QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It’s time for the commonwealth to be on the right side of history and the right side of the law.” Mark Herring, Virginia’s attorney general, who said he won’t defend the state’s ban on gay marriage and will seek to have the law declared unconstitutional Article, this page5 arrested in 45-year racketeering case

NEW YORK - Five purported members of a New York crime family have been arrested in a case with links to the $5 million Lufthansa heist in 1978 at John F. Kennedy International Airport recounted in the film Goodfellas.

The five men, who prosecutors say are members of the Bonanno crime family, were engaged in a racketeering conspiracy that dates back to Jan. 1, 1968, and continued as recently as June 30, 2013, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn.

One of the defendants, Vincent Asaro, 78, a purported captain in the Bonanno crime family, plotted with unnamed organized-crime members to carry out the Dec. 11, 1978, robbery of a Lufthansa Airlines plane at JFK, the U.S. said. About $5 million in U.S. currency and about $1 million in jewelry were stolen, according to the U.S.

The four other defendants aren’t charged in connection with the Lufthansa heist. The indictment alleges a series of crimes that include racketeering conspiracy, extortion, murder and bookmaking.

Hagel orders review of nuclear forces

WASHINGTON - Citing a string of setbacks in the nuclear-missile force, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel summoned senior military leaders to discuss serious personnel problems and other missteps that “threaten to jeopardize” public trust.

In a memorandum Thursday to top Pentagon officials, Hagel also ordered an independent review of the nuclear force to determine whether setbacks, including numerous lapses and missteps revealed by The Associated Press, reflect endemic failures that could harm the nuclear mission and the safety and security of the nation’s nuclear weapons.

The AP was provided a copy of his letter before it was announced by his press secretary, Adm. John Kirby, who described Hagel as eager to get to the bottom of the problems.

Last week the Air Force announced that it had suspended the security clearances of 34 nuclear-missile launch officers who are purported to have cheated on proficiency tests, a probe that grew out of a drug-use investigation.

Pileup on snowy I-94 fatal to 3 in Indiana

MICHIGAN CITY, Ind. - More than 40 vehicles, many of them semitrailers, collided during whiteout conditions in a highway pileup that left three people dead and more than 20 others injured - at least one critically - in northwest Indiana, police said Thursday.

The pileup on Interstate 94 eastbound began Thursday afternoon near Michigan City, about 60 miles from Chicago, according to Indiana State Police. At least one person was trapped in a vehicle for hours.

I-94 is the main highway heading east from Chicago to Michigan and Indiana, and the main thoroughfare between the nation’s third-largest city and Detroit. Traffic was backed up for hours in frigid, snowy conditions, although state police said one westbound lane was open late Thursday.

Photos of the scene showed semitrailers and mangled passenger vehicles jammed together the width of the highway near an overpass.

Indiana State Police Sgt. Ann Wojas said 20-30 people were injured, including one with life-threatening injuries and another who was flown by medical helicopter to a hospital.

The National Weather Service said a band of heavy lake-effect snow was reported in the area at the time of the crash, dropping 1-2 inches of snow per hour and reducing visibility to a quarter mile or less - with some reports of visibility near zero.

Concern raised on quakes in mid-U.S.

LOS ANGELES - The New Madrid fault zone in the nation’s midsection is active and could spawn future large earthquakes, scientists reported Thursday.

It’s “not dead yet,” said U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Susan Hough, who was part of the study published online by the journal Science.

Researchers have long debated just how much of a hazard New Madrid poses. The zone stretches 150 miles, crossing parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee.

In 1811 and 1812, it unleashed a trio of powerful jolts - measuring magnitudes 7.5 to 7.7 - that rattled the central Mississippi River valley. Chimneys fell and boats capsized.

Farmland sank and turned into swamps. The death toll is unknown, but experts don’t believe there were mass casualties because the region was sparsely populated then.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 01/24/2014