We are extremely concerned, as he could very easily be a criminal who plans to break into our house or a peeping-tom, .

So was the drone operator right when he insisted that it was legal for him to fly above this womans yard?

The question doesnt have an easy answer, and its one that some drone researchers gathered this week in Atlanta for an international conference on unmanned aircraft are grappling with.

Paul Voss, an engineer at Smith College who entered the drone field through his work developing the worlds smallest altitude-controlled meteorological balloons, gave a talk at the conference Wednesday titled The Case for Protecting Privacy and Property Rights in the Lowermost Reaches of the Atmosphere. He argued that the drone community should be proactive in addressing privacy concerns now, before the number of drones in flight skyrockets when regulations are eased in the next few years.

At the beginning of his talk, Voss showed a photo of a drone hovering outside the second-floor window of a home, and asked the class, How many of you think this is public airspace? Only one person raised his hand.

Voss thinks that one student is probably right, though it's a legal gray area. The Supreme Court ruled in 1946 that the air above the minimum safe altitude of flight is a public highway and not subject to trespassing laws. The ruling reversed a lower courts judgment in favor of a chicken farmer who lost 150 chickens due to fighter planes flying less than 100 feet over his roof on their way to a local airbase. (The chickens were so scared by the thunderous noise that they threw themselves against the wall and killed themselves.)

The court did, however, say that homeowners should have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere so that they can build homes, plant trees and erect fences, for example. Its unclear how many feet in the air, exactly, that extends to, as Justice William O. Douglas did not go into detail in the opinion.

Thats been the courts final word, and the ruling suggests that drones can fly quite close above peoples property and be on safe legal ground.

But the bigger threat to privacy is less likely to come from nosy neighbors with tiny camera-equipped model aircraft than from well-funded law enforcement agencies or businesses that can afford to launch sophisticated drones with high-power cameras.

Brandon Stark, a drone researcher at the University of California, Merced, told the scientists at a workshop Tuesday that smaller drones are not yet sophisticated enough to merit privacy advocates concerns about spying. If youre flying [a small drone] 100 feet into the sky, youre lucky to see a tree. Actually spying on people is fairly difficult and fairly expensive, he said.

Those who can actually afford the most powerful drones are likely to be law enforcement agencies with grants from the federal government, or businesses hoping to turn a profit. That could mean a big expansion in the ability of police to gather evidence and detect crime. A 1989 Supreme Court ruling held that police can use images from manned aircraft to aid their investigations without first obtaining a warrant. In that case, a sheriff discovered a man was growing marijuana in a greenhouse by sending a helicopter to fly overhead at just 400 feet without first having to prove to a judge he had good reason to search his home.

Privacy advocates are concerned that drones will take police power to another level, since drones could in theory hover around an area continuously, surveying from the skies and reporting any suspicious activity.

Drones are tightly regulated right now by the Federal Aviation Administration, which prohibits people from using them in any commercial endeavor and requires public institutions to apply for authorization to use them. (Hobbyists can fly small drones as long as they're within sight at all times and stay under 400 feet.)

But thats all expected to change in 2015, when the agency is required by Congress to open up the skies to commercial uses of drones and attempt to integrate unmanned and manned aircraft. The agency estimates that nearly 10,000 new drones will be in flight in just the first few years after the commercial ban is lifted.

Its unclear whether the FAA will delve into any of the privacy issues when it issues its regulations on unmanned aircraft. Ted Wierzbanowski, a retired Air Force colonel who chaired a committee that made recommendations to the FAA on how to regulate small drones, said he believes the FAA should focus on safety, not privacy, in its regulations. Someone else in the government should have to worry about privacy issues. Who that is, I dont know, he said.

Amie Stepanovich, director of the Domestic Surveillance Project at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said her organization is petitioning the FAA to require a publicly accessible registry of droneswhere theyre flying, who is flying them, and what sort of data they are collectingso that concerned citizens can look up their home and see who might be watching it.

Congress, meanwhile, has shown some willingness to step in, with some Republican representatives working on a bill that would limit the polices ability to use drones without first obtaining a warrant.

Another possibility is that much of the privacy battles will be fought at the local level, with each state developing standards for how law enforcement can use drones and how to mediate disputes among neighbors who use drones. Dozens of states have introduced legislation just this year to limit the ways in which police departments can use drones.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two senior aides to President Barack Obama knew weeks ago about a watchdog report on the U.S. Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups, a spokesman said on Monday, shifting the focus to the White House in a fast-moving controversy.

White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler was told on April 24 about an upcoming report by the Treasury's Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) on the IRS practice, for which an IRS official apologized on May 10, triggering the controversy.

Soon after she learned of the report, Ruemmler briefed White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior staff, White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters at a briefing.

In his remarks about an affair that has become a major distraction early in Obama's second term, Carney shed light on how Obama's inner circle learned of the issue, but not on why low-level IRS employees began the targeting in the first place.

Answers about that core issue may emerge from congressional hearings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday where key players are scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill.

The TIGTA report, formally released last week, prompted Democrats to blame bureaucratic at the IRS for the scandal, while some Republicans alleged that the administration abused its power in targeting conservative groups.

The Treasury department's inspector general report found no evidence of that. Carney reiterated that the White House did not attempt to influence the report.

"No one in this building intervened in an ongoing independent investigation or did anything that could be seen as intervening in that investigation," Carney said.

ACTIVITY HAD ENDED

Carney said any White House intervention prior to completion of the TIGTA probe would have been inappropriate. In any case, he said, there was no urgency because the activity in question had stopped about a year earlier.

Last week, Carney downplayed what Ruemmler knew about the report, which found IRS agents had targeted conservative groups for extra scrutiny based on the use in their names of key words, such as "Tea Party" and "Patriot."

But on Monday, Carney gave reporters a more detailed accounting. He said Ruemmler was told on April 24 the report would address "line IRS employees improperly scrutinizing ... organizations by using words such as Tea Party and Patriot."

Carney said: "While we had an indication of the likely findings, until the IG finalizes his report, the findings and conclusions are subject to change."

He added, "That's why we had to wait, appropriately, until the report was publicized or published for the president to be able to review it and respond, as he did very quickly."

Obama fired acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller on Wednesday and called the inspector general's findings outrageous. The report found no evidence of political motivation for the targeting or of any White House involvement.

There was no White House intervention at any time into the contents of the report, Carney said.

PRESSURE COOKER

Obama has come under pressure in recent weeks from controversies on three fronts - the IRS scandal, the administration's explanation of last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya in which the U.S. ambassador died and the Justice Department's seizure of Associated Press phone records.

"The White House still can't get its story straight," Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said.

"Today's admission that senior White House officials were told about the IRS targeting, despite repeated suggestions to the contrary over the past week, is more evidence that this scandal requires a full investigation," he said.

As the Senate Finance Committee and House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committees prepared to hold hearings, some lawmakers were calling for the Obama administration to fire more people linked to the scandal.

Lois Lerner, chief of the IRS tax-exempt unit, was scheduled to testify on Wednesday to a Republican-controlled investigative committee of the House of Representatives, along with other officials. Lerner's apology on May 10 for the IRS targeting at a legal conference in Washington set off the furor.

Representative Sander Levin called for Lerner's resignation on Friday, saying she had recently testified to a House subcommittee and failed to disclose what she knew about the targeting. "This is wholly unacceptable," he said.

Levin is the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes tax law and oversees the IRS.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's office on Monday drew attention to a Washington Post article that questioned Lerner's statements, including her contention that applications for tax-exempt status by groups had doubled during the time period in question.

Republican Vern Buchanan, another member of the Ways and Means panel, last week called for Lerner to be dismissed.

Joseph Grant, acting commissioner for the IRS tax-exempt and government entities division and Lerner's boss, said last week that he will retire.

"I don't see how Lois makes it. It's saddening to me," said Philip Hackney, assistant law professor at Louisiana State University who worked until 2011 at the IRS with Lerner. "She is nonpartisan; I say that with great confidence."

TWO HEARINGS AHEAD

Lerner was set to testify on Wednesday to the Republican-controlled House panel alongside Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and Treasury Department Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. On Tuesday, George, Miller and Shulman were set to testify before the Democrat-controlled Senate committee.

As the IRS scandal as widened, Republicans have focused on what officials knew about the targeting and when they knew it.

The inspector general's report showed that the targeting got under way in mid-2010. In 2011, Lerner was told about how the practice was being handled at a Cincinnati field office. She halted the use of the controversial key words, but lower-level employees by January 2012 had resumed using them.

At a first congressional hearing on the matter last Friday, Republicans made clear they are looking beyond the IRS.

Democratic Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus and top committee Republican Orrin Hatch on Monday requested documents on possible White House involvement and sought nearly 300 tax-exempt status applications delayed by the targeting.

Baucus and Hatch also asked for documentation of any disciplinary action taken, and whether some lawmakers' calls for the IRS to crack down on tax-exempt groups played any role.

(Additional reporting by Nanette Byrnes and Susan Heavey; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and David Storey)

In a first-of-a-kind study, Canadian researchers tested children born to obese women, plus their brothers and sisters who were conceived after the mother had obesity surgery. Youngsters born after mom lost lots of weight were slimmer than their siblings. They also had fewer risk factors for diabetes or heart disease later in life.

More intriguing, the researchers discovered that numerous genes linked to obesity-related health problems worked differently in the younger siblings than in their older brothers and sisters.

Clearly diet and exercise play a huge role in how fit the younger siblings will continue to be, and it's a small study. But the findings suggest the children born after mom's surgery might have an advantage.

"The impact on the genes, you will see the impact for the rest of your life," predicted Dr. Marie-Claude Vohl of Laval University in Quebec City. She helped lead the work reported Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Why would there be a difference? It's not that mom passed on different genes, but how those genes operate in her child's body. The idea: Factors inside the womb seem to affect the dimmer switches that develop on a fetus' genes chemical changes that make genes speed up or slow down or switch on and off. That in turn can greatly influence health.

The sibling study is "a very clever way of looking at this," said Dr. Susan Murphy of Duke University. She wasn't involved in the Canadian research but studies uterine effects on later health. She says it makes biological sense that the earliest nutritional environment could affect a developing metabolism, although she cautions that healthier family habits after mom's surgery may play a role, too.

It's the latest evidence that the environment in this case the womb can alter how our genes work.

And the research has implications far beyond the relatively few women who take the drastic step of gastric bypass surgery before having a baby. Increasingly, scientists are hunting other ways to tackle obesity before or during pregnancy in hopes of a lasting benefit for both mother and baby.

What's clear is that obesity is "not just impacting your life, it's impacting your child," Duke's Murphy said.

More than half of pregnant women are overweight or obese, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. But it's not just a matter of how much moms weigh when they conceive doctors also are trying to stamp out the idea of eating for two. Gaining too much weight during pregnancy increases the child's risk of eventually developing obesity and diabetes, too.

What's too much? Women who are normal weight at the start of pregnancy are supposed to gain 25 to 35 pounds. Those who already are obese should gain no more than 11 to 20 pounds. Overweight mothers-to-be fall in the middle.

Sticking to those guidelines can be tough. The National Institutes of Health just began a five-year, $30 million project to help overweight or obese pregnant women do so, and track how their babies fare in the first year of life.

Called the LIFE-Moms Consortium, researchers are recruiting about 2,000 expectant mothers for seven studies around the country that are testing different approaches to a healthy weight gain and better nutritional quality. They range from putting pregnant women on meal plans and exercise programs, to weekly monitoring, to peer pressure from fellow parents trained to bring nutrition advice into the homes of low-income mothers-to-be.

It's best to get to a healthy weight before conceiving, noted Dr. Mary Evans of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, who oversees the project.

Just how much mom has to lose for a healthier baby is "obviously a research gap," she said.

Monday's research findings from Canada may shed some new light. Consider: Overweight mothers have higher levels of sugar and fat in the bloodstream, which in turn makes it to the womb.

Fetuses are "marinated, and they're differently marinated" depending on mom's weight and health, said Dr. John Kral of New York's SUNY Downstate Medical Center, who co-authored the Canadian study.

That may do more than overstimulate fetal growth. Scientists know that certain molecules regulate gene activity, attaching like chemical tags. That's what Laval University lead researcher Dr. Frederic Guenard was looking for in blood tests. He took samples from children born to 20 women before and after complex surgery that shrank their stomachs and rerouted digestion so they absorb less fat and calories. On average, they lost about 100 pounds.

Guenard compared differences in those chemical tags in more than 5,600 genes between the younger and older siblings. He found significant differences in the activity of certain genes clustered in pathways known to affect blood sugar metabolism and heart disease risk.

Only time will tell if these youngsters born after mom's surgery really get lasting benefits, whatever the reason. Meanwhile, specialists urge women planning a pregnancy to talk with their doctors about their weight ahead of time. Besides having potential long-term consequences, extra pounds can lead to a variety of immediate complications such as an increased risk of premature birth and cesarean sections.

(Reuters) - Mike Krzyzewski said on Thursday he is returning for another term as the U.S. men's national basketball team coach with the aim of leading the squad to a third successive Olympic title at the 2016 Games in Rio.

Krzyzewski, the Duke University coach who has amassed the most wins in U.S. college hoops, has a 61-2 record since taking over the U.S. national team in 2005, including Olympic golds in 2008 and 2012, and is riding a 50-game winning streak.

"It's the ultimate honor to coach our country's team," Krzyzewski, who had said several times that he would step aside after last year's triumph at the London Olympics, told a news conference at Duke in Durham, North Carolina.

"When the 2008 Olympics, the world championship in '10 and then London were all finished, I really felt it would be the end of my time coaching international basketball."

Krzyzewski said USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo had kept after him about staying on the job, recalling a hotel room meeting over room service pizza and chicken fingers, and that after consulting with his family and Duke, he decided to return.

"It is tough to give up something you've absolutely loved doing for seven years, the people you're doing it with, and most importantly, the country you're doing it for," said 66-year-old Krzyzewski, who previously coached at Army.

Colangelo, who worked with Krzyzewski to change the U.S. national team system by requiring more of a commitment from the players, joined the news conference via telephone.

"It's a perfect fit for him. I think his legacy is very much tied to USA Basketball, as it certainly is to Duke University. I could not have picked a better guy to be in that foxhole with than Coach K and it's been great," said Colangelo.

"It's been a heck of a ride, a great journey, and I'm so happy we're going to continue."

Last year, Krzyzewski steered a star-studded squad including LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony to their second successive gold medal game triumph over Spain in the London Olympics final.

Under Krzyzewski, the U.S. team has not lost since a defeat to Greece in the semi-finals of the 2006 world championship and his London gold allowed him to join American Hank Iba as the only coaches to win back-to-back Olympic crowns.

Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001, Krzyzewski has registered 957 career coaching victories on the college level, and won four national championships and made 11 Final Fours with Duke.

"I'm really excited to do it," Krzyzewski said about coaching the U.S. team.

"We'll try and do these four years the same way we did the last seven, to build it with the best players available. They're the ones who make an amazing commitment."

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

The Congressional Gold Medal will go to Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair.

Addie Mae, Carole and Cynthia, all 14, and Denise, 11, were killed when a bomb planted by white supremacists exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on Sept. 15, 1963. Twenty-two others were injured.

Denise's mother and sister, and Carole's sister were among those who stood around Obama's desk in the Oval Office as he signed the bill.

"For us to be able to be in this Oval Office with so many people who have worked hard to make this day possible, and understanding that that tragic loss, that heartbreak helped to trigger triumph and a more just and equal and fair America, that's an incredible thing for us to be able to participate in," he said.

September will mark the 50th anniversary of the bombing, which helped spur passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Three Ku Klux Klan members were convicted of the bombing years after the attack. Two are dead and one is in prison.

While Congress widely embraced awarding the medal, the idea has divided the victims' relatives.

Some are supportive while others say they would prefer financial compensation and have little interest in the award.

Sisters of Denise and Carole sat in the House gallery during the debate and vote on the measure. Relatives of Addie Mae and Cynthia, also known as Cynthia Morris, have said they aren't interested in a medal. Addie Mae's sister lost an eye in the bombing.

Also present for the bill-signing was Attorney General Eric Holder and his wife, Sharon Malone. Her late sister, Vivian Malone Jones, was one of the first black students to enroll at the University of Alabama in 1963 in defiance of racial segregation.

Reps. Terri Sewell, a Democrat, and Spencer Bachus, a Republican, led the Alabama congressional delegation's efforts to honor the bombing victims. They represent adjoining Birmingham districts in Congress.

Past recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal include George Washington, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., and his wife Coretta Scott King.

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Associated Press writer Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.

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Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

That pushed the OPEC member north African country's trade surplus down 39 percent to $7.16 billion in the January-April period of 2013, according to data released by the customs department and reported by the official APS news agency.

Earnings from energy exports dropped to $24.1 billion from $26.44 billion in the first four months of the previous year, the data showed. It provided no figures on volumes.

Finance Minister Karim Djoudi earlier this month said the government may cut spending and delay some projects if crude oil prices keep falling sharply.

Algeria started in 2010 to implement a $286 billion five-year economic plan to modernise basic infrastructure to combat social problems including unemployment and a housing shortage.

Algeria's economy grew by 2.5 percent in 2012, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which forecast a 3.3 percent growth for this year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a New York art dealer with tax fraud in connection with the sale of paintings she claimed to be the works of celebrated abstract expressionists, but some of which the government said were fakes.

Glafira Rosales, 56, faces three counts of filing false tax returns and five counts of concealing a Spanish bank account from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

"Rosales gave new meaning to the phrase 'artful dodger' by avoiding taxes on millions of dollars in income from dealing in fake art works for fake clients," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

Prosecutors said Rosales hid at least $12.5 million of income between 2006 and 2008. If convicted, the Mexican native faces up to five years in prison on each charge related to the bank account.

Tuesday's charges mark a turning point in an unusual case that, according to prosecutors and court papers, had its origins in the 1990s, when Rosales began selling dozens of previously unknown works by celebrated artists such as Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

Many of these works were in fact counterfeit, according to art experts cited by the government and lawsuits against dealers that sold some works from Rosales. One dealer, M. Knoedler & Co, shut down in 2011 after 165 years in business.

Rosales was arrested on Tuesday at her home in Sandy Point, New York, and she made an initial court appearance in Manhattan federal court in the afternoon.

Her lawyer, Steven Kartagener, argued she was not a flight risk and could post her home as security for bail. He also said Rosales was willing to wear an electronic ankle bracelet.

"She is fully prepared to come before the district court and defend herself against these charges," he said.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn disagreed and detained Rosales. "We have a defendant who has every incentive to flee," Netburn said. She set June 20 as Rosales' next court date.

Before being taken away, Rosales, who was wearing gray sweatpants and a blue sweatshirt, turned and smiled at her daughter, Isolina Bergantinos, 22, who was in the back of the courtroom.

"Obviously we're very disappointed," Kartagener said after the hearing. "But this is the first step in a long journey."

MULTIPLE LAWSUITS

According to the indictment, Rosales reaped $14.7 million by selling to Knoedler and another gallery about one dozen works she said were by artists such as de Kooning, Pollock and Rothko.

Prosecutors said Rosales claimed to represent a Swiss client or a Spanish collector, neither of whom existed, but instead kept most proceeds and transferred large sums to her boyfriend at the time.

"The artwork Rosales sold appears to be as fake as her story about the clients she claimed to represent," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge George Venizelos said in a statement.

Rosales' boyfriend was not charged. The defendant's businesses included King's Fine Arts Inc and Glafira Rosales Fine Arts LLC, according to prosecutors and New York state records.

One gallery that bought works from Rosales, Julian Weissman Fine Art Inc, was sued in October by a trust affiliated with the children of Sheikha Paula Al-Sabah of Kuwait, which accused it of selling the sheikha a worthless painting that had been attributed to Robert Motherwell.

Knoedler has faced multiple lawsuits stemming from works procured from Rosales.

In one unusual case, it was sued in February by Canadian theater producer David Mirvish.

He claimed to have invested in some actual masterpieces by Pollock the gallery had obtained from Rosales and that Knoedler cost him millions of dollars by failing to sell them. Mirvish is seeking possession of the unsold paintings.

Both of these cases are pending in Manhattan federal court.

Lawyers for Knoedler and Mirvish noted that the criminal charges focus on tax fraud, not sales of forged artwork.

"Ms. Rosales' attorneys have consistently maintained one thing - and one thing only - throughout this case, that their client never knowingly sold fake art," Mirvish's lawyer Nicholas Gravante said in an email. "For that reason, the government's decision not to charge Ms. Rosales with that offense is notable."

Charles Schmerler, a lawyer for Knoedler, said in an email that his client will continue to assist authorities and that the case against Rosales "does not affect our core arguments" in the civil litigation.

Calls to lawyers for Weissman and the trust for the sheikha's children were not immediately returned.

David Mirvish is a son of "Honest" Ed Mirvish, the late Toronto businessman and theater impresario.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Additional reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst, David Gregorio and Eric Beech)

When NASA's , the European Space Agency's Luca Parmitano and Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin officially launch on board a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station on May 28, the American astronaut will bring a few key creative items with her.

" and I am bringing some fabric with me and thread and I'm hoping to create something," Nyberg said. "I don't know yet what it will be but that's part of creativity is that it comes with the feeling of the day so I have the supplies in my hands to create if I get the opportunity and the creative notion to do so." []

Although the six-month-stint will be Nyberg's longest in space, it is not her first time visiting the International Space Station.

"I'm looking forward to the most this time actually living there," Nyberg told SPACE.com. "I visited space station in 2008 on the space shuttle Discovery, and it was a very, very quick trip, only 14 days and honestly, I don't really remember a lot of it because it just flew on by so fast."

Nyberg, 43, is planning on sharing her experiences on board the station with the world using social media, although she has only be using Twitter (where she posts from the account @AstroKarenN) for a little over a month. She is also on Pintrest with the handle: knyberg.

Nyberg follows in a line of female astronauts who have spent time on board the International Space Station.

"The females that have lived on space station before me are incredible people and have given me a lot of advice on living there and also dealing withwhile living there," Nyberg said. "So it's just fantastic to follow in their footsteps."

The Minnesota native admits that she will miss a few things about life back on Earth aside from her family.

"I also will definitely miss coffee in the morning out of a cup," Nyberg said. "It's just not quite the same when you drink your coffee from a bag."

Nyberg, Parmitano and Yurchikhin will complete the space station's Expedition 36 crew when they join NASA's Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Misurkin and Pavel Vinogradov on the orbiting laboratory at the end of the month.

The $100 billion International Space Station was constructed by 5 space agencies representing 15 different countries.

Follow Miriam Kramer onand . Follow us on , and . Original article on .

Its no surprise then that the National Weather Service was able to see a broad pattern of tornadoes coming days before they actually struck with such tragic consequences in Moore,on Monday. Its no surprise either that the 16 min. warning between final alert and tornado touchdown, though brief-seeming, was twice what was possible in the past. The unpleasant surprise is that this entire weather-forecasting infrastructure is much wobblier than it seems, and without a lot of careand a fair bit more moneythe whole thing could start to come undone.

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Running a 21st century meteorological system on the cheap is barely possible, but by federal budget standards, predicting the weather is a real bargain. Last years total outlay for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which does much of the heavy lifting when it comes to forecasting, was just shy of $5 billionor less than 1% of annual Defense Department expenditures and barely one-third of what even chronically budget-crunched NASA gets. The recent computer upgrade, which affected two main processing centers in Reston, Va., and Orlando, Fla., cost just $25 million, little more than milk money in a nearly $4 trillion federal budget. But while those modest expenditures may be enough, they leave very little room for error.

Last October, in the run-up to , a critical forecasting satellite known as GOES-East went briefly offline, effectively blinding NOAAs surveillance of exactly the portion of the coastal U.S. that the storm was approaching. A back-up satellite parked in orbit nearby was moved into position and filled in the gap until repairs could be made, but had that gone down too, the surveillance system would have been crippled. As it was, American forecasters did not anticipate the sharp left turn Sandy made as it approached the New York andregionsthe very turn that led to 200 deaths and $50 billion in damageand had to rely on European satellites and computers to make that call for them. That scared a lot of people.

Gaps are opening in both our operational and research satellites, says J. Marshall Shepherd, director of the atmospheric sciences program at the University of Georgia. If one of them goes out, its not like simply replacing a burned-out light bulb. These things take years to build and launch.

(WATCH:)

GOES-East, as its geosynchronous label suggests, orbits at a high enough altitude that the speed of its orbit matches the rotation of the Earth, meaning that it can simply hover in the sky above the eastern half of the country. A counterpart, GOES-West, monitors the other half. Up to five other U.S. satellites move in polar orbits, circling the Earth longitudinally instead of latitudinally, allowing them to collect global weather datathe large-scale systems that are the engine of our continental system, which in turn drives the in-your-state, on-your-block systems.

Its the satellite fleet thats in the most immediate need of capital investmentfar more so than the computer and radar systems are. NOAA soughtand gota $117 million increase for satellites in the upcoming federal budget, though the exact dollar amount could change as details are hammered out in Congress. That money will have to be made to go a long way. Its not just GOES-East thats having problems. GOES-West and the back-up satellite are getting old too, and all could begin failing irreparably by 2015. The polar satellites are not expected to last past 2016. Replacement satellites for all of these are not projected to go up until the very years the existing ones begin flickering, which means that any slippage in the design, construction and launch schedules could mean a wide gap in coverage.

All of these satellites are in the twilight of their existence, especially the polar-orbiting ones, says Shepherd. The GOES are all living on borrowed time.

(PHOTOS:)

The $25 million that so effectively boosted NOAAs computing power came from a supplemental appropriations bill that was voted on and passed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and it was a welcome infusion of much-needed cash. But it was a one-time infusion, and even a system thats 30 times more powerful than what it was is still woefully short of where it should be. What we really need is to be 100 times better than what we were, says atmospheric sciences professor Cliff Mass of the University of Washington. This gets us roughly to parity with the power of the European system, but we have to do much better.

Theres more than just bragging rights at work there. The European computers conduct only global modeling and leave the smaller-scale stuffthe equivalent of state and local forecastingto the individual countries. The U.S. system has to do it allcovering our entire 3.7 million sq. mi. land mass (6 million sq. km), while the Europeans get to parcel out their 3.9 million sq. mi. (6.3 million sq. km). So until we began upgrading, says Mass, Europe had ten times the computing power we did and was being called on to do a lot less with it.

More computer muscle will make it possible for the U.S. to conduct what are known as ensemble forecasts. Instead of running a weather model once or perhaps twice or three times in a row to check it for accuracy, you conduct it 50 times, simultaneously, on multiple systems, producing a much higher resolution forecast. This gives you a resolution down to about 2 km (1.25 mi.), which is what you need, says Mass. The weather service simply has not had that kind of capability.

The bright spot in all of thisthe one area that wins only ravesis the Doppler radar web. It was radar that may have made the greatest difference in Oklahomaadding critical minutes to the warning timeand radar that will continue to look out for people on the ground as the tornado season plays out and the hurricane season begins. A lot of the systems accuracy is due to the relatively recent implementation of whats known as dual-polarization radarpulses that are sent out both horizontally and vertically (compared to just horizontally in the past) and can better distinguish, say, rain from snow from hail, or from dust or even insect swarms for that matter, a not-insignificant ability as a 17-year locust infestation begins. We have a magnificent radar system, Mass says simply. We have capabilities we just didnt have at all 30 years ago.

That is a very good thing, especially in the wake of the very, very bad things that unfolded in Oklahomabut our ability has to get better still. Spending tens of millions of dollars now to avoid tens of billions of dollars in damages later is a wise investment by any measure. Avoiding the loss of homes, livelihoods and lives is an investment dividend that can not even be calculated.

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LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - The gang's back together!

NBC announced on Friday that pop diva Christina Aguilera and funk singer Cee Lo Green will be reuniting with pop star Adam Levine and country singer Blake Shelton for Season 5, as TheWrap was the first to report.

The network also said that Shakira and Usher are set to return on Season 6, which will air in midseason 2014.

"We locked in a plan several months ago to have the outstanding Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green rejoin Blake and Adam for cycle 5, and we're pleased to announce that the original four coaches are going to be back together in the fall," said president of alternative and late night programming Paul Telegdy in a statement.

"They're the reason this show was launched so strong for the first three cycles and we owe them a debt of gratitude. And after careful consideration of everyone's schedules for next spring, we are excited to be returning the current cycle of judges - Shakira and Usher along with Blake and Adam - for cycle 6, which will premiere after the Winter Olympics," he continued.

Green just inked his contract to return this week. Aguilera is set to return with a $12 million base salary with the potential to reach $17 million, an individual with knowledge of the deal told TheWrap.

Aguilera took Season 4 off to focus on her "Lotus" album and tour. Meanwhile, Cee Lo Green took off to work on new music and his Las Vegas residency. They were replaced by Shakira and Usher on the current season.

"I am so thrilled that our 'Voice' family has grown from four coaches to six," said executive producer Mark Burnett.

"This show thrives on the ability of our coaches to continue to balance their enormous music careers with working on 'The Voice' to coach some of the best undiscovered talent in America," he continued. "The coaching panel of Christina, Cee Lo, Adam and Blake was at the heart of this show in its first three seasons and we are so lucky to have found equal success with Shakira and Usher in season four. Our best seasons are ahead of us."

"The Voice" has quickly risen to the top of the reality talent show ranks over its past four seasons. Last year, it took "Idol's" spot in the Emmy race, replacing it among the nominees in the Outstanding Reality Competition category.

In April, it reached a ratings milestone when its two installments took the top two slots for the week in both the advertiser-coveted 18-49 demographic and in total viewers for the first time in the series' history.

"The Voice" airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m./7c on NBC.