Planned Parenthood to pay Texas $1.4 million to settle alleged fraud

By Jim Forsyth

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Women's health group Planned Parenthood has agreed to pay the state of Texas $1.4 million to settle allegations of fraud in billing to a health program for the poor, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said on Wednesday.

But a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast strongly denied the allegations and said the group settled to avoid a lengthy battle with Texas.

The settlement is the latest in a series of confrontations between Planned Parenthood and the Republican-led state government of Texas.

It follows one week after Texas approved a new law that will force Texas clinics performing abortions to upgrade facilities to those of outpatient surgery centers, which could cost thousands of dollars for each clinic.

Planned Parenthood, the nation's largest abortion provider operating 13 clinics in Texas which perform abortions, staunchly opposed the new law and has threatened to sue the state.

Texas had previously banned Planned Parenthood facilities in Texas from participating in a state health program for poor women which funds care such as annual exams, cancer screenings and birth control. Planned Parenthood sued the state but ultimately lost in court.

Abbott, a Republican who is running for Texas governor, said on Wednesday that a whistleblower accused Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast of improperly billing Texas for products and services which were never rendered, not medically necessary, or were not covered by Medicaid, the government health program for the poor.

Medicaid is mostly funded by the federal government but administered by the states.

Investigators determined that Planned Parenthood "falsified material information in patients' medical records" in order to support fraudulent reimbursement claims, Abbott said.

Planned Parenthood said the allegations are without merit and the group was settling "as a practical matter."

"Continuing this litigation in the hostile environment for women's health would have ensured a lengthy and costly process that would have distracted our energies and required us to share the private medical information of thousands of women," spokeswoman Rochelle Tafolla said in a statement.

"We are ending this lawsuit in order to devote all of our time and energy to delivering high quality affordable health care."

Abbott, a strong opponent of abortion, is campaigning to succeed longtime Republican Governor Rick Perry in 2014.

Funding for women's health programs has been repeatedly cut by majority Republicans in the Legislature, and last week, Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast announced the closing of three clinics in Texas, one of which performs abortions.

(Editing by Greg McCune and Eric Walsh)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/planned-parenthood-pay-texas-1-4-million-settle-210025868.html

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Philly mayor: Federal cuts hurt local governments

PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? Automatic federal spending cuts that kicked in March 1 have seriously hurt city and local governments, hampering their ability to deliver essential services to citizens, Mayor Michael Nutter said Tuesday in a blunt message to Washington.

The federal sequester has transferred costs onto local governments, said Nutter, the immediate past president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. In Philadelphia, he said, deep cuts to a program that helps homeowners avert foreclosure will potentially result in more blight, while the school district is facing an existential budget crisis that has forced it to lay off 3,800 employees and eliminate sports, music, art and all after-school programs.

"This is not a sustainable model for cities. The federal government cannot balance its budget on the backs of cities and local governments," Nutter said.

The second-term Democrat spoke at a meeting of the State Budget Crisis Task Force at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The event was designed to bring attention to the eroding financial condition of state governments, but Nutter spoke on behalf of cities.

"We've already been to the fiscal cliff. We've made our cuts. We've cut back on services and we've raised people's taxes at the same time," Nutter said. "We're now trying to come back. Please don't stand in the way."

A top Treasury Department official said the federal government, after running trillion-dollar deficits as it tried to stabilize financial markets and stimulate the economy, has to begin getting its own fiscal house in order.

Having sent more than $280 billion to state and local governments between 2009 and 2012, largely to be spent on education, infrastructure and health care, "we need to begin pulling back the federal safety net," said Mary John Miller, Treasury's undersecretary for domestic finance, who was taking part in a panel discussion.

"As we see unemployment coming down, as we see the housing market beginning to recover, as we see the economy growing ... we see that we need to now turn our attention to reducing our federal deficits," she said.

Former President Bill Clinton was due to give the keynote address later Tuesday.

The nonpartisan State Budget Crisis Task Force ? led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker and former New York Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch ? issued a report last year that said U.S. states are grappling with long-term budget problems that threaten their ability to pay for basic services such as law enforcement, local schools and transportation. The group cites rising Medicaid and pension costs, reduced federal aid and eroding tax revenues as a few of the challenges facing the states.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/philly-mayor-federal-cuts-hurt-local-governments-144017849.html

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Germany investigates commander of Nazi-led unit

BERLIN (AP) ? German prosecutors said Monday that they opened a formal preliminary investigation of a Minnesota man who was a commander of a Nazi-led unit during World War II, to determine whether there is enough evidence to bring charges and seek his extradition.

The Associated Press found that 94-year-old Michael Karkoc entered the U.S. in 1949 by lying to American authorities about his role in the SS-led Ukrainian Self Defense Legion, which is accused of torching villages and killing civilians in Poland. AP's evidence indicates that Karkoc was in the area of the massacres, although no records link him directly to atrocities.

Kurt Schrimm, the head of the special German prosecutors' office responsible for investigating Nazi-era crimes, said prosecutors "have opened a preliminary investigation procedure to examine the matter (and) seek documentation." It was unclear how long their examination might take.

Schrimm's office is responsible for determining whether there is enough evidence against alleged Nazi war criminals for state prosecutors to proceed with a full investigation and possible charges. The only charges that can be brought in such cases are murder and accessory to murder, as all other offenses fall under the statute of limitations under German law.

Germany has taken the position that people involved in Nazi crimes must be prosecuted, no matter how old or infirm, as it did in the case of retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk, who died last year at age 91 while appealing his conviction as a guard at the Sobibor death camp.

Poland's National Remembrance Institute, which investigates Nazi and Soviet crimes, has said prosecutors are reviewing files on Karkoc's unit for any evidence that would justify charges and an extradition request.

It says the files were gathered during separate investigations into the killings of civilians in the village of Chlaniow, in southeastern Poland, and into Nazi suppression of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against German occupation. The AP found documentation showing that Karkoc's unit was involved in both.

Karkoc told U.S. authorities in 1949 that he had performed no military service during World War II, according to records obtained by the AP through a Freedom of Information Act request

The U.S. Department of Justice has used lies in immigration papers to deport dozens of suspected Nazi war criminals. But the department had no comment on the German decision to investigate Karkoc when contacted Monday by AP in Washington.

Karkoc's son, Andriy Karkos, has said that his father "was never a Nazi," and pointed to the portion of the AP story that said records don't show Karkoc had a direct hand in war crimes. He has said the family won't comment further until it has obtained its own documents and reviewed witnesses and sources.

A woman who answered the phone at Karkoc's Minneapolis home Monday refused to comment when a reporter from the AP made contact.

__

Associated Press correspondent Doug Glass contributed to this report from Minneapolis.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/germany-investigates-commander-nazi-led-unit-124902653.html

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Bonus Quote of the Day (Taegan Goddard's Political Wire)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/314887355?client_source=feed&format=rss

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How Mi Voz mobilized 30,000 correspondents across Chile and ...

Photo: Courtesy of Mi Voz

A Chilean community news network is succeeding on two fronts where countless online media projects fail: mobilizing ?citizen journalists? and actually making the venture profitable.

Mi Voz is a network of 20 media outlets that boasts a combined force of 30,000 ?citizen correspondents? from the Peruvian border in the north to Patagonia in the south. The volunteer contributors submit original stories, which are then vetted by professional editors. Of the 20 outlets, 16 are local dailies and four are topical magazines.? Together they bring in a combined traffic of 2.5 million unique visitors per month. Not bad in a nation of 17 million.

?We wanted to create a space where we could create something different ? a community public forum that could last over the long term,? said Paula Rojo, one of the project?s founders.

Eight years since launching, Mi Voz is bringing in $2 million yearly and does not rely upon foundation or government support. Its diverse business model came together four years after launching and combines traditional advertising with community outreach and research studies. The company employs both regional and national advertising ? including government agencies and local businesses. ?Sales have increased yearly, along with traffic.

Rojo, a designer by profession, said the initial goal was not to create a business, but to tell the stories from regions outside of Santiago which are rarely heard in Chile. The news coverage that did exist was generally about scandals or crime. In response, the network launched in 2005, after the co-founder Jorge Dom?nguez observed how Korea?s Oh My News?was activating residents to tell their own stories.

When Rojo and Dominguez shared their plan for a citizen news outlet with national networks, the response was that there was no way it could succeed without crime, sex, and scandal. But Mi Voz persevered, proving that people were interested in other types of stories and that such an enterprise could be lucrative.

?We want to create a space where citizens, leaders, and officials can converse and discuss the collective future of the city,? Rojo said.

The staff has grown to more than 50 people, about eight of whom work exclusively on the business side. A local editor is based in each city. In addition to vetting stories and working on copy, editors are also responsible for mobilizing and training residents and sometimes help by providing reporters a workspace with Internet capability.

Rojo said they have never received a complaint about the lack of pay from their contributors: ?They feel owners of the media,? she said. ?They can have influence.?

Participants of a Mi Voz training. | Photo: Courtesy of Mi Voz

Part of Mi Voz?s philosophy is to not limit who is involved. They include submissions from public officials, representatives of community organizations, and even businesses right alongside reports from more objective ?citizen correspondents.? In an area where mining is controversial, for example, both the mining companies and residents opposed to the mining can post. The editor tries to facilitate discussion, however, and make sure that one voice does not dominate. ?We are interested in the conversation, the discussion,? Rojo said.

In the future, Rojo said, that online public forum may expand. She would not reveal where, but she said Mi Voz is now exploring ways to expand its forum for community correspondents and profitable business to other nations in Latin America.

Mi Voz is just one of many new journalism initiatives springing up across Latin America. In April, 14 initiatives from across South America and Spain participated in the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas Ibero-American Colloquium on Digital Journalism.

Here are some of the other projects worth following:

Animal Politico
In three years, the Mexican online political site Animal Politico ? think part Politico, part Buzz Feed ? has grown to have the largest social media presence in Mexico, claiming more than 375,000 Twitter followers and 469,000 Facebook likes.

A P?blica?
A P?blica is a women-run investigative network based in Brazil. Similar to Center for Investigative Reporting or ProPublica, A P?blica makes an effort to partner with publications on stories to hit a larger audience. CIPER Chile ?and IDL-Reporteros?in Peru are two similar investigative networks.

Anfibia and Plaza P?blica
Some Latin American universities are supporting new sites that do insight and investigative reporting. ?Anfibia, from the National San Mart?n University in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was created in an attempt to translate academic research and language to the larger communities. Plaza P?blica, from Guatemala, is affiliated with the University Rafael Land?var in Guatemala City, which invited a ?group of journalists to create a digital media that supported the construction and defense of a solid democracy.?

Source: http://www.ojr.org/how-mi-voz-mobilized-30000-correspondents-across-chile-and-created-a-sustainable-business-model/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-mi-voz-mobilized-30000-correspondents-across-chile-and-created-a-sustainable-business-model

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AP PHOTOS: Slave descendants' community dwindling

SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. (AP) ? Sharron Grovner stands in the backyard of her home that faces this island's fecund saltwater marshes. The setting sun gives way to the stillness of evening, and the only sound one can hear are the ocean waves lapping against the shore.

These are the same shores where generations ago, Grovner's ancestors landed as slaves brought over to work a cotton plantation. They are the same shores where today the remaining descendants still fish for their dinner. They're the shores where ferries now embark to the mainland carrying hopes of employment while leaving behind a dwindling community.

Grovner is one of only 47 residents, most of them descendants of those West African slaves known as Geechee, who remain on Sapelo Island; their ancestors were brought to work the plantation of Thomas Spaulding in the early 1800s. Isolated over time to the Southeast's barrier islands, the Geechee of Georgia and Florida, also known as Gullah in the Carolinas, have retained their African traditions more than many other African American communities in the U.S.

Once freed, the ex-slaves were able to acquire land and created settlements on Sapelo Island, of which only the tiny 464-acre Hog Hammock community still exists. Residents say a sudden tax hike, lack of jobs, and development are endangering one of the last remaining Geechee/Gullah communities dotting the coast from Florida to North Carolina.

Here's a gallery of images from Sapelo Island.

_____

Follow AP photographers and photo editors on Twitter: http://apne.ws/15Oo6jo

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-slave-descendants-community-dwindling-163638198.html

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PFT: NFL rookies get harsh truth at symposium

AP

Bills WR Marquise Goodman draws inspiration from his younger brother.

Part of the reason that LB Alonzo Highsmith Jr. signed with the Dolphins was to be close to his brother, a University of Miami senior also named Alonzo Highsmith Jr.

Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com points out the problems Patriots players drafted out of Florida in 2011 have experienced and wonders if Bill Belichick put too much stock in his friendship with Urban Meyer.

Jets assistant coaches Dennis Thurman and Tim McDonald have enjoyed a long friendship.

A look at the fight for roster spots and playing time in the Ravens backfield.

Will Bengals LB James Harrison outplay Jarvis Jones, his replacement on the Steelers roster, during the 2013 season?

What can the Browns do to cut down on QB Brandon Weeden getting passes knocked down at the line?

Age won?t be a problem for the Steelers defensive backs, according to the Steelers defensive backs.

Texans DE J.J. Watt got to know about helicopters during his visit to Afghanistan.

Previewing Year Two for Colts QB Andrew Luck.

Jaguars K Josh Scobee taught Paul Kuharsky of ESPN.com about the technique needed to be a placekicker.

A video look at the progress made by Titans QB Jake Locker.

The Broncos are trying to keep expectations from going to anyone?s head.

An offseason with coach Andy Reid has left Chiefs QB Chase Daniel confident about the year to come.

Said Raiders RB Darren McFadden, ?Things are going very well with the offensive line. As far as the blitz pick up, the calls the offensive line is making. I feel like we?re meshing very well.?

CB Steve Williams could make an immediate impact in the Chargers secondary.

Ten things to know about Cowboys DB Will Allen.

Giants DT Marvin Austin has been playing the drums with children as part of a program called School of Rock.

A newly released biography tries to paint a picture of Eagles coach Chip Kelly.

Taking stock of the left defensive end spot for the Redskins.

Bears QB Jay Cutler is turning the clock back to the 80s for a fundraiser.

QB Thaddeus Lewis is confident about his chances of making the Lions.

Packers TE D.J. Williams likes to both work hard and play hard.

How much does it matter where on the depth chart the Vikings place DT Sharrif Floyd?

Osi Umenyiora thinks the younger Falcons defensive ends are developing quickly.

Undrafted rookie S Robert Lester hopes to make a mark with the Panthers.

Contrary to an internet report, Saints QB Drew Brees didn?t break his legs in a car accident.

Buccaneers rookies have spent time with local members of the military recently.

The Cardinals say they are reloading rather than rebuilding.

The Rams opened the NFL?s first Youth Training Academy.

Achilles injuries are piling up for the 49ers.

Looking back at general managers through the years for the Seahawks.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/06/22/rookie-symposium-message-most-of-you-will-be-gone-in-three-years/related/

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Marine cops will saturate state waters looking for impaired boaters ...

A heads-up for anyone out and about in a boat next weekend.

Marine deputy sheriffs from 32 counties, Oregon State Police troopers and the U.S. Coast Guard will saturate state waters looking for drunken boat operators.

It's called "Operation Dry Water" and any reckless behavior will qualify.

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/bill_monroe/index.ssf/2013/06/cops.html

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Rivers receding in Calgary, thousands return home

CALGARY, Alberta (AP) ? About 65,000 residents of Calgary were being allowed to return to their homes Sunday to assess the damage from flooding that has left Alberta's largest city awash in debris and dirty water.

Some were returning to properties spared by flooding, but others were facing extensive repairs to homes and businesses.

About 75,000 people had to leave at the height of the crisis as the Elbow and Bow rivers surged over their banks Thursday night. Three bodies have been recovered since the flooding began in southern Alberta and a fourth person was still missing.

"We've turned a corner, but we are still in a state of emergency," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said. "Our hearts and thought and prayers are with our colleagues downstream."

People in the eastern part of the province headed for higher ground as the flood threat remained. In Medicine Hat, Alberta, thousands of people have left their homes as water levels rose on the South Saskatchewan River. The river was not expected to crest until Monday, but by Sunday morning it was lapping over its banks in low-lying areas and people were busy laying down thousands of sandbags.

In Calgary, Nenshi said crews were working hard to restore services and he thanked residents for heeding the call to conserve drinking water.

He had already warned that recovery will be a matter of "weeks and months" and the damage costs will be "lots and lots."

While pockets of the city's core were drying out, other areas were still submerged. The mayor didn't anticipate that anyone could return to work downtown until at least the middle of the week. The downtown area was evacuated Friday.

The city's public schools were also to remain closed Monday.

Nathan MacBey and his wife found muddy water had risen to about kitchen counter level in their Calgary home at the peak of the flooding. His basement was still swamped and the main floor of the home was covered in wet mud.

"This is unprecedented," said the father of two, his voice cracking with emotion. "Not being able to give our kids a home, that's tough. ... We can survive, it's just the instability for the kids."

Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Doug Griffiths said that 27 communities in Alberta were under states of emergency ? with some areas slowly starting to emerge from the watery onslaught and others still bracing for it

Griffiths said no place has been hit harder than the town of High River south of Calgary and it will be some time before residents there will be allowed back.

The waiting and worrying were causing tensions and emotions to run high, but Griffiths said virtually every home in the town of 18,000 would need to be inspected.

More than 2,200 military personnel were involved in flood relief efforts, along with nine helicopters. Soldiers were helping evacuate an area around the mountain town of Canmore, laying down sandbags in Medicine Hat and assisting in road repairs in Kananaskis Country, west of Calgary.

In High River, about 350 members of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry from Edmonton have been assisting police in reaching homes that still haven't been checked. Armored vehicles have been churning through submerged streets and Zodiac watercraft have been used to reach the hardest-hit areas.

High River Mayor Emile Blokland said the town's infrastructure has been dealt a critical blow and there is no timeline for when citizens can return.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sgt. Brian Jones said the atmosphere was "surreal."

"We're finding a great deal of mud, a great deal of sludge on the streets. The homes are secure. It's almost like time stopped," he said.

Back in Calgary, the water has taken a toll outside residential neighborhoods as well. The Saddledome hockey arena, home of the National Hockey League's Calgary Flames, was extensively damaged. The team said boards, dressing rooms, player equipment and several rows of seats were a total loss.

The rodeo and fair grounds of the world-famous Calgary Stampede were also swamped, although Nenshi was optimistic that things would be cleared up in time for the show to open July 5.

Nenshi said Sunday that all the major hotels in the downtown were closed and advised visitors to plan accordingly.

The federal Conservative party had planned to hold a policy convention in Calgary next weekend, but that's been postponed and a new date hasn't yet been set.

Canmore was one of the first communities hit when the flooding began on Thursday. Residents there have been allowed to return to 260 evacuated homes, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police says 40 more are too damaged to allow people back.

In Saskatchewan, efforts are under way to move more than 2,000 people from their homes in a flood-prone part of the province's northeast.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rivers-receding-calgary-thousands-return-home-194322993.html

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Firefighters keep guard over mountain enclave

DEL NORTE, Colo. (AP) ? Fire crews with tankers and hoses at the ready stood guard Friday night as a massive and fast-burning wildfire threatened a popular mountain tourist enclave in southwestern Colorado, forcing the evacuation of more than 400 people.

"It's like gasoline up there," said Cindy Shank, a former firefighter and executive director of the southwest Colorado chapter of the Red Cross, which set up a shelter at Del Norte's high school for residents and visitors of South Fork, a summer retreat of cabins, RV parks and mostly part-time homes.

"I've never seen a fire do this before," Shank said of the blaze, which was being fueled by hot, windy weather and miles and miles of strands of trees killed by a beetle infestation. "It's really extreme, extreme fire behavior. It has split into two pieces. There are two heads to the fire."

A black smoky sky, broken up only by an orange glow over the outlines of the San Juan mountains, was all that was visible from the nearby town of Del Norte, where evacuees were given an update Friday evening by fire officials.

"It will be a couple of days before South Fork is out of danger," Jim Jaminet, a fire management officer for the Rio Grande National Forest, told evacuees.

Although he tried to reassure the residents that their homes and cabins would be saved ? "Every type of structure protection is in place," Jaminet said ? he noted that the wind- and dead tree-fueled blaze was unpredictable.

"Every afternoon these things are getting legs and getting up and walking around," he said of the fires.

Dozens of fire crews were positioned around neighborhoods in the town, working to remove propane tanks and wood piles that could help ignite homes.

Authorities said the 47-square-mile fire was a few miles southwest of town Friday night and had been advancing at a rate of about a mile an hour.

Meantime, a third fire sparked to the West, raising concerns it would move toward the town of Creede, which has about 300 residents.

And to the east, in south-central Colorado, nine structures and four outbuildings have been lost in a wildfire in Huerfano County that forced the evacuation of about two dozen residents and more than 170 Boy Scouts since it started Wednesday, fire officials said.

South Fork a popular spot for hiking and camping. The fictional Griswold family camped in South Fork in 1983's "National Lampoon's Vacation." The famous scene where a dog urinates on a picnic basket was filmed at South Fork's Riverbend Resort, called "Kamp Komfort" in the movie.

South Fork's mayor, Kenneth Brooke, sent his children and grandchildren to a safe location and stayed behind, helping several dozen area fire responders prepare for hosing down structures.

Brooke said authorities are allowing him to stay in South Fork until the blaze crests a nearby mountain. Until then, the mayor was taking phone calls from nervous neighbors and telling them the town's grim forecast.

"I just tell them it doesn't look good," Brooke told The Associated Press by phone Friday. "I tell them the truth, that the fire is coming. I just tell them to keep themselves safe, evacuate as need be and don't come back.

Late June to August is usually peak season for South Fork, when tourists or part-time residents multiply the town's population.

Harold Josefy, his wife and their 13-year-old granddaughter left the Fun Valley RV park after officers knocked on doors Friday morning. "They told us we had to get out now," he said.

But Terri Allahdadi and her motor coach were staying in South Fork for now. "It's like a ghost town," Allahdadi said by telephone Friday night. "We are not having trouble breathing. I know they need to evacuate people, but I don't feel threatened at all."

South Fork native Denny Fleming, 55, said he, his wife and his dad were the only residents he knew who stayed behind. His family runs South Fork's only gas station. They were keeping it open so firefighters would have fuel, coffee and ice, he said. The family's Rainbow Grocery was closed though.

"We're usually very, very busy right now," Fleming said.

Since most of the residents are part-time, most evacuees said they were less concerned about personal possessions than lifestyle.

"There's just lots of memories," Sue McCraw of Stillwater, Okla., said of she and her husband, Dean's rustic cabin 11 miles from South Fork.

"It's an antique," Dean McCraw said. "But it has character."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/firefighters-keep-guard-over-mountain-enclave-081948910.html

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SoftBank confident Sprint deal will close in July

By Mari Saito

TOKYO (Reuters) - SoftBank Corp CEO Masayoshi Son said on Friday he was confident his company's acquisition of Sprint Nextel Corp will be completed in early July after rival bidder Dish Network Corp failed to make a counter move this week.

SoftBank, a Japanese mobile network operator, is heading into the home stretch as it tries to push through Japan's biggest ever acquisition, while aggressive dealmaker Dish has loomed as a potential spoiler with rival offers for Sprint and its Clearwire Corp subsidiary.

Son, SoftBank's billionaire founder, said Dish's failure to raise its offer for Sprint before a deadline early this week brought the Japanese company closer to sealing the $21.6 billion deal, but warned that its U.S. rival could make a surprise move before a Sprint shareholders' meeting on June 25.

"We don't know what could happen before the meeting but we took a big step forward after Dish missed the deadline to make a new proposal," Son told an annual shareholders' gathering attended by more than 2,000.

Dish's challenge launched in April had forced SoftBank to consider other options, Son said, including buying No. 4 U.S. mobile carrier T-Mobile US Inc, which is 74 percent owned by Deutsche Telekom AG.

Instead, SoftBank raised its bid last week and bumped up the cash portion, in order to win support from several existing Sprint shareholders who had favored Dish's offer, while reducing its capital injection into the company.

On Friday, Son played down worries that the reduced funding to Sprint might hinder the U.S. company's ability to invest in new network infrastructure, saying the acquisition would allow it to achieve average annual savings of 200 billion yen ($2 billion) over the next four years.

Sprint moved on Thursday to take the upper hand in a separate battle with Dish over control of Clearwire Corp, raising its buyout offer to $5 per share, which it said had helped to win support from a key group of dissident Clearwire shareholders.

SoftBank shareholders applauded at Friday's meeting when Son said Sprint's bid had now won the support of Clearwire, which holds valuable wireless airwaves Sprint needs to update its network.

SoftBank's shares fell 1.8 percent on Friday to 5,360 yen, worse than the Nikkei benchmark's 0.7 percent drop.

SoftBank's shares fell to an eight-month low after it announced its Sprint bid last October, but since the start of this year they have climbed more than 70 percent as optimism mounted over the deal, while the Nikkei is up nearly 25 percent.

Last month SoftBank rose as high as 6,100 yen, its highest since the dot-com bubble burst more than a decade ago.

(Reporting by Mari Saito; Writing by Sophie Knight; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/softbank-confident-sprint-deal-close-july-045705192.html

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UK ratifies treaty with Jordan over Abu Qatada

LONDON (AP) ? Britain has ratified a treaty with Jordan that could speed the extradition of radical Muslim preacher Abu Qatada.

The Home Office said Friday that a 21-day parliamentary scrutiny period for the treaty expired overnight.

Jordan's King Abdullah II endorsed the treaty earlier this week.

Several steps must unfold before the document comes into force, including an exchange of diplomatic notes between Britain and Jordan.

Britain has been trying for more than a decade to extradite the cleric, who was convicted in absentia over terrorist plots in Jordan. British courts have blocked the move, saying evidence gained by torture could be used against him at trial.

The treaty aims to guarantee that will not happen. Lawyers for Abu Qatada have said he will return to Jordan voluntarily if it is ratified.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-ratifies-treaty-jordan-over-abu-qatada-103332095.html

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Perfume shows us the fusion of digital art and entertainment in ...

Perfume has just concluded its Cannes Lions special appearance with a mindblowing performance which utilizes cutting-edge visual effects by Daito Manabe (rhizomatiks) incorporated into a new ?Spending all my time? mix by Yasutaka Nakata along with a new choreography by MIKIKO made especially for the mix.

Perfume was introduced after DENTSU?s talk on HAPPY HACKING as one of the prime examples on how the fans and other developers/programmers were used in the combination of the best in digital art and one of the best in entertainment. They were introduced using a short video that explained the global site projects implemented before Cannes.

Here?s the YouTube video of the global site introduction.

 
This is basically what DENTSU?s talk was about. Creating a bridge between the clients, advertisers, and consumers using HAPPY HACKING. Perfume?s global site used twitter and our own creative input and was able to use it in Perfume?s performances. For those who watched their Singapore concert, do you remember all the global site dance creations they played before Perfume?s entrance? Those were made by pros and non-pros alike, made possible through this concept.
 
 
 
After the video is Perfume?s performance. Perfume looked as if they were being reconstructed for the stage; designs that looked like they came out of the global site?s Phase 3 were also projected onto the three?s special outfit.
 
Perfume danced to a new, heavier mix of ?Spending all my time?, also with new steps added to the original choreography. With the dance, various designs were once again projected onto the three ? blurring the lines between visual reality and digital art.. It?s a wonder how the graphics were incorporated so accurately and precisely in the performance. I even thought that they were CG during the start.? They also danced to the colorful and dynamic graphics on the screen behind them. This performance of ?Spending all my time? was positively accepted and received great applause from the audience. I was left awe-struck ? what Perfume did was just too amazing.
 
Add Nakata?s catchy beats, MIKIKO?s unique choreography, Manabe?s cutting-edge visuals, and deliver them with Perfume?s perfect execution, you get nothing short of a breathtaking, artful performance.
 
The show offered us a glimpse of the future of Perfume?s entertainment, and I?ve got to admit, it?s tremendously exciting.
   
source: Perfume Cannes Lions Presentation
Source: http://sgcafe.com/2013/06/perfume-shows-fusion-digital-art-entertainment-cannes-lions/
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Boy Charged With Murdering Sister Using WWE Moves

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/boy-charged-with-murdering-sister-using-wwe-moves/

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We're liveblogging Samsung's Premiere 2013 event, today at 2PM ET!

Samsung's development labs are apparently overflowing with new products. We've seen a number of new Galaxy smartphones and tablets over the last few weeks, but the company has more to show -- or at least something notable enough to warrant its own soiree in London. We're expecting a focus on Samsung's Windows 8 ATIV range, most likely in several hardware options, but we're sure there has to be something from its Galaxy family that it still hasn't unveiled just yet. Is it a next-gen Note? An Android-powered ILC camera? Join us at the time (and link) below because we'll be covering it all.

Samsung Premiere 2013 event liveblog

June 20, 2013 2:00:00 PM EST

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Tablets, Mobile, Samsung

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Video: Cat Robot Stands and Runs, On Its Own Four Legs

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Let?s Make a Baby

Ralph Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, addresses the Road to Majority Conference in Washington on June 13, 2013.

Photo by Gary Cameron/Reuters

The saddest ?gaffe? is the one that nobody actually bothers to dispute with facts. Such a misstep was delivered in Washington over the weekend, when Jeb Bush faced an audience at Faith and Freedom Coalition?s Road to Majority conference. Rushing through a speech, he decided to skimp on euphemisms.

?Immigrants are more fertile,? said Bush, chuckling at himself as soon the f-word escaped, ?and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they build a younger population. The one way that we can rebuild the demographic pyramid is to fix a broken immigration system.?

There wasn?t much of a reaction from the crowd, which was still settling into the hotel ballroom, but the word fertility sounded odd to the media. The gaffe was born. ?Where did Jeb Bush take his sex-ed class?? chortled one CNN host. Watching the coverage you would never have guessed that Bush was right. He could have been more specific?the wombs themselves are not supercharged?but new arrivals to the United States give birth at a rate of 87.8 per 1,000 people. The rate for U.S. citizens is 58.9 per 1,000.

The press moved on from Bush, but the three-day conference didn?t drop his subject. Fertility was in the air. Jonathan Last, the Weekly Standard writer who just published a book with the subtitle ?America?s Coming Demographic Disaster,? gave a capsule version of his findings to a curious audience. In speeches and panels and hallway chatter, you could hear hard questions about birthrates in America and what sort of births were best for conservatives. The usual answer was any births you got.

?The other side isn?t producing that many young people,? said the radio host Michael Medved, who spoke shortly after Bush. By ?the other side,? he meant liberals. ?Children are being brought up, disproportionately, by those who are more conservative, those who understand that a baby is not a choice or a burden. A baby is a blessing ? what?s going to pay for Social Security if not more children??

Medved?s theory is popular with conservatives?and statistically sound. As Amanda Marcotte wrote for Slate last year, fertility rates correlate quite well with party preferences. Mitt Romney won every state with birthrates higher than 70 per 1,000. Barack Obama won every state where the rates have fallen below 60. (What?s keeping people so busy in Vermont?)

This stuff is perfect for the Faith and Freedom Coalition and its endless quest to make social conservatives add up to a bigger share of the electorate. Founded by Ralph Reed in 2009, the coalition and its annual conference hang at an unusual place in the right-wing constellation. The group?s electoral oomph is difficult to measure. To save time, the press typically takes for granted that this ?Christian Coalition on steroids? (Reed?s term) can pull out evangelical votes. A pre-election profile last year in the New York Times counted off the ?17.1 million registered voters? in the Reed database and the ?25 million voter guides? to be distributed in ?117,000 churches.?

Then it came time to vote. The white evangelical share of the vote rose from 26 percent in 2008 to?drum roll?26 percent in 2012. If more handbills won?t grow that vote, what will? Try more people.

And what sort of people? This was the question at a Friday breakout session on outreach to nonwhite voters. ?Last year, for the first time, white deaths exceeded white births,? said Ron Miller, a black Republican politician turned Liberty University administrator. (As he said this, a young white woman gave up the seat behind mine and fled the room, muttering.) ?The only reason that there was any uptick in the white population of the United States is because of immigration. And [at] the same time, for the first time, half of the under-5 age group is now composed of racial or ethnic minorities. Some demographic trends tell us by 2050 we will be a majority-minority nation. I know there?s a lot of smoke and heat over this issue, but there are numbers that can?t be refuted.?

They can?t be read statically, either. Today?s immigrant birthrate is not tomorrow?s birthrate. It?s not going to hold fast until 2050. Six months ago, the Pew Research Center showed that immigrant birthrates were actually falling more rapidly than the birthrates of women born in the United States. Overall, sure, immigrant women gave birth at about twice the rate of other women. But from 2007 to 2010, U.S.-born birthrates fell by 5 percent; immigrant births tumbled by 13 percent.

If you take the mathlete?s view of politics and you?re trying to grow a permanent ideological majority, you?d still take those added numbers. You?d want more human beings to work in America, and you?d want them to flock to your party. Anti-immigration hardliners swear that this can?t be done; that?s what Mitt Romney found himself saying after his loss, when he told donors that Obama?s base had been won over with ?gifts.? If today?s lower-income Hispanic voter is inclined to vote for the party that gave him Obamacare, why would tomorrow?s low-income Hispanic voter ever vote Republican?

It?s a hard question, and it didn?t get answered in public?at least not at the conference. The going theory for minority outreach was the one offered by Herman Cain, who was for one shining month last year the 2012 GOP presidential front-runner. How did he talk to nonwhite voters, those skeptical people with those enviable birth rates? ?The same way you talk to anybody else!? It wasn?t weak minority outreach that sunk the party in 2012. No, blame ?the number of conservatives that stayed home because they were not enthusiastic.?

Liberals don?t come off as Pollyannish about demographics. They talk about them with pride?they see a future in which Texas? growing Hispanic population stays on the team and turns the state into another Florida or Ohio, another piece of competitive turf. Jeb Bush sees the same future and asks Republicans to prepare for it. Other conservatives would rather tamp down that conversation or joke about it.

?I think it?s kinda dangerous territory, touchy territory, to want to debate over one race?s fertility rate over another,? said Sarah Palin, closing out the conference to a mostly full ballroom. ?I say this as someone who?s kinda fertile herself.?

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2013/06/ralph_reed_s_faith_and_freedom_coalition_conference_republicans_fret_about.html

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Romeo Beckham Has 'Impeccable Taste' In Fashion, Burberry Creative Director Says

The apples don't fall too far from the tree in the Beckham family. David and Victoria's brood of boys (and girl!) don't just look like their parents -- they act like them, too.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Christopher Bailey, Burberry's creative director, opened up about ten-year-old Romeo's fashion campaign for the brand. Unsurprisingly, Bailey revealed that Posh's second-born son is just as enamored with the world of clothing as she is:

"Romeo loves fashion, completely loves it. He had a real opinion; he was so involved in what he was wearing. And he was so well mannered and humble -- he would never say, 'I don't like this,' but he would say, 'Hmm, maybe something else.' He has impeccable taste."

We don't doubt it. When your mother is a famous fashion designer and your father has his own H&M line, it's only natural that a good sartorial sense rubs off on you.

Romeo was recruited for the Burberry modeling gig because Bailey is a close friend of the Beckhams. "I've known Victoria and those guys for quite a long time; they are just lovely, grounded, gentle, well-mannered little kids," he says. "He was an absolute dream to work with."

We're happy to hear how much Burberry loves the family. Here's hoping Harper's recruited for their next childrens' campaign!

Romeo breaking hearts for Burberry:

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Want more? Be sure to check out HuffPost Style on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram at @HuffPostStyle.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/17/romeo-beckham-fashion-burberry_n_3454329.html

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Noble gases hitch a ride on hydrous minerals

June 16, 2013 ? The six noble gases do not normally dissolve into minerals, leaving earth scientists to wonder how they are subducted back into the Earth. Researchers at Brown have discovered that the lattice structure of minerals such as amphibole provides a way. Better yet, the multiple isotopes of noble gases could help scientists track volatiles like water and carbon.

The noble gases get their collective moniker from their tendency toward snobbishness. The six elements in the family, which includes helium and neon, don't normally bond with other elements and they don't dissolve into minerals the way other gases do. But now, geochemists from Brown University have found a mineral structure with which the nobles deign to fraternize.

Researchers led by Colin Jackson, a graduate student in geological sciences, have found noble gases to be highly soluble in amphibole, a mineral commonly found in oceanic crust. "We found remarkably high solubility," said Stephen Parman, assistant professor of geological sciences at Brown and Jackson's Ph.D. adviser. "It was three or four orders of magnitude higher than in any other mineral than had been measured."

The findings, which are published in Nature Geoscience, are a step toward answering puzzling questions about how noble gases are cycled between the atmosphere and the depths of the Earth.

Completing the cycle

Gases in the air we breathe are on a geological conveyor belt of sorts, cycled from the Earth's mantle to the atmosphere and back again. Carbon dioxide, water vapor and other gases are released into the atmosphere and oceans from molten magma during volcanic eruptions, and then returned to depths through subduction, when one tectonic plate slides underneath another. The subducting crust is injected deep into the mantle, taking water and any other volatiles it may carry along for the ride.

Noble gases are also released during volcanic activity, but the amount of those gases returned to the mantle through subduction was long thought to be minimal. After all, if noble gases don't dissolve in minerals, they would lack a vehicle to make the trip. Recent research, however, has suggested that some noble gases are indeed recycled, leaving scientists at a loss to find a mechanism for it. By showing definitively that noble gases are soluble in amphibole, Jackson and his colleagues have shown how noble gases could be carried in subducting slabs.

The key to amphibole's ability to dissolve noble gases, the researchers say, is its lattice structure. Amphibole and other silicate minerals are made up of tetrahedral and octahedral structures linked together in a way that creates a series of rings. It's those rings, called A-sites, that provide a home for otherwise finicky noble gases, the research suggests.

Jackson performed a series of experiments to see if the number of empty rings in different types of amphibole were correlated to its ability to dissolve noble gases. He placed cut amphibole gems into a tube with helium or neon under high pressure and temperature, and then used a mass spectrometer to see how much of the gas had dissolved in each gem over the duration of each experiment. The experiments showed that noble gas solubility was highest in types of amphibole with the most unoccupied ring structures.

"This was the meat of the paper," Parman said. "It's telling us a specific site where we think the noble gases are. It might be the first time anyone has made a positive identification of where noble gases are going into a mineral."

Importantly, the researchers said, amphibole isn't the only crustal mineral with these ring structures. Ring structures are actually quite common in crustal minerals, and could provide a wide variety of potential vehicles that could take noble gases back to the depths via subduction.

A high-fidelity fingerprint

Understanding how noble gases are cycled between the Earth's surface and interior could shed new light on how other volatiles are recycled, the researchers said.

Scientists are particularly interested in tracking the cycling of water and carbon. Water is obviously vital for life, and carbon cycling has an important impact on the climate. Scientists try to track the cycle by looking at isotope ratios, which can provide a fingerprint that helps to identify where elements originated. Butarbon and the hydrogen in water have only a few isotopes that scientists can use for tracking, and in the case of hydrogen, the isotope ratios are easily thrown off by all kinds of natural processes.

The noble gases, on the other hand, have lots of isotopes, giving scientists ways to track them with great specificity. So if noble gases are cycled in the same minerals that cycle other volatiles like water and carbon, they could be used as a marker to track those other volatiles. "It's a very high-fidelity fingerprint because you have so many isotopes to play with," Jackson said.

There's more work to be done before noble gases could be used as such a fingerprint, but this work does provide a first step: showing which kinds of minerals could be responsible for noble gas recycling.

Other authors on the paper were Simon Kelley of The Open University in the United Kingdom and Reid Cooper, professor of geological sciences at Brown. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Earth Sciences (1019229).

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/1xSZsu3gDTI/130616155204.htm

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Want a MacBook Air? New version is a better deal than the old one.

MacBook Air's newest version has arrived, which should mean deep discounts on the previous version. But this time, the new model is actually a better deal.?

By Louis Ramirez,?Contributor / June 15, 2013

Phil Schiller the senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Apple introduces the new MacBook Air laptops during the keynote address of the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this week in San Francisco. Dealnews recommends buying the newest MacBook air, rather than going for discounts on the previous version.

Eric Risberg/AP/File

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Normally after Apple releases a new version of one of its devices, we recommend that shoppers save money by skipping the latest model and instead look for deals on the previous generation; often the new upgrades are minor and "older" models are barely a year old.

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But when it comes to the latest MacBook Air, we're actually recommending that shoppers instead consider the 2013 model; the updates on this generation offer a significantly better performance and, thus, a far better value than last year's model. And even though this means you'll be paying more, you can still score a small discount by shopping smartly.

2013 MacBook Air Has Double the Storage Capacity

The previous generation 11" MacBook Air shipped with a standard 64GB SSD, which was considered paltry. This week, Apple gave the 11" MacBook Air one of the best upgrades it could receive: a faster and larger 128GB SSD. And because you can't manually upgrade the MacBook Air's hard drive, the new SSD alone makes the Haswell MacBook Air a much better value. (Last year, consumers had to pay $100 to double their storage capacity to 128GB on the base model.) Furthermore, Apple rates the new SSD 45% faster than last year's model, so you can expect to see a nice speed bump in overall system performance, too.

And the upgrades don't stop there. The 2013 MacBook Air is now fitted with 802.11ac WiFi, which offers three times the speed of today's 802.11n spec. Chances are you won't find many hotspots that will let you take advantage of the new speed, but it's still a nice way to future-proof your MacBook Air as the 802.11ac spec gradually becomes the new standard in WiFi.

Haswell Brings Better Power Management and Graphics

Apple's MacBook Air laptops have typically boasted impressive battery life, but with Intel's new Haswell chip, you can expect to see a dramatic increase in staying power. In fact, the new 11" model is rated with a 9-hour battery life, up from last year's 5-hour rating. For anyone who's constantly on the road, that alone is reason enough to pay more for the latest generation.

Furthermore, the new Haswell chip is expected to increase graphics performance by 40% thanks to Intel's HD 5000 chip, which is like having a dedicated graphics card in your laptop. This should make for a noticeable improvement in multimedia performance on all of the base MacBook Airs. As such, high-def streaming will be smoother than before.

Overall, the 2013 MacBook Air provides better hardware for the same original price of last year's model. And while we've seen the 11" Ivy Bridge MacBook Air with an upgraded 128GB SSD for as low as $900, it was a one-time deal that barely lasted a full day. With its upgraded CPU, better battery life, improved graphics, and larger/faster SSD, the Haswell MacBook Air is a runaway hit. And while you can find cheaper Ivy Bridge and Haswell Windows laptops, the entry level MacBook Air is still your best bet if you're deeply invested in the Mac ecosystem.

How to Find the Best Deal on the Haswell MacBook Air

As great as the new MacBook Air may be, we don't expect you to pay full price for the new laptop. And the good news is that the MacBook Air usually receives the quickest discounts, second to the MacBook Pro Retina. Last year's Ivy Bridge models saw a $49 discount (via MacMall) just two months after its debut, but the previous Sandy Bridge model saw the same $49 discount on the same day as its release (via Amazon). So we recommend waiting up to two months for that initial $49 discount.

However, if you simply can't afford a new MacBook Air, expect to see the Ivy Bridge 128GB SSD MacBook Air at around $900 while the 64GB SSD configuration could hit under the $800 mark (we've already seen it hit $800 back in January).

Louis Ramirez is Senior Feature Writer for Dealnews.com, where this article first appeared.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/x1rDY_yIcfY/Want-a-MacBook-Air-New-version-is-a-better-deal-than-the-old-one.

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Oklahoma City Tornado: Dangerous Twister Strikes Near State Capital

According to the Office of Missouri Governor's website:

JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Jay Nixon tonight declared a state of emergency in Missouri as a widespread severe weather system continued to move across the state, bringing heavy rain, hail, straight-line winds, flooding and radar-indicated tornadoes. This severe weather follows several days of heavy rain throughout much of the state, leading to flooding along many streams and rivers. The severe weather threat continues tonight in parts of Missouri, and is likely to continue tomorrow for much of the state.

"Much of Missouri is experiencing dangerous severe weather tonight, on the heels of several days of heavy rain," Gov. Nixon said. "I urge Missourians to closely monitor weather conditions, so they can take shelter or move to higher ground if needed. The risk of severe weather remains with us well into tomorrow. The state of Missouri will continue to work closely with local officials to help protect lives and property from these storms."

Read the full update here.

Click here to view what the night was like for local residents, based on 50 tweets in the OKC metro area from 7:52 p.m. to 9:43 p.m. local time.

During a phone call with Oklahoma's KFOR, Gov. Mary Fallin (R) was asked what message she would like to give to Oklahomans who may be feeling a bit fearful, given the repeated threat of tornadoes in recent days.

"It has been a hard couple of weeks," Fallin said, "but tell them it's going to be ok."

"We are resilient," Fallin continued. "We will go through and come through it on the other side. Just hang on, and tomorrow is a better day."

Gov. Mary Fallin told Oklahoma's KOKH Friday night that she was aware of news reports that the evening's violent storms had caused fatalities, including reports that a woman and her baby had been killed on I-40, but she said she could not confirm any fatalities at this time.

"I can't confirm any fatalities other than what I've also heard on the news," she said, noting that she had not yet been in touch with the medical examiner for an official report.

Fallin also said that Friday's storms will not help the ongoing recovery efforts in Moore, which was hit by an EF5 tornado on May 20.

"Well, it's not helpful. They were just beginning to clean up the debris," Fallin said. "Hopefully they were able to get out the things they needed to get out, but this rain will not help with debris removal."

Gov. Mary Fallin (R) spoke to Oklahoma's KWTV Friday evening and said that "we're going to have our hands full for a while."

She said that she did not yet know the extent of the damage from Friday's storms or whether the state would need additional resources to help with the recovery efforts. "We're still in the active stage of the storm itself," Fallin said.

While the storms generated high winds and hail across the region, Fallin said that the situation did not appear to be as serious as when an EF5 tornado hit Moore, Okla. earlier this month.

"We're not getting calls from people and communities that we had tremendous damage like we had in Moore," Fallin told KWTV.

Parts of Oklahoma City experience extreme flooding after multiple tornadoes passed through Central Okla. on Friday May 31, 2013 in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Nick Oxford)

As tornadoes swept through the Oklahoma City area on Friday evening, storm chasers in cars tracked their movements, relaying updates and video to a number of news outlets.

But getting close to violent storms is inherently risky, and the storm chasers with The Weather Channel's Tornado Hunt team had a very close call:

Meteorologist Mike Bettes was chasing the monster rain-wrapped tornado near El Reno, Okla. when he says the storm picked up the heavy chase SUV and threw it an estimated 200 yards.

Bettes and his team members are alive, but they do have minor injuries.

"I saw my life flash before my eyes," Bettes said in a live phone interview as soon as he established phone connection after the incident. He says the airbags deployed and everyone had their seat belts on.

Seth Decker, a storm chaser with TVN Weather took a photo that shows how far off the road the Tornado Hunt vehicle was thrown:

Storm chaser Sean Schofer also tweeted a photo of the wrecked SUV:

An overturned semitrailer rests on its side on the eastbound lanes of Interstate 40, just east of El Reno, Okla., after a reported tornado touched down, Friday, May 31, 2013. (AP Photo/The Omaha World-Herald, Chris Machian)

A tornado touches down near El Reno, Okla., Friday, May 31, 2013, causing damage to structures and injuring travelers on Interstate 40. I-40 has been closed after severe weather rolled through the area. (AP Photo/The Omaha World-Herald, Chris Machian)

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/31/oklahoma-city-tornado_n_3369308.html

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Obama taps his point man on sequester to head IRS

President Barack Obama on Thursday appointed Danny Werfel, an official with the Office of Management and Budget, as acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. Werfel replaces Steven Miller, the acting commissioner forced to resign Wednesday over the IRS having targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny.

Werfel, whose appointment will be effective May 22, "will lead efforts to ensure the IRS implements new safeguards to restore public trust and administers the tax code with fairness and integrity," the White House said in a statement. He will serve through the end of the fiscal year.

?Throughout his career working in both Democratic and Republican administrations, Danny has proven an effective leader who serves with professionalism, integrity and skill," Obama added in the statement. "The American people deserve to have the utmost confidence and trust in their government, and as we work to get to the bottom of what happened and restore confidence in the IRS, Danny has the experience and management ability necessary to lead the agency at this important time."

Werfel has been serving as the administration's point-person on the sequester.

Obama announced Wednesday night that Miller was asked to resign following the revelations that IRS employees targeted conservative-sounding groups applying for tax-exempt status. And the president added at a press conference earlier on Thursday that a replacement was imminent.

"We will be putting in new leadership that will be able to make sure that?following up on the IG audit?that we gather up all the facts, that we hold accountable those who have taken these outrageous actions," Obama said at a Rose Garden press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "As I said last night, it is just simply unacceptable for there to even be a hint of partisanship or ideology when it comes to the application of our tax laws."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-choose-omb-official-danny-werfel-head-irs-191121420.html

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Obama touts importance of U.S. ties with Latin America (Washington Bureau)

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