Mila Kunis Sex Tape Tops Fan Wish List, New Survey Finds

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/mila-kunis-sex-tape-tops-fan-wish-list-new-survey-finds/

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Dior presents cruise fashions amid stars in Monaco

MONACO (AP) ? The glittering star power of Cannes migrated up the coast to Monaco for front-row seats at Dior's colorful, sexy cruise fashion show.

With the Mediterranean Sea the picturesque backdrop, Dior showcased its 2014 collection on Saturday night. It was a wet, cold and generally miserable outside the white stage, but Raf Simons' designs provided the shimmering summery lift for the evening.

Among those on hand were Oscar-winner and Dior spokeswoman Marion Cotillard, actresses Ruth Wilson and Jessica Biel, and Prince Albert of Monaco, along with his fashionable wife, Princess Charlene.

Before the show, Biel called Dior's fashions beautiful, saying she also appreciated them because they were made for real woman. If that was the case, such women are dynamic gazelles who even in their downtime have multiple agendas.

There were sheer lace cover-ups, brightly colored dresses, and jackets and coats made of wool.

In press materials provided at the show, Simons explained his inspiration to prominently feature lace in the collection.

"I never worked with lace before," he said. "It was about transforming the meaning of the material; not romantic, not historical, not old, to something light, playful, colorful and modern ? with energy."

Many of the pieces had an effervescent feel, like the metallic blended with sheer lace and a strip of a coral floral print in one dress; a wool jacket and pants were made vibrant with bright red color.

But there were other outfits that had a more traditional look, like a flowing spaghetti-strap red dress that hit mid-calf at the front but draped near the floor in the back, and the one-piece bathing suits that harkened back to old-style Hollywood glamour ? particularly a brilliant blue piece with ruching in the back.

After an enthusiastic ovation for the show, guests such as Liv Tyler were shuttled to the Oceanographic Museum nearby as Prince Albert and his wife threw a reception that showcased some of the fashions ? including Dior ? worn by his late mother, Princess Grace.

___

http://www.dior.com

___

Follow Nekesa Mumbi Moody at http://www.twitter.com/nekesamumbi

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dior-presents-cruise-fashions-amid-stars-monaco-123933061.html

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IRS head grilled by Congress

Outgoing IRS Commissioner Steven Miller apologized Friday on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service for unfairly targeting conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, but said "partisanship" was not the reason for the agency's practices.

?First and foremost, as acting commissioner, I want to apologize on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service,? Miller said before a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.

The IRS is under fire for placing heavier scrutiny on organizations with words like "tea party" or "patriots" in their name when they applied for nonprofit status between 2010 and 2012, according to a report unveiled this week by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration.

Miller, who at the time was deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, went on to say in his brief opening statement that "foolish mistakes were made" in the handling of the applications.

?I do not believe that partisanship motivated the people that engaged in the practices described in the inspector general?s report,? Miller said. ?Foolish mistakes were made by people who were trying to be more efficient in their work.?

Sitting next to Miller at the hearing, Treasury Inspector General J. Russell George testified that in his investigation he "did not" find evidence that the agency's decisions were motivated by politics.

Lawmakers from both parties grilled Miller, questioning him about when he learned of the agency's practices, probing into why the agency singled out organizations with conservative leanings for heavier scrutiny, and asking whether the IRS disclosed private tax information to other government agencies.

Miller repeatedly denied that the IRS intentionally used political criteria to determine levels of scrutiny on groups applying for tax-exempt status.

"Generally, we provided horrible customer service here. I will admit that, we did," Miller said when questioned by Rep. Pat Tiberi, an Ohio Republican. "Horrible customer service. Whether it is politically motivated or not is a very different question."

When asked to point to specific employees within the IRS who were responsible, Miller declined. ?I don?t have names for you,? he told Texas Republican Rep. Kevin Brady.

Also at Friday's hearing, California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes questioned Miller about why he resigned from his position as a result of the IRS' practices. Earlier this week, President Barack Obama announced that Miller would step down.

"I never said I didn't do anything wrong, Mr. Nunes," Miller said. "I resigned because, as the acting commissioner, what happens in the IRS, whether I was personally involved or not, stops at my desk. So I should be held accountable for what happens. Whether I was personally involved or not are very different questions, sir."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/irs-commissioner-says-partisanship-not-involved-agency-behavior-134141319.html

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Google Glass Just Got Some New Glassware (Aka Apps)

While Glass is flying under the radar at I/O, Google has just announced that CNN, Elle, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Evernote are joining the "Glassware" fray. Previously, only Path and The New York Times were the only other apps available for Glass.

Most of the functionality for each new app is surprisingly full(ish) featured. After all, it's not like there's a lot of screen real estate.

Elle's "Glassware," for instance, lets readers swipe through photos from a story in the magazine or have stories read aloud to them. You can even pick a particular section to peruse or pin stories for reading later.

CNN's app lets you pick the types of alerts you want to get like sports scores or breaking news at specific times. Clips can also be read aloud to you. You can even watch videos!

Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr feeds can be curated for certain individuals so you're not inundated with EVERYTHING going on. You can even upload a photo directly to Facebook. With Twitter, if you have mobile notifications turned on for certain accounts, those will get pushed to Glass. You can even send and receive DMs.

And if you're a big Evernote user, Glass will be able to access notes that have been created from your desktop and shared to Glass.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/while-glass-is-flying-under-the-radar-at-i-o-google-ha-507598884

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Follow the Google I/O 2013 Keynote with Android Central!

What a week in mobile we're seeing. First Nokia, then BlackBerry, and today it's over to Google. Our buddies Phil Nickinson and Jerry Hildenbrand from Android Central are on the ground in San Francisco for Google I/O 2013. Today is go time, with Google's three hour long monster keynote due to kick off this morning, afternoon or evening depending on whereabouts in the world you are.

The times you'll want to know:

• 09:00 Pacific Time
• 12:00 Eastern Time
• 17:00 British Summer Time
• 18:00 Central European Time

Last year's Google I/O saw the folks from Mountain View drop Chrome for iOS into our laps, and while no-one dropped out of the sky to deliver it to us, it was still a pretty big announcement. Google makes some fantastic apps for iOS, and has really upped their game in the past 12 months so we're looking forward to see what may come our way today.

Google will be livestreaming the event, but the absolute best coverage will come from Phil and Jerry from the show floor. Be sure to follow it all on Android Central beginning later today, and over the coming days.

What would you like to see Google bring to iOS from Google I/O? Personally, I'm hoping for Google Maps for iPad and a Google Keep application. Let us know what you'd like to see in the comments below!

• Android Central Google I/O 2013 Liveblog

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/BRp16RFkgpQ/story01.htm

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'Dancing With the Stars' reveals its final 4

TV

Anna Chan TODAY

15 minutes ago

ABC

It was the end of the road to mirror ball glory for Kym Johnson and Ingo Rademacher on Tuesday.

On the night of its 300th episode, "Dancing With the Stars" revealed its season 16 finalists with little fanfare. But what was there to celebrate, really? Just earlier in the day, ABC had announced that next season, the very results show that aired Tuesday night would be a thing of the past, wrapped into a two-hour extravaganza that will take place only on Mondays. (Not that "DWTS" addressed this development.)

But the (existing) show must go on, so the ballroom bash drummed up what little drama it could with the couples it put under the spotlights of shame: "General Hospital" actor Ingo Rademacher and partner Kym Johnson, and Disney star Zendaya and pro Valentin Chmerkovskiy. Yes, Zendaya, the teen who has ruled the scoreboard since the first day of the season, was in jeopardy.

When the in-studio audience heard the news, their boos were long and loud. After all, Monday's senseless scoring had possibly contributed to her current predicament. After delivering a high-speed quickstep that wasn't quite as good as she usually is (and it certainly wasn't bad), Zendaya received a smackdown from the judges in the form of a 25-point score. That was just 1 point higher than Ingo's sloppy samba that happened to be his best dance of the season.

But the teen didn't need to worry for long. As the show prepared to the reveal the results, co-host Brooke Burke noted that the couples awaiting their fates were "not necessarily the bottom two." (You don't say!) The results were as many -- including Ingo -- had predicted: The soap star had fallen just one week shy of the finale.

"If I don?t go home ... somebody else is going to be very upset," Ingo had told the cameras after Monday's performance show.

The soap star was gracious in his exit. "This has been an amazing experience because I thought I?d be done in like, two weeks," he said after his elimination. "Kym has choreographed the most amazing routines and catered them to my two left feet."

As for the final four of Zendaya, Kellie Pickler, Aly Raisman and Jacoby Jones, "I really want to see them battle it out because I think it?s really close competition," Ingo said.

That finale battle next week will have three rounds of competition, including what host Tom Bergeron called a "supersized freestyle," as well as "all sorts of tricks."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/dancing-stars-reveals-its-final-4-1C9928674

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Why Humans Took Up Farming: They Like To Own Stuff

Prehistoric "pantries": This illustration is based on archaeological findings in Jordan of structures built to store extra grain some 11,000-12,000 years ago.

Illustration by E. Carlson/Courtesy of Dr. Ian Kuijt/University of Notre Dame

Prehistoric "pantries": This illustration is based on archaeological findings in Jordan of structures built to store extra grain some 11,000-12,000 years ago.

Illustration by E. Carlson/Courtesy of Dr. Ian Kuijt/University of Notre Dame

For decades, scientists have believed our ancestors took up farming some 12,000 years ago because it was a more efficient way of getting food. But a growing body of research suggests that wasn't the case at all.

"We know that the first farmers were shorter, they were more prone to disease than the hunter-gatherers," says Samuel Bowles, the director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico, describing recent archaeological research.

Bowles' own work has found that the earliest farmers expended way more calories in growing food than they did in hunting and gathering it. "When you add it all up, it was not a bargain," says Bowles.

So why farm? Bowles lays out his theory in a new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The reasons are complex, but they revolve around the concept of private property.

Think of these early farmers as prehistoric suburbanites of sorts. The first farmers emerged in less than a dozen spots in Asia and South America. Bowles says they were already living in small villages. They owned their houses and other objects, like jewelry, boats and a range of tools, including fishing gear.

They still hunted and foraged, but they didn't have to venture far for food: They had picked fertile places to settle down, and so food was abundant. For example, one group in what is present-day Iraq lived close to a gazelle migration route. During migration season, it was easy pickings ? they killed more animals than they could eat in one sitting. They also harvested more grain from wild plants than they knew what to do with. And so, they built "pantries" ? structures where they could store the extra food.

This granary uncovered in Jordan shows that people stored wild grain even before they were farming it.

Courtesy of Dr. Ian Kuijt/University of Notre Dame

This granary uncovered in Jordan shows that people stored wild grain even before they were farming it.

Courtesy of Dr. Ian Kuijt/University of Notre Dame

These societies had seen the value of owning stuff ? they were already recognizing "private property rights," says Bowles. That's a big transition from nomadic cultures, which by and large don't recognize individual property. All resources, even in modern day hunter-gatherers, are shared with everyone in the community.

But the good times didn't last forever in these prehistoric villages. In some places, the weather changed for the worse. In other places, the animals either changed their migratory route or dwindled in numbers.

At this point, Bowles says these communities had a choice: They could either return to a nomadic lifestyle, or stay put in the villages they had built and "use their knowledge of seeds and how they grow, and the possibility of domesticating animals."

Stay put, they did. And over time, they also grew in numbers. Why? Because the early farmers had one advantage over their nomadic cousins: Raising kids is much less work when one isn't constantly on the move. And so, they could and did have more children.

In other words, Bowles thinks early cultures that recognized private property gave people a reason to plant roots in one place and invent farming ? and stick with it despite its initial failures.

Bowles admits that this is just an informed theory. But to test it, he and his colleague Jung-Kyoo Choi built a mathematical model that simulated social and environmental conditions among early hunter-gatherers. In this simulation, farming evolved only in groups that recognized private property rights. What's more, in the simulations, once farming met private property, the two reinforced each other and spread through the world.

Bowles' theory offers a more nuanced explanation that ties together cultural, environmental and technological realities facing those first farmers, says Ian Kuijt, an anthropologist at the University of Notre Dame who specializes in the origins of agriculture.

But, he says, the challenge is to figure out who owned the property back then and how they ran it. "Was it owned by one individual?" Kuijt says. "Was it a mother and father and their children? ... Does it represent community or village property?"

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/05/13/183710778/why-humans-took-up-farming-they-like-to-own-stuff?ft=1&f=1007

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Benghazi, IRS, immigration and repealing 'Obamacare' (again): The week to come in Congress (Washington Post)

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Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/305452959?client_source=feed&format=rss

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AP Exclusive: IRS knew tea party was targeted in 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senior Internal Revenue Service officials knew agents were targeting tea party groups as early as 2011, according to a draft of an inspector general's report obtained by The Associated Press that seemingly contradicts public statements by the IRS commissioner.

The IRS apologized Friday for what it acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status. The agency blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

But on June 29, 2011, Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog's report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.

The 9/12 Project is a group started by conservative TV personality Glenn Beck. In a statement to the AP, Beck suggested that the revelations were hardly news to him and other conservatives.

"In February 2012, TheBlaze first reported what the IRS now admits to ? that they unfairly targeted conservative groups including the 9/12 project," Beck said, citing his website and TV network. "It is nice to see everyone else playing catch-up and finally asking the same questions that TheBlaze started raising over a year ago."

Lerner instructed agents to change the criteria for flagging groups "immediately," the report says.

The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration is expected to release the results of a nearly yearlong investigation in the coming week. The AP obtained part of the draft report, which has been shared with congressional aides.

Among the other revelations, on Aug. 4, 2011, staffers in the IRS' Rulings and Agreements office "held a meeting with chief counsel so that everyone would have the latest information on the issue."

On Jan, 25, 2012, the criteria for flagging suspect groups was changed to, "political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, social economic reform/movement," the report says.

While this was happening, several committees in Congress were writing numerous letters IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman to express concern because tea party groups were complaining of IRS harassment.

In Shulman's responses, he did not acknowledge targeting of tea party groups. At a congressional hearing March 22, 2012, Shulman was adamant in his denials.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman said at the House Ways and Means subcommittee hearing.

The portion of the draft report reviewed by the AP does not say whether Shulman or anyone else in the Obama administration outside the IRS was informed of the targeting. It is standard procedure for agency heads to consult with staff before responding to congressional inquiries, but it is unclear how much information Shulman sought.

The IRS has not said when Shulman found out that Tea Party groups were targeted.

Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush, a Republican. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a successor. The agency is now run by an acting commissioner, Steven Miller.

The IRS said in a statement Saturday that the agency believes the timeline in the IG's report is correct, and supports what officials said Friday.

"IRS senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details at the time of the March 2012 hearing," the statement said. "The timeline does not contradict the commissioner's testimony. While exempt organizations officials knew of the situation earlier, the timeline reflects that IRS senior leadership did not have this level of detail."

Lerner's position is three levels below the commissioner.

"The timeline supports what the IRS acknowledged on Friday that mistakes were made," the statement continued. "There were not partisan reasons behind this."

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's oversight subcommittee, said the report "raises serious questions as to who at IRS, Treasury and in the administration knew about this, why this practice was allowed to continue for as long as it did, and how widespread it was."

"This timeline reveals at least two extremely unethical actions by the IRS. One, as early as 2010, they targeted groups for political purposes. Two, they willfully and knowingly lied to Congress for years despite being aware that Congress was investigating this practice," Boustany said.

"This is an outrageous abuse of power. Going after organizations for referencing the Bill of Rights or expressing the intent to make this country a better place is repugnant," Boustany added. "There is no excuse for this behavior."

Several congressional committees have promised investigations, including the Ways and Means Committee, which plans to hold a hearing.

"The admission by the agency that it targeted American taxpayers based on politics is both shocking and disappointing," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. "We will hold the IRS accountable for its actions."

The group Tea Party Patriots said the revelation was proof that the IRS had lied to Congress and the public when Schulman said there had been no targeting of tea party groups.

"We must know how many more lies they have been telling and how high up the chain the cover-up goes," Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for the group Tea Party Patriots, said in a statement Saturday.

"It appears the IRS committed crimes and violated our ability to exercise our First Amendment right to free speech. A simple apology is not sufficient reparation for violating the constitutional rights of United States citizens. Therefore, Tea Party Patriots rejects the apology from the Internal Revenue Service," Martin said. "We are, however, encouraged to hear that Congress plans to investigate. Those responsible must be held accountable and resign or be terminated for their actions."

On Friday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said the administration expected the inspector general to conduct a thorough investigation, but he brushed aside calls for the White House itself to investigate.

Many conservative groups complained during the 2012 election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups have made available, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

In some cases, the IRS acknowledged, agents inappropriately asked for lists of donors.

There has been a surge of politically active groups claiming tax-exempt status in recent elections ? conservative and liberal. Among the highest profile are Republican Karl Rove's group Crossroads GPS and the liberal Moveon.org.

These groups claim tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code, which is for social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities, but their primary activity must be social welfare.

That determination is up to the IRS.

The number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.

Lerner said on Friday this was done to develop expertise among staffers and consistency in their reviews. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity.

As part of this process, agents in Cincinnati came up with a list of things to look for in an application. As part of the list, they included the words "tea party" and "patriot," Lerner said.

"It's the line people that did it without talking to managers," Lerner told the AP on Friday. "They're IRS workers, they're revenue agents."

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

Lerner said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-irs-knew-tea-party-targeted-2011-190852283.html

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IAG, parent of BA, loses 630 million euros in 1Q

LONDON (AP) ? International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways and Iberia, says it is still struggling to integrate the Spanish airline into its operations as it reported a deepening first-quarter net loss of 630 million euros ($827 million) compared to a 129 million euros loss last year.

CEO Willie Walsh says that despite 10 days of industrial action and the weak economic situation in Spain, IAG is adapting ? though he acknowledged much more needed to be done.

The company, Europe's third largest by market value, posted an exceptional charge of ?311 million in the quarter, principally relating to restructuring at Iberia.

The results come after unions accepted a mediator's proposal reducing the number of planned layoffs to some 15 percent of Iberia's workforce.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iag-parent-ba-loses-630-million-euros-1q-092702097.html

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No evidence for theory humans wiped out megafauna

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Most species of gigantic animals that once roamed Australia had disappeared by the time people arrived, a major review of the available evidence has concluded.

The research challenges the claim that humans were primarily responsible for the demise of the megafauna in a proposed "extinction window" between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, and points the finger instead at climate change.

An international team led by the University of New South Wales, and including researchers at the University of Queensland, the University of New England, and the University of Washington, carried out the study. It is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The interpretation that humans drove the extinction rests on assumptions that increasingly have been shown to be incorrect. Humans may have played some role in the loss of those species that were still surviving when people arrived about 45,000 to 50,000 years ago ? but this also needs to be demonstrated," said Associate Professor Stephen Wroe, from UNSW, the lead author of the study.

"There has never been any direct evidence of humans preying on extinct megafauna in Sahul, or even of a tool-kit that was appropriate for big-game hunting," he said.

About 90 giant animal species once inhabited the continent of Sahul, which included mainland Australia, New Guinea and Tasmania.

"These leviathans included the largest marsupial that ever lived ? the rhinoceros-sized Diprotodon? and short-faced kangaroos so big we can't even be sure they could hop. Preying on them were goannas the size of large saltwater crocodiles with toxic saliva and bizarre but deadly marsupial lions with flick-blades on their thumbs and bolt cutters for teeth," said Associate Professor Wroe.

The review concludes there is only firm evidence for about 8 to 14 megafauna species still existing when Aboriginal people arrived. About 50 species, for example, are absent from the fossil record of the past 130,000 years.

Recent studies of Antarctic ice cores, ancient lake levels in central Australia, and other environmental indicators also suggest Sahul - which was at times characterised by a vast desert - experienced an increasingly arid and erratic climate during the past 450,000 years.

Arguments that humans were to blame have also focused on the traditional Aboriginal practice of burning the landscape. But recent research suggests that the fire history of the continent was more closely linked to climate than human activity, and increases in burning occurred long before people arrived.

"It is now increasingly clear that the disappearance of the megafauna of Sahul took place over tens, if not hundreds, of millennia under the influence of inexorable, albeit erratic, climatic deterioration," said Associate Professor Wroe.

###

University of New South Wales: http://www.unsw.edu.au

Thanks to University of New South Wales for this article.

This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.

This press release has been viewed 25 time(s).

Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128149/No_evidence_for_theory_humans_wiped_out_megafauna

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Mississippi man makes court appearance in ricin case

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) ? A Mississippi man appeared briefly in court Monday on a charge that he made a deadly poison that was sent in letters to President Barack Obama, a senator and a judge.

James Everett Dutschke was brought to federal court in Oxford wearing an orange jumpsuit with his hands shackled. The 41-year-old suspect said little during the brief hearing other than to answer the judge's questions about whether he understood the charges against him. He said he did.

Dutschke's arrest early Saturday on a charge of making and possessing ricin capped a week in which investigators initially zeroed in on a rival of Dutschke's, then decided they had the wrong man. Dutschke has denied involvement in the mailing of the letters, saying he's a patriot with no grudges against anyone.

The judge ordered Dutschke to remain jailed until a preliminary and detention hearing scheduled for Thursday. More details are likely to emerge at that hearing, when prosecutors have to show they have enough evidence to hold him.

An attorney from the public defender's office appointed to represent Dutschke declined to comment after Monday's hearing. Another attorney who had been representing Dutschke, Lori Nail Basham, no longer is.

Dutschke's house, business and vehicles in Tupelo, Miss., were searched last week, often by crews in hazardous materials suits, and he had been under surveillance.

He faces up to life in prison if convicted. A news release from federal authorities said Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee) was charged with "knowingly developing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, acquiring, retaining and possessing a biological agent, toxin and delivery system, for use as a weapon, to wit: ricin."

He already had legal problems. Earlier this month, he pleaded not guilty in state court to two child molestation charges involving three girls younger than 16. He also was appealing a conviction on a different charge of indecent exposure. He told The Associated Press last week that his lawyer told him not to comment on those cases.

The letters, which tests showed were tainted with ricin, were sent April 8 to Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Mississippi judge Sadie Holland.

The first suspect accused by the FBI was Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, an Elvis impersonator. He was arrested on April 17 at his Corinth, Miss., home, but the charges were dropped six days later and Curtis, who says he was framed, was released from jail.

The focus then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect and the judge. Earlier in the week, as investigators searched his primary residence in Tupelo, Dutschke told the AP, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"I'm a patriotic American. I don't have any grudges against anybody. ... I did not send the letters," Dutschke said.

Curtis' attorney, Christi McCoy, said Saturday: "We are relieved but also saddened. This crime is nothing short of diabolical. I have seen a lot of meanness in the past two decades, but this stops me in my tracks."

Some of the language in the letters was similar to posts on Curtis' Facebook page and they were signed, "I am KC and I approve this message." Curtis often used a similar online signoff.

Dutschke and Curtis were acquainted. Curtis said they had talked about possibly publishing a book on a conspiracy that Curtis insists he has uncovered to sell body parts on a black market. But he said they later had a feud.

Curtis' attorneys have said they believe their client was set up. An FBI agent testified that no evidence of ricin was found in searches of Curtis' home. Curtis attorney Hal Neilson said the defense gave authorities a list of people who may have had a reason to hurt Curtis and Dutschke's came up.

Judge Holland also is a common link between the two men, and both know Wicker.

Holland was the presiding judge in a 2004 case in which Curtis was accused of assaulting a Tupelo attorney a year earlier. Holland sentenced him to six months in the county jail. He served only part of the sentence, according to his brother.

Holland's family has had political skirmishes with Dutschke. Her son, Steve Holland, a Democratic state representative, said he thinks his mother's only encounter with Dutschke was at a rally in the town of Verona in 2007, when Dutschke ran as a Republican against Steve Holland.

Holland said his mother confronted Dutschke after he made a derogatory speech about the Holland family. She demanded that he apologize, which Holland says he did.

Dutschke said Steve Holland exaggerated the incident, and that he has no problem with Sadie Holland. "Everybody loves Sadie, including me," he said.

___

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brief-hearing-held-suspicious-letters-case-150754186.html

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