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Brian McNamee (L) leaves after testifying in the perjury and obstruction trial of Clemens on May 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Why did the government’s key witness in the perjury case against former pitcher Roger Clemens save needles and bloody gauze pads for years in a FedEx box he labeled “Clem”?

To get his wife off his back, he explained.

Brian McNamee told jurors Tuesday morning that his then-wife Eileen constantly complained about his frequent travel with Clemens in the summer of 2001.  Plans to travel with the family were too often cancelled at the last minute at Clemens’ whim, he testified.

“For the two weeks I'm home, I just wanted to be with my kids and not have any anguish with my wife,” McNamee explained. “What would make her not give me a hard time all the time?  It had to stop,” he said, his voice rising. “Who could live like that?”

McNamee said he “never lied to his wife,” and that she knew that he’d been giving Clemens injections for a few seasons.  He decided that he would show her the medical waste from the steroid and human growth hormone injections, and keep them in a box in their home.

“So, that's it.  I just saved it,” McNamee said.  “No intent of using this, ever. Ever,” McNamee volunteered, hoping to preempt the notion that he was saving the evidence to blackmail Clemens later.

“Why would that resolve the issue with your wife?” prosecutor Dan Butler asked.

“Because she kept saying, ‘You're gonna go down!  You're gonna go down! You're gonna go down, if something ever happened.’”

“I knew I was dealing illegal substances.  This was the best I could do,” McNamee pleaded.

He placed the material in a FedEx box, wrote “Clem” on the side, and kept it stored for years.  That material is now in the hands of federal authorities, who say it contains Clemens’ DNA and residue of performance-enhancing drugs.

The courtroom is bracing for Rusty Hardin’s cross-examination.  He’s expected to paint McNamee as a substance-abusing liar.  

The jury has returned for more direct examination by prosecutors.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Jupiterimages/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) -- The number of Memorial Day vacationers to travel more than 50 miles from home is expected to increase by 1.2 percent in 2012, according to an annual survey from the automobile group AAA.

As is typical, the number of people expected to travel by car far outnumbers those expected to travel by plane. More than 30 million people will get to their destinations by car, while roughly 2.5 million will get there by air.

Eighty-eight percent of holiday voyagers will travel by car; 7 percent by air and the remainder by other modes, including rail, bus and watercraft.

The total increase in travelers comes from drivers, at a rate of 1.2 percent. The number of people traveling by air is expected to decline 5.5 percent from last year's 2.7 million air travelers.

More than half of the survey's respondents said gas prices would not affect their Memorial Day holiday travel plans. However, the average travel distance is considerably less this year than in 2011. The average distance vacationers will travel will be 642 miles, which is 150 miles less than last year's average travel distance of 792 miles.

This is despite gas prices being, on average, 25 cents per gallon cheaper than this time last year, according to the AAA.

TripAdvisor, which ran its own Memorial Day travel survey, found a larger increase in the expected Memorial Day travelers: An 8 percent increase compared with 2011. The site also found that respondents weren't letting gas prices affect their summer vacations.

It's not only gas prices that are on the decline: AAA reports weekend daily car rental rates will average $36, which is 4 percent, or $2, less than last year.

Hotel rates, though, are expected to climb between 8 and 10 percent compared with last year.

The Memorial Day holiday travel period is defined as Thursday, May 24, to Monday, May 28.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Kasey Close(WASHINGTON) -- Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has demanded the Air Force take measures to make America's most expensive fighter plane, the F-22 Raptor, safer for its pilots in light of an ongoing, potentially deadly problem with the plane's oxygen system, a Pentagon spokesperson said Tuesday.

As a recent ABC News investigation found, for more than four years pilots for the F-22 Raptor have reported at least 25 incidents of experiencing "hypoxia-like symptoms" while at the controls of the $420 million-plus-a-pop jet. Hypoxia is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain and is characterized by dizziness, confusion and disorientation.

Among other precautions, Panetta ordered the Air Force to expedite the installation of an automatic emergency back-up oxygen system to the planes, spokesperson George Little told reporters.

Currently, pilots who believe they're experiencing oxygen system problems have to manually reach for a ring in a cramped corner of the cockpit to activate the emergency back-up system. The activation ring itself was already such a problem that the Air Force recently re-designed it for the entire fleet to make it more accessible.

In one fatal incident in November 2010, the Air Force said one of its pilots, Capt. Jeff Haney, had been too distracted by trying to activate the manual back-up system after a malfunction cut off his primary oxygen completely and he accidentally flew his plane into the ground.

One of two pilots who recently spoke out about the F-22's dangerous problems on CBS News' 60 Minutes said that he once experienced such disorientation due to apparent hypoxia in mid-air that he struggled to even locate the manual emergency oxygen system.

Panetta also ordered flight restrictions on the F-22 "effective immediately" that require it to stay relatively close to possible landing strips in case of emergency. In Alaska, the F-22 will no longer fly long-distance training missions, and instead those missions will be taken on by older F-15 and F-16 fighters, Air Force spokesperson Lt. Col. John Dorrian said. Panetta also directed the Air Force to provide him regular updates on the progress in the investigation into the planes' problems.

Despite multiple investigations into the plane's oxygen system and a grounding of the entire $79 billion fleet for nearly five months last year, the Air Force has been unable to determine the source of the problem.

The Air Force admitted earlier this month that it was such a concern that a "very small number" of pilots requested not to fly or to leave the F-22 program altogether.

The Air Force has long maintained that the rate of incidents is exceedingly rare -- 25 compared to the thousands of missions flown without incident -- and has been working hard to determine what is wrong.

The Air Force said in March it planned to implement an automatic emergency back-up oxygen system as one of 14 recommendations made by a scientific advisory board convened to investigate -- ultimately unsuccessfully -- the root cause of the hypoxia-like symptoms. Pentagon spokesperson Capt. John Kirby said the Secretary knows the Air Force is working hard, but wanted to "add his muscle" to help find answers.

Despite multiple forward deployments, none of the jets in the $79 billion fleet have ever flown a combat operation for the United States since going combat-ready in late 2005.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio