By Alan Duke
CNN

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) - Michael Jackson's mother's battle for control of the pop star's estate is about to take a "new direction" based on "new evidence" uncovered by the family, a Jackson family lawyer said.

The revelation came from attorney Londell McMillan, who also corrected a report that he was one of the lawyers Katherine Jackson replaced Thursday.

McMillan pointed to questions about the authenticity of the signature on Jackson's will as reported this week by celebrity gossip Wed site TMZ.

Randy Jackson said his brother could not have signed the will - which was dated July 7, 2002 in Los Angeles - because he was in New York that day, according to the TMZ report.

Until now, the Jacksons have not challenged the will's authenticity in court.

By Mike M. Ahlers
CNN
(CNN) - Police met a wayward jet that overshot the runway by 150 miles - while not responding to control tower communications - and said the pilots were "cooperative, apologetic and appreciative"

The Minneapolis-St. Paul (Minnesota) Airport Police report on the incident, released Friday, said officers asked flight attendants to keep passengers in their seats while they checked out the cockpit, where, they said, "the door was standing open."

The police report identified the pilot as Timothy B. Cheney and the first officer as Richard I. Cole.

"The pilot ... indicated they had become involved in conversation and had not heard radio communications," the report said. "They indicated there had been no involvement from anyone in the cabin."

"Both volunteered to a preliminary breath test with the result being .000 for both parties," the report said.

The lead flight attendant, the report said, told officers that she was unaware there had been an incident aboard.

Northwest Flight 188 flew past the Minneapolis airport during a mysterious 78 minutes of radio silence beginning about 7:56 p.m. ET Wednesday night, while the Airbus 320, en route from San Diego, California, was in the Denver, Colorado, area.

Air traffic controllers re-established radio contact after the plane had flown about 150 miles past its destination.

(CNN) - A raging blaze at a fuel storage complex in Puerto Rico lit up the night sky Friday near San Juan as firefighters battled to keep it from spreading further.

Fifteen of the 40 tanks at the Caribbean Petroleum Corp. facility in the city of Bayamon were ablaze more than 19 hours after an explosion of unknown origin rocked the complex, Gov. Luis Fortuno said at an evening news conference. The governor had put the tally at 11 a few hours earlier.

The fire started shortly after midnight, when at least one fuel tank exploded. Residents described a surreal scene after the blast woke them from their sleep and shattered windows miles away.

By Mike M. Ahlers
CNN
(CNN) - Attorneys for John Allen Muhammad argue the convicted District of Columbia-area sniper should be given clemency on the grounds that he has a severe mental illness that worsened while serving in the first Iraq war.

Attorney Jonathan Sheldon also said a juror in the case has said she would not have sentenced Muhammad to death if she had known of his mental illness.

Muhammad is scheduled to be put to death in Virginia on November 20.

"Execution is not justified in this case because of John Muhammad's severe mental illness as illustrated by brain damage, brain dysfunction, neurological deficits as well as his psychotic and delusional behavior," Sheldon said in a statement released Friday. The illness was "certainly exacerbated by the Gulf War Syndrome he suffered before and after serving as a sergeant in the first Iraq war," Sheldon said.

Muhammad should serve life without parole, Sheldon said, arguing the sentence would "keep the people of Virginia safe."

Sheldon said he and other attorneys presented Gov. Tim Kaine's representatives with audio interviews with attorneys, mental health experts and witnesses rather than a written document. They said they plan to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court on November 3.

Kaine's office said any information would come in the form of a news release at a later date.

(CNN) - The wife of a Colorado father at the center of the "balloon boy" saga says he created the giant helium balloon specifically for a hoax to draw media attention, according to court documents released Friday.

Mayumi Heene told Larimer County investigators that she and her husband, Richard Heene, knew their 6-year-old son Falcon was hiding at their Fort Collins home the entire time - even as police and military scrambled to search for the boy, according to the documents.

The Heenes had told authorities they believed their child had flown away on the balloon, and when the balloon landed without him, the expressed concern that he may have fallen our of the device.

The couple hatched the plan about two weeks before the the October 15 release of the balloon and "instructed their three children to lie to authorities as well as the media regarding this hoax, according to the documents.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) - With 46 states now reporting widespread H1N1 flu activity, more vaccine is slowly trickling out for those who want it.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16.1 million doses of H1N1, or swine flu, vaccine had been made by Friday - 2 million more than two days earlier. About 11.3 million of those had been distributed throughout the United States, according to CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden.

"We are nowhere near where we thought we would be," he said, acknowledging that manufacturing delays have contributed to less vaccine being available than expected. "As public health professionals, vaccination is our strongest tool. Not having enough is frustrating to all of us."

Frieden said that while the way vaccine is manufactured is "tried and true," it's not well-suited for ramping up production during a pandemic because it takes at least six months. The vaccine is produced by growing weakened virus in eggs.

Since the H1N1 flu pandemic began in April, millions of people in the United States have been infected, at least 20,000 have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died, Frieden told reporters in a news conference.

He said that having 46 states reporting widespread flu transmission is traditionally the mark of the peak of flu season - and to have the flu season peak at this time of the year is "extremely unusual."

(CNN) - The investigation into what caused a massive fire that continued to burn late Friday afternoon at a fuel storage complex in Puerto Rico will not start until the blaze is extinguished, a fire official told local media.

That may happen in perhaps a day or two, fire marshal Miguel Cartagena told El Nuevo Dia newspaper

At least 18 of the 40 tanks at the Caribbean Petroleum Corp. facility in the city of Bayamon, just outside San Juan, were ablaze as night approached, state emergency director Heriberto Sauri told the newspaper.

Earlier Friday, Gov. Luis Fortuno had put the tally at 11.

"I don't think there's ever been a fire like this in Puerto Rico," Fire Lt. Jose Atorre told CNN affiliate WLII-TV.

The fire started shortly after midnight, when at least one fuel tank exploded. Residents described a surreal scene after the blast woke them from their sleep and shattered windows miles away.

"I was in bed and all of a sudden heard this really horrible sound, so I ran upstairs and thought the whole town had blown up," said Teo Freytes, who filed an iReport for CNN.

"The explosion blew out windows here in Old San Juan," he said. "It's still burning outrageously."

By Terry Frieden
CNN Justice Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) - The inter-agency feuding between agents of the FBI and the ATF over handling of explosives investigations is so serious they sometimes race to be first on the scene of an explosives incident, a new report says.

The report - issued Friday by the Justice Department's inspector general - found a major duplication of effort and strong disagreement about who has jurisdiction in investigations.

Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are agencies within the the Justice Department, and the department was sharply criticized by its inspector general, Glenn Fine, for failing to resolve the dispute.

"Our audit found, for example, that the FBI and ATF sometimes race to be the first federal agency on the scene of an explosives incident," the report said. "Disputes have occurred when one agency arrives first and other agency believes the incident falls within its lead agency authority."

In 2003 the ATF was moved from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department, where the FBI has long resided. In 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memo designed to outline the respective roles. ATF also officially had "explosives" added to its name.

The inspector general's investigation, however, found that neither the Justice Department nor either of its agencies ever implemented procedures for information sharing, database consolidation, training, or laboratories.

In fact, the two agencies maintain entirely separate databases on explosives investigations and have their own explosives labs.

The report found that ATF "believes it should have primacy because explosives enforcement and related issues are inherent functions of its central mission." However, the FBI believes it "should be the lead agency because it should determine whether an explosives incident has a nexus to terrorism making it a matter exclusively for the FBI to investigate."

From Jesse Solomon
CNN
(CNN) - Residents of the New Jersey town where a priest was found dead in the kitchen of his church's rectory Friday morning should exercise caution, Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi said.

Due to the nature of the wounds, the death of the Rev. Ed Hinds, 61, of St. Patrick's Church "in all likelihood was in fact a homicide," Bianchi told reporters at a news conference Friday afternoon.

He said investigators believe Hinds was killed sometime between 11 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. Friday, when his death was discovered after he failed to show up for morning mass. He was fully dressed in a black clerical robe when police arrived on the scene, Bianchi said.

Chatham Borough police were interviewing witnesses and had some 50 to 100 police and detectives investigating the case, according to Bianchi.

Though he urged residents to go about their daily lives, he warned that they "should be extra vigilant during these next couple of days."
–CNN's Hussein Saddique contributed to this report.

(CNN) - Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is calling for national elections on January 24 after his Fatah party and rival Hamas failed to reach a reconciliation deal in talks mediated by Egypt.

Abbas issued a decree - requesting presidential and legislative elections in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem - which will be considered by Fatah's Central Committee - its highest decision-making body - on Saturday, a presidential advisor told CNN.

Abbas is a leader of Fatah, which controls the West Bank. Hamas - a rival political party and Islamist group listed by the United States and Israel as a terrorist organization - controls Gaza.

A Hamas spokesman called Abbas' action a "counterstrike" against the reconciliation efforts, saying it only serves the interests of the United States and Israel.

Abbas informed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during his visit to Cairo this week that he would issue the decree if Hamas failed to sign the unity deal.