Al Sharpton is fending off Uncle Sam again after the IRS took legal action claiming he owes more than a half million dollars in taxes from last year.
The IRS slapped Sharpton with a lien saying he owes an estimated $538,652, the Detroit News reported.
But Sharpton disputed the accuracy and significance of the lien. The civil-rights leader said he was granted an extension until Oct. 15 to file his 2009 tax return .
He said the IRS can’t assess what he owes from last year without knowing his income and deductions.
Sharpton — who in 2008 reached an agreement to settle previous tax woes with the IRS — said the lien was filed as a “precautionary” measure.
Somehow this slipped past the Disputations filter, but during her vacation in Spain in August, First Lady Michelle Obama revealed that her husband — a.k.a. President Obama — “always carries a picture of Mary Help of Christians in his wallet.”
Mary Help of Christians is the patroness of the Salesian order of priests and nuns, and during an Aug. 13 visit to the Spanish city of Ronda with her daughter, Sasha, the first lady stopped at the Salesian community there.
According to the Salesian news service, she told the priest in charge that her husband “always carries with him a photograph with an image of Mary Help of Christians, to whom, those present reported, the first family of the United States has great devotion.”
UPDATE: An official with the Travis County Medical Examiner’s office has confirmed that Colton Tooley, 19, was the gunman involved in the incident at the University of Texas today.
A gunman who fired shots on the University of Texas at Austin campus has been identified by authorities as a student of the university. Officials have not yet released his name.
Neil Grey was also on campus when the shootings happened. He said he saw a man wearing a black three-piece suit and a black ski mask running down 21st Street. As he ran, he fired an AK-47 in all directions.
UT police say an active shooting situation is taking place on campus. Officials believe they have the suspect contained. No other details are available.
“I’m driving there right now trying to get there,” university spokeswoman Rhonda Weldon said.
“The first report I got was that there was an armed suspect in the Perry-Casteneda library. Now I’m told by campus security that the individual has shot himself on the sixth but I’m not there yet so I can’t confirm that.”
Alicia Dietrich, public affairs assistant with the Harry Ransom Center, which is down the street from the library, said she heard the shots as she was parking her bike.
“I didn’t even know for sure that it was gunshots,” Dietrich said at 8:47 a.m. “The sirens went off about five to ten minutes ago. The building has been locked down and I don’t think they’re letting anybody in or out.”
AK-47 assault rifle located. The guy was wearing a suit and ski mask. Well, I don’t think you could miss him. (more…)
A small-town mayor and an aide were found stoned to death Monday in a drug-plagued western state, the fifth city leader to be slain in Mexico since mid-August.
Michoacan state Attorney General Jesus Montejano said the bodies of Tancitaro Mayor Gustavo Sanchez and city adviser Rafael Equihua were discovered in a pickup truck abandoned on a dirt road near the city of Uruapan.
Montejano’s spokesman, Jonathan Arredondo, said initially that the victims were hacked to death with a machete, but the attorney general said they were killed with stones.
Yet, President Calderon insists that Mexico is not a third world country.
