Boston suspects' father postpones trip to US

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — The father of the two Boston bombing suspects said Sunday that he has postponed a trip from Russia to the United States because of poor health.

"I am really sick," Anzor Tsarnaev, 46, told The Associated Press. He said his blood pressure had spiked to dangerous levels.

Tsarnaev said at a news conference Thursday that he planned to leave that day or the next for the U.S. with the hope of seeing his younger son, who is under arrest, and burying his elder son, who was killed. His family, however, indicated later Thursday that the trip could be pushed back because he was not feeling well.

Tsarnaev confirmed on Sunday that he is staying in Chechnya, a province in southern Russia, but did not specify whether he was hospitalized. He is an ethnic Chechen and has relatives in Chechnya, although he and his family spent little time in Chechnya or anywhere else in Russia before moving to the U.S. a decade ago.

He and the suspects' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, returned to Russia last year and settled in Makhachkala, the capital of neighboring Dagestan, where Tsarnaeva's relatives live.

During the past week, they were both questioned extensively by U.S. investigators who had traveled to Makhachkala from Moscow. They also were besieged by journalists who staked out their home.

Tsarnaev's family said last week that he intended to get to the U.S. by flying from Grozny, the Chechen capital, to Moscow. He and Tsarnaeva left Dagestan on Friday, but their whereabouts were unclear.

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Boston suspects' father says he's returning to US

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — The father of the two Boston bombing suspects said Thursday that he is soon leaving Russia for the United States, to visit one son and lay the other to rest. Their mother said she was still thinking over whether to make the journey.

"I am going there to see my son and bury my older one," Anzor Tsarnaev said in an emotional meeting with journalists. "I have no bad thoughts, I'm not planning any bombings, I don't want to do anything. I'm not offended by anyone. I want to know the truth, what happened. I want to work it out."

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a gun battle with police, while his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, remains hospitalized with gunshot wounds.

Their parents returned last year to Dagestan, one of several predominantly Muslim provinces in southern Russia, where the family lived briefly before moving to the U.S. a decade ago.

The elder suspect spent the first half of 2012 in Russia's Caucasus, which has been ravaged for years by an insurgency led by religious extremists. Anzor Tsarnaev said his son stayed with him for at least three months in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, and spent one month with relatives, but he was unclear on where his son was for the remaining time.

U.S. investigators have been trying to determine whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev was radicalized during his stay in the Caucasus, where he regularly prayed at a Makhachkala mosque.

A team of investigators from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has questioned both parents in Makhachkala this week, spending many hours with the mother in particular over the course of two days. Tsarnaev said the questions were mostly about their sons' activities and interests.

The father, who wore dark aviator sunglasses during Thursday's news conference, said he was leaving "today or tomorrow" for the United States. But the family later said his travel may be delayed because he was not feeling well.

The suspects' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who was charged with shoplifting in the U.S. last summer, said she has been assured by lawyers that she would not be arrested, but said she was still deciding whether to go.

Tsarnaeva, wearing a headscarf and dressed all in black, said she now regrets moving her family to the U.S. and believes they would have been better off in a village in her native Dagestan.

"You know, my kids would be with us, and we would be, like, fine," she said. "So, yes, I would prefer not to live in America now! Why did I even go there? Why? I thought America is going to, like, protect us, our kids, it's going to be safe."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the Boston bombings should spur stronger security cooperation between Moscow and Washington, adding that they also show that the West was wrong in supporting militants in Chechnya.

"This tragedy should push us closer in fending off common threats, including terrorism, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous of them all," Putin said during his annual call-in show on state television.

The Russian government contacted first the FBI and then the CIA in 2011 with concerns about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, U.S. officials said. The FBI said it had asked for more information from Russia, but none was provided.

Putin said Thursday that the Russian special services had no information to give because the Tsarnaevs had spent so little time in Russia.

Putin warned against trying to find the roots for the Boston tragedy in the suffering endured by the Chechen people, particularly in mass deportations of Chechens to Siberia and Central Asia on Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's orders. "The cause isn't in their ethnicity or religion, it's in their extremist sentiments," he said.

The suspects are ethnic Chechens and their father's family was deported to Central Asia in the 1940s. The Tsarnaev family moved back to Chechnya in the early 1990s, but soon fled back to Kyrgyzstan after fighting broke out between Chechen separatists and Russian troops, whose bombs and artillery pummeled Chechen cities and town.

Putin criticized the West for refusing to declare Chechen militants terrorists and for offering them political and financial assistance in the past.

"I always felt indignation when our Western partners and Western media were referring to terrorists who conducted brutal and bloody crimes on the territory of Russia as rebels," Putin said.

The U.S. urged the Kremlin to seek a political settlement in Chechnya and criticized rights abuses by Russian troops during the two separatist wars. It also provided humanitarian aid to the region during the fighting in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Russian officials have claimed that rebels in Chechnya have close links with al-Qaida.

Putin said the West should have cooperated more actively with Russia in combatting terror.

"We always have said that we shouldn't limit ourselves to declarations about terrorism being a common threat and engage in closer cooperation," he said. "Now these two criminals have proven the correctness of our thesis."

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AP writers Vladimir Isachenkov and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

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The Next Sununu: Like Father, Like Son?

ABC News' Michael Falcone reports:

His father, John H. Sununu, was the governor of New Hampshire, a former White House chief of staff and, most recently, a fire-breathing surrogate for Mitt Romney.

His brother, John E. Sununu, was elected to three terms in the House of Representatives before serving as a U.S. senator for six years.

Now, a third member of New England's Sununu political dynasty - Chris Sununu - is looking to follow in his father and brother's footsteps as he contemplates higher office. The 38-year-old Salem, N.H., native has been hinting that he will seek either a congressional seat or run for governor of the Granite State - a decision he says he will make in the next few months.

"I'm a Sununu. If I told you I wasn't considering it, you wouldn't believe me," Chris Sununu told ABC News in a recent interview (repeating a line that is fast becoming his stock response to questions about his political future).

Sununu serves as one of five members of New Hampshire's powerful Executive Council, a job that gives him jurisdiction over roughly one-fifth of the state's population. He also runs the Waterville Valley Resort, a year-round destination located in the state's White Mountains.

A bid for New Hampshire's first Congressional district, a seat currently held by Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, seems a likely next step for Sununu. Although he stressed he has yet to make up his mind, if he did jump into the race, he offered a prediction: "I think I'd be good at it, and I know I'd win." A run for governor would pit him against Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, who began a two-year term in January.

His decision, as well as that of his brother John E. Sununu, who is rumored to be eyeing his old Senate seat, could have a domino-like effect on other New Hampshire politicians who are waiting in the wings.

"What the Sununus are thinking is on the minds daily of a number of Republicans," WMUR.com Political Director James Pindell, a long-time Granite State political observer, wrote last week. "When either one of them announce what they are thinking it will be a huge day in New Hampshire politics."

But merely being a part of the Sununu clan is not a guarantee of electoral success as John E. Sununu learned in 2008 when he lost his re-election bid to Democrat Jeanne Shaheen by a 52 to 45 percent margin.

And as Chris Sununu acknowledged to ABC News, his famous last name comes with both pluses and minuses, not the least of which is the reputation his father earned last year as an ardent - and sometimes strident - defender of Romney. Or as his son put it, "that wacky old uncle who can be a little bit off -putting."

In an interview, an ebullient John H. Sununu insisted that he and his son keep their distance when it comes to political matters.

"I know this may surprise people, but we don't talk politics," the elder Sununu said, joking that he does not have the inside-track on which office his son might seek in 2014. "I suspect that my wife and I will have to read it in the paper and see it on television."

Ryan Williams, a former Romney spokesman and experienced New Hampshire political hand who is close to the Sununus, said, "Chris lucked out by getting his father's brains combined with his mother's easy-going personality. And he is young, so he connects well with a new generation of voters."

For his part, Chris Sununu rates the political utility of his family name as a "net zero."

"Just because someone voted for my father or brother doesn't mean they're going to vote for me," he said. "People think the Sununus get together and play in political scheming and strategy. That couldn't be further from the truth. That's just not how we roll."

But whatever his next career move, Sununu said he is well aware that his family connections will put him under a more intense microscope. Shortly after word got out that he was thinking about either a Congressional or gubernatorial bid, the chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party accused him of "trying to influence a judge."

The Democratic chairman was referring to an incident in which Sununu sent a letter to a circuit court judge on behalf of a Salem city official who had been convicted of a misdemeanor crime. New Hampshire's attorney general, a Democrat, appeared to clear Sununu of any wrongdoing in the matter.

"It must mean that they're afraid," Sununu said. "I've been in the political eye my entire life. I've got an insanely thick skin - for better or worse. My feelings don't get hurt."

Sununu spent several years in Washington while his father served as White House Chief of staff under President George H.W. Bush during the late 1980's and early 1990's - an experience he evidently did not relish. When he left, the high-school-aged Sununu said he thought to himself, "I can't wait to never come back."

But he said that feeling changed recently when he came to the conclusion that "if there's ever a time Washington needs good, young energetic candidates," it is now.

If he runs for either office, Sununu indicated he would not turn his campaign into a family affair.

"I never ask anyone in my family to go raise me money," he said. "We all kind of appreciate the fact that whether you succeed or fail, it's on your own."

He said the best advice he received from his father was simple: "Be honest," and "let the fruits of your labor" do the talking with voters.

And when it comes to advice for his son on whether to run for Congress or governor, the senior Sununu kept it equally simple: "I'd tell him to go ask his wife."

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British father and son found dead in Alps

LYON, France (Reuters) - A 48-year-old British man and his 12-year-old son died in the Alps near Chamonix while hiking on Mont-Blanc, the gendarmerie said on Sunday.

The father called for help on Saturday afternoon, saying his son had disappeared after falling in Le Couloir des Bossons, an area known for being particularly difficult. Mont Blanc is in Europe's tallest mountain range.

Rescue workers, dispatched in a helicopter, could not locate them on Saturday. They found them both dead on Sunday morning.

The man and his son came from Buckingham.

(Reporting by Catherine Lagrange; writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by Keiron Henderson)

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Ohio adoptive father sentenced in child rape case

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — A judge who called the crimes "despicable" sentenced an adoptive father Tuesday to 50 years to life in prison, the second lengthy sentence for the 40-year-old western Ohio man who admitted raping three boys in his care and allowing two other men to rape one of his adopted sons.

The sentence here will run at the same time with one of 60 years to life in another case, virtually ensuring that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. In both cases, he pleaded guilty after reaching agreements with prosecutors.

Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Mary Katherine Huffman followed the agreed-to sentence for his guilty plea to one count of child rape and one count of complicity to child rape. She told the man he had cooperated fully with investigators, but she called his crime "the despicable abuse of your own child, and you allowed others to do the same to this child.

"Your conduct demonstrated your willingness to violate the most important relationship that we possibly can have in life — between a parent and a child," she said, telling the man he destroyed the boy's trust him in. "His future and his life are irreparably damaged."

Asked if he wanted to make a statement in court, the man replied: "No, ma'am."

The sentencing wraps up child rape cases against the man and two other men he allegedly arranged to let rape an adopted son who was 10 at the time. A Dayton area man earlier pleaded guilty to child rape counts in Montgomery County; the other case was in the adoptive father's home county of Miami, where another man pleaded no contest to child rape. The adoptive father had agreed to testify against both men if their cases went to trial.

"He really wanted to make sure that these children didn't have to testify, and that was at the end of the day the most important thing," Nick Gounaris, attorney for the adoptive father, said after sentencing.

Montgomery County Prosecutor Mat Heck Jr. said the state's hope and expectation with the deal is that "this individual will die in the penitentiary." He called the case "incredible and disturbing" and urged that people be vigilant against child abuse.

"I think it also points out how important it is, as a community, that we really work together to stop child abuse," Heck told reporters.

The adoptive father was arrested a year ago Sunday after an investigation that began with an undercover detective looking into an online posting about what was called "taboo" sex.

The adoptive father pleaded guilty Nov. 2 to six counts of raping the three young boys in his care in Miami County. If he were ever released from prison, he would have restrictions including registering with law enforcement and regularly reporting his whereabouts as a sex offender.

A longtime foster parent and former youth basketball coach, the man had adopted two boys and the sister of one of the boys, and had been in the process of adopting a fourth child, another boy. They had all been placed with him from Texas foster care through a private adoption agency. The children were put in the care of county children's services in the aftermath of his arrest.

The Associated Press isn't naming the adoptive father to protect the identities of the three boys and one girl in his care. The children were age 9-12 when he was arrested a year ago.

The man told The Associated Press in interviews late last year that he loved the children and was sorry for the pain he had caused, and that he wanted to spare them having to testify in a trial.

Patrick Rieder, 32, pleaded guilty in Dayton earlier this month to charges including rape of a child under 13. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. In Miami County, Jason Zwick, 30, of the Dayton suburb of Beavercreek, pleaded no contest Jan. 8 to one count of child rape in that case and was sentenced to 10 years to life in prison.

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Contact the reporter at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell

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