Speed. It's a movie. It's a drug. And it's also something that throngs of internet users the world over cannot get enough of. Thankfully, the wizards at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics and the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology have figured out a way to satisfy the unsatisfiable, announcing this week a world record in the area of wireless data transmission. Researchers were able to achieve 40Gbit/sec at 240GHz over a distance of one kilometer, essentially matching the capacity of optical fiber... but, you know, without the actual tether.
The goal here, of course, isn't to lower your ping times beyond where they are already; it's to give rural communities across the globe a decent shot at enjoying broadband. Distances of over one kilometer have already been covered by using a long range demonstrator, which the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology set up between two skyscrapers as part of the project "Millilink". There's no clear word on when the findings will be ported over to the commercial realm, but given the traction we're seeing in the white spaces arena, we doubt you'll have to wait long.
MOORE, Okla. (AP) ? With an ominous storm approaching, the Moore Public School District flashed a text alert to parents: "We are currently holding all students until the current storm danger is over. Students are being released to parents only at this time."
Parents had a gut-wrenching choice, and only a few minutes to make it. Trust the safety of the seemingly solid school buildings and the protection of trained teachers and staff. Or drive frantically ahead of a massive tornado and attempt to take their children safely home.
"Something clicked in my head and said that my children would be afraid and they would be safer with me," said Amy Sharp, who jumped in her pickup, peeled off through pounding rain and hail, and pulled her 10- and 12-year-old daughters out Plaza Towers Elementary School.
Sharp survived with her children. But seven of the many remaining students died when the twister ripped down the school's roof and walls.
Exactly how do desperate parents like those in the path of the powerful Oklahoma tornado know when it's best to leave their children in a presumably safe place or race into the face of danger for their sake?
"You have that parent-child draw. That protective factor, where they want to go at any cost, no matter what. The options aren't very good in a tornado if you're thinking about going to rescue your children," said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center that provides training to schools around the country.
"Which way is the wind going to twist? What's it going to pick up? What won't it pick up? Until someone becomes all-powerful, all-knowing and all-perceiving, it is tough to expect 100 percent perfection from schools and parents," he said.
The Oklahoma tornado provides a good example of the unpredictable death toll that disasters can inflict. Before it flattened Plaza Towers Elementary, the tornado also tore through Briarwood Elementary and ? though the roof collapsed ? everyone at Briarwood appears to have survived. Both schools lacked tornado safe rooms, and at both, students initially were sent to the halls before some teachers squeezed them into seemingly safer places such as closets and bathrooms.
David Wheeler would have liked to race to rescue his 8-year-old son, Gabriel, before the tornado reached Briarwood. But Wheeler had to remain at a separate school where he worked. So he waited until the tornado cleared, then speed down the highway as far as he could and fibbed about being a first-responder to hitch a ride with a sheriff's deputy headed into the disaster zone. Once he got there, he slogged through broken glass and raw sewage to try to get to the school.
Wheeler ended up more injured than his son, who climbed from the rubble with scrapes and bruises after being sheltered by a teacher. Wheeler, meanwhile, had a large red rash on his legs ? he thinks from the sewage ? and multiple cuts and scrapes that required him to get a tetanus shot Tuesday.
"It was just kind of a surreal moment. I didn't know if my son was alive? it was the worst moment of my life," Wheeler said.
Stephens, a former school administrator who lives in Westlake Village, Calif., said the biggest challenge for parents when racing the clock in a disaster is holding emotions in check.
"You're not going to be any good to your child if you take such great risk that you lose your life in the pursuit of attempting to save them when there are others who are onsite who hopefully will also use good judgment," Stephens said.
Simply showing up isn't enough.
"You want to have an entrance plan but also a completion plan. Can you make it out? Can you make it to safety?" he asked rhetorically.
Officials at the Moore School District choose not to dismiss students early. But that, too, is a tough call.
Troy Albert, a principal at Henryville Junior-Senior High in southeastern Indiana, let students out for the day on March 2, 2012, just moments before tornado sirens went off. No injuries were reported among the few staff, students and parents who remained at the school when a tornado packing 175 mph winds destroyed the building. School officials halted people from leaving only when they figured the tornado was within 10 minutes from hitting, fearing that wouldn't allow enough time for people to make it to safety.
"We trusted our protocols and it worked," Albert said. "I was questioned about whether we should dismiss school or whether we should bunker down here. Our decision to do that was based on the fact of the size of the tornado and what was coming. And we figured if you got them a mile away from our school you had a chance for survival."
With about 30-45 minutes of lead time on a potential tornado last year, Julie Hubbard jumped in her car and signed her son out of a Tennessee middle school ahead of the storm.
"There were just dozens of parents who went to pick up their kids that day. I don't know if they just tended to freak out more or what," said Hubbard, who now lives in Fort Gibson, Okla . "Growing up in Oklahoma, we have so many tornadoes. I just wanted to be home with my children."
A couple of hours before ultimately deciding to pick up her children before the tornado barreled through Moore on Monday, Sharp said she called the school office at Plaza Towers Elementary and asked if it was safe for them there. She said the receptionist replied: "They're pretty safe here."
___
Associated Press writers Tom Coyne in South Bend, Ind.; Leanne Italie in New York; and Justin Juozapavicius in Tulsa, Okla., contributed to this report.
BEIJING (AP) ? A Chinese boat and 16 fishermen seized for ransom by armed North Koreans more than two weeks ago were released Tuesday, easing the latest irritant in relations between the neighboring allies.
Owner Yu Xuejun, who wasn't aboard the boat when it was seized May 5, wrote on his verified microblog that his captain called him at 3:50 a.m. to say the crew and boat were set free. Yu told the state-run Global Times newspaper all of the crewmembers were OK, and other state media reports said the men would resume fishing for a couple of weeks before returning home.
After word of the boat's capture became public over the weekend, China demanded that North Korea release the men, though Chinese officials have not said whether they believe the armed captors were operating on their own or under North Korean government authority. One of China's North Korea watchers said border guards were the likely culprits.
No ransom was paid as was demanded by the North Koreans, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regularly scheduled news conference.
The incident became publicly known only over the weekend when Yu, who had previously reported the seizure to Chinese authorities, began publicizing it as a deadline for a 600,000 yuan ($100,000) ransom drew near.
His pleas for help and fears that his crew might be mistreated were forwarded thousands of times by netizens, and a high-ranking Chinese military officer, Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, wrote on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo of his fury over the detention.
"North Korea has gone too far! Even if you are short of money, you can't grab people across the border and blackmail," wrote Luo, who has more than 300,000 followers.
The seizure had added to China's frustration with North Korea over its recent tests of nuclear and rocket technologies in defiance of international efforts to curb the country's nuclear ambitions. At the same time, the Chinese government has been under intense pressure to protect Chinese who venture abroad and out to sea for their livelihoods.
A similar abduction a year ago of Chinese fishermen by armed North Koreans caused an uproar in China when they were released ? some of them stripped of everything but their underwear ? saying they had been starved and beaten.
Hong, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, had declined to answer a question Monday about who exactly China believed was behind the boat seizure, but he made clear that Beijing was looking for the North Korean government to deal with the matter.
An expert on North Korea at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences in northeast China said he doubted the North Korean government would have had any knowledge of the incident when it happened.
"This incident is purely about a lawless act by the North Korean border police to blackmail our fishermen," said Lu Chao, adding that such things frequently happen to Chinese fishermen working near the border waters.
"Sometimes, if the amount they are asking for isn't too high, the boat owner would just pay it," he said. This time, it might be related to spring food shortages, "so they are asking for a huge ransom."
The owner had previously been reported as saying he received a phone call from North Korea telling him his boat had been in North Korean waters, but that he was certain it had been floating in Chinese waters.
Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University
Arranging nanoparticles in geometric patterns allows for control of light with light
HOUSTON -- (May 21, 2013) -- Rice University scientists have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color. The breakthrough by a team of theoretical and applied physicists and engineers at Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rice's team used the method to create an optical device in which incoming light could be directly controlled with light via a process known as "four-wave mixing." Four-wave mixing has been widely studied, but Rice's disc-patterning method is the first that can produce materials that are tailored to perform four-wave mixing with a wide range of colored inputs and outputs.
"Versatility is one of the advantages of this process," said study co-author Naomi Halas, director of LANP and Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics and astronomy. "It allows us to mix colors in a very general way. That means not only can we send in beams of two different colors and get out a third color, but we can fine-tune the arrangements to create devices that are tailored to accept or produce a broad spectrum of colors."
The information processing that takes place inside today's computers, smartphones and tablets is electronic. Each of the billions of transistors in a computer chip uses electrical inputs to act upon and modify the electrical signals passing through it. Processing information with light instead of electricity could allow for computers that are both faster and more energy-efficient, but building an optical computer is complicated by the quantum rules that light obeys.
"In most circumstances, one beam of light won't interact with another," said LANP theoretical physicist Peter Nordlander, a co-author of the new study. "For instance, if you shine a flashlight at a wall and you cross that beam with the beam from a second flashlight, it won't matter. The light that comes out of the first flashlight will pass through, independent of the light from the second.
"This changes if the light is traveling in a 'nonlinear medium,'" he said. "The electromagnetic properties of a nonlinear medium are such that the light from one beam will interact with another. So, if you shine the two flashlights through a nonlinear medium, the intensity of the beam from the first flashlight will be reduced proportionally to the intensity of the second beam."
The patterns of metal discs LANP scientists created for the PNAS study are a type of nonlinear media. The team used electron-beam lithography to etch puck-shaped gold discs that were placed on a transparent surface for optical testing. The diameter of each disc was about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Each was designed to harvest the energy from a particular frequency of light; by arranging a dozen of the discs in a closely spaced pattern, the team was able to enhance the nonlinear properties of the system by creating intense electrical fields.
"Our system exploits a particular plasmonic effect called a Fano resonance to boost the efficiency of the relatively weak nonlinear effect that underlies four-wave mixing," Nordlander said. "The result is a boost in the intensity of the third color of light that the device produces."
Graduate student and co-author Yu-Rong Zhen calculated the precise arrangement of 12 discs that would be required to produce two coherent Fano resonances in a single device, and graduate student and lead co-author Yu Zhang created the device that produced the four-wave mixing -- the first such material ever created.
"The device Zhang created for four-wave mixing is the most efficient yet produced for that purpose, but the value of this research goes beyond the design for this particular device," said Halas, who was recently named a member of the National Academy of Sciences for her pioneering research in nanophotonics. "The methods used to create this device can be applied to the production of a wide range of nonlinear media, each with tailored optical properties."
###
High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:
http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0520-FANO-Mix-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Physicists and engineers from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color.
CAPTION: By arranging optically tuned gold discs in a closely spaced pattern, Rice University scientists created intense electrical fields and enhanced the nonlinear optical properties of the system. Here a computer model displays the plasmonic interactions that give rise to the intense fields.
CAPTION: Gold discs tuned to capture the energy from two incoming beams of light can produce output of a third color. Here a computer animation shows how the electromagnetic wave (red=positive, blue=negative) from the incoming light propagates through the system as a series of plasmonic waves.
CREDIT: Yu-Rong Zhen/Rice University
A copy of the PNAS paper is available at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220304110
This release can be found online at:
http://news.rice.edu/2013/05/21/rice-unveils-method-for-tailoring-optical-processors/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Jade Boyd jadeboyd@rice.edu 713-348-6778 Rice University
Arranging nanoparticles in geometric patterns allows for control of light with light
HOUSTON -- (May 21, 2013) -- Rice University scientists have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color. The breakthrough by a team of theoretical and applied physicists and engineers at Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is described this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Rice's team used the method to create an optical device in which incoming light could be directly controlled with light via a process known as "four-wave mixing." Four-wave mixing has been widely studied, but Rice's disc-patterning method is the first that can produce materials that are tailored to perform four-wave mixing with a wide range of colored inputs and outputs.
"Versatility is one of the advantages of this process," said study co-author Naomi Halas, director of LANP and Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and a professor of biomedical engineering, chemistry, physics and astronomy. "It allows us to mix colors in a very general way. That means not only can we send in beams of two different colors and get out a third color, but we can fine-tune the arrangements to create devices that are tailored to accept or produce a broad spectrum of colors."
The information processing that takes place inside today's computers, smartphones and tablets is electronic. Each of the billions of transistors in a computer chip uses electrical inputs to act upon and modify the electrical signals passing through it. Processing information with light instead of electricity could allow for computers that are both faster and more energy-efficient, but building an optical computer is complicated by the quantum rules that light obeys.
"In most circumstances, one beam of light won't interact with another," said LANP theoretical physicist Peter Nordlander, a co-author of the new study. "For instance, if you shine a flashlight at a wall and you cross that beam with the beam from a second flashlight, it won't matter. The light that comes out of the first flashlight will pass through, independent of the light from the second.
"This changes if the light is traveling in a 'nonlinear medium,'" he said. "The electromagnetic properties of a nonlinear medium are such that the light from one beam will interact with another. So, if you shine the two flashlights through a nonlinear medium, the intensity of the beam from the first flashlight will be reduced proportionally to the intensity of the second beam."
The patterns of metal discs LANP scientists created for the PNAS study are a type of nonlinear media. The team used electron-beam lithography to etch puck-shaped gold discs that were placed on a transparent surface for optical testing. The diameter of each disc was about one-thousandth the width of a human hair. Each was designed to harvest the energy from a particular frequency of light; by arranging a dozen of the discs in a closely spaced pattern, the team was able to enhance the nonlinear properties of the system by creating intense electrical fields.
"Our system exploits a particular plasmonic effect called a Fano resonance to boost the efficiency of the relatively weak nonlinear effect that underlies four-wave mixing," Nordlander said. "The result is a boost in the intensity of the third color of light that the device produces."
Graduate student and co-author Yu-Rong Zhen calculated the precise arrangement of 12 discs that would be required to produce two coherent Fano resonances in a single device, and graduate student and lead co-author Yu Zhang created the device that produced the four-wave mixing -- the first such material ever created.
"The device Zhang created for four-wave mixing is the most efficient yet produced for that purpose, but the value of this research goes beyond the design for this particular device," said Halas, who was recently named a member of the National Academy of Sciences for her pioneering research in nanophotonics. "The methods used to create this device can be applied to the production of a wide range of nonlinear media, each with tailored optical properties."
###
High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:
http://news.rice.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0520-FANO-Mix-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Physicists and engineers from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics have unveiled a robust new method for arranging metal nanoparticles in geometric patterns that can act as optical processors that transform incoming light signals into output of a different color.
CAPTION: By arranging optically tuned gold discs in a closely spaced pattern, Rice University scientists created intense electrical fields and enhanced the nonlinear optical properties of the system. Here a computer model displays the plasmonic interactions that give rise to the intense fields.
CAPTION: Gold discs tuned to capture the energy from two incoming beams of light can produce output of a third color. Here a computer animation shows how the electromagnetic wave (red=positive, blue=negative) from the incoming light propagates through the system as a series of plasmonic waves.
CREDIT: Yu-Rong Zhen/Rice University
A copy of the PNAS paper is available at:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1220304110
This release can be found online at:
http://news.rice.edu/2013/05/21/rice-unveils-method-for-tailoring-optical-processors/
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NEW YORK (AP) ? A couple of stars from TV's "Chuck" and "Smash" will soon be dating on Broadway.
Producers said Monday that Zachary Levi and Krysta Rodriguez will headline the new romantic musical comedy "First Date" by "Gossip Girl" writer Austin Winsberg.
The music and lyrics are by Alan Zachary and Michael Weiner.
"First Date" centers on an uptight young investment banker who meets a serial-dater at a local bistro. A chorus of diners become various characters ? family members, clergy and old lovers.
The show will be seen at The Longacre Theatre beginning July 9 with an opening set for Aug. 8.
The rest of the cast includes Sara Chase ("Arrested Development"), Kristoffer Cusick ("Wicked"), Blake Hammond ("Sister Act"), Kate Loprest ("Boardwalk Empire," and Vicki Noon ("Wicked").
The show, co-produced by The 5th Avenue Theatre, played at A Contemporary Theatre in Seattle last year. It will be directed by Bill Berry, the producing director of The 5th Avenue Theatre.
Levi, who will be in the film "Thor: The Dark World," follows fellow "Chuck" alum Yvonne Strahovski to make his Broadway debut. She made a strong impression in the Lincoln Center Theater revival of Clifford Odets' "Golden Boy."
Rodriguez, who plays Ana Vargas on "Smash," was last on Broadway in "The Addams Family," originating the role of Wednesday Addams alongside Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth. She also was in the original Broadway casts of "In the Heights," ''Spring Awakening" and "Good Vibrations."
An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
An Iraqi woman passes by the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad's Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in the Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security forces and civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in the Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded scores of people, police said. (AP Photo/ Hadi Mizban)
Civilians inspect the scene of a car bomb attack in Kamaliyah neighborhood, a predominantly Shiite area of eastern Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. A wave of car bombings across Baghdad?s Shiite neighborhoods and in the southern city of Basra killed and wounded dozens of people, police said. (AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)
Iraqi security force members gather at the site of a car bomb attack in front of a crowded popular restaurant in Basra, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Monday, May 20, 2013. Two car bombings in the southern city of Basra, killing and wounding dozens of people, police said. Iraq has seen a spike of attacks, including bombings hitting both Sunni and Shiite civilian targets over the last week. (AP Photo/ Nabil al-Jurani)
BAGHDAD (AP) ? A wave of attacks killed at least 95 people in Shiite and Sunni areas of Iraq on Monday, officials said, pushing the death toll over the past week to more than 240 and extending one of the most sustained bouts of sectarian violence the country has seen in years.
The bloodshed is still far shy of the pace, scale and brutality of the dark days of 2006-2007, when Sunni and Shiite militias carried out retaliatory attacks against each other in a cycle of violence that left the country awash in blood. Still, Monday's attacks, some of which hit markets and crowded bus stops during the morning rush hour, have heightened fears that the country could be turning back down the path toward civil war.
Sectarian tensions have been worsening since Iraq's minority Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government. The mass demonstrations, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.
Iraq's Shiite majority, which was oppressed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein, now holds the levers of power in the country. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias over the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have targeted them with occasional large-scale attacks.
But the renewed violence in both Shiite and Sunni areas since late last month has fueled concerns of a return to sectarian warfare. Monday marked the deadliest day in Iraq in more than 20 months, and raised the nationwide death toll since last Wednesday alone to more than 240 people, according to an AP count.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused militant groups of trying to exploit Iraq's political instability to exacerbate sectarian tensions at home, and blamed the recent spike in violence on the wider unrest in the region, particularly in neighboring Syria. At the same time, he pledged Monday that insurgents "will not be able to bring back the atmosphere of the sectarian war."
Many Sunnis here contend that much of the country's current turmoil is rooted in decisions made by al-Maliki's government, saying his administration planted the seeds for more sectarian tension by becoming more aggressive toward Sunnis after the U.S. military withdrawal in December 2011.
The worst of Monday's violence took place in Baghdad, where 10 car bombs ripped through open-air markets and other areas of Shiite neighborhoods, killing at least 48 people and wounding more than 150, police officials said. In the bloodiest attack, a parked car bomb blew up in a busy market in the northern Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, killing 14 and wounding 24, police and health officials said.
The surge in bloodshed has exasperated Iraqis, who have lived for years with the fear and uncertainty bred of random violence.
"How long do we have to continue living like this, with all the lies from the government?" asked 23-year-old Baghdad resident Malik Ibrahim. "Whenever they say they have reached a solution, the bombings come back stronger than before."
"We're fed up with them and we can't tolerate this anymore," he added.
The predominantly Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq was also hit Monday, with two car bombs there ? one outside a restaurant and another at the city's main bus station ? killing at least 13 and wounded 40, according to provincial police spokesman Col. Abdul-Karim al-Zaidi and the head of city's health directorate, Riadh Abdul-Amir.
A parked car bomb later struck Shiite worshippers as they were leaving a mosque in the southern city of Hillah, killing nine and wounding 26, according to police and health officials said.
In the town of Balad, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Baghdad, a car bomb exploded next to a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims, killing 13 Iranians and one Iraqi, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but the fact that they all occurred in Shiite areas raised the suspicion that Sunni militants were involved. Also, Sunni insurgents, particularly al-Qaida in Iraq, are known to employ such large-scale bombings.
Monday's violence also struck Sunni areas, hitting the city of Samarra north of Baghdad and the western province of Anbar, a Sunni stronghold and the birthplace of the protest movement.
A parked car bomb in Samarra went off near a gathering of pro-government Sunni militia who were waiting outside a military base to receive salaries, killing three and wounding 13, while in Anbar gunmen ambushed two police patrols near the town of Haditha, killing eight policemen, police and army officials said.
Also in Anbar, authorities found 13 bodies dumped in a remote desert area, officials said. The bodies, which included eight policemen who were kidnapped by gunmen on Friday, had been killed with a gunshot to the head.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
___
Associated Press writer Nabil Al-Jurani in Basra contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A top White House adviser insisted Sunday that President Barack Obama learned the Internal Revenue Service had targeted tea party groups only "when it came out in the news" while Republicans continued to press the administration for more answers.
Trying to move past a challenging week that put the White House on the defensive, senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer was scheduled to appear on five Sunday news shows to repeat the administration's position that no senior officials were involved in the decision to give tea party groups extra scrutiny. Pfeiffer's appearances were unlike to quiet GOP critics, who have seized on the revelations as proof that Obama used the IRS to go after his political enemies.
"The deputy secretary of the treasury was made aware of just the fact that the investigation was beginning last year," Pfeiffer said. "But no one in the White House was aware."
Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., suggested there was a written policy to target conservative groups opposing the president, but when pressed could not provide details.
"I haven't seen a policy statement, but I think we need to see that," Paul said. "And when that comes forward, we need to know who wrote the policy and who approved the policy."
Regardless of when the president first learned of the investigations, Pfeiffer said the president wanted to ensure such activities were not repeated.
"The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed to ensure it never happens again," Pfeiffer said.
A Treasury Department inspector's report said this week that conservative and small-government tea party groups that were critical of Obama received extra scrutiny. IRS agents did not flag similar progressive or liberal groups, according to the watchdog.
The report concluded that a regional IRS office in Ohio improperly singled out tea party and other conservative groups for more than 18 months and took no action on many of their applications for tax-exempt status for long periods of time ? hindering their fundraising for the 2010 and 2012 elections.
The new acting IRS commissioner is in the midst of a 30-day top-to-bottom review while Republicans continue to demand answers of Obama and his allies in government.
That's not sufficient, said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.
"I think a special counsel is going to wind up being necessary," he added said.
That move is not needed, said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.
"I don't see the point," he said of a special counsel to investigate the scandal.
Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., said the IRS had stepped so far over its mandate that it asked book groups for reading lists and church groups about their prayers before granting them tax-exempt standing. It's government over-reach, he said, and a reason why Republicans need to have their own investigation into the agency.
"This is about trust," Price said.
But he stopped short of calling for a special counsel.
Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., said Republicans were using the incidents to embarrass the president.
"There is no Republican agenda other than to stop the president of the United States," he said.
Pfeiffer was appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," NBC's "Meet the Press," CBS' "Face the Nation," CNN's "State of the Union" and "Fox News Sunday." Portman, Menendez, Price and Rangel were on ABC. Paul was on CNN.
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Public release date: 21-May-2013
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