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Syrian Army, Hezbollah Attack Rebels In Border Town 32 killed!

        

Syrian troops supported by Hezbollah militants launched an offensive to retake a major town near Lebanon from rebels on Sunday (May 19), the heaviest fighting yet involving the Lebanese armed group, opposition activists said.

Raw: Swarm of Tornadoes Slams Plains

Amateur video captured the raw power of funnel clouds on Sunday in central Oklahoma. Several tornadoes struck parts of the nation's midsection Sunday, concentrating damage in central Oklahoma and Wichita, Kansas. (May 20)

Nicki Minaj & Lil Wayne Twerk Lap Dance "High School" Performance 2013 Billboard Awards

        
Nicki Minaj & Little Wayne hit the stage at the 2013 Billboard Music Awards to perform their brand new song high school and it's got EVERYONE talking!

Hey Guys—welcome back to Clevver Music. Talk about a performance to remember, who else but Barbz would give Lil' Wayne a twerking lap dance—yes, you heard me, and we'll bet you've never seen something as good as this... check it out:

Can you believe that?! These two went out with a bang, pretty much closing out the BBMA's with a performance that will go down in history. We knew something was up when little Wayne took a seat in that chair—but we had no idea, it would be a twerking lap dance.

There was literally a good 15 seconds shot of nothing but Nicki's behind—we're not kidding, a full 15 seconds of her assets!

But enough about her butt—the song was awesome. Nicki opened up the number coming out strong with some mad lyrics. She couldn't have done a better job, wearing a spiked jacket that she ended up taking off before the infamous lap dance, of course!

And then came Little Wayne—completing the power couple and these two have some major chemistry on stage. Nicki grinding on Wayne was just the tip of the iceburg leading up the sexy dance.

This performance definitely takes a title for the night but we're not sure if it's for most inappropriate or greatest thing EVER. You guys hash it out in the comments below and kept it locked her for all the latest in music, I'm Brianna Baxter filling in for the fab Misty Kingma—see you guys next time!

Justin Bieber booed at Billboard awards

                                      

 

Mozart vs Skrillex. Live - with a Twist

 

5/20/13 Moore, OK Devastating Tornado HD (Live Footage)

Amazing New High-Definition Video of Okla. Twister Captures Massive Debris Cloud as Entire Roof Is Lifted in the Air

Tornado Facebook Group Reunites Oklahoma Victims With Belongings

When Leslie Hagelberg went outside of her West Tulsa, Okla., home on Sunday evening to check the weather, she noticed what appeared to be insulation and pieces of paper falling from the sky.

But it wasn't until she found a photograph near her mailbox that it dawned on her what was happening: debris and belongings from the tornado that had struck in Shawnee -- 90 miles away -- had made their way to her yard.

Hagelberg logged into Facebook and found that many of her neighbors had reported finding items, so she decided to start a Facebook group to reunite victims of the tornado with their missing belongings.

The Facebook group was expanded Monday, to help people who were affected by thedevastating tornado that ripped through Moore, Okla., killing dozens of people.

The Facebook group has taken off. As of Monday evening, nearly 7,000 members had joined and pictures of hundreds of items had been posted to the page.

So far, Hagelberg estimated that 60 items -- mostly photos and artwork -- have been claimed by their owners.

Even an urn was claimed after a picture was posted to the page.

"I'm just trying to help," Hagelberg told The Huffington Post. "I couldn't imagine losing my kids' pictures."

"I want eveyrone to know they're welcome to post whatever they find," she said, noting that people should refrain from posting documents that may contain personal information, like Social Security cards and blank checks.

Visit the Facebook page to help reunite victims of the tornadoes with their belongings.

Anchors Evacuate During Live Broadcast In Kansas After Tornado Rips Through Wichita (VIDEO)

Not even news anchors are exempt from the whims of local weather.

That much was demonstrated Sunday afternoon when Kansas-based news anchors were forced to evacuate during a live broadcast after a tornado touched down near the studio in downtown Wichita.

J.D. Rudd, a meteorologist for NBC affiliate KSN, was preparing to give an update on the storm when he appeared to be motioned off camera during the live broadcast. In the video footage, as Rudd rushes off-screen, another voice (unseen) explains that the time has finally come for everyone in the news station to seek shelter.

“It appears that it is time for all of us to get to shelter,” the man said in the video. “Get to shelter right now! Everybody ... let’s go!”

According to NBC News, the local station employees, who had provided live coverage of the storm for nearly two hours before the evacuation, left the studio around 4:15 p.m. Some took cover in the building's basement.

Fortunately, the tornado lifted shortly after it arrived at KSN's doorstep and left the building largely undamaged.

Tweeting storm updates throughout the day, Rudd later addressed the evacuation on Twitter.

The tornado that ripped through downtown Wichita was one of several to rock the midwest over the weekend. Described by the National Weather Service as "large, violent and extremely dangerous," the twister caused some minor damage to properties near the city; however, no injuries were reported.

“When you live in Kansas, that’s just one of those things that’s going to happen,” Wichita resident Chuck Walton told KSN.

While the city may have gotten off relatively scot-free this time, other cities in the region did not fare as well. At least two people have been confirmed dead, both of whom were killed near Shawnee, Okla., according to the Associated Press. The National Weather Service predicts that severe weather will continue to batter the area through Monday afternoon and evening.

Oklahoma Tornado Reactions: Politicians Respond To Storm's Devastation

A massive tornado touched down near Oklahoma City on Monday, leaving a path of devastation in its wake.

The Associated Press reports:

Television footage shows flattened buildings and fires after a mile-wide tornado moved through the Oklahoma City area.

Video showed homes and buildings in Moore, Okla., were reduced to rubble, and vehicles littered roadways south and southwest of Oklahoma City.

...

The suburb of Moore, where Monday's damage was concentrated, was hit hard by a tornado in 1999 that included the highest winds ever recorded near the earth's surface.

Moore Tornado 2013: Photos Show Oklahoma Twister Devastation (PICTURES, LIVE UPDATES)

A tornado hit the city of Moore, Oklahoma on Monday, leaving behind significant destruction.

The twister is one in a series of tornadoes that swept across the central United StatesSunday and Monday, killing two in Shawnee, with more fatalities expected.

According to a tweet from the National Weather Service, the tornado will receive a preliminary rating of at least EF 4.

This is not the first time that Moore has been hit by a major tornado. In 1999, an F5 tornado killed 36 people and injured 295, according to Yahoo! News. The city was hit again in 2003. Below are previous photos of tornado devastation in the area.

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The Associated Press reports on the aftermath:

The storm laid waste to scores of buildings in Moore, a community of 41,000 people about 10 miles south of the city. Block after block lay in ruins. Homes were crushed into piles of broken wood. Cars and trucks were left crumpled on the roadside.

Briarwood, Plaza Towers Elementary Schools Hit By Tornado In Moore, Oklahoma, Rescue Efforts Underway

Two elementary schools were directly impacted by a massive tornado in the Oklahoma City area on Monday, according to local media reports.

Plaza Towers Elementary School was flattened by the storm and Briarwood Elementary School was also reportedly severely hit. It is unclear at this time how many people were at the schools when the damage occurred, but search and rescue efforts are underway.

"Apparently some kids were being sheltered there [at Plaza Towers]," local TV station KFOR reported during its live coverage of the tornado. The local news outlet laterconfirmed that children were being pulled from debris at the Plaza Towers site.

According to News 9, an Oklahoma City Police Department representative has stated that there are currently no reports of injuries at the Briarwood Elementary scene. The school did, however, suffer "extensive damage."

UPDATE #3: KFOR is reporting that there were no fatalities at Briarwood Elementary and all students are accounted for.

UPDATE #2: An representative for Oklahoma Emergency Services confirmed in a press conference Monday night that there were casualties at the Plaza Towers Elementary School.

UPDATE: The AP is reporting that several children have been pulled out of the rubble alive at Plaza Towers Elementary School.

More from earlier:

Plaza Towers is located on the west side of Moore, just south of Oklahoma City. Briarwood Elementary is not far away, also on the same side of the town.

Tornado Photos: Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa Hit By Twisters (PICTURES)

At least one tornado touched down near Oklahoma City Monday, leaving behind a wake of destruction. The twister hit only one day after a similar tornado killed two in Shawnee.

A rare tornado emergency was issued by the National Weather Service for the Oklahoma area, with more severe weather watches across the central United States.

At least one tornado touched down near Oklahoma City Monday, leaving behind a wake of destruction. The twister hit only one day after a similar tornado killed two in Shawnee.

A rare tornado emergency was issued by the National Weather Service for the Oklahoma area, with more severe weather watches across the central United States.

Oklahoma Tornado 2013 Devastates Moore, Kills Dozens (GRAPHIC PHOTOS)

MOORE, Okla., May 20 (Reuters) - A 2-mile-wide (3-km-wide) tornado tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, killing at least 51 people while destroying entire tracts of homes, piling cars atop one another, and trapping two dozen school children beneath rubble.

Twenty of the 51 confirmed deaths were children, the Oklahoma medical examiner said, and at least 45 of the 230 people injured were children, according to area hospitals. It was the deadliest U.S. tornado since one killed 161 people in Joplin, Missouri, two years ago.

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President Barack Obama declared a major disaster area in Oklahoma, ordering federal aid to supplement state and local efforts.

Rescue teams raced against the setting sun and worked into the darkness in search of survivors throughout the wide swath of devastation, while the dangerous storm system threatened several southern Plains states with more twisters. Severe weather was expected through the night from the Great Lakes south to Texas.

Emergency crews searched the rubble of Plaza Towers Elementary School for two dozen missing children, Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb said. The school took a direct hit from the tornado, Lamb told CNN.

The town of Moore, population about 50,000, was devastated with debris everywhere, street signs gone, lights out and houses completely obliterated.

Another elementary school and a hospital were among the buildings leveled.

"We thought we died because we were inside the cellar door...It ripped open the door and just glass and debris started slamming on us and we thought we were dead to be honest," survivor Ricky Stover said while surveying the devastated remains of his home.

Cyndi Christopher was at work and went to pick up her son from daycare when she heard the storm warning. After taking her son home, she was forced to flee when she noticed the storm was coming their way.

"I drove as fast as I could and I outran the storm," Christopher said.

The National Weather Service assigned the twister a preliminary ranking of EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale, meaning the second most powerful category of tornado with winds up to 200 miles per hour (320 km per hour).

Witnesses said Monday's tornado appeared more fierce than the giant twister that was among the dozens that tore up the area on May 3, 1999, killing more than 40 people and destroying thousands of homes. That tornado ranked as an EF5, meaning it had winds over 200 mph.

The 1999 event in Oklahoma ranks as the third-costliest tornado in U.S. history, having caused more than $1 billion in damage at the time, or more than $1.3 billion in today's dollars. Only the devastating Joplin and Tuscaloosa tornadoes in 2011 were more costly.

The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center provided the town with a warning 16 minutes before the tornado touched down at 3:01 p.m. local time (2001 GMT), which is greater than the average eight to 10 minutes of warning, said Keli Pirtle, a spokeswoman for the center in Norman, Oklahoma.

The notice was upgraded to emergency warning with "heightened language" at 2:56 p.m., or five minutes before the tornado touched down, Pirtle said.

Television media measured the tornado at more than 2 miles wide, with images showing entire neighborhoods flattened.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) imposed a temporary flight restriction that allowed only relief aircraft in the area, saying it was at the request of local police who wanted quiet to search for buried survivors.

Oklahoma activated the National Guard, and the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency activated teams to supp

ort recovery operations and coordinate responses for multiple agencies.

SCHOOL IN TWISTER'S PATH

Briarwood Elementary School, which also stood in the storm's path, was all but destroyed. On the first floor, sections of walls had been peeled away, affording clear views into the building, while in other areas, cars hurled by the storm winds were lodged in the walls.

Across the street, people picked through the remains of their homes.

The number of injured as reported by several hospitals rose rapidly throughout the afternoon.

Oklahoma University Medical Center alone was treating 65 patients, 45 of them children, though it was no longer expecting a further mass influx of casualties, spokesman Scott Coppenbarger said.

Moore Medical Center sustained significant damage.

"The whole city looks like a debris field," Glenn Lewis, the mayor of Moore, told NBC.

"It looks like we have lost our hospital. I drove by there a while ago and it's pretty much destroyed," Lewis said.

The massive twister struck at the height of tornado season, and more were forecast. On Sunday, tornadoes killed two people and injured 39 in Oklahoma. (Additional reporting by Lindsay Morris, Carey Gillam, Nick Carey, Brendan O'Brien and Greg McCune; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Jim Loney and Lisa Shumaker)

Mayan Nohmul Pyramid In Belize Destroyed By Bulldozer

BELIZE CITY -- A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize's largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract crushed rock for a road-building project, authorities announced on Monday.

The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology, Jaime Awe, said the destruction at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was detected late last week. The ceremonial center dates back at least 2,300 years and is the most important site in northern Belize, near the border with Mexico.

"It's a feeling of Incredible disbelief because of the ignorance and the insensitivity ... they were using this for road fill," Awe said. "It's like being punched in the stomach, it's just so horrendous."

Nohmul sat in the middle of a privately owned sugar cane field, and lacked the even stone sides frequently seen in reconstructed or better-preserved pyramids. But Awe said the builders could not possibly have mistaken the pyramid mound, which is about 100 feet tall, for a natural hill because the ruins were well-known and the landscape there is naturally flat.

"These guys knew that this was an ancient structure. It's just bloody laziness", Awe said.

Photos from the scene showed backhoes clawing away at the pyramid's sloping sides, leaving an isolated core of limestone cobbles at the center, with what appears to be a narrow Mayan chamber dangling above one clawed-out section.

"Just to realize that the ancient Maya acquired all this building material to erect these buildings, using nothing more than stone tools and quarried the stone, and carried this material on their heads, using tump lines," said Awe. "To think that today we have modern equipment, that you can go and excavate in a quarry anywhere, but that this company would completely disregard that and completely destroyed this building. Why can't these people just go and quarry somewhere that has no cultural significance? It's mind-boggling."

Belizean police said they are conducting an investigation and criminal charges are possible. The Nohmul complex sits on private land, but Belizean law says that any pre-Hispanic ruins are under government protection.

The Belize community-action group Citizens Organized for Liberty Through Action called the destruction of the archaeological site "an obscene example of disrespect for the environment and history."

It is not the first time it's happened in Belize, a country of about 350,000 people that is largely covered in jungle and dotted with hundreds of Mayan ruin sites, though few as large as Nohmul.

Norman Hammond, an emeritus professor of archaeology at Boston University who worked in Belizean research projects in the 1980s, wrote in an email that "bulldozing Maya mounds for road fill is an endemic problem in Belize (the whole of the San Estevan center has gone, both of the major pyramids at Louisville, other structures at Nohmul, many smaller sites), but this sounds like the biggest yet."

Arlen Chase, chairman of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Central Florida, said, "Archaeologists are disturbed when such things occur, but there is only a very limited infrastructure in Belize that can be applied to cultural heritage management."

"Unfortunately, they (destruction of sites) are all too common, but not usually in the center of a large Maya site," Chase wrote.

He said there had probably still been much to learn from the site. "A great deal of archaeology was undertaken at Nohmul in the `70s and `80s, but this only sampled a small part of this large center."

Belize isn't the only place where the handiwork of the far-flung and enormously prolific Maya builders is being destroyed. The ancient Mayas spread across southeastern Mexico and through Guatemala, Honduras and Belize.

"I don't think I am exaggerating if I say that every day a Maya mound is being destroyed for construction in one of the countries where the Maya lived," wrote Francisco Estrada-Belli, a professor at Tulane University's Anthropology Department.

"Unfortunately, this destruction of our heritage is irreversible but many don't take it seriously," he added. "The only way to stop it is by showing that it is a major crime and people can and will go to jail for it."

Robert Rosenswig, an archaeologist at the State University of New York at Albany, described the difficult and heartbreaking work of trying to salvage information at the nearby site of San Estevan following similar destruction around 2005.

"Bulldozing damage at San Estevan is extensive and the site is littered with Classic period potsherds," he wrote in an academic paper describing the scene. "We spent a number of days at the beginning of the 2005 season trying to figure out the extent of the damage .... after scratching our heads for many days, a bulldozer showed up and we realized that what appear to be mounds, when overgrown with chest-high vegetation, are actually recently bulldozed garbage piles."

However small the compensation, bulldozing pyramids is one very brutal way of revealing the inner cores of the structures, which were often built up in periodic stages of construction.

"The one advantage of this massive destruction, to the core site, is that the remains of early domestic activity are now visible on the surface," Rosenswig wrote.

Akein Scott Identified By Police As Suspect In New Orleans Mother's Day Parade Shooting

NEW ORLEANS — Police late Monday identified a 19-year-old man as a suspect in the shooting of about 20 people during a Mother's Day parade in New Orleans, saying several people had identified him as the gunman captured by surveillance camera videos.

Superintendent Ronal Serpas said officers were looking for Akein Scott of New Orleans. He said it was too early to say whether he was the only shooter.

"We would like to remind the community and Akein Scott that the time has come for him to turn himself in," Serpas said at a news conference outside of police headquarters.

A photo of Scott hung from a podium in front of the police chief. "We know more about you than you think we know," he said.

The mass shooting showed again how far the city has to go to shake a persistent culture of violence that belies the city's festive image. Earlier, police announced a $10,000 reward and released blurry surveillance camera images, which led to several tips from the community.

"The people today chose to be on the side of the young innocent children who were shot and not on the side of a coward who shot into the crowd," Serpas said.

The superintendent said SWAT team members and U.S. marshals served a searched warrant at one location looking for Scott, and also visited two other blocks of interest.

He vowed that police would be "looking for Akein Scott for the rest of the night and tomorrow... and I would strongly recommend that Akeim turn himself in."

Angry residents said gun violence – which has flared at two other city celebrations this year – goes hand-in-hand with the city's other deeply rooted problems such as poverty and urban blight. The investigators tasked with solving Sunday's shooting work within an agency that's had its own troubles rebounding from years of corruption while trying to halt violent crime.

"The old people are scared to walk the streets. The children can't even play outside," Ronald Lewis, 61, said Monday as he sat on the front stoop of his house, about a half block from the shooting site. His window sill has a hole from a bullet that hit it last year. Across the street sits a house marked by bullets that he said were fired two weeks ago.

"The youngsters are doing all this," said Jones, who was away from home when the latest shooting broke out.

Video released early Monday shows a crowd gathered for a boisterous second-line parade suddenly scattering in all directions, with some falling to the ground. They appear to be running from a man in a white T-shirt and dark pants who turns and runs out of the picture.

Police were working to determine whether there was more than one gunman, though they initially said three people were spotted fleeing from the scene. Whoever was responsible escaped despite the presence of officers who were interspersed through the crowd as part of routine precautions for such an event.

Serpas said Scott has previously been arrested for resisting arrest, possession of a firearm and narcotics charges, with a recent arrest in March. It was not immediately clear whether he had been convicted on any of those charges.

"Akeim is no stranger to the criminal justice system," Serpas said.

Serpas said that ballistic evidence gathered at the scene was giving them "very good leads to work on."

Witness Jarrat Pytell said he was walking with friends near the parade route when the crowd suddenly began to break up.

"I saw the guy on the corner, his arm extended, firing into the crowd," said Pytell, a medical student.

"He was obviously pointing in a specific direction; he wasn't swinging the gun wildly," Pytell said.

Pytell said he tended to one woman with a severe arm fracture – he wasn't sure if it was from a bullet or a fall – and to others including an apparent shooting victim who was bleeding badly.

Three gunshot victims remained in critical condition Monday, though their wounds didn't appear to be life-threatening. Most of the wounded had been released from the hospital.

It's not the first time gunfire has shattered a festive mood in the city this year. Five people were wounded in a drive-by shooting in January after a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, and four were wounded in a shooting after an argument in the French Quarter in the days leading up to Mardi Gras. Two teens were arrested in connection with the MLK Day shootings; three men were arrested and charged in the Mardi Gras shootings.

The shootings are bloody reminders of the persistence of violence in the city, despite some recent progress.

Last week, law enforcement officials touted the indictment of 15 people in gang-related crimes, including the death of a 5-year-old girl killed by stray gunfire at a birthday party a year ago.

The city's 193 homicides in 2012 are seven fewer than the previous year, while the first three months of 2013 represented an even slower pace of killing.

On Monday night, 100 to 150 people gathered for a unity rally and peace vigil in the wake of Sunday's shootings. Some residents stood in their doorways or on their steps. At one point, trumpeter Kenneth Terry played, "O For a Closer Walk With Thee."

Robin Bevins, president of the ladies group of the Original Four Social Aid and Pleasure Club, said she and members of her organization came to the rally to show solidarity.

"This code of silence has to end," said Bevins, who's also a member of the city's Social Aid Task Force. "If we stand up and speak out, maybe this kind of thing will stop."

Amy Storper, who lives in a neighborhood near where the shooting happened, brought her 7-year-old son William to the rally.

"I felt the need to come out and show my support, to let people in this neighborhood know that people care," she said. "Perhaps if the whole city showed up, all 300,000, then maybe we can make a difference."

Mayor Mitch Landrieu walked into the area, greeting people, shaking hands and stopping to talk with some residents before addressing the crowd.

"We came back out here as a community to stand on what we call sacred ground," Landrieu said. "We came here to reclaim this spot. This shooting doesn't reflect who we are as a community or what we're about."

Leading efforts to lower the homicide rate is a police force that's faced its own internal problems and staffing issues. At about 1,200 members, the department is 300 short of its peak level.

Serpas, the chief since 2010, has been working to overcome the effects of decades of scandal and community mistrust arising from what the U.S. Justice Department says has been questionable use of force and biased policing. Landrieu and Serpas have instituted numerous reforms, but the city is at odds with the Justice Department over the cost and scope of more extensive changes.

Landrieu's administration initially agreed to a reform plan expected to cost tens of millions over the next several years. But Landrieu says he wants out now because Justice lawyers entered a separate agreement with Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman over the violent and unsanitary New Orleans jail – funded by the city but operated by Gusman.

The site of the Sunday shooting – about 1.5 miles from the heart of the French Quarter – showcases other problems facing the city. Stubborn poverty and blight are evident in the area of middle-class and low-income homes. Like other areas hit hard by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the area has been slower to repopulate than wealthier areas. And Landrieu's stepped up efforts to demolish or renovate blighted properties – a pre-Katrina problem made worse by the storm – remain too slow for some.

Frank Jones, 71, whose house is a few doors down from the shooting site, said the house across from him has been abandoned since Katrina. Squatters and drug dealers sometimes take shelter there, he said.

A city code inspector, who declined to be interviewed, was there Monday

"It's too late," Jones said. "Should have fixed it from the very beginning. A lot of people are getting fed up with the system."