, Marks said, the plan for the city also includes other actions.

“They have also done some outreach in the community to reduce feeding of birds and provide them options for hazing to help reduce damage,” he said. “Because the birds habituate easily, they need to curb the human behaviors to make the turkeys wild again.”

Kenneth Campbell, the Ornithology Department curator at the Natural Museum of Ornithology in Los Angeles, said killing the toms is not an effective way to solve the turkey problem.

“If they’re trying to control the population, removing the toms, unless you removed all of them, is not going to achieve population control, because it only takes one tom to breed with many, many females,” Campbell said.

Campbell added that the social birds can become an inconvenience in some cases.

“With subdivisions and homes going into rural areas and bringing with them irrigation and edible plants they become attractive to turkeys, which tend to congregate where there is a lot of food and water,” Campbell said. “They are social birds so they tend to congregate.”

Marks says it’s not uncommon to see a turkey community in towns where there is food and water available.

“This is not an uncommon problem, where we have a turkey habitat and concentrations, because they are fairly easily habituated,” Marks said. “Human behavior can cause some problems when we think we are doing the right thing by feeding the birds, and that can cause unintended consequences.”

Jefferson City said it will give the meat from the killed turkeys to needy families.

“The turkeys were taken to the processing facility in Scio and processed as per ODFW’s permit requirements,” Pickett said in his prepared statement. “The edible parts of the turkey will be delivered [Wednesday] to the first three low-income families in Jefferson on the ODFW approved list. All other parts of the turkey will be incinerated as per ODFW’s requirements.”

Martin said she spoke to local hunters who said the meat is not good to eat.

“These are old toms, old turkeys. Any time you eat turkey at your dinner table, it’s less than 1 year old,” Martin said. “When they get older, the meat gets tougher. And when they’re wild, they’re all brown meat, not white. These families don’t know what they’re getting.”

(Laura Burke)

An Alaska man and his family are counting their blessings after walking away with minor injuries from a hands-on scuffle with a bear.

“When the bear was headed towards us, we were like, ‘OK, it’s do or die now,’” Toby Burke, a wildlife biologist for Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, told ABC News.

On Sunday afternoon, Burke, 48, along with his wife, Laura, and three children decided to go bird watching along the Alaskan Kasilof River Beach. The sun was out and the skies were clear, but the chilly 30-degree Alaskan air had the family bundled up in layers.

While the two environmentalists were observing through telescopes, they noticed something a bit larger than the typical bird.

“We saw the bear in the distance and we said, ‘Hey let’s not go down there. Let’s stay up here,’” Burke told ABC News.

Burke wasn’t too worried. After all, he does live in bear country.

The bear disappeared into the undulating dunes and Burke said he assumed it might have fed on a washed-up marine mammal. Burke and his family turned around and continued their hike through the dunes.

Moments later, they found they were very wrong about the bear’s intentions.

“The bear is coming, it’s coming towards us!” yelled 11-year-old Grace Burke to her father.

“We were raising our arms and made loud noises,” Laura Burke said. “That’s supposed to scare the bear away. Instead of running away, it came right towards us.”

That’s when the bear bounded towards them and Toby Burke yelled to his wife, “Get behind me!”

Laura Burke, with her 7-month old baby on her back, grabbed her two other children to get behind her husband.

“When the bear came at my husband, my 8-year-old, Damien, wanted to run,” Laura Burke said. “I remember his dad said, ‘Don’t run. Stick together!’”

Toby Burke grabbed the first thing in sight: his scope attached to a 6-foot-long tripod.

“I put the scope sideways into the bear’s mouth, keeping it away, and it swatted at the scope and severed it,” he said.

The severed metal tripod left a sharp shaft, which Burke used to hit the bear in the face to scare it away. Yet it still didn’t seem to budge and smacked the tripod out of Burke’s hands.

“It was just me between my family and the bear,” he said. “At that point, I made physical contact. All I could do was put my left arm up. Then its mouth clamped down on my forearm. So I remember hitting it in the face with my right arm.”

After several minutes of scuffling, the bear gave up and ran away, and Burke managed to walk away with minor bruises and scratches.

“I definitely felt a crushing sensation when it clamped down on my arm,” he said. “Fortunately, because I had heavy layers of clothing on, I’m basically just really bruised up.”

Once the bear had left, Laura Burke called Alaska State Troopers and Alaska Wildlife Troopers to notify them of the bear and warn others on the beach.

“Upon arrival, an investigation revealed a female brown bear was acting erratically by attacking a vehicle, a telephone pole and then, eventually, attack a male walking on the beach,” said a news release by the Department of Public Safety.

Two troopers were walking along the tree line when the bear came running out of the woods towards them and it was shot. The deceased bear was released to a local charity.

“I mean, he’s very lucky,” Megan Peters, a public information officer with the Department of Public Safety, told ABC News. “I’m sure it was terrifying compared to other bear maulings. He’s really lucky.”

While Burke and his family are still shocked from the encounter, they believe their calm, collected reaction was what saved them.

“We weren’t terrified only because we always knew it’s a reality when you live up here,” Burke said. “We knew this day may come one day. Mentally, we were prepared for that.”

San Jose, Calif., police say a local woman with no criminal record replaced orange juice bottles in a Starbucks cold box with tainted ones – and they are puzzled about why she may have done it.

Ramineh Behbehanian, 50, will face charges of suspicion of poisoning and attempted murder, police said.

Image credit: San Jose Police Department

The Starbucks, located on the 6000 Block of Snell Avenue in South San Jose, Calif., was evacuated Monday evening after a customer spotted a woman switching bottles in the cold box at the front of the store with those in her bag, according to police.

As the witness was notifying Starbucks employees of the woman’s suspicious activity, police said, the suspect apparently overheard the conversation and fled the scene abruptly. A Starbucks employee was able to record the license plate of the woman’s car.

The San Jose Fire Department responded to the scene after Starbucks employees examined the bottles and found the contents had a toxic smell to them, police said.

The bottles were tested with hazardous materials equipment and were found to contain a mixture of isopropyl alcohol, or rubbing alcohol, police added.

Later that evening, police took Behbehanian into custody after she was found to be the owner of the car leaving the scene.

“Right now, we do not have any indication of further threats,” Sgt. Jason Dwyer, a spokesman for the San Jose Police Department, told ABC News.   ”We believe she acted alone and, so far, we have no further information leading us to believe that she was a part of a group.”

Behbehanian indicated that she planned to hire an attorney, police said, but they did not know if she had yet done so.

She was expected to be arraigned within the next 48 hours, Dwyer said, but a court date had not been set. In the meantime, Behbehanian was being held without bail at the Elmwood Complex Women’s Facility.

Police were still investigating a motive for the alleged incident.

A spokesman for Starbucks, Zack Hutson, told ABC News that employees of the Snell Avenue Starbucks went above and beyond what they were supposed to do.

“Our partners are trained that safety is our No. 1 concern and, in instances like this, they did exactly the right thing in calling the police,” Hutson said. “Our partners are always trained to monitor the store, including the cold case and lobby area, and to report any specious behavior.”

Starbucks employees later emptied the contents of the rest of the cold case as a precautionary measure. Other Starbucks in the area were also warned to inspect their cold cases and to make sure everything was properly sealed.

“No one consumed the juice and, again, our partners and our customers did the right thing by acting quickly,” said Hutson. “We destroyed the juice [and so did] our partner in the other area.”

A tip led police to the student, and police in Edison, N.J., said he “may be involved in” bomb threats that began showing up at the school the same day of the Boston marathon bomb attack.

New Jersey police found fireworks, shotgun shells, and six makeshift explosive devices at a 16-year-old's home. (Edison Police Department)

The 16-year-old from Edison, N.J., is under  investigation, police said, after detectives arrested him on Sunday and found fireworks, shotgun shells, as well as six makeshift explosive devices containing gunpowder and fuses, at the teen’s home.

“There is no proof he had something planned,” Edison Police Chief Thomas Bryan told ABC News.

Detectives were investigating a series of bomb threats made at Edison High School and reached out to the public for information when they received the tip leading to the suspect. Police did not release the suspect’s name because he is a minor.

On the morning of April 15, a note was left at the school indicating there was a bomb threat.  Two more notes were found in the days following, and a fourth threat was found on a wall in a school bathroom.

Police said they do not yet have any evidence connecting the student to the threats.

Richard O’Malley, Edison Township Public Schools superintendent,  declined to discuss the issue “as a result of the ongoing police investigation and the fact that this is a student matter.”

Bryan told ABC News that the six devices appeared to consist of small CO2 canisters packed with black powder and a hobby fuse.  The devices were in various states of assembly and will be sent to a federal lab for further analysis.

Investigations into the teenager as well as the bomb threats are ongoing, according to police.

The 16-year-old was charged on Monday and has since been released to the custody of his family.