WEATHER FORECAST FOR WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18TH, 2018

TODAY – PARTLY CLOUDY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF A RAIN
SHOWER. HIGH – 54.

TONIGHT – OCCASIONAL RAIN. LOW – 34.

THURSDAY – SNOW SHOWERS, ACCUMULATING LESS THAN
ONE INCH. SNOW WILL TAPER OFF AND END
DURING THE MORNING BUT SKIES WILL
REMAIN CLOUDY DURING THE AFTERNOON.
HIGH – 42.

Dick’s destroying all the guns it pulled from its shelvesç
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Dick’s Sporting Goods is destroying all the guns and accessories that it stopped selling earlier this year after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
The retailer said Tuesday that it is in the process of destroying all the firearms it pulled from its shelves, rather than trying to return them to their manufacturers.
Dicks made headlines in February when, in the aftermath of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, it banned the sale of assault-style rifles and the sale of all guns to anyone under 21. Other retailers followed suit, including Walmart, which also raised its minimum-age rules for firearms.
Dick’s is based in the Pittsburgh area. The company’s decision to destroy the guns was first reported by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Former first lady Barbara Bush dies at age 92
HOUSTON (AP) — Former first lady Barbara Bush has died. She was 92.
A family spokesman says she died Tuesday.
The snowy-haired Mrs. Bush was one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.
Mrs. Bush’s plainspoken manner and utter lack of pretense made her more popular at times than her husband. She brought a grandmotherly style to buttoned-down Washington, often appearing in her trademark fake pearl chokers and displaying no vanity about her white hair and wrinkles.
She married George H.W. Bush in 1945. They had six children and were married longer than any presidential couple in American history.

The Latest: Taxpayers get 1-day extension due to IRS glitch
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the outage of the IRS payment website (all times local):
7:40 p.m.
The IRS is giving all taxpayers an extra day to file after its website went down on deadline day.
The agency announced that individuals and businesses with a filing or payment that was due Tuesday now have until midnight Wednesday.
It said no additional paperwork is needed to get the extension.
The agency’s website for making payments and gaining access to other key services crashed amid the filing flood. The website appeared to be back to normal late Tuesday.
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4:30 p.m.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin says Americans who have been unable to pay their taxes Tuesday because the IRS payment website is down will receive an extension when the site is working again.
The website has been down most of the day and wasn’t operational as of 4:30 p.m. EDT.
Mnuchin commented on the outage when asked by reporters after an event in Derry, New Hampshire, where he promoted the Trump tax overhaul along with Ivanka Trump.
Mnuchin described the problem as a “high-volume technical issue” that the IRS is attempting to resolve.
Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.
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4:10 p.m.
The IRS website where people can pay their taxes and access other key services has been down for most the day, frustrating last-minute tax filers.
A message on the website about the outage indicates the agency still expects Americans to pay their taxes on time.
The IRS did not give an immediate explanation for the failure but said in a statement that “certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties.”
The agency also said that taxpayers should filing their tax returns as they normally would. The problem is, electronic filing is the most popular way to file.
Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.

House OKs work mandate for able-bodied Medicaid recipients
By MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The Pennsylvania House wants able-bodied adults who are enrolled in Medicaid to work at least 20 hours a week, look for a job or participate in job training.
The Republican-controlled House voted 115-to-80 Tuesday for a bill to require state officials to seek federal approval for a work requirement.
The list of exceptions includes people enrolled in high school full-time or receiving long-term disability benefits, those under age 19 or older than 64, pregnant women, prisoners and residents of mental health institutions.
Backers argue that work is a path out of poverty, while opponents say many recipients are already working and the bill would set up a costly bureaucracy that could be difficult to navigate.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf vetoed a bill last fall that contained a similar requirement.

Former Minnesota FBI agent pleads guilty to leaking to media
By STEVE KARNOWSKI, Associated Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A former Minnesota FBI counterterrorism agent who was caught in a Trump administration crackdown pleaded guilty Tuesday to leaking classified documents to a national media organization, saying he knew it was illegal but felt FBI investigations treated minority communities with “suspicion” and “disrespect.”
Terry J. Albury, 39, appeared in federal court in St. Paul on one count of unauthorized disclosure of national defense information and one count of unauthorized retention of national defense information. Under his plea agreement, Albury faces a likely sentence of between 37 and 57 months but the decision will be up to U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright, who did not set a sentencing date.
The Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have made prosecuting government employees who leak sensitive information to the media a high priority. Sessions pledged to clamp down on leaks last year, saying the Justice Department had more than tripled the number of active leak investigations since President Barack Obama left office and that the FBI had created a new counterintelligence unit to focus on such cases.
Albury, who was the only African-American field agent in the Minnesota office, was accused of sharing documents with an unnamed online news organization sometime between February 2016 and Jan. 31, 2017. He was accused of sharing a document, dated Aug. 17, 2011 and classified as “secret,” that related to how the FBI assesses confidential informants, and an undated document “relating to threats posed by certain individuals from a particular Middle Eastern country.”
The second count charged him with having unauthorized possession of a document “relating to the use of an online platform for recruitment by a specific terrorist group” and that he failed to deliver it to an unspecified federal employee entitled to receive it.
The charging documents filed last month and a search warrant application didn’t name the news organization or any reporters. But the date on the classified document and its subject matter corresponded with a story posted by The Intercept on Jan. 31 of 2017 that deals with assessing informants and recruiting them by identifying their “motivations and vulnerabilities.” The story references a secret document dated Aug. 17, 2011.
The search warrant application says Albury began working for the FBI as an intern in 2000 and became a special agent in 2005. He was most recently assigned to the Minneapolis field office where he worked as a liaison at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in counterterrorism and other matters, it says.
The sworn statement by an FBI counterintelligence agent says Albury accessed at least two-thirds of the 27 classified documents that the news organization posted online. Some of those documents had been photographed from a computer screen, it said, adding that Albury was caught on surveillance video at his airport office photographing his computer screen on three dates last year.
After the hearing, Albury’s attorneys, JaneAnne Murray and Joshua Dratel, issued a statement saying Albury acted out of “conscience.” He believed the FBI predominantly reflected a white male culture and was troubled by racism in the agency.
“The situation became even more acute for him when, having previously served a tour for the FBI in Iraq, he was assigned to the counterterrorism squad and was required first-hand to implement FBI investigation directives that profiled and intimidated minority communities in Minnesota and other locations in which Terry served.”
Many of the FBI’s counterterrorism investigations in Minnesota have focused primarily on the states’ large Somali-American community.

IRS payment site fails on tax day, but you still have to pay
By SARAH SKIDMORE SELL, AP Personal Finance Writer
Last-minute filers got a rude surprise on tax day: The IRS website to make payments and access other key services is down. But the agency still expects Americans to pay their taxes on time.
The IRS did not give an immediate explanation for the failures but said in a statement that “certain IRS systems are experiencing technical difficulties.”
The agency also said that taxpayers “should continue filing their tax returns as they normally would.” The problem is, electronic filing is the most popular way to file. And the IRS offered no immediate solution.
Pages on the IRS website (www.irs.gov) used to view account information, make a direct payment or set up a payment plan were all not functioning most of the day Tuesday.
It’s unclear when and why the failure occurred. But it appears, based on a message on the site, that the online payment system became unavailable at 2:50 A.M. ET that morning.
Visitors to the IRS payment site saw one of two messages: One that says the website is unavailable. And another that the outage was due to planned maintenance scheduled to end on Sept. 22, 2016.
Both messages said, “Note that your tax payment is due although IRS Direct Pay may not be available.”
The IRS snafu also caused problems for popular third-party tax preparers such as Turbo Tax and H&R Block. Both said that they will hold onto customer tax returns and file them as soon as the IRS system reopens.
Tax day falls on April 17 this year because April 15 was a Sunday and April 16 was Emancipation Day, a holiday in Washington, D.C.
IRS Acting Commissioner David Kautter testified during a House Oversight Hearing Tuesday that a number of systems are down at the moment and that the agency is working to resolve the issue.
Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow offered a deadpan reaction when asked about the failure.
“The IRS is crashing? Sounds horrible. Really bad,” he said during a briefing with reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida. “I hope it gets fixed.”
Kudlow said he wasn’t aware of the nature of the issue, but said: “The IRS’ll straighten it out.”
The IRS typically recommends that taxpayers use electronic filing to avoid common mistakes. Online filing is quicker than dropping something in the mail — when the site works, of course.
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Jill Colvin in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.

1 dead after jetliner apparently blows an engine in flight
By ALEXANDRA VILLARREAL and DAVID KOENIG, Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Southwest Airlines jet apparently blew an engine at about 30,000 feet and got hit by shrapnel that smashed a window and damaged the fuselage Tuesday, killing a passenger and injuring seven others, authorities said.
The plane, a Boeing 737 bound from New York to Dallas with 149 people aboard, made an emergency landing in Philadelphia just before noon as passengers breathing through oxygen masks that dropped from the ceiling prayed and braced for impact.
“I just remember holding my husband’s hand, and we just prayed and prayed and prayed,” said passenger Amanda Bourman, of New York. “And the thoughts that were going through my head of course were about my daughters, just wanting to see them again and give them a big hug so they wouldn’t grow up without parents.”
National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt said one person was killed. It was the first passenger fatality in a U.S. airline accident since 2009, Sumwalt said.
Seven other people were treated for minor injuries, Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel said. He said there was a fuel leak in one of the engines when firefighters arrived and a small fire was quickly brought under control.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane landed after the crew reported damage to one of the engines, along with the fuselage and at least one window. The NTSB sent a team of investigators to Philadelphia.
Bourman said she was seated near the back and was asleep when she heard a loud noise and oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. She said the plane was fairly quiet because everyone was wearing a mask, while some passengers were in tears and others shouted words of encouragement.
“Everybody was crying and upset,” she said. “You had a few passengers that were very strong and they kept yelling to people, you know, ‘It’s OK, we’re going to do this.'”
Passenger Marty Martinez did a brief Facebook Live posting while wearing an oxygen mask. He posted, “Something is wrong with our plane! It appears we are going down! Emergency landing!! Southwest flight from NYC to Dallas!!” After the plane landed, he posted photos of a damaged window near the engine.
Bourman said that everyone started yelling to brace for impact when the plane started to land. Everyone clapped and praised the pilot after he set the aircraft down.
Bourman said she saw emergency medical workers using a defibrillator to help a woman who was taken off the plane. Bourman said she also saw a man in a cowboy hat rush to cover the broken window and that the man had a bandage around his arm after the plane landed.
Passengers did “some pretty amazing things under some pretty difficult circumstances,” Thiel said.
Tracking data from FlightAware.com shows Flight 1380 was heading west over New York’s southern tier at about 32,200 feet (10 km) traveling 500 mph (800 kph) when it abruptly turned toward Philadelphia.
It was the first death stemming from an in-flight accident on a U.S. airliner since 2009, when 49 people on board and one of the ground were killed in the crash of a Continental Express plane near Buffalo, New York.
Southwest has about 700 planes, all of them 737s, including more than 500 737-700s like the one involved in Tuesday’s emergency landing. It is the world’s largest operator of the 737. The Boeing 737 is the best-selling jetliner in the world and has a good safety record.
John Goglia, a former NTSB member, said investigators will take the Southwest engine apart to understand what happened and will look at maintenance records for the engine.
“There’s a ring around the engine that’s meant to contain the engine pieces when this happens,” Goglia said. “In this case it didn’t. That’s going to be a big focal point for the NTSB — why didn’t (the ring) do its job?”
Goglia said the Boeing 737 is a safe plane but engine failures occur from time to time.
“We’re pushing the engines to produce as much power as possible,” he said. “We’re right on the edge. Sometimes they fail, and that’s why the containment ring is there.”
The engine failure was reminiscent of a similar event on a Southwest Boeing 737-700 jet in August 2016 as it flew from New Orleans to Orlando, Florida. Shrapnel from the engine left a 5-by-16-inch hole just above the wing. Passenger oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Pilots landed the plane safely in Pensacola, Florida.
NTSB investigators said one of the engine’s fan blades broke off from the hub during the flight. The broken edge of the blade showed crack lines consistent with metal fatigue.
Before Tuesday, Southwest had never had an accident-related fatality of a passenger, although a young boy died in 2006 when a Southwest jet skidded off a runway at Chicago’s Midway Airport, crashed through a fence and collided with the boy’s family’s car.
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Koenig reported from Dallas. Associated Press writers Kristen de Groot and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia, and Matthew Barakat in Washington, contributed to this story.

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COWAN SAYS THAT A GEOTECHNICAL TEAM IS ALSO BEING BROUGHT TO INDUSTRY TO STUDY THE SLIDE THAT OCCURRED THERE YESTERDAY…

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