Amnesty International released a chilling report on Sudan's repeated use of chemical weapons on civilians in a remote and inaccessible part of Darfur, NBC News reported.

The 103-page report — "Scorched Earth, Poisoned Air" — features satellite images, survivor testimonies and photographs to corroborate what it says are war crimes in Darfur's Jebel Marra region.

"When the bomb exploded I inhaled the poisonous air, which I am smelling even now," one survivor said — cutting an interview short because he was in too much pain to speak.

According to Amnesty the evidence indicates at least 30 likely chemical attacks have hit the area since the start of the year. The most recent was Sept. 9.

Helicopter footage shows the scene at Hoboken Terminal, where a rush-hour train from Spring Valley, New York, crashed through a barrier at the end of the line and into the terminal's concourse, killing at least one person and injuring more than 100. 

Several passangers said the 1614 train on the Pascack Valley Line never slowed down when it arrived at Hoboken Terminal at 8:45 a.m. Preliminary reports indicate the crash was accidental or caused by operator error, according to five law enforcement officials. 

The video above shows glass arches atop the building crunched like an accordion over the platform.

Two sisters from Minnesota were found dead in their hotel room on a paradise island in the Indian Ocean last week, NBC News reported. 

Annie Korkki, 37 and Robin Korkki, 42, were vacationing at a $2,000-a-night luxury resort on the Seychelles island of Mahé.

They were found dead on Sept. 22 after an employee at the Maia Luxury Resort and Spa tried to wake them, according to the hotel and local officials.

"There were no marks on them whatsoever," Seychelles Tourism Minister Alain St Ange told NBC News. "They had a good time in the day and then they went to their room."

The sisters' brother and mother have traveled to the island to look for answers, St Ange said. 

Their brother, Chris Korkki, told the Associated Press the family has learned nothing through official channels about his sisters' deaths.

Sky-watchers have seen a harvest moon, the rare super blood moon total eclipse and now a new lunar event is on the horizon. 

On Sept. 30, the “black moon” will rise in the sky, but catching a glimpse of it might prove impossible. It's invisible.  

Though the term "black moon" isn't recognized by NASA, according to Joe Rao of Space.com, it's an astronomical phenomenon where, every couple of years, the moon is completely blanketed in darkness twice in one month.

The last new moon was on Sept. 1 and the "black moon" will rise on Friday at 8:11 p.m. ET. All new moons can't be seen with the naked eye because the side of the moon that’s lit by the sun is facing away from Earth. It will take a few days for slivers of silver to peek out again. 

“It doesn’t happen all the time, but it’s not particularly rare," Ian O’Neill, an astrophysicist and the senior producer for space at Discovery News and Seeker.com told The Los Angeles Times. 

It also doesn't spell the end of the world, experts say. It's just how the moon works. 

Conspiracy theorists claim the episode will "bring with it worldwide destruction and the second coming of Jesus Christ," the Express paper in England reported. 

The most recent "black moon" was in March 2014 and about 32 months before that. 

According to National Geographic, the black moon does not predict our demise, but instead, a fresh start. 

"If anything, this black moon is a harbinger of new beginnings and festivities: On the evening of October 2, the barely visible waxing crescent moon will shine on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year," the magazine explained. "And on October 3, the growing crescent will mark the beginning of Muharram, the first month in the Islamic lunar calendar."

O'Neill pegged all the hubbub to online frenzy.

“When you have anything that's the least bit foreboding in the night sky, the media jumps on it,” he said. “Social media has a huge part to play. These things go viral.” 

The 2016 Banned Books Week ends on Friday but it's never too late to celebrate the freedom to read. 

The annual event is promoted by the American Library Association and other organizations. Each year the association releases a list of the top 10 most challenged books across the country. These titles are based on the frequency a book has been challenged or removed from libraries or schools in the US.

The most challenged books of 2015 included:

"Looking for Alaska," by John Green

"Fifty Shades of Grey," by E.L. James

"I am Jazz," by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings

"Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out," by Susan Kuklin

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," by Mark Haddon

"The Holy Bible"

"Fun Home," by Alison Bechdel

"Habibi," by Craig Thompson

"Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan," by Jeanette Winter

"Two Boy’s Kissing," by David Levithan

The titles of this year’s list were flagged for reasons such as: sexually explicit material, homosexuality, sex education, nudity, violence and religious viewpoint.

“We’re seeing more and more challenges to diverse content, such books about people of color or the LGBT community,” said Deborah Caldwell Stone, deputy director of the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom. “It reflects concerns of changes in our society.”

The top 10 lists have been published by the American Library Association for the last 15 years.

The first list, in 2001, was topped by JK Rowling’s Harry Potter for “satanism, religious viewpoint, anti-family and violence.”

From 2000 to 2009, the top five categories that caused a book to be challenged or banned included: sexually explicit material, offensive language, being considered unsuited for the age group, violence or homosexuality.

Banned Books Week began in 1982 as a response to what the group said was a drastic increase of challenges to, and removal of, books in libraries, schools and bookstores. According to the American Library Association, more than 11,300 books have been challenged in the 34 years since Banned Books Week’s inception.

Although some texts have been banned, Banned Books Week is also a celebration of the "banned" titles that continue to be made available.

“Banned Books Week celebrates one of our great freedoms -- to read,” Stone said. “It is a freedom that is still threatened by censorship. Banned Books Week is a way of remembering that we have this great freedom.”

The deadly train crash at Hoboken Terminal that killed at least one person, injured more than 100 others and caused significant structural damage to one of New Jersey's busiest railroad stations could have a devastating effect on transportation in the region in the coming days. 

Several train lines, light rails and ferry services were suspended to and from the Hoboken Terminal Thursday, impacting the commute of more than 50,000 people who use the major transit hub daily. 

Some service was expected to resume for Thursday's evening commute: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said the PATH train service and ferry service to New York City would both be operational for rush hour. But Christie could not provide a timetable for restoration of service for the NJ Transit commuter lines.

That could cause problems for the thousands of commuters who take the trains to Hoboken, and then the PATH or ferry to Manhattan. 

"If the Hoboken train station is impacted for any significant period of time, the impact on travel on that area would be huge," said Richard C. Beall from Railroadexperts.com. "It will depend on how many tracks have been affected and if the building itself is still structurally sound. They might have to bus people from the Hoboken station to the next station, but either way the impact is going to be enormous."

At about 8:45 a.m. Thursday morning, a Pascack Valley Line train appeared to have gone through a bumper stop and crashed into the station at the height of morning rush. It eventually stopped between that station's indoor waiting area and the platform.

Photos of the crash scene showed significant structural damage to the station. At least one of the NJ Transit cars appeared to be partially inside the station and the roof over the tracks had partially collapsed.

None of NJ Transit's trains are fully equipped with positive train control, a safety system designed to prevent accidents by automatically slowing or stopping trains that are going too fast. The industry is under government orders to install PTC, but the deadline has been repeatedly extended by regulators at the request of the railroads. The deadline is now the end of 2018.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who toured the crash site Thursday, says he's been pushing for better rail security. 

"We are a rail-dependent region here in New Jersey," Booker said on MSNBC. "We should be focusing a lot on safety technology. We have a lot more to do on that in this country." 

Situated just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, NJ Transit's fifth-busiest station is the final stop for several train lines and a transfer point for many commuters on their way to New York City. Many passengers get off at Hoboken and take ferries or a Port Authority Trans Hudson (PATH) commuter train to New York.

Also known as the Lackawanna Terminal, Hoboken's major transit hub is served by nine NJ Transit commuter rail lines, one Metro-North Railroad line, various NJ Transit buses and private bus lines, the Hudson–Bergen Light Rail, the PATH transit system and NY Waterway-operated ferries.

For many New Jersey residents who work in lower Manhattan, taking a train to Hoboken and then connecting to the PATH to the World Trade Center or Christopher Street is more convenient than NJ Transit trains to midtown's Penn Station.

The site of the terminal has been used as a ferry landing since the colonial era. The Hoboken Terminal that stands today was built in 1907, a construction that was a result of a blaze during 1905 which had destroyed the original structure due to a ferry catching fire while docked, according to "Railroad Stations" author Brian Solomon. 

The Beaux-Arts style terminal, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by architect Kenneth M. Murchison. 

The 109-year-old building has undergone waves of restoration, including a major project launched by NJ Transit in April 2004 that largely restored the building to its original condition. The station underwent more renovations after it was extensively damaged during Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Many "firsts" can be attributed to the Hoboken Terminal,  according to the Hoboken Historical Museum. The first electrified train, operated by Thomas Edison, departed Hoboken in 1930 and traveled to Montclair, N.J. One of the first central air-conditioning units in a major building was installed at Hoboken Terminal. The first wireless phone, operating between Hoboken and Manhattan, was first used inside the terminal.

A Maryland man killed his wife in their Harford County home and then drove to his son's home near the University of Maryland and killed him and then himself, police say.

Farhad Siddique, 19, died in what police are calling a double murder and suicide. His mother, Zarqa Siddique, 48, also was killed.

Officers found the body of the University of Maryland junior on Wednesday after he was reported missing to university police.

Prince George's County Police Capt. Brian Reilly said Farhad Siddique may have gone to morning classes. 

"He missed a class that he goes [to] with his friends," he said. "They started reaching out to him and he never responded back." 

Officers found his body and the body of his father, Nasir Siddique, 57, about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday in the father's SUV, police said. The car was parked on 48th Avenue, less than a mile from the university's College Park campus. 

Police said they found a handgun in Nasir Siddique's lap.

"For somebody to take that step to kill their own child, we never understand that," Reilly said. 

Harford County police believe Nasir Siddique killed his wife hours earlier at their home in Bel Air. His wife's body was found with a gunshot wound about 10:15 p.m. Wednesday.

Officers then learned that Prince George County's officers were investigating the death of her husband and son. 

Zarqa Siddique worked for Harford County Public Schools. 

Nassir Siddique, an Army retiree, was an appointed member of the Governor's Commission on Maryland Military Monuments, Shareese DeLeaver-Churchill, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Planning confirmed. Due to poor attendance, Nassir was not slated to be re-appointed, she said. 

"This is an unspeakable tragedy and the governor's prayers are with the family of the victims of this horrific crime," DeLeaver-Churchill said.

The mother, father and son are survived by Farhad Siddique's sister, who is attending college out of state, police said. 

The investigation is ongoing, police said. Nassir Siddique left a note in his home in Bel Air, police said without disclosing whether it provided a motive.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Prince George's County Police Department's homicide unit at 301-772-4925.

More than 600,000 U.S. military veterans will go without health insurance in 2017 if 19 states fail to expand their Medicaid programs, according to the Urban Institute.

The report found that many veterans fall into the “Medicaid gap” -- not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but making too much to qualify for federal subsidies stipulated in the Affordable Care Act. Some uninsured veterans may be able to obtain VA care, but not all of them choose it or meet the eligibility requirements. 

Thirty-two states have expanded their Medicaid programs since Obamacare passed in 2010, and 20 million more Americans have health insurance than did six years ago. Many Republican-controlled states refused to do it, leaving many of their residents in what's now called the "Medicaid gap."

California Gov. Jerry Brown waded further into the national debate over transgender rights Thursday as he signed a bill requiring that all single-stall toilets in California be designated as gender neutral.

The measure requires that businesses and governments post non-gender-specific signs on single-occupant restrooms by March 1, 2017. Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting of San Francisco said his legislation would establish the nation's most inclusive restroom-access law and "chart a new course of equality for the nation."

"This simple concept is oddly cutting-edge when compared with the discrimination being enacted in other states," Ting said earlier, while urging the Democratic governor to sign the bill, AB1732.

One noticeable change will be signage seen outside single-stall restrooms at restaurants and other public places. Some are indifferent about the law, while others feel it's unnecessary.

"I really don’t care who uses the restroom, personally," said Veronica Murray, of Walnut Creek.

Another Walnut Creek resident, Justin Ferrara, said, "I think it’s absolutely confusing. I don’t really understand what the big deal is in the first place; leave it the way it was. I think it’s ridiculous."

Kris Hayashi, executive director of the Transgender Law Center, which co-sponsored the bill, said it's an issue of safety.

"This law is going to mean people who are transgender that don’t meet stereotypes of what a man or a woman should look like are able to use the restroom, without fear of harassment or fear of violence," Hayashi said.

Lawmakers sent the legislation to Brown in August, a day after a federal judge temporarily blocked an order by President Barack Obama requiring that public schools let students use bathrooms that correlate with their gender identity.

California students can already do so under a law Brown signed in 2013. He also approved adding gender identity to the state's antidiscrimination laws in 2011.

Supporters of the new legislation said 19 states considered restricting access to restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities based on the user's biological sex, including North Carolina, which passed a law requiring people to use restrooms based on their gender at birth.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider reviewing whether a transgender Virginia high school senior should be permitted to use the boys restroom.

Supporters say gender-neutral restrooms also would help parents with children of a different gender and adults caring for aging parents. It would not affect restrooms that have multiple stalls.

Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com, a nonprofit conservative organization, pointed to potential conflicts arising from gender-neutral facilities.

"What woman wants a man poking his head in the restroom door that somehow didn't shut or lock? How many women want to use a urine-stained toilet seat?" he wrote in urging Brown to veto the bill.

He fears that what he called a "radical state takeover of the private sector's restroom policies" could affect religious schools and home businesses.

Opponents said in December that they had failed to collect enough signatures to advance a proposed ballot measure that would have asked voters to require transgender people to use the public restrooms that correspond with their biological sex.

As investigators explore the cause of the Hoboken Terminal train crash that killed at least one passenger and injured more than 100 others, some industry analysts are pointing to the need for an already approved safety measure, Positive Train Control (PTC), which they say would prevent many train accidents.

NBC News reported that the commuter train that crashed into New Jersey Transit’s Hoboken terminal Thursday morning was not equipped with PTC technology. Additionally, no single New Jersey Transit employee been trained how to use the technology, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Transportation progress report, which is dated Sept. 13.

During a briefing a representative from the National Transportation Safety Board said they would "absolutely" be looking into if PTC could have prevented the crash. The engineer was among the survivors, according to a law enforcement official. He was being treated at a local hospital for serious injuries, but N.J. Gov. Chris Christie said the engineer was cooperating with authorities.

When asked about PTC at a presser and if it could have prevented the accident, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said it was too early to make that determination.

"We don't know what the exact circumstances were that caused the train to continue into the station at that high rate of speed," he said. "It could have been any number of reasons. So before we start to prescribe solutions, we have to find out what the problem was."

Preliminary reports suggest the crash was either accidental or caused by operator error, according to law enforcement officials. 

Richard Beal, a certified locomotive engineer with over 30 years of railroad operating experience, said while specific details of the Hoboken crash were still incoming, he has no doubt PTC needs to be instituted industry-wide on a faster scale.

"They’ve got to get positive train control implemented," he said. "They’ve been talking about for over a year. If they had that in place then the computers would take over if the engineer doesn’t react the way he’s supposed to do in an emergency situation. The Amtrak accident in Philadelphia kicked them in the rear end to get them talking about positive train control. But It just hasn’t actually kicked into play yet."

Eight people were killed and more than 200 passengers injured aboard Amtrak #188, which was traveling on May 12, 2015, from Washington, D.C., through Philadelphia en route to New York City at the time of the crash.

According to Metrolink, PTC is GPS-based safety technology capable of preventing train-to-train collisions, over-speed derailments, unauthorized incursion into work zones and train movement through switches left in the wrong position. PTC monitors and, if necessary, controls train movement in the event of human error. PTC may also bring trains to a safe stop in the event of a natural disaster.

“PTC sends up-to-date visual and audible information to train crew members about areas where the train needs to be slowed or stopped. This information includes the status of approaching signals, the position of approaching switches, speed limits at approaching curves and other reduced-speed locations, speed restrictions at approaching crossings and speed restrictions at areas where work is being performed on or near the tracks," according to the Metrolink website. "PTC communicates with the train’s onboard computer, allowing it to audibly warn the engineer and display the train’s safe braking distance based on the train’s speed, length, width, weight, and the grade and curvature of the track. If the engineer does not respond to the ample audible warning and screen display, the onboard computer will activate the brakes and safely stop the train."

According to the Association of American Railroads, PTC when properly implemented would prevent train-to-train collisions, derailments caused by excessive speed, unauthorized incursions by trains onto sections of track where maintenance activities are taking place and movement of a train through a track switch left in the wrong positions. 

PTC would not however prevent accidents caused as a result of track equipment failure, improper vehicular movement through a grade crossing, trespassing on railroad tracks or some types of train operator error, the group says on its website. 

In 2008, Congress passed "The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008" (RSIA 08) mandating all Class I freight railroads implement PTC on main lines with regularly scheduled passenger service.

Railroads advised Congress repeatedly that they would not be able to meet the initial deadlines as the work gone more slowly than expected. The deadline has been repeatedly extended and is now Dec. 31, 2018.

Bob Chipkevich, who formerly headed the National Transportation Safety Board's train crash investigations section, told The Associated Press the agency will be looking at whether the train was exceeding speed limits, both when it was approaching the station and when it entered the station area.

Last month, the Federal Railroad Administration said New Jersey Transit had a lot of work yet to do on installing the necessary equipment. New Jersey Transit responded that the report didn't reflect the work it had accomplished.

Dr. Allan M. Zarembski, a professor of civil & environmental engineering at the University of Delaware, is also a railway civil engineering and safety consultant who heads the university's railway engineering program. Zarembski said there was no doubt that if excessive speed was the cause of the accident, PTC would have likely prevented it.

"It's not a universal solution, but if the accident occurred from what I've heard it would have prevented this incident," Zarembski said. 

According to Zarembski, PTC works with a "speed map" which is programmed into the train along its given route. PTC ensures that the train is not exceeding its maximum rate of speed at any point along the given route. If it is, the system kicks in and automatically applies the brakes.

Zarembski said that in general trains should not be traveling at speeds in excess of five miles per hour when approaching a station.

As for the delays in implementing the technology across the board, it simply comes down to cost, Zarembski said. 

"It's a very expensive technology and it's non-funded,"  Zarembski said. "So each railway has to come up with the cost themselves. Those costs that can reach upward to $10 billion."

And since they have to pay for the technology themselves, Zarembski says many railways often argue diverting money from new equipment or track maintenance in turn could lead to additional accidents. 

Beal, who has held positions including switchman, trainman, conductor and engineer, is also concerned with what he believed were severe cost-cutting measures in place by many railways.

"Many of the major railroads have gone for years without two men in the front of the train cab and that’s vital in the case of a medical event or in the case of fatigue or even if the man hits his head," Beal said.  "If any of that happens, there’s no one else there to react. They go on the cheap and look to save money by not having a second person in the cab. When things like this happen they say you have ‘x’ amount of trains traveling versus this one accident. But the thing this is one incident that could have been avoided."

Beal, who now serves as a consultant for railroad experts.com, said that in his 30 years of experience he’s found human error has more often been the cause for major railroad accidents over mechanical malfunction.

"Most of the time you’re looking at fatigue or the engineer having some sort of distraction,” said Beal, who is also concerned about the lack of experience among many newer engineers. 

"They’re getting too many newbies who are not well-trained or well-versed in the industry and to put them out there alone is just wrong," Beal said.

It was not immediately clear who was operating the train in the Hoboken crash. 

As the investigation into the crash begins in earnest, Beal said investigators will go straight to the black boxes to paint a picture of what went wrong.

"Some of these trains have cab videos and in some cases they have inward facing cameras so we’ll be able to get a good look and see exactly what was going on with the engineer," he said. "They’ll investigate the history of the train and determine if its had any issues with brakes in the past  and what the mechanical breakdown of the train is."

--The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A furious congressional committee grilled Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf Thursday on Thursday, the latest group to express their ire over the bank's shady practices, NBC News reported.

Stumpf sat before the House Financial Services Committee to answer questions after Wells Fargo was fined a record $185 million this month for opening fee-generating accounts without customers' authorization in order to meet the high sales goals.

Representative Maxine Water said Wells Fargo committed "some of the most egregious fraud we have seen since the foreclosure crisis," comparing it to mass identity theft.

"I want to apologize for not doing more sooner to address the causes of this unacceptable activity," Stumpf said, but Congress was not appeased.

Multiple passengers who were on a crowded commuter train that plowed into New Jersey Transit's Hoboken Terminal Thursday morning said the train did not brake before the crash. 

"We approached the station and the train just felt like it never stopped," Jamie Weatherhead-Sal, who was standing at the door between the first and second car, told NBC4 New York. "The train just kept going, the lights shut off, people started yelling."

A 34-year-old Hoboken woman was killed and more than 100 were injured in the crash, officials said. There were conflicting reports about the number of casualties throughout the morning.

A New Jersey Transit spokesperson speaking at a short media briefing would not comment on how fast the train was going when it entered the platform.

Another passenger, Bhagyesh Sha, told MSNBC the train was traveling at its usual speed when it neared the terminal, but it never stopped.

“It did not brake at all,” said Shaw, who was standing in the back of the second train car when it rammed through the platform. 

He said the train hit a couple of pillars, causing the roof to collapse onto the train. 

"It was for a couple seconds, but it felt like an eternity," Shah said of the crash. "I saw a woman pinned under the concrete. A lot of people were bleeding, one guy was crying." 

New Jersey Transit machinist Michael Larson saw the train entering the platform at a "higher speed" than the usual two to three mph. 

“It was horrific. It was an explosion of concrete, dust, electrical wire," Larson said of the crash.

He said passengers were scrambling to exit the train through windows but he and others tried to warn them of live wires hanging at the scene and to wait for emergency responders to arrive. 

"One woman had a gash the entire length of her leg," Larson added. 

The train came to a halt in a covered area between the station's indoor waiting area and the platform. 

"It simply did not stop," WFAN anchor John Minko, who witnessed the crash, told 1010 WINS. "It went right through the barriers and into the reception area."

Ross Bauer, 32, a system engineer from Hackensack, New Jersey, who was riding at the back of the train, said the train was going into the station but "the car never decelerated."

Bauer told NBC News he felt a "big jolt" before the train slammed into the platform. 

Nancy Bido, who was sitting in the middle of the train, told NBC 4 New York that it felt like the train was "going really too fast" and "never stopped." 

"Everybody was pretty shaken up and upset," said Bido who hit her head on the person in front of her. She was waiting to be taken to one of three hospitals in the area treating people.

"It was a really disastrous scene," she said. 

Weatherhead-Sal said she saw people get thrown on impact and one woman got her legs caught in the door. Fellow passengers were able to pull her up to safety. Another man was bleeding from a gash in his forehead but was still trying to help fellow passengers.

"People in front of me were badly injured and then we just heard people were screaming in the first car; they were trapped, they couldn't get out," Weatherhead-Sal said. She said the conductor helped them get off the train. She said she was no injured. 

NBC staffer Aracely Hillebrecht, 32, was on the platform at the time the train hit the station.

"I was about 30 feet from it," she told NBC News. "I heard screeching and we saw the train and someone yelled 'run.'"

"We heard the train crash and heard the sound of water as the roof collapsed. People were scrambling and running away from the train." Hillebrecht said she saw people who were "really hurt" and "some people couldn't walk."

Hillebrecht, who lives about 10 to 15 minutes away from the station, said she was not injured.

Alexis Valle, a 24-year-old woman who is five months pregnant, told NBC 4 New York that part of the train collapsed on her head. She was dazed, but was picked up and passed out a window by someone else aboard the train. She said afterward, she was taken to the hospital, where she got four staples to the head.

"I can't really take anything, so I had to get staples without medication or numbing," she said. 

Another passenger, Steve Mesiano, told MSNBC he heard a "huge, huge bang, and the lights went off." He was in the second train car, and said he saw the roof of the first car collapse.

When he got out, Mesiano saw bloodied passengers everywhere. 

"There was blood on the floor," he said.

Roseanne Colletti contributed to this report.

Doctors who treated a strange case of Zika say sweat and tears may be able to transmit the virus, NBC News reports.

A team at the University of Utah School of Medicine said their case, of a man who infected his adult son with Zika before he died, leaves no other alternatives than those two routes, according to their study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The 73-year-old patient died in July, and he hadn't been very sick before he caught the virus and developed muscle aches, diarrhea and other symptoms. He became the first person in an American state to die of Zika.

Investigators spent weeks trying to figure out how his 38-year-old son, who hadn't traveled to a place where Zika spreads, got infected, eventually determining that "infectious levels of virus may have been present in sweat or tears," which the son touched without gloves during his father's illness.

The United States is on the verge of ending its Syria discussions with Russia over continued bombing of the besieged city of Aleppo, Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday, NBC News.

The U.S. and Russia have been trying to negotiate a cease-fire in the war-torn nation, but Kerry said "the bombing of Aleppo right now is inexcusable" and that around 400 civilians have been killed there in the last eight days.

"I think we're on the verge of suspending the discussion because it's irrational in the context of the type of bombing taking place," Kerry said at an event in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the Atlantic magazine.

Furious Phoenix officials published a letter to Donald Trump on Thursday night, demanding his campaign ad showing city police officers be taken down immediately. 

The ad, titled “Movement,” shows Trump meeting with a number of people, including police. The Phoenix cops in the promotion had no idea they were being filmed, Phoenix City Attorney Brad Holm said, NBC News reported.

Holm condemned the video, writing in the letter that the ad “unmistakably and wrongfully suggests that Phoenix and the officers support or endorse Mr. Trump’s campaign.”

While the National Fraternal Order of Police, the largest police union in the country, endorsed Trump’s campaign, it is illegal for individuals in public service positions at the local, state and federal level to engage in political activities of any kind.

Election systems in more than 20 states have been targeted in hacking attempts — far more than had been previously acknowledged — a senior Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News Thursday.

The "attempted intrusions" targeted online systems like registration databases, not the actual voting or tabulation machines that will be used on Election Day. The official described much of the activity as "people poking at the systems to see if they are vulnerable."

And intelligence officials tell NBC News there is now "no doubt" the Russian government is trying to influence the election.

FBI Director James Comey told a congressional hearing this week that he is taking the threat to election systems "extraordinarily seriously," and urged states "to make sure that their deadbolts are thrown and their locks are on."

Police searched the Middletown, Connecticut, home of a woman who is presumed dead after disappearing during a fishing trip with her son, a source close to the investigation said. 

NBC Connecticut was at the home on Thursday night when police were at the scene for about an hour and officers took items in brown paper bags from the house. Officials said on Friday that police were given consent to go into the home.

There is a joint investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the disappearance of 54-year-old Linda Carman, according to police in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, and it includes federal law enforcement agencies, as well as state law enforcement in Connecticut, Vermont and Massachusetts.

Linda Carman has not been seen since she and her 22-year-old son, Nathan, went fishing on Sept. 17.

The mother and son failed to return from a fishing trip in their boat, the Chicken Pox, from the waters off Point Judith in Rhode Island.

For the next six days, the Coast Guard searched a span of 62,000 miles, from Block Island to New Jersey, but called off the search when nothing turned up.

Two days later, the crew on the Chinese freighter spotted a life raft 100 miles from Martha's Vineyard and discovered Nathan Carman in it. He had a supply of emergency food and water, but there was no sign of his mother.

Nathan later told the Coast Guard that he heard a "funny noise" coming from the boat's engine compartment when they were at sea. When he went to go look, it was filling up with water. Then he got into the life raft and called for his mother, but could not find her.

"I got to the life raft after I got my bearings and I was whistling and calling and looking around and I didn't see (my mom)," Carman told the Coast Guard.

Nathan Carman now lives in Vermont and officials have searched his home there as part of the investigation. The search warrant affidavit says police "believe that evidence relating to the crime of RIGL 46-22-9.3 {Operating so as to endanger, resulting in the death} will be located inside Nathan's residence located at 3034 Fort Bridgemon Road in Vernon, Vermont."

A friend of the family told investigators that Linda Carman said the pair was going fishing at Striper Rock, which is located approximately 20 miles off of the Block Island shoreline, according to the affidavit.

However, another witness told police that Nathan Carman said they were going fishing at the Canyons, which is approximately 100 miles off the Block Island shore, the affidavit reads.

When Carman was rescued about 100 miles off shore of Martha's Vineyard, he told investigators he and his mother were fishing on the Block Canyon for tuna, the affidavit said.

Sources close to the investigation also said that Nathan Carman is a person of interest into his wealthy grandfather's homicide in 2013.

The 22-year old told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he had nothing to do with his grandfather's unsolved slaying and didn't harm his missing mother.

While the investigation into what happened to Linda Carman is ongoing, Petty Officer 3rd Class Nicole Groll said during a news conference on Monday that the chances of Linda Carman's survival are minimal.