Investigation

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status. Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years. The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity.

WASHINGTON - The FBI obtained a sealed search warrant to read a Fox News reporter's personal emails from two days in 2010 after arguing there was probable cause he had violated espionage laws by soliciting classified information from a government official, court papers show. In an affidavit, an FBI agent told a federal magistrate that the reporter had committed a crime when he asked a State Department security contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, to share secret material about North Korea in June 2009.

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

Ruling out foul play, federal investigators were looking at a fractured rail as the possible cause of the Connecticut train crash that left dozens of commuters injured and is expected to disrupt travel in and out of New York City for weeks to come. Earl Weener, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in a media briefing that investigators had discovered that a section of the eastbound track was fractured at the rail joint. A portion of that track will be sent to a lab for analysis, Weener said.

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

Authorities in Northern California on Saturday announced the arrest of a 12-year-old boy in the stabbing death of his younger sister, whose killing last month sparked a manhunt for a supposed intruder who the boy had said committed the crime. Following a two-week investigation, Calaveras County sheriff's detectives arrested the boy in connection with the death of his sister, 8-year-old Leila Fowler. The boy, whose name was not made public, will be charged with murder, the county sheriff announced at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON - An FBI investigation that led to the resignation of CIA Director David Petraeus also turned up evidence that Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was exchanging potentially inappropriate emails with a Florida woman involved in the scandal, Pentagon officials said. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement early Tuesday morning that he had ordered an investigation of Allen after the FBI informed the Pentagon it had uncovered thousands of pages of emails between Allen and Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old who has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., which is headquarters to the U.S. Central Command.

The co-chief executive and public face of upscale home decor chain Restoration Hardware Holdings Inc. has resigned, reportedly amid an internal inquiry into his relationship with a 26-year-old female employee. Gary Friedman, 54, who has served as chief executive since 2001, is widely credited with turning around a company once teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. The Marin County retailer is now readying for an initial public stock offering. A black-and-white photo of Friedman, with a 5 o'clock shadow and wearing a leather jacket, is still prominently featured on the retailer's website, next to a letter from the San Francisco native quoting the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.

Watching Alzheimer's disease steal away the memory, talents and very selves of its victims is hard enough for the people who love them. Now, a new pill formulated by a respected pharmaceutical company and approved by the Food and Drug Administration will do little to help most patients and will bring misery to some, say two medical investigators. The drug, Aricept 23 mg, is no more effective on the whole than the disappointing ones already on the market - but is more likely to cause gastrointestinal problems, wrote Drs. Steven Woloshin and Lisa Schwartz of Dartmouth Medical College in an article published Thursday in the medical journal BMJ. The new formulation was devised to serve commercial objectives, they say, and was approved despite a poor showing in company-sponsored tests.

NEWTOWN, Conn. - School shooter Adam Lanza carried hundreds of bullets when he shot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and used an assault rifle to do most of the killing, authorities confirmed Sunday. Lanza, 20, fired a Bushmaster .223 semiautomatic rifle to kill many of the 20 children and six adults at the school Friday, Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance said. He used a Glock 10-millimeter handgun to shoot himself in the head. He also carried at Sig Sauer pistol.

BAKERSFIELD - About a dozen people gathered in front of the Kern County Superior Court building Thursday to protest the death of David Sal Silva, the man who died less than hour after he was beaten by Kern County sheriff's deputies last week. Standing near Kern County's replica Liberty Bell, some protesters wore masks and others held signs as their ranks slowly grew. Chris Silva said he should be home with his family - his brother's funeral was later in the day. But he felt he needed to be at the vigil.

A malfunctioning golf cart, a faulty electrical system or even arson could have led to the fire that triggered the deadly explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, but federal and state officials said Thursday that their $1-million investigation had yet to find the cause. Fourteen people died in the April 17 blast, including 12 first responders who arrived nine minutes after the fire was reported - and just eight minutes before the explosion shook the town, devastated two schools and shattered a nursing home.

WASHINGTON - The head of the FBI said Thursday that there were lapses in tracking accused Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's visit to Russia last year, saying that U.S. security officials failed to act on "text" alerts to a U.S. Customs agent about his trip. The inaction came after U.S. officials interviewed Tsarnaev and his parents about Russian concerns that he was traveling there "intent on returning and perhaps participating in jihad," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said. Mueller told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that in March 2011, Russian authorities asked the U.S. for a background assessment on Tsarnaev and his mother.

More analysis will determine if footage might be missing from a second cellphone that Kern County authorities seized from witnesses who shot video of sheriff's deputies beating a Bakersfield man who later died, one of the witnesses said Wednesday. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood called in the FBI earlier this week after discovering that another phone that witnesses said contained video of the David Silva beating had no footage. Youngblood said the second phone did have some video of the incident.

WASHINGTON - Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. on Tuesday strongly defended the criminal investigation into the leak of classified details about a successful U.S. undercover operation, calling it "within the top two or three most serious leaks" of government-protected information since he became a federal prosecutor more than 35 years ago. The attorney general said he had recused himself earlier from overseeing the investigation into who told the...

The sharp cracks echoing from the East Bakersfield street were loud enough to jolt Ruben Ceballos from a midnight slumber. Then he heard screams. The 19-year-old jumped from his living room sofa and hurried to the kitchen door, which offered a view of the violent scene outside - Kern County sheriff's deputies repeatedly striking a man in the head with batons as he lay on the pavement. "I saw two sheriff's deputies on top of this guy, just beating him," Ceballos said in an interview Monday.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched an investigation into the Doheny Glatt Kosher meat market as controversy brews over the integrity of products sold there. The owner of Doheny, Michael Engelman, faces accusations of selling meat that was not properly certified under kosher rules. Last week, a council of rabbis pulled Doheny's kosher certification and, in a statement Friday, raised the possibility of "legal action," a recourse to secular courts that would be rare. Tuesday, the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service confirmed that the Doheny market is under investigation.

'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' Where: CBS When: 10 p.m. Wednesday Rating: TV-14-DV (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with advisories for suggestive dialogue and violence)

Authorities in Northern California on Saturday announced the arrest of a 12-year-old boy in the stabbing death of his younger sister, whose killing last month sparked a manhunt for a supposed intruder who the boy had said committed the crime. Following a two-week investigation, Calaveras County sheriff's detectives arrested the boy in connection with the death of his sister, 8-year-old Leila Fowler. The boy, whose name was not made public, will be charged with murder, the county sheriff announced at a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

Prosecutors are investigating allegations of voter fraud in Little Armenia, part of a Los Angeles City Council district where two candidates are waging a bitter battle for an open seat. According to a spokeswoman for L.A. County Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey, prosecutors are trying to determine whether backers of one candidate illegally filled out mail-in ballots for dozens of voters in the Armenian enclave in East Hollywood. The May 21 election will decide who succeeds Eric Garcetti, who is running for mayor.