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President Obama learned about IRS scandal via media, senior adviser tells 'Fox ... - Fox News Posted: 19 May 2013 08:23 AM PDT WASHINGTON – White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer told "Fox News Sunday" that President Obama learned about the Internal Revenue Service targeting Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status only after it had come out in the media but that the administration would make sure "it never happens again." Pfeiffer defended Obama's statement that he didn't know anything about the incidents or the investigation until he heard about them in the press. "No president would get involved in an independent IRS investigation," Pfeiffer said. "It would be wholly inappropriate." Wallace asked if Sarah Ingram, the IRS commissioner who once oversaw the division that processes tax-exempt applications and now tapped to oversee the new tax laws in ObamaCare, would be pulled from the spot given the recent scandal. It is not clear when Ingram stopped being the head of the tax-exempt office or how active her role was there while she was implementing ObamaCare. "There will be a 30-day review and everybody who did anything wrong will be held accountable," Pfeiffer said, adding that Ingram was never named in the inspector general's report on the scandal. Joseph Grant, the official who succeeded Ingram, announced Thursday he would be retiring after being on the job for a week. The IRS actions and allegations have brought anger from both parties, with Obama calling it "outrageous" and promising change. Pfeiffer, who made the full round of Sunday talk shows, continued the calls for change in an effort to calm growing frustrations over a series of scandals that have rocked the White House this week, including claims of political intimidation, stepping on the constitutional rights of the media and backpedaling on what the administration knew about the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. Democrats have long said the GOP is trying to keep the Benghazi attacks in the spotlight to discredit former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's possible 2016 presidential bid. Last week, more than100 pages of government emails and notes in the Benghazi investigation were released. The documents show that State Department officials repeatedly objected to and tried to scale back references of involvement by Islamic extremist groups and prior security warnings in the administration's initial internal narrative of the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. Pfeiffer told Wallace the emails were doctored and given out to the press. He added that the talking point references were changed by the CIA and not the White House and said Republicans should be more focused on trying to find the culprit than blaming Obama. |
One winning ticket for $590.5M Powerball lottery jackpot sold in Florida - Chicago Tribune Posted: 19 May 2013 08:59 AM PDT One winning ticket was sold for last night's record Powerball drawing. It was bought at a supermarket in Florida, and is worth more than $590 million. Only one winning ticket for a record U.S. Powerball lottery jackpot worth $590.5 million was sold in Florida, organizers said, but there was no official word about who won it. The winning numbers from Saturday night's drawing were: 10, 13, 14, 22 and 52, with a Powerball number of 11, and the odds of winning were put at one in 175 million. The winning ticket was sold at a Publix supermarket in Zephyrhills, a suburb of Tampa, according to CNN. The grand prize, accumulated after two months of drawings, surpassed the previous record Powerball payoff of $587.5 million, set in November 2012, but fell short of the $600 million sum lottery officials had been advertising. Organizers had said the final jackpot total could end up slightly higher or lower than expected depending on final sales reported by all 43 participating states, plus the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The largest jackpot in U.S. history stands at $656 million, won in the Mega Millions lottery of March 2012. That prize was split between winners in Maryland, Kansas and Illinois. The Multi-State Lottery Association, based in Iowa, announced Saturday's Powerball results in a brief message on its website, saying, "There was one winner sold by the Florida Lottery for the last drawing's $590,500,000 grand prize." There was no further information immediately disclosed about the winning ticket, such as where inFlorida it was sold or whether more than one individual purchased it. Had Saturday's drawing failed to yield a winner, the jackpot for the next drawing, set for Wednesday, would have risen to $925 million. After Saturday's results were announced, the jackpot was reset back to $40 million. "IF I WIN" The extremely long odds of winning did not deter people from buying up tickets at staggering rates.California was selling $1 million in tickets every hour on Saturday, said Donna Cordova, a spokeswoman for the California Lottery, which has only been selling Powerball tickets since April 8. Texas Lottery officials reported $1.2 million in hourly sales between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. local time, with ticket sales for the Saturday draw topping $18.4 million. The ticket sale rate on Saturday was nearly double Friday's rate, Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for theTexas Lottery, said, and a jump of some 686 percent over last Saturday. Many Americans were playing the "if I win" game ahead of Saturday's drawing. "If I win, I'm going to spend a lot of it on liquor, women and gambling," said Austin lawyer Donald Dickson. "I'll likely squander the rest of it." In New York City, talent acquisition agent Michelle Amici was more philanthropic. "Not sure that I'd buy anything," she said. "Rather, I'd attempt to quench my wanderlust by traveling the world. I'd also donate a large portion to education reform." Lottery players such as Austin marketing professional Becky Arreaga were not discouraged by the long odds. "As long as the odds are 1 in anything, I'm in," said Arreaga, a partner at Mercury Mambo marketing firm. "I truly believe I could be the one." The $2 tickets allow players to pick five numbers from 1 to 59, and a Powerball number from 1 to 35. "It's only a couple bucks for a small daydream," said Russell Williams, 35, a salesman in Austin, Texas. |
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