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IRS to pay $70M in employee bonuses, senator says

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:42 +0000

3 hours ago

The Internal Revenue Service is about to pay $70 million in employee bonuses despite an Obama administration directive to cancel discretionary bonuses because of automatic spending cuts enacted this year, according to a GOP senator.

Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa says his office has learned that the IRS is executing an agreement with the employees’ union on Wednesday to pay the bonuses. Grassley says the bonuses should be canceled under an April directive from the White House budget office.

The directive was written by Danny Werfel, a former budget official who has since been appointed acting IRS commissioner.

“The IRS always claims to be short on resources,” Grassley said. “But it appears to have $70 million for union bonuses. And it appears to be making an extra effort to give the bonuses despite opportunities to renegotiate with the union and federal instruction to cease discretionary bonuses during sequestration.”

The IRS said it is negotiating with the union over the matter but did not dispute Grassley’s claim that the bonuses are imminent.

Office of Management and Budget “guidance directs that agencies should not pay discretionary monetary awards at this time, unless legally required,” IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge said in a statement. “IRS is under a legal obligation to comply with its collective bargaining agreement, which specifies the terms by which awards are paid to bargaining-unit employees.”

Eldridge, however, would not say whether the IRS believes it is contractually obligated to pay the bonuses.

“In accordance with OMB guidance, the IRS is actively engaged with NTEU on these matters in recognition of our current budgetary constraints,” Eldridge said.

The National Treasury Employees Union did not respond to requests for comment.

The IRS has been under fire since last month, when IRS officials acknowledged that agents had improperly targeted conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections. A few weeks later, the agency’s inspector general issued a report documenting lavish employee conferences during the same time period.

Three congressional committees and the Justice Department are investigating the targeting of conservative groups. And key Republicans in Congress are promising more scrutiny of the agency’s budget, especially as it ramps up to play a major role in implementing the new health care law.

Much of the agency’s top leadership has been replaced since the scandals broke. President Barack Obama forced the acting commissioner to resign and replaced him with Werfel, who used to work in the White House budget office.

In a letter to Werfel on Tuesday, Grassley said the IRS notified the employee union March 25 that it intended to reclaim about $75 million that had been set aside for discretionary employee bonuses. However, Grassley said, his office has learned that the IRS never followed up on the notice. Instead, Grassley said, the IRS negotiated a new agreement with the bargaining unit to pay about $70 million in employee bonuses.

Grassley’s office said the information came from a “person with knowledge of IRS budgetary procedures.”

“While the IRS may claim that these bonuses are legally required under the original bargaining unit agreement, that claim would allegedly be inaccurate,” Grassley wrote. “In fact, the original agreement allows for the re-appropriation of such award funding in the event of budgetary shortfall.”

Werfel wrote the directive on discretionary employee bonuses while he was still working in the White House budget office. The directive was part of the Obama administration’s efforts to impose across-the-board spending cuts enacted by Congress.

The spending cuts, known as “sequestration,” are resulting in at least five unpaid furlough days this year for the IRS’ 90,000 employees. On these days, the agency is closed and taxpayers cannot access many of the agency’s assistance programs.

Werfel’s April 4 memorandum “directs that discretionary monetary awards should not be issued while sequestration is in place, unless issuance of such awards is legally required. Discretionary monetary awards include annual performance awards, group awards, and special act cash awards, which comprise a sizeable majority of awards and incentives provided by the federal government to employees.”

“Until further notice, agencies should not issue such monetary awards from sequestered accounts unless agency counsel determines the awards are legally required. Legal requirements include compliance with provisions in collective bargaining agreements governing awards.”

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Missing elderly Kansas couple found safe, 400 miles from destination

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:41 +0000

A missing elderly Kansas couple who set out on an eight-hour trip from Kansas to Illinois to visit family on Monday afternoon was found Wednesday afternoon in Mio, Mich., – about 400 miles from their original destination.

“They took a wrong turn,” Garnett Police Chief Kevin Pekarek said.

Vernon Hunt, 92, and his wife Goldie, 81, of Garnett, Kan., were reported missing by their son Jay Selanders Monday afternoon. The couple left their house early Monday morning to visit Goldie’s twin sister in Dwight, Ill., but they never arrived.

Pekarek said law enforcement agencies across three states – Kansas, Missouri and Illinois – are looking for the couple, NBC affiliate KSHB reported. A Silver Alert, which notifies the public of missing elderly individuals with mental disabilities, was not issued because they do not fit the criteria.

Pekarek said a few people reported seeing the couple’s car, a black 2005 Chrysler 300 with a Kansas license plate 473 FNM, in parts of Missouri and Kansas on Tuesday.

After police notified Selanders that his parents were found in Michigan, he and his wife went to go pick them up.

As for the trip to see Goldie’s sister, Pekarek said, “they probably won’t be going by themselves anymore.”

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 10:30 AM EDT

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Singer, yodeler Slim Whitman dies at 90

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:40 +0000

Music

2 hours ago

Country singer Slim Whitman, known for his yodeling skills and falsetto voice, died Wednesday of heart failure at age 90, his family said.

Recent generations may know Whitman best from the musical hits collections he sold on television in the 1980s and the numerous jokes “Tonight Show” host Johnny Carson made at his expense. But he was a star long before that on two continents. His 1955 hit “Rose Marie” was No.1 in England for 11 weeks, a chart record that stood for 36 years.

Born in Florida, Whitman came late to music, joining a band after serving with the Navy in World War II. Talent manager Col. Tom Parker, who would eventually become famous for discovering Elvis Presley, heard the singer in the late 1940s and took him on.

Whitman began as a cowboy singer, but struggled to make it in music. In the early 1950s, he cracked the country-music top 10 with “Love Song of the Waterfall.”

He was even more successful with his next song, “Indian Love Call,” which highlighted Whitman’s soaring falsetto and his impressive yodeling talents. In the 1996 comedy “Mars Attacks!”, that song was used to make the Martian attackers’ heads explode, saving Earth.

Whitman joined the Grand Ole Opry in the 1950s and continued to release music, but his fame soared higher in Europe than in his homeland. His hits abroad included “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Unchain My Heart,” and “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen.”

He became perhaps better known as a pop-culture icon in his own country, thanks in part to the late-night television commercials he began making in the late 1970s. In 1979, millions of Americans ordered his mail-order albums and tapes based on one iconic commercial. Subsequent ads bragged him up as a “new American recording star,” though Whitman had been selling records for more than a quarter of a century at that point.

Whitman had to be convinced to do the ads. “I never liked television,” he once told writer Graham Reid. “But my wife kept telling me I had nothing to lose. Then my son Byron insisted I do it. So I did.”

He became a target of mostly fond jokes, with Carson once starring in a “Tonight Show” skit where he claimed to have contracted “Slim Whitman’s Disease,” which forced him to randomly break into yodels. “Contact Yodel Hills Hospital when someone you love talks real silly,” the fake commercial urged viewers.

Sometimes the jibes were harsher. According to Reid, Playboy magazine described Whitman as having “a hairline that can’t quite decide where it’s receding to (and) a pair of front teeth you could pass a table knife between.”

Whitman was laughing all the way to the bank — he reportedly sold two million copies of the first TV-advertised album and 250,000 copies of the second.

While playing the Tulsa State Fair in 1981, he told KOTV-TV that he knew his music wasn’t to everyone’s taste. “There’s a few of ‘em, you know, a little negative, but after we leave the place, they’re positive,” he said.

The yodeling, TV ads and unconventional looks may have earned him ribbing, but they also made him famous. Whitman was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

“He was a good, honest man,” grandson Dewey Beagle told Florida’s First Coast News, adding that Whitman never drank or smoked. “He didn’t really go for the Hollywood or Nashville parties.”

He was also humble. Beagle said he didn’t realize his “Paw-Paw” was famous until he was 11 and the family went to Knott’s Berry Farm and Whitman suddenly went on stage to perform. “And then he goes backstage, takes his suit off, and goes on the log ride with us,” Beagle told the station.

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Fed will keep pedal to metal on economic stimulus

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:39 +0000

Economy

2 hours ago

The economy is growing, the labor market is improving and inflation is nothing to worry about. That’s the Federal Reserve’s widely-anticipated assessment of the economy, released Wednesday after a two-day meeting.

The Fed said it would keep interest rates at historic lows near zero and that it would continue its bond buying program, known as quantitative easing, aimed at keeping the central bank’s pedal to the metal on stimulating growth.

The statement gave no obvious clues that it would be scaling back the program, despite intense market speculation that it could start drawing it to a close. But financial markets took the Fed’s rosier view of the economy as a hint that it was inching closer to paring back the program.

At a subsequent news conference, chairman Ben Bernanke said scale-backs in the asset purchasing program will only happen if the economic data gets better. Interest rate hikes, he said, are “still far in the future.”

After a powerful rally earlier in the week, markets recoiled at Wednesday’s news.

Stocks sold off while Treasury yields rose.

Markets have been intent on finding signs for when the Fed will end its quantitative easing program, which has driven the central bank balance sheet to $3.45 trillion and sparked worries about asset bubbles in risk assets.

The Fed credits itself with funds that it uses to buy Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.

As part of a historic level of easing, the Fed also has kept its target funds rate near zero, where it will stay until unemployment falls to 6.5 percent and inflation rises to 2.5 percent. The jobless rate currently stands at 7.6 percent while inflation is tracking at 1.4 percent.

In its statement Wednesday, it forecast the jobless target will be hit in 2014. It also cut its inflation forecast.

Critics have wondered why the central bank continues in extreme easing mode even though the economy is well enough and the SP 500 stock index has gained more than 140 percent since the March 2009 lows.

In anticipation that the Fed will unwind the third leg of QE, stocks have been choppy though generally higher while the 10-year Treasury yield has climbed to 2.21 percent, recently hitting its highest level since late-March 2012 and up more than half a percentage point from the 1.66 percent at the May fed meeting.

CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Reuters and NBC News’ Patrick Rizzo contributed to this report.

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Fed will keep pedal to metal on economic stimulus, for now

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:37 +0000

Economy

2 hours ago

After a powerful rally earlier in the week, markets recoiled at Wednesday’s news.

Stocks sold off while Treasury yields rose.

The Fed credits itself with funds that it uses to buy Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.

In its statement Wednesday, it forecast the jobless target will be hit in 2014. It also cut its inflation forecast.

CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Reuters and NBC News’ Patrick Rizzo contributed to this report.

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Google: ‘We’re not in cahoots with the NSA’

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:35 +0000

Gonzalo Fuentes / Reuters file

David Drummond, senior vice president of Google, in 2011.

Google’s chief legal officer said Wednesday “we’re not in cahoots with the NSA” as the company stepped up its efforts to reassure customers that their gmail and Internet browsing history are safe from government prying.

“There is no free-for-all, no direct access, no indirect access, no back door, no drop box,” said David Drummond, Google’s top lawyer, in a live webchat with The Guardian newspaper. During the chat, Drummond forcefully denied media reports that an NSA surveillance program known as PRISM had given the agency “direct access” to the servers of major Internet companies. “There’s no government program that Google participates in that allows the kind of access that the media originally reported,” he said.

Drummond’s comments come the day after the company filed suit in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court alleging that long-standing gag orders prohibiting Google from telling customers about data it turns over to the NSA violate the company’s First Amendment rights.

Company lawyers claimed in their filing that “Google’s reputation and business has been harmed by the false or misleading reports in the media” about its cooperation with the NSA.

Drummond said that Google only turns over user data to the government in response to “legitimate” requests relating to criminal investigations or suspected terror plots. “We review each of those requests and push back when the request is overly broad or doesn’t follow the correct process,” said Drummond.

During the webchat, some questioners said they had lost trust in Google over the revelations about the NSA’s data-collection program. “I will cease using Google Mail, and use non-tracked search tools like duckduckgo,” wrote one questioner. “I, like millions of other Americans have nothing to hide, but we value our basic privacy … there is no excuse for a company as powerful as Google to not look out for the basic freedoms and liberty of American citizens.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” replied Drummond. “We do push back where we can, and do everything we can to protect our users’ data. But we don’t write the laws. Maybe one positive outcome of all this will be to have a deeper debate on this and come up with laws that are more transparent to the public.”

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Feds: 2 plotted to build ‘Hiroshima light switch’ weapon

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:34 +0000

NBC’s Pete Williams reports on the arrest of the two suspects who allegedly tried to use a mobile radiation device.

Two upstate New York men, one of them said to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, plotted to build a truck-mounted, industrial-strength X-ray weapon to kill “enemies of Israel” by poisoning them with radiation, federal authorities said Wednesday.

One of them boasted that he could build a “Hiroshima light switch” and that “everything with respiration would be dead by morning,” authorities said.

Investigators said the public was never in danger. The men scoped out Muslims and other groups as potential targets and apparently got as far as building a trigger for the device, but the FBI caught on, set up a sting and made sure the device didn’t work, the authorities said.

The men — Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, and Eric J. Feight, 54 — were charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. They were expected in court later Wednesday.

A criminal complaint said the men wanted to integrate the device into a mobile, industrial-grade X-ray system that could be turned on and off from a distance and could avoid detection.

Crawford, who authorities said made the boast about Hiroshima, is a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK, the complaint said. He referred to Muslims as “medical waste,” the complaint said.

Federal authorities said they became aware of the plot and later began working undercover, after Crawford walked into a synagogue and asked for help with technology that could kill enemies of Israel while they slept.

The synagogue declined, and both the synagogue and another Jewish organization approached by Crawford told the FBI, the complaint said.

The plot began in April 2012, and the men sought parts for the weapon this spring, the complaint said. Crawford once traveled to North Carolina to ask for financing from a suspected KKK member, it said.

Crawford worked for General Electric, and Feight was an outside contractor for the company, the complaint said. Efforts to reach GE for comment were not immediately successful.

Information on their lawyers was not available.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 2:40 PM EDT

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Son allegedly stabs father, cuts off his own hands

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:34 +0000

An argument ended grimly in California this week, with a father found in the driveway bleeding from stab wounds and his son nearby, his severed hands lying on the ground.

Shasta County Sherriff’s deputies responded to a reported stabbing in Redding, Calif., on Monday afternoon to find the gruesome scene with “visible injuries” in the driveway, according to a news release.

Both Gregory Dunn, 58, and his son Jason, 27, were rushed to the hospital, where they remained as of Wednesday morning with life-threatening injuries. Gregory was stabbed multiple times, allegedly by Jason with a pair of scissors. Jason Dunn’s hands were cut off to his wrist.

Through multiple interviews, police said they learned the Dunns were in a quarrel prior to the stabbing. Police said they believe Jason Dunn cut off both his hands using a radial saw. More information about the son’s reasons behind his self-mutilation and stabbing of his father remain unclear, police said.

Charges had not been filed as of Wednesday, but police said they are investigating the case as an attempted homicide.

This story was originally published on Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:55 PM EDT

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Duchess Kate to give birth in same hospital as Princess Diana

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:33 +0000

News

3 hours ago

Prince William and Duchess Kate still aren’t revealing the gender of their first child – because they really don’t know, palace officials insisted Wednesday.

New details about the highly anticipated birth of the new heir to the throne were disclosed by an official of St. James Palace.

Duchess Kate, 31, is due in mid-July. The palace said she will deliver her baby in a private wing of St. Mary’s hospital, the same London hospital where Princes William and Harry were born.

Don’t expect Prince William to be pacing the hospital hallways when the baby arrives. The proud papa plans to be present for the delivery, the palace official said.

The Palace will announce when the duchess has gone into labor only after she has been admitted to the hospital, an effort to give Kate sufficient time to settle into her room before the inevitable media frenzy converges outside.

Once the baby is born, the news will be shared with Queen Elizabeth and the Middleton family before it becomes public. A birth announcement written on official Buckingham Palace letterhead will be driven to the palace, where it will be placed on the same easel used to announce Prince William’s birth 31 years ago this Friday.

Whether the baby’s name will also be revealed at that time will be up to the duke and duchess, the palace official said.

The disappearing duchess: What Kate’s ‘maternity leave’ means

Kate’s delivery will be led by Dr. Marcus Setchell, the former gynecologist for Queen Elizabeth, and aided by the queen’s current surgeon, Dr. Alan Farthing.

The birth of the future king or queen is arguably the most anticipated arrival of a royal since Prince William was born on June 21, 1982, just shy of a year from when his parents got married. William was the first heir to the throne to be born in a hospital.

The Palace announced his birth at 10 p.m. local time, saying the new prince was born approximately an hour earlier. The statement said the baby had blue eyes, “fairish” hair and “cries lustily.” It also noted Prince Charles was present for the birth.

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Italian designers Dolce, Gabbana convicted of tax evasion

Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:07:30 +0000

Filippo Monteforte / AFP – Getty Images, file

Italian fashion designers Domenico Dolce (L) and Stefano Gabbana in this 2007 file image.

MILAN, Italy – Fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were given a suspended jail sentence of one year and 8 months Wednesday after being found guilty of hiding $1.3 billion in income from tax authorities.

The men were convicted by a court in Milan but given a suspended sentence, which means they will avoid prison as long as they commit no other crimes for five years.

The conviction is the culmination of efforts by tax authorities to prosecute the pair. Two years ago, a court threw out charges of fraud.

The designers, whose creations have earned them celebrity friends including Madonna, were not present in court in Milan and have always denied the charges.