do this, whether i'm the person for this. but i don't have doubts that as a team we can do this. >> reporter: the general, who so often brought it back to his team and his troops. david muir, abc news, new york. a colorado man who set out on a mission alone to hunt osama bin laden is returning home. gary faulkner arrived in los angeles yesterday after a flight from the mideast. he has been detained in pakistan for ten days. faulkner was apprehended in a remote area with a pistol, sword and night vision equipment. the pakistanis did not charge faulkner and he promises to return to his mission. sex abuse accusations against al gore in oregon four years ago are now being made public. portland police confirmed tabloid reports about a portland massage therapist accusing the former vice president of unwanted sexual contact. no charges were filed back in 2006. police said there was not enough evidence. three years later the woman complained again to police and gore was not charged. a spokesman said gore will not comment. bp says it has made an undersea fix capping the oil well once again at the bottom of the gulf of mexico. abc's michael bard explains what caused the problem and its impact. >> reporter: after a major setback a containment cap bumped loose from the gushing oil well has been put back in place. oil had spewed at an uncontrolled rate for 11 hours on wednesdayoff afteran underwater robot hit a vent. >> reporter: bp says full operations resouped after the cap was replaced. over the next 24 hours crews hope to take in about 15,000 barrels of oil. the normal amount. on many beaches tar balls are washing ashore. >> days count, hours count. we are in an emergency situation right now. >> reporter: the justice department wants to delay a federal judge's ruling. he struck down the six-month moratorium on deep sea drilling. interior secretary ken salazar said investigations show reckless conduct on the deepwater horizon rig and says that trouble extended to the agency that oversaw the rigs. >> sex, drugs, various -- secret handshakes, so on. >> i hope and i think it is not pervasive across the agency. >> reporter: and lawmakers are demanding proof from bp that it's paying claims in the gulf and may issue subpoenas. michael barr, abc news. now here is a look at your thursday forecast. 70-mile-an-hour winds, hail and flash floods from maine down to washington, d.c. thunderstorms in tennessee, kentucky, and the gulf coast. severe storms from denver to albuquerque. rain from washington state to minnesota. >> 84 in the twin cities. 86 in omaha. 99 in dallas. mostly 90s up and down the east coast. 87 in colorado springs. 93 in salt lake city. and 110 in phoenix. the joke is on him but this guy is taking it all in good humor. >> a furniture store manager in suburban kansas city is looking a lot more like the ice cream man these days thanks to a prank by his bosses. they took colin goodwin's company car to be detailed and returned it dressed up like an ice cream truck complete with music. >> goodwin decided to play along with keeping a stocked freezer in his back seat. he says passing out ice cream boosts morale at work. good guy. >> everyone loves ice cream. >> we'll be right back with more "world news now." and what it doesn't cover can cost you some money. that's why you should consider an aarp... medicare supplement .insurance plan... insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. some of what medicare doesn't, so you could save... thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses. call now for this " free information kit and medicare guide. if you're turning 65 or you're already on medicare... you should know about this card -- see if it's right for you. all medicare supplement plans let you keep your own doctor, or hospital that accepts medicare. there are no networks r and no referrals needed. help protect yourself from some of what medicare doesn't pay... and save up to thousands of dollars in potential... medicare supplement .insurance plan... insured by unitedhealthcare # insurance company. call this toll-free number on your screen now... medicare guide and customized rate quote. says she now knows what it's like to lose a child letter her son is in custody in peru on suspicion of murder. it's likely he will never be free again. >> in an exclusive interview anita van der sloot looks to joran's childhood to see what may have been gone. . >> reporter: these are new pictures of the crime scene obtained by abc news. joran van der sloot's victim, stephany flores. her bloody sneakers. her bruised and bloodied hands. showing clear signs of a violent struggle. >> my heart became heavier and heavier. >> reporter: joran is gambling in peru when his mother hears some shocking news. >> there was a girl found in the hotel in the room of joran murdered brutally with a knife, blood everywhere. and i thought, no, no. this cannot be. i mean, no way. no way. >> reporter: joran is on the run. he calls her from a taxi on his way from peru to chile. she explains in her native dutch. i told hill, joran, you're wanted for the murder of a girl, a girl named flores who was seen with you. then he started crying and he said, oh, no, they didn't do anything to her, did they? the only thing i said was, go to the police now and turn yourself in. within 36 hours joran is captured in chile and the young man long suspected in natalee holloway's disappearance is now accused of murdering stephany, exactly five years to the day that natalee went missing. >> terrible. i just can hardly speak about that. i thought this is a setup. it can't happen. >> reporter: when stephany's family finds out the name of the man she was last seen with, her sister-in-law googles it. joran van der sloot. >> when i pulled up, i was sure that he was the killer. >> reporter: within hours of his arrest, joran, say police, has given a confession. he's paraded in front of the press. >> joran, i'm with abc news, can you tell us how you feel right now? >> i think part of me still wants to believe that it's all a movie or a very bad movie. but i -- i -- i thought immediately of the parents of the girl. as a mother, well, in a way i lost my child too, but it's the circumstances. i mean, he is the whole cause, probably. i hope that he get a chance to talk with the parents of s of stephany flores in a normal way and he can tell them what happened. he's my son. he's not a monster. he can be very gentle. but it could be that he has a bipolar personality. i hope he gets the help. >> reporter: in an interview with a dutch newspaper, joran says he was framed, told by police if he signed some documents he would be extradited to the netherlands. in my mind panic, he says, i then signed everything. but i didn't even know what was written down. >> if joran is involved, and i don't know, i'm not a police officer. i'm a mom. if he's involved, then he needs to be punished. >> reporter: among her many regrets, says anita, is the fact that she never spoke with beth twitty after her daughter natalee went missing. we were unable to get in touch with natalee's mother, beth twitty, she says. i can only imagine what was going through her mind and i thought it was horrible. and i tried to put myself in her shoes. i really would very much have liked to put an arm around her and give her a big hug. but now, five years later, she herself is a mother in mourning. mourning the death of her relationship with her son. >> there's no relation anymore. no. >> reporter: i'm john quinones in new york. >> it's such a peculiar interview in that you feel bad for her, yet at the same time you have to sort of understand why she's distanced herself from him. in fact, she went on to say in that interview, she's not going to visit him in jail, she says it probably will bring up a lot of moelgss she's not ready to deal with yesterday. >> presumably she was lied to as well by her son, so she's sort of in that same boat. she says that a lot of her son's problems probably grow from his gambling addiction. she was trying to get him some help for gambling addiction before he went to peru. when we return the gruelling and exhausting tennis match that set a world record. >> the ten-hour wimbledon competition and what the tired opponents are saying about the unforgettable day. that's next. it was a thrilling vehicle fee for team usa at the world cup in south africa. facing elimination they survived more bad calls to go on and score in the 91st minute. landon donovan got the goal on a rebound for a 1-0 win over algeria. the team will face ghana on saturday. the last time team usa has made it to the round of 16 was way back in 1930. we were saying this is really payback for team usa because four years ago they had a really disappointing showing, there were a lot of high expectations. this time around finally they've made it to the round of 16. >> this thing felt like it was on loop all day long. whatever you did it was on tv. still every time he makes that goal it makes me smile. such a wonderful, wonderful game. >> absolutely thrilling. another remarkable sports story at wimbledon, a tennis marathon. american john isner and his french opponent nicolas mahut play the longest match in history. >> they are still not done. they will resume today tied at sfwin-59. don guevara reports. >> reporter: a standing ovation and the crowd saying, enough already. you could say john isner of the united states and nicolas mahut of france are in the middle of a wimbledon marathon. the two have been playing for ten hours. >> we're just fighting like we never did before. >> nothing like this will ever happen again, ever. >> reporter: beating the 8 hour 25 minute minor league baseball game that went 33 innings between the paw sox and the rochester red wings back in '81. in the time these two have been at it they could have spun their wheels at the indy 500 and played six world cup soccer matches. >> someone has to win. we'll come back tomorr. >> reporter: mahut and eisner keep running out of light. thursday will be day three for these exhausted players. they've rallied through five sets, tied 59-59, two more sets remain. >> i don't know what to say. he's serving fantastic, i'm serving fantastic. that's really all there is to it. >> reporter: any longer and one of them may just throw in the racket. john guevara, abc news. >> wow. >> you know how greedy the fans are. after all that the chant was still "we want more!" >> easy for the crowd to say. these guys are exhausted. >> what would it be like if you and i were at wimbledon and found ourselves 59 games into the match? at least i crossed my legs, that's lady-like. >> that's me before the match. ta-da! 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"world news now" delivers your "morning papers." >> it started as a weird idea to promote the world cup. now a burger at a restaurant in phoenix is really drawing a lot of ire from a lot of people. it's a $21 lion burger. now exactly what you think, this thing is supposedly made of lion meat mixed with ground beef. it comes with spicy homemade chips, roasted corn on the cob. they're serving it for 21 bucks. they've gotten bomb threats and more than 250 angry e-mails from animal rights groups across the country. in their defense they say these lions were raised at a free range farm in illinois, regulate the by the u.s. department of agriculture, they went on to add lion meat's uncommon but not illegal. the newest twist is there are rumors that in fact this meat came from a place that it shouldn't have come from, maybe came from hunters, hunters that are sort of poaching these animals unlawfully. >> yeah, i don't think -- this seems a little nuts to are this restaurant. >> right, yeah. would you ever even try lion meat? >> why serve up simba from "the lion king." >> not nice. >> that's just not nice. this next story, we're going to show you an x-rated calendar. because we can do that on early morning tv. we're trying to prove that beauty is not skin deep, it's bone deep. that's miss october with the beautiful tibia that we're displaying. this is all part of a promotion by a japanese medical display monitor company. they sort of put their own spin on the pin-up calendar that they're sending out. sending out this calendar to their clients. i think it's pretty ingenious marketing. sexy poses. >> weirdly erotic, isn't it. >> does nothing for me, does nothing for me. >> wow. so are they -- what are they promoting for the calendar? >> it's a medical display company. you put your x-rays on the thing. i guess they're sending it to doctors, and you know. >> i now know what a still the low toe looks like in an x-ray too, something i'd never seen. this next story is weird but sweet. a woman's son died, and she decided to take the ashes and she used part of those ashes to give herself tattoos. take a look at this. she says she mixed the ashes with ink and her husband happens to be a toot due artist. she wanted to take the remaining ink and she made three different things on her back. one's a tree, one's an angel releasing a burter fly, and a poem dedicated to her son. she said, i've put lloyd back where he started, he's in my body again. >> her son is going to be close to her. >> yeah, it's weird but nice. >> final story, drunk driving obviously is not a funny story but you've got to laugh at this guy. a guy in the uk got caught, in an accident, waiting for the paramedics to show up, he was fine. what did he do to kill the time? military shakeup. stanley mcchrystal is out and david petraeus is in. the big change and what it means in afghanistan. then, bp's fix. the underwater setback. the repairs. and the pollution's impact. >> they can't find their food and they can't find where they're going. >> the oil spill's major toll. and, vision quest. giving sight to the blind. the medical advance with so much promise. it's thursday, june 24th. >> from abc news, this is "world news now." >> a remarkable medical break-through, one that has implications not just for blind people. but people with all sorts of ailments and conditions. >> it's really revolutionary to see what's being done with stem cells. we continue to see all these advances with them. >> good morning, i'm eric horng sitting in for jeremy hubbard. >> i'm vinita nair. general stanley mcchrystal's military career is over. he is expected to retire after he was forced to resign as commander of the war in afghanistan. >> the end came after his extraordinary meeting at the white house. t.j. winick is in washington. good morning, t.j. >> reporter: good morning, vinita and eric. this was not the first time general mcchrystal had angered the president. but this latest indiscretion was more than the commander in chief could forgive. the president accepted general stanley mcchrystal's resignation as the commander in afghanistan after an intense 30-minute one-on-one meeting in the oval office. >> today i accepted general stanley mcchrystal's resignation as commander of the international security assistance force in afghanistan. >> reporter: mcchrystal had been summoned to washington after a "rolling stone" profile of the general in which he belittles the president and key members of his administration and offends key allies. >> the conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. it undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. >> reporter: standing beside the president during the rose garden announcement, mcchrystal's replacement, general david petraeus, highly respected and the man who successfully led the surge strategy in iraq. >> i believe that this mission demands unity of effort across our alliance and across my national security team. and i don't think that we can sustain that unity of effort and achieve our objectives in afghanistan without making this change. >> reporter: it looks like the armed services committee will hold a confirmation hearing for general petraeus no later than next tuesday. vinita and eric? the response to general petraeus' nomination on capitol hill has been widely positive and he is expected to be quickly confirmed by the senate. martha raddatz reports. >> reporter: president obama wants general petraeus to do what he did in iraq for president bush, in afghanistan. >> this is the most pressing theater, the most pressing mission. and petraeus is somebody who has the relationships and has the relationship with the president and this is as close as you can get. >> reporter: a warrior and a scholar. the 57-year-old petraeus has spent nearly half this decade in iraq. and since 2008, he has headed central command, encompassing some of the world's biggest hot spots and most importantly, overseeing the war in afghanistan. >> there will be nothing easy about any of this. indeed, i noted several months ago during my annual posture hearing that the going was likely to get harder before it got easier. >> reporter: in fact, taking day-to-day operational control of afghanistan now may be the biggest challenge petraeus has ever faced. there are now more than 90,000 u.s. troops in afghanistan. far fewer than petraeus had in iraq. and a major operation in kandahar is set to begin in the coming months. june has already been one of the deadliest months of the war. but petraeus brings a strong history with him. he has made frequent trips to afghanistan. he is widely respected by the highest levels of the afghan government, down to many of the local tribal leaders. but no matter how familiar he is with the country, the challenges are immense. with corruption rampant in some areas, slow civilian progress and a very determined enemy who will no doubt try to take advantage of this change in leadership. however slight. until petraeus is confirmed, british lieutenant general will take over duties in afghanistan along with mcchrystal's deputy commander. but petraeus is expected to be on the ground within weeks. martha raddatz, abc news, washington. bp's fix last night has stopped the out of control gushing from its well at the bottom of the gulf of mexico. engineers had to remove the containment cap from the well after a robot hit it. the containment system, when it works, collects up to 29,000 gallons of crude an hour. the coast guard confirmed the accident which caused the set-back. >> they indicated that the problem was a remotely operated vehicle that had been around the lower marine riser package had bumped into one of those vents that allows the excess oil to come out. >> the obama administration is asking a judge to overturn his ruling that would allow new drilling in the gulf. the government has been pushing on a ban on any new drilling but a judge overturned that decision tuesday. the heartbreaking images of pelicans, turtles and other sea creatures covered in oil has brought home the impact of the oil spill. marine scientists are convinced it could change the gulf ecosystem. matt gutman explains why. >> reporter: evidence of marine biologists' doomsday scenario, sharks thrashing in these waters. feeding frenzies are common in the gulf but not sharks of this size in water this shallow. >> what we're really witnessing may be a shift in the whole ecosystem feeding structure. the food web. >> reporter: biologists say marine life is fleeing the spill zone as animals would a forest fire. >> the habitat is shrinking. we have had tens of thousands of square miles th