"MY NEIGHBORHOOD IS GONE"

A day after the tornado that devastated Moore, Oklahoma, was classified as an EF4, the National Weather Service upgraded its status to a scale-topping EF5, which the tornado achieved with winds over 200 miles per hour. The Weather Service said the storm's path was 17 miles long and 1.3 miles wide. Of 1,000 tornadoes to hit the U.S. each year, only about one achieves EF5 status. As the storm's power rose on the scales, its human toll was lowered: after having reported as many as 91 dead Monday night, officials revised the death count to 24.

 

Read it at USA Today

May 21, 2013 4:23 PM

Senate Investigators: Apple Sheltered $44B from Taxes.CEO Responds at Sen Hearing





Read it at Politico

May 20, 2013 6:22 PM

Has Apple been gaming the tax system? A bipartisan Senate panel filed a report Monday claiming the company avoided paying U.S. taxes on $44 billion in offshore, taxable income between 2009 and 2012. The report claims Apple has used offshore subsidiaries to cut some of its tax rates to .05 percent, one of which reportedly netted $30 billion from 2009 to 2012 but paid no income taxes to the U.S. or any other government. Another affiliate reportedly received $74 billion in sales income for four years but paid taxes “on only a tiny fraction of that income,” the report reads. Apple said it paid $6 billion in federal corporate income taxes during its 2012 fiscal year and expects to pay $7 billion in 2013, which would make it “likely the largest corporate income tax payer in the U.S.”

N.Y. TIMES

Timothy Cook came to the lion’s den on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, prepared to face down lawmakers furious over evidence that Apple, the famous company he runs, had avoided paying billions in taxes. By the time Mr. Cook walked out, the big cats on a Senate committee were practically eating out of his hand.
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Apple is hardly unique in seeking to legally shield tens of billions in profits from tax collectors in the United States and overseas, even if its tactics may have been unusually aggressive.

According to one study cited by Mr. Levin, 30 of the largest American multinationals, with more than $160 billion in profits, “paid nothing in federal income taxes over a recent three-year period. Zero.”

Mr. Cook sought to draw a sharp distinction between sales in the United States and those abroad, arguing that the company had complied with local laws everywhere.

“The way I look at this is that Apple pays 30.5 percent of its profits in taxes in the United States,” he said. “We do have a low tax rate outside the U.S., but this is for products we sell outside the U.S.”

Again and again, Mr. Cook said Apple was proud to be an American company, even if the majority of its sales took place outside the United States and were taxed at lower rates. “We are an American company, whether we are selling in China or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.”

Before Mr. Cook and two other top Apple executives testified, other witnesses suggested Apple had indeed pushed hard to take advantage of loopholes in the tax code. “Apple is a great company,” Mr. Levin said. “But they don’t have a right to decide in my book how much in taxes they are going to pay and to whom they are going to pay them.”

Laurence Isaac Balter, chief market strategist at Oracle Investment Research, said he thought the Apple chief did a good job of treating the hearing as a constructive conversation about the problems with the business tax code and how it could be improved. And he gave Mr. Cook high marks for his performance.

 

MASSIVE OKLAHOMA TORNADO KILLS AT LEAST 91 INCL 20 CHILDREN

Tornado hits 'very populated' Oklahoma City suburb of Moore
• Reports of people trapped in buildings, including an elementary school
• Pictures of the area showed widespread devastation, with fires burning 

MOORE, Okla., May 20 (Reuters) - Moore, Oklahoma, was whacked with a mile-wide tornado on Monday, reducing much of the Oklahoma City suburb to rubble. A 2-mile-wide (3-km-wide) tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore .., killing at least 51 people including 20 children, destroying entire tracts of homes and trapping two dozen school children beneath rubble. Rescue teams raced against the setting sun and worked into the darkness in search of survivors as the dangerous storm system threatened several southern Plains states with more twisters.

A child was pulled from the rubble of the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday. N.Y. TIMES


....witnesses say [it] more closely resembled a giant black wall of destruction than a typical twister. The tornado, ...“ripping apart homes” and devastating everything in its path, according to CNN. Entire blocks of homes were destroyed, as well as several schools.   A local news station, KFOR, said it was likely the most destructive tornado ever. The National Weather Service issued a tornado emergency for the Oklahoma City area, where more tornadoes could touch down. It’s the second day in a row of severe tornadoes in Oklahoma.

Read it at Associated Press

May 20, 2013 5:09 PM

A fire burns in Moore after the tornado struck. (AP)

The Oklahoma tornado ....delivered a “direct hit” on Briarwood Elementary School, in particular, according to local officials. At nearby Plaza Towers Elementary School, students from grade 4-6 were moved to a nearby building before the tornado arrived and are reportedly all accounted, but grades K-3 were still in the building. As many as 75 children may have been in the school when the storm arrived. "Students were told to go into the hallways and they were literally hugging the walls; teachers laying on top of kids,” said one KFOR reporter. The station reports that the bodies of seven children have been recovered and 20-30 more children are believed to still be inside the building. Rescue teams don't expect to find more survivors.

Read it at Associated Press

May 20, 2013 7:18 PM