Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:27 PM
AP, DOJ Clash over Leak That Led to Records Seizure
Justice Department and Associated Press officials clashed Tuesday over leaked classified information that led the government to seize AP phone records, with Attorney General Eric Holder saying it “put the American people at risk” and the news organization’s chief executive insisting it delayed publishing its story until it was assured “national security concerns had passed.” The clashing came as new details emerged about negotiations between the AP and U.S. officials over the unauthorized release of classified information on a foiled bomb plot in Yemen, information that apparently triggered the investigation, according to NBC News. The Associated Press had said Monday that the feds had secretly seized phone records of its reporters and editors in a leaks probe. Holder told reporters that he had testified to a congressional committee last year over the leaks probe and had recused himself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. Holder said it was "certainly not the policy of this administration" to target reporters. Prior to the publication of the story on the bomb plot, there were extensive negotiations among AP, White House and CIA officials, but the agreement broke down.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 10:04 PM
More Women Opting for Preventive Mastectomy, But Should They Be?
Angelina Jolie's preventive double mastectomy has brought renewed attention to the controversial procedure, according to NBC News. Women opting for preventive mastectomies increased by an estimated 50 percent in recent years, and while surveys show that they're happy with their decisions, some doctors are puzzled because it's a major surgery with no 100 percent guarantee. Also, other options like pills and careful monitoring are available to women who are at risk. The number of women choosing to be tested have also increased as genetic tests for breast cancer risks have become more prevalent, according to Dr. Todd Tuttle, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Minnesota. Tuttle has looked at how many women chose to have both breasts removed when cancer was found in one breast. Although the risk of developing cancer in the healthy breast is fairly low, many women choose to have both breasts removed when a tumor develops in one.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 8:27 AM
Rumsfeld: I Listed Pros and Cons Before Iraq
Donald Rumsfeld talks about his new book and the controversial decisions he made as George W. Bush’s former defense secretary. He also says he believes there was an Obama administration cover-up on the Benghazi attack.
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Wednesday, May 15, 2013 at 12:14 AM
Russia Expels U.S. Diplomat It Says Spied for CIA
Russia has detained a U.S. diplomat suspected of trying to recruit a Russian intelligence official to work for the CIA, Russia said Tuesday. The man, whom Russia identified as Ryan Christopher Fogle, was ordered expelled Tuesday after being arrested. The U.S. State Department said only that a U.S. Embassy officer in Moscow had been detained and released. The Russian Federal Security Service, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB, circulated photos of the man to the Russian media and said one of the photos were of items that were found in his possession, including two wigs, a torch, a compass and a wad of €500 bills. Russia said the diplomat's alleged efforts were provocative and in the spirit of the Cold War — but the the U.S. said it didn't expect the detention to affect U.S.-Russian relations, seen as key to efforts to end the conflict in Syria and investigate the Boston Marathon bombings.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 7:57 AM
Meet Kenneth Feinberg, the Man Who Puts a Price on Pain
AP
Attorney Kenneth Feinberg has long been the go-to person to help families divvy up funds in the wake of national tragedies. Since his first big break in 1984 -- when he was appointed to distribute settlement money to Vietnam veterans who sued the makers of Agent Orange -- he has managed compensation for other high profile cases including families affected by 9/11, the Aurora movie theater massacre and the Virginia Tech shooting. Feinberg has been commuting from his Maryland home to Boston for his latest pro bono project: helping One Fund distribute money to the victims of the Boston bombing. Feinberg has the difficult job of calculating what each person is entitled to by factoring in details like numbers of limbs lost, the extent of injuries and each person's earning capabilities. But while placing a price tag on pain and injuries may seem heartless, those who work with him say Feinberg has a knack for bringing sensitivity to his job. "He's the umpire, the mediator, the resolver," said John C. Coffee Jr., a law professor at Columbia University in New York who has known Feinberg for about 20 years. "He can listen, and he's a people person."
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 6:15 AM
Plague of Locusts Swarms Israel Desert
Israel’s Negev Desert has been infested with huge swarms of newly hatched locusts that are devouring everything in their path and threatening crops and farms, NBC News reported. Millions locusts in the desert sand, which locals say is the worst infestation in decades, set Israel’s Agriculture Ministry into immediate action to spray pesticides before they can inflict more damage. “They are easy targets now, but in two or three days when their wings develop, it will be disaster,” said Lior Katari, one of the Agriculture Ministry’s coordinators. Teams of exterminators are moving to various locations across the desert as they receive constant updates from colleagues in helicopters and on the ground. Scientists say adult locusts likely originated in Sudan, crossed from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula into Israel, where they mated and laid billions of eggs in the sand, which are now hatching.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 6:24 AM
IRS Nonprofit Division Understaffed
AP
Amid recent allegations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups, the agency faces a bigger problem: drowning in paperwork. According to an analysis of IRS records by the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan investigative news organization, the IRS’ Exempt Organizations Division has been processing many more tax exemption applications by so-called 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations. During the 2012 fiscal year, the division processed 2,774 applications — as opposed to 1,777 in 2011. The Exempt Organization Division, however, had only 876 staff members in 2012, as opposed to 910 in 2009. As a way of explanation for its targeting groups like the tea party, the IRS said that a heavy workload led bureaucrats to “centralize” the “influx of advocacy applications” and scrutinize groups that contained more common phrases such as “tea party."
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 5:53 AM
Spacecraft Lands with Commander Hadfield, 2 Others
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying a crew of three — Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn and Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko — safely touched down in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, wrapping up a five-month mission to the International Space Station. The trio's return marks the end of the station's Expedition 35, which Hadfield commanded, according to NBC News. They orbited Earth 2,300 times and logged 61 million miles during their 144 days on the station. The departing Soyuz left behind three other astronauts to watch over the space station, but they won't be alone for long. Hadfield returns to Earth a YouTube star after his cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" from the Space Station went viral.
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Monday, May 13, 2013 at 8:30 PM
Bangladesh Collapse Shows Cost of Cheap Clothes
With more than 1,100 people dead in a massive Bangladesh garment factory collapse, the spotlight on international clothing retailers' role in the industry's often abysmal work conditions is ever-brighter. Some, like Zara and H&M, are signing an agreement drafted by labor rights groups to help pay for fire and safety renovations in any Bangladeshi factories where their clothes are made. Those moves come just as the search for survivors of the collapse in Dhaka ended, leaving the death toll at 1,127 — making the building collapse the world's deadliest industrial accident since the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India. One rare joyful discovery was made in the accident's aftermath on Friday last week, when Reshma Begum, 19, was found alive and relatively unscathed after 17 days buried in the rubble of the building.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 6:37 AM
2 Waiters Arrested in Mexico in Malcolm X's Grandson's Death
AP
Two workers at a Mexico City bar were arrested in connection with the death of Malcolm X's grandson Malcolm Shabazz, who was robbed and beaten to death last week after a dispute over his bar tab. Mexican prosecutors said David Hernandez Cruz and Manuel Alejandro Perez de Jesus, both waiters at the Palace Club, were "likely responsible" for the 28-year-old's death. According to Reuters, Shabazz and Miguel Suarez, an immigrant activist recently deported from the U.S., were in the Palace in the central working-class neighborhood Tepito until the waiters demanded payment at about 3 a.m. A dispute over the bill erupted, and Shabazz was beaten and robbed, prosecutors said. He died in a hospital Thursday from his injuries.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 7:37 AM
Feds Secretly Seized AP Journalists’ Phone Records
The Department of Justice used a secret subpoena to seize two months of Associated Press journalists' phone records without notifying the news organization, a senior department official told NBC News. That admission came after the AP said earlier Monday that the government had seized records from its offices' phone lines in 2012 in what it called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion." The news agency's chief executive said in a letter on the service's website that there could be "no possible justification" for such an "overbroad" seizure of dozens of phone lines' records, but the official who spoke with NBC News called the step necessary to avoid "a substantial threat to the integrity" of an ongoing leak investigation. A letter U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr. sent to the AP didn't give a reason for the seizure, but the AP noted that he is already conducting a leaks probe to determine how the news organization learned about an al-Qaeda bomb plot it reported on before the government made it public last year.
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Tuesday, May 14, 2013 at 2:24 PM
5 Questions on IRS' Targeting of Tea Party Groups
Yet more of Washington is balking at the Internal Revenue Service, with the news that the agency had singled out conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status for tougher scrutiny. On what NBC's First Read team called his worst day politically since his painful presidential debate, President Barack Obama vowed Monday to get to the bottom of it, but five big questions remain. How did it start? "I just don’t buy that this was a couple of rogue IRS employees," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said. Who knew what when? The IRS said over the weekend that senior executives weren't aware of the targeting — but on Monday the IRS said its current acting commissioner learned of it in May 2012. Will anyone be fired? That's what Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) wants. And damage control? The agency is sure to face fierce grilling in Congress from members of both parties. How can this be prevented in the future? Some in Congress want to toughen the penalties for IRS agents.
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Monday, May 13, 2013 at 4:06 PM
Obama Administration Appeals Morning-After Pill Ruling
NBC Chicago
The federal government's battle with a federal judge over age limits for buying the morning-after pill isn't over yet. President Barack Obama's administration filed an appeal Monday, as expected, of a judge's decision last month ordering it to make emergency contraception available over-the-counter to everyone, regardless of age. Judge Edward Korman had on Friday refused to grant a stay of his order, which was replete with blistering criticism of what he called the administration's "frivolous" decision to limit access to the pill to girls 17 and over — a decision that had overruled the FDA's own initial approval of the pill for women of all ages. On Monday, the administration asked a federal appeals court to delay implementation of Korman's order pending its appeal. As it stands now, the morning-after pill is available over-the-counter to anyone 15 or older who presents ID to drug store cashiers; younger girls must get prescriptions to buy it.
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Monday, May 13, 2013 at 3:03 PM
H&M Approves Safety Standards for Bangladesh Factories
Bloomberg via Getty Images
Swedish fashion retailer H&M has agreed to sign a legally binding plan to improve safety standards in Bangladesh garment factories, The Associated Press reported. The agreement comes in the wake of a deadly building collapse last month that killed more than 1,100 garment workers. Forty garment buyers met with labor rights groups on April 29 in Germany to discuss the issue and set Wednesday as the deadline to sign the accord. H&M said the new five-year accord was a "pragmatic step," and hopes the announcement will spur other brands to follow suit. PVH, the parent company of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and Tchibo, a German retailer — have already signed up to the plan.
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Monday, May 13, 2013 at 8:07 PM
Obama: Focus on Benghazi Talking Points a "Sideshow"
President Barack Obama blasted critics' scrutiny of his administration's immediate response to the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year as a "political circus" that "defies logic." His remarks at a joint event with British Prime Minister David Cameron came days after the leak of government emails renewed Republican-led accusations of a State Department cover-up to disguise a terrorist attack as a spontaneous violent protest. "The whole thing defies logic," Obama said of the accusations. "The fact that this whole thing keeps getting churned out, frankly, has a lot to do with political motivations." He downplayed the charges, calling them a "political circus," and the significance of the leaked emails, which showed numerous changes to the talking points in the days just after the attacks. "There's no there there," he said, saying the talking points edits reflected officials' lack of immediate clarity about what exactly had prompted the attack.
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