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Outgoing IRS chief Steven Miller Friday blamed "foolish mistakes" for the agency's targeting of conservative and Tea Party groups for additional scrutiny over an 18-month period beginning in March 2010, and he said that he did not believe partisanship played any role in the controversy. "As acting commissioner I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for the mistakes that we made and the poor service that we provided," Miller said at the outset of a House Ways and Means Committee hearing. J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general whose report unearthed the IRS controversy, also testified that there was no evidence government workers targeted conservatives for partisan reasons. The answers did not satisfy Republicans, who spent much of the hearing trying to advance a narrative of a "culture of intimidation" of Obama administration ideological opponents. More congressional hearings are planned for next week.
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Not so fast, Arkansas. That was effectively what a federal judge told the state Friday, two months after its legislature enacted one of the toughest abortion bans in the nation. At the hearing in Little Rock, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright deemed the law, which would ban abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, "more than likely unconstitutional" and barred its implementation while a lawsuit challenging it wends its way through the judicial process. That conclusion mirrored the one drawn by Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe, who had called the measure "blatantly unconstitutional" and had said it would be "very costly to the taxpayers of our state" to adopt and defend it in court. The GOP-led Legislature had overruled his veto to pass the bill anyway, however. On Friday, Judge Wright said that the new law would abortions before generally accepted fetal viability, usually around 24 weeks — a standard the Supreme Court has adopted as its guideline, too.
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Are you self employed, a millionaire or someone who would claim a deduction for donating a car or large quantity of clothing to charity? If so be prepared that you may draw the attention of the Internal Revenue Service, CNBC reported. In 2010, about one in 100 Americans were audited, according to IRS data. But those making $1 million or more were more than 12 times more likely to draw scrutiny, perhaps because the IRS has a greater chance of recovery from wealthier taxpayers. Lately, the IRS has scoured social media to look for discussions about underpayment or nonpayment of taxes. Click through for more on what draws IRS attention.
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Army Sgt. John Russell was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without parole for the 2009 killings of five fellow service members at a combat stress clinic in Iraq, The Associated Press reported. Earlier this week, a military judge found Russell guilty of premeditated murder. The only other possible penalty for Russell would have been life in prison with the possibility of release. Russell, a 14-year veteran from Sherman, Texas, had previously pleaded guilty to unpremeditated murder so that prosecutors would take the death penalty off the table. The 2009 shooting was one of the worst instances of soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war.
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A trove of fantastically valuable jewelry that was to be lent to movie stars at the Cannes Film Festival was stolen from a hotel room on Friday, and a police source tells NBC News that the heist appears to be an inside job. The jewels were stored in a safe in a room at the Novotel Hotel rented by an American employee of Chopard, a Swiss luxury jeweler. The employee was not in her room at the time of the heist, which the French media say took place at around 5:00 a.m. local time. Although the heist was initially reported to have been of about $1 million worth of jewels, Le Figaro reported later that Chopard had valued them at between 200,000 and 300,000 euros. The film festival at the famous French Riveria town started on Wednesday and is scheduled to run until May 26.
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Albuquerque Police
A 31-year-old man has been charged with kidnapping and child abuse, one day after the snatched girl's mom chased down his car during a high-speed pursuit and rammed it with her own, police told NBC News. David Jesus Hernandez allegedly snatched a 4-year-old girl from the yard of her apartment complex Wednesday and forced her into his silver Buick. As the victim's mother chased him in her own car, Hernandez pushed the child out of his vehicle, according to authorities. The mother didn't notice and continued to chase the man, eventually ramming the Buick to a stop, after which Hernandez fled on foot. He turned himself in Thursday night.
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