WASHINGTON (AP) — As second top Internal Revenue Service official has announced plans to leave the agency amid the controversy over the targeting of tea party groups.

CINCINNATI - An Ohio man was found guilty Thursday in the shooting death of a man who authorities say identified his assailant by blinking his eyes while paralyzed and hooked up to a ventilator.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday tried to turn the tables on Republicans who have criticized his administration's response to last year's deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, calling on lawmakers to approve his request to increase funding for diplomatic security.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York mother who lost two of her children to homicide - and whose former nanny will stand trial for double murder - is pregnant again. Marina Krim and her husband, Kevin, announced the pregnancy on a Facebook page established in memory of their two slain children, Lulu, 6, and Leo, 2. The couple had another child, Nessie, who was 3 years old and out with her mother when her brother and sister were killed last year. ...

CINCINNATI (AP) — An Ohio man was found guilty Thursday in the shooting death of a man who authorities say identified his assailant by blinking his eyes while paralyzed and hooked up to a ventilator.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota woman convicted of conspiring to send money to the terrorist group al-Shabab in Somalia is sentenced to 20 years in prison.

DENVER (AP) — Days after a gunman entered a suburban Denver movie theater, killing 12 moviegoers and injuring 70 others, Gov. John Hickenlooper and Colorado health officials began talking about revamping a state mental health system that had been devastated by budget cuts.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The man suspected of sending poison-laced letters to President Barack Obama and other officials appears to have attempted to evade law enforcement just days before his arrest, according to FBI documents made public Thursday.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The moment Alissa Parker learned of a shooting at her daughter's school, she suddenly regretted not pointing out what she had seen as security gaps at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

CLEBURNE, Texas - Living in “Tornado Alley,” 77-year-old Bill Jones has heard the blare of civil defense warning sirens more times than he can count. But on Wednesday night it was the mighty oak trees in his yard that finally persuaded him to take cover. “They were swirling every which way,” Jones said of the [...]

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Albuquerque police say a man suspected of abducting a 4-year-old girl, leading the child's mother to chase him down and crash her vehicle into his car, has been arrested.

WEST, Texas (AP) — Investigators have not ruled out criminal activity as the cause of a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant that killed at least 14 people and flattened part of a tiny Texas town, two officials familiar with the findings said Thursday.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Powerball jackpot jumped to $550 million on Thursday — the third largest lottery in history — as dreamers in all but the seven states where the game isn't played snatched up tickets for the minuscule chance at a life on easy street.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama named top White House budget office aide Daniel Werfel to be acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, the White House said on Thursday. Obama ousted acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller late on Wednesday shortly after the revelation the IRS had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny. The president called the targeting inexcusable, but the incident has become a embarrassment for him. Werfel is controller of the White House Office of Management and Budget. ...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An unknown number of people who were on the U.S. government's "no fly" list were able to travel on commercial flights using new names they received after entering the federal witness protection program, a government watchdog said on Thursday. The Justice Department's inspector general said in a report that the witness protection program did not give the new identities to the Terrorist Screening Center, the agency that keeps the "no fly" list. The list is used to bar those considered a security threat from boarding flights. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Police arrested a college student accused of making telephone threats that sparked security alerts across the Los Angeles area on Thursday, including the evacuation of a community college and the lockdown of a second college campus and numerous public schools. East Los Angeles College was evacuated while students and staff at about 10 nearby public schools were confined to their campuses after police received an anonymous call at about 8 a.m. local time from a person saying he was headed to a school with a gun, the sheriff's department said. ...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Bob Gotelaere thought he could outrace the wildfire bearing down on his northwestern Wisconsin home.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An Idaho man convicted of breaking into a Boise zoo last fall and brutally beating to death one of two Patas monkeys has been ordered to spend up to a year in a treatment program at a state prison.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - An older brother of the 19-year-old arrested in connection with a Mother's Day shooting in New Orleans was arrested Thursday in connection with the shooting, police said. Akein Scott, 19, and Shawn Scott, 24, have both been charged with 20 counts of attempted second-degree murder, New Orleans police said. (Reporting By Mark Guarino and Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Scott Malone)

GRANBURY, Texas (AP) — Ten tornadoes touched down in several small communities in North Texas overnight, leaving at least six people dead, dozens injured and hundreds homeless. Emergency responders were still searching for missing people Thursday afternoon.