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Anti-government protests in Turkey - Washington Post

Posted: 04 Jun 2013 07:04 AM PDT

A couple wearing gas masks walk at a street between Taksim and Besiktas in Istanbul on June 4, 2013 during a demonstration against the demolition of the park. Turkish police on June 1 began pulling out of Istanbul's iconic Taksim Square, after a second day of violent clashes between protesters and police over a controversial development project. Thousands of demonstrators flooded the site as police lifted the barricades around the park and began withdrawing from the square. What started as an outcry against a local development project has snowballed into widespread anger against what critics say is the government's increasingly conservative and authoritarian agenda. AFP PHOTO / ARIS MESSINISARIS MESSINIS/AFP/Getty Images

Photos of the day

Turkish protests continue, floods inundate German towns, French Open tennis, elephant conservation and more.

A three-month-old Yellow-crested Cockatoo with still few feathers can be seen in its enclosure at the Bird Park in Marlow on May 30, 2013. AFP PHOTO / BERND WUSTNECK GERMANY OUTBERND WUSTNECK/AFP/Getty Images

Animal views

Fun and fascinating creatures around the world.

Actor Jackie Chan arrives at 'An Academy Salute to Jackie Chan' at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California June 3, 2013. REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon (UNITED STATES - Tags: ENTERTAINMENT)

Eye on entertainment

Jackie Chan, Kerry Washington, Sofia Vergara, Glenn Close, Darius Rucker and more.

HYATTSVILLE, MD - MAY 31: Belmin del Rosario, 5, of Hyattsville, takes a taste of quickly melting ice cream on May 31 in Hyattsville, MD. The temperature rose to the low 90's -- higher than normal for this time of year.(Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post)

East Coast feels the heat

The sun sweltered over states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic for a third straight day, with temperatures in the 90s. The hot weather is expected to stretch through the weekend.

Issa hauls 'Spock' before committee - Politico

Posted: 04 Jun 2013 08:39 AM PDT

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa is hauling the man who plays Spock in the IRS "Star Trek" spoof before his committee this week.

Faris Fink, the commissioner of the small business and self-employed division, will testify before the committee on Thursday at a hearing on IRS conference spending.

Issa slams White House response

Other witnesses include acting IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration chief watchdog J. Russell George — who will release a report Tuesday on the IRS conference budget — and Gregory Kutz, an assistant inspector general.

(PHOTOS: 10 slams on the IRS)

Issa (R-Calif.) has been aggressively probing the IRS since news broke last month that the tax-collecting agency had inappropriately singled out tea party groups as they applied for a tax exemption.

He's suggested he'll bring Lois Lerner, the head of the tax-exempt division, back to the panel after some claimed she lost her Fifth Amendment right by delivering a statement last month proclaiming her innocence. And over the weekend, he released partial transcripts of the panel's interrogations of Cincinnati-based IRS employees, arguing that they show the IRS scandal directive came from Washington.

Thursday's hearing will zero in on conference expenses, including those used to film the "Star Trek" parody and a separate dance video released over the weekend.

In the six-minute video filmed for a 2010 California-based conference, Fink and other IRS employees star in a "Star Trek" parody in which Planet Notax has succumbed to taxpayer anarchy. But Starship Enterprise sends federal workers to assess the tax situation.

And the "monster" they're fighting? Uncollected tax revenue.

"I just received an emergency medical call from the planet! Chris, they're dying down there. … They call it the Tax Gap!" an agency employee says in the video.

But Fink — playing Spock — says there's no reason for fear because they can just travel back in time to an IRS conference in the 21st century on planet Earth to "pick up some Tax Gap vaccine."

"The travel expenses and medicine can be itemized," he said.

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Selasa, 4 Jun 2013