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Attention turned to Richardson when she called the FBI and told them that she suspected Nathaniel of sending the letters, which . (This is also worth noting: There are probably worse ways to draw attention to your illegal activity than to tell the FBI that you think someone in your house did it, but none come immediately to mind.) The FBI investigated and determined that Richardson was the most likely suspect.on the arrest in New Boston, Texas today, noting that the letters emphasized the recipients' opposition to new gun legislation.

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Inon Monday, Richardson indicated that she was innocent.

Given the recent history of ricin-letter investigations, it's worth giving Richardson the benefit of the doubt. In April, authorities arrested-and-then-unarrestedfor similarly sending letters to the president.for the crime last week, bringing the total number of names involved in the arrested suspects in these cases to ten.

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If you're curious why E! News cared about a random arrest in Texas, the answer lies in Richardson's career. Her : She's had minor parts in a number of TV shows (like Walking Dead and The Vampire Diaries) and movies you probably haven't heard of. There are perhaps worse ways to improve your name recognition as a D-list celebrity than to threaten the life of the president, but none come immediately to mind.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Many low-level tax inspectors in Germany's Nazi-era finance ministry were oblivious to the Holocaust and dutifully tried to contact murdered Jews whose wealth was being plundered by the ministry's top officials, according to a new book.

Germans have publicly atoned for Nazi crimes in a myriad of ways over six decades, providing scores of billions of dollars in reparations to Holocaust victims, their descendants and the state of Israel. But only recently have leading government ministries come clean on their own particular Nazi past.

The finance ministry's role in assisting the Nazis was long assumed as a fact but never examined in real detail until Berlin historian Christine Kuller's book "Bureaucracy and Crime", which it commissioned.

Her study shows how the Reichsfinanzministerium's top brass played an active role in looting the wealth of German Jews who fled the 1933-45 Nazi regime or were sent to death camps.

"There are indications that leading ministry officials knew about the connection (to the Holocaust) and also took part at times in the planning," Kuller told Deutschlandfunk radio before the book's formal presentation on Monday at the ministry.

"But that wasn't the case for the broad mass of ordinary tax inspectors. There are examples of where the tax inspectors tried to track down deported Jews with questions about the assets they were leaving behind. Surely the top officials must have known they were already murdered."

The finance ministry, now based in the formidable complex of buildings originally built as Hermann Goering's Luftwaffe headquarters in central Berlin, is the latest German cabinet department to critically examine its role during the Nazi era.

The foreign ministry was the first, almost a decade ago, to take a critical look at its Nazi past after long presenting itself as a bastion of resistance to Hitler even though many top officials identified with his regime and even after the war ostracized genuine opponents of Hitler's regime.

Nazi-era tax authorities appropriated property, bank account savings, securities, furniture, and artwork from Jews. Kuller said the Third Reich took "considerable sums, amounts into the billions", for state coffers.

She said Jews had estimated wealth of 16 billion Reichsmarks in 1933. About four billion was taken abroad by Jews who left Germany while the remaining 12 billion padded Hitler's coffers.

The Reichsmark was replaced by the deutsche mark in West Germany's 1948 currency reform. West Germans were allowed to exchange 10 Reichsmarks for one deutsche mark.

"The finance ministry was certainly not an apolitical, neutral administration especially if you look at the way it took part in the financial exploitation of Jews," said Kuller, a historian at Berlin's Free University who headed a commission investigating the Nazi past at the ministry's request.

"Bureaucracy and Crime" lays bare how the finance ministry systematically plundered assets from Jews but also how they were discriminated against with tax policies as well after the Nazis took power in 1933.

"Jews faced systematic discrimination and were even hit with a special tax," she said. "Their assets were also expropriated."

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

The testimony of the tea party and other conservative organizations before the House Ways and Means Committee was the first time groups complaining about the IRS's treatment have appeared directly before lawmakers since the IRS revealed the problem and apologized for it last month. They talked about applications for tax-exempt status that took three years for approval or in some cases haven't yet been approved and queries from the agency about the identity of their donors, video of meetings and whether speakers at such gatherings expressed political views.

"I'm a born-free American woman," Becky Gerritson, president of the Wetumpka Tea Party in Alabama, tearfully told the committee, adding, "I'm telling my government, you've forgotten your place."

Sue Martinek, president of the Coalition for Life of Iowa, an anti-abortion group, said the IRS asked them about "the content of our prayers."

"As Christians, we know we needed to pray for better solutions for unplanned pregnancies," she said.

The president of another group, the National Organization for Marriage, said the IRS publicly disclosed confidential information about donors. George Eastman said he thought the IRS's release of that information was designed to intimidate contributors to the group which opposes same-sex marriage "to chill them from donating again."

The testimony came as the Treasury Department inspector general who released a report last month detailing the inappropriate IRS behavior prepared to release another report, this one on excessive IRS spending at employee conferences.

At Tuesday's Ways and Means hearing, committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said the conservative groups were being singled out for their beliefs.

"They are Americans who did what we ask people to do every day add their voice to the dialogue that defines our country," Camp said. "And for pursuing that passion, for simply exercising their First Amendment rights the freedoms of association, expression and religion the IRS singled them out."

The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Sander Levin, said it was time to correct the IRS's problems.

"You are owed an apology," Levin, from Michigan, told the witnesses. "We say to you that each of us is committed to doing our part to ensure this does not happen again."

The leader of a small South Carolina tea party group said her organization first applied for tax-exempt status in 2010 and is still waiting for the application to be processed.

"Nearly three years in waiting for an answer is totally unacceptable," said Dianne Belsom, president of the Laurens County Tea Party. "The IRS needs to be fully investigated and held accountable for its incompetence harassment and targeting of conservative groups."

Belsom said her group in rural South Carolina has about 60 members and "seeks to educate ourselves and fellow citizens on various issues pertinent to living in a free country." The group also holds candidate forums in election years, she said.

"I'd like to note that our group is a small-time operation with very little money and this represents a complete waste of time by the IRS in terms of any money they would collect if we were not tax-exempt," Belsom said.

For more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns, IRS agents in a Cincinnati office singled out tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they sought tax-exempt status, according to a report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration.

The report said tea party groups were asked inappropriate questions about their donors, their political affiliations and their positions on political issues. The additional scrutiny delayed applications for an average of nearly two years, making it difficult for many of the groups to raise money.

George was scheduled to release another report Tuesday, one that said the IRS spent $50 million to hold at least 220 conferences for employees between 2010 and 2012.

The conference spending included $4 million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which requested the report.

Instead, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 a night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art," the committee said.

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel has called the conferences "an unfortunate vestige from a prior era."

Werfel took over the agency about two weeks ago, after President Barack Obama forced the previous acting commissioner to resign.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

The fossil of Aurornis xui was found last year in a museum at the Fossil and Geology Park in Yizhou, China, long after a farmer first dug it up in the Liaoning Province. The feathery specimen represents the most ancient of the avialans, the group that includes birds and their relatives since their split from nonavian dinosaurs.

The research also reconfirms the birdlike fossilas an avialan, a classification that was challenged by some recent research. []

Not everyone agrees that the new specimen is strictly a bird. "In my opinion, it's a bird," study author Pascal Godefroit, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, told . Even so, he added, "The differences between birds and [nonavian] dinosaurs are very thin."

"Traditionally, we have defined birds as things like Archaeopteryx and closer to things like modern birds," vertebrate paleontologist Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who was not involved in the study, told LiveScience. "If you stick to the definition, this thing is not earliest known bird," Chiappe said, but that's missing the point, he said. What matters, is that it's a very interesting animal that "still helps us understand better the origin of birds," he said.

Aurornis xui was a feathered dinosaur that lived during the Middle Jurassic period about 150 million years ago, analysis shows. It was about 1.6 feet (0.5 meter) from beak tip to tail tip, and possessed small, sharp teeth and long forelimbs.

The creature probably couldn't fly, Godefroit said, but may have used its wings to glide between trees. The fossil's feathers aren't well-preserved, but the hip bones and other features strongly suggest it was a relative of modern birds, he said.

The researchers assert that Aurornis displaces Archaeopteryx as the , placing Archaeopteryx further along in the avialan lineage. Since Archaeopteryx was a flying creature, its placement among avialans means dinosaurs would have only had toonce during evolutionary history.

The new findings also classify another family of birdlike dinosaurs, known as Troodontidae, as a sister group to the avialans. This reshuffling of the bird-dinosaur family tree suggests birds and nonavian dinosaurs diverged in Asia during the Middle to Late Jurassic.

The findings are detailed in the May 30 issue of the journal Nature.

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to boost incomes by 3 percent annually and set up special economic zones to attract foreign businesses in the latest tranche of measures aimed at boosting growth in the world's third-biggest economy.

Rising incomes are vital to the success of Abe's ambitious goals to end years of entrenched deflation and decades of economic stagnation during which China sped past Japan in the world's economic rankings.

The Bank of Japan's sweeping monetary expansion, announced in April, aims to achieve 2 percent inflation in less than 2 years. Analysts say wages will need to rise faster to put consumer prices and growth on a sustainable upward track.

Abe is also wary of appearing to benefit corporations over consumers ahead of a July upper house election.

"I think the most important target to achieve is per capita gross national income," Abe said in a speech on Wednesday, his latest to unveil steps aimed at engineering long-term growth.

"That's because the aim of our growth strategy is nothing other than to create jobs for enthusiastic people and raise take-home pay for those who are working hard.

"In short, to let households benefit. That's the point."

The growth strategy is the "Third Arrow" in his "Abenomics" prescription to spur sustainable growth. The first two "arrows" are hyper-easy monetary policy and big government spending.

The popular premier, who took office in December after his party's big election win, said he would target annual gains of 3 percent or more in gross national income per capita. That would be an increase of 1.5 million yen ($15,000) over 10 years from around 3.84 million yen in 2012.

Financial market investors have not given up hope that Abe's policies will end the country's prolonged economic stagnation, but a note of caution has crept in since Tokyo share prices began to slide on May 23 after months of heady gains.

The stock price falls are also a worry to Abe's government ahead of a July 21 upper house election that his party needs to win to cement his grip on power.

The benchmark Nikkei stock average soared 53 percent from the end of 2012 to a 5-1/2-year peak, but has lost around 15 percent since then as of mid-day on Wednesday. The slide continued after Abe spoke.

The yen strengthened to 99.79 to the dollar after trading around 100 yen against the dollar in the morning session, having fallen to 4-1/2-year low of 103.74 yen late last month.

Some analysts said that it was hard to see how the income gain target could be reached - especially if, as expected, the growth plan eventually includes steps that would make it easier to use temporary workers, who tend to be lower paid.

"It is hard to see how that can be reconciled with income growth," said Sophia University professor Koichi Nakano. "His government is very good at PR strategy ... but it really does look more like a campaign platform rather than anything worthy of the name of economic policies."

DEREGULATION

Abe added another set of targets to those he has already announced, aiming to boost power-related investment one and a half times to 30 trillion yen over the next decade and double the balance of inward foreign direct investment to 35 trillion yen by 2020.

But critics question if these goals are achievable.

"The government has come up with rosy numerical targets but I doubt any of these could be met or that such a targeting policy could work out as planned," said Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute. "After all, the government cannot control every economic activity just like the central bank cannot control long-term interest rates."

"'Abenomics' should not lean toward a planned economy and market players are attaching greater importance to deregulation, not these numerical targets."

The special economic zones, to be created in Tokyo and other big cities, are expected to be allowed to introduce corporate tax cuts and ease regulations to attract businesses.

Abe also said the government would allow the sale over the Internet of most over-the-counter drugs as part of efforts to mobilize the Internet for growth.

Abe has said deregulation is the top priority for boosting growth but the final package of steps - to be approved by the cabinet on June 14 along with macro-economic guidelines - is unlikely to include bold reforms in areas such as labor mobility and nationwide corporate taxes.

Japan has already vowed to target private-sector investment of 70 trillion yen annually, the level before the 2008 financial crisis and up about 10 percent from current levels.

The government also aims to triple infrastructure exports, such as bullet trains and nuclear plants, to 30 trillion yen.

It wants to double farm exports by 2020 and has set a goal of having 70 percent of exports covered by free trade deals by 2018, compared with around 19 percent now, by pushing participation in the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Economic Partnership (TPP) and other trade deals.

($1=100 yen)

(Writing by Linda Sieg; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Teacher Orvar Arnarson, 41, and student Andrimar Pordarson, 25, jumped separately, not in tandem, on Saturday after successfully completing two jumps earlier that day with 20 other people. The two Icelandic skydivers did not return from their third jump, tipping off an hours-long air and ground search around the Zephyrhills facility, about 30 miles northeast of Tampa. The bodies were discovered later that evening in the woods.

Investigators will review the helmet cam footage to try to glean more about what happened, said Pasco County sheriff's spokeswoman Melanie Snow.

The cause of death was blunt force trauma, the medical examiner's office said. Autopsy results were pending, but a preliminary investigation determined that the manner of death was accidental.

The men didn't deploy their main parachutes, which could mean that they lost altitude awareness and didn't know where they were during the jump, Skydive City co-owner T.K. Hayes told The Associated Press on Sunday. Both victims had backup automatic activation devices, but they didn't have time to fully inflate.

Out of just over 3 million jumps, 19 skydivers died last year across the U.S., according to the United States Parachute Association. Experts said it is "very rare" for two jumpers to die in the same accident.

"It happens from time to time if two skydivers collide while flying their parachutes if they don't see each other," said Nancy Koreen, Director of Sport Promotion for association.

"In that situation, their canopies can tangle, causing an accident. I don't yet know the details of this particular accident, but from what I understand, this was a different case," she said, adding that "it's extremely rare for this type of double fatality to occur."

The victims were part of a skydiving group from Iceland who travel to Florida annually.

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Speaking at the opening session of a White House conference on mental health, the president said his goal was to let people affected by these issues know they should not suffer in silence.

"Struggling with a mental illness or caring for someone who does can be isolating," Obama said. "It begins to feel as if, not only are you alone, but that you shouldn't burden others with the challenge."

The conference is part of Obama's response to last year's shooting massacre at a Connecticut elementary school. While the president emphasized that most people with mental health problems are not violent, he said untreated mental illness can lead to larger tragedies.

There's been little publicly revealed about the mental health of Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, although it's been documented that other gunmen involved in mass shootings suffered from mental illness. Federal law bans certain mentally ill people from purchasing firearms, but the background check system is woefully incomplete and Obama is trying to get more mental health records included.

"We can do something about stories like this," he said. "In many cases, treatment is available and effective."

Top administration officials, along with actors Bradley Cooper and Glenn Close, were among those participating in the White House conference.

The agenda includes discussion of insurance coverage for mental health care and substance abuse, recognizing the signs of mental illness in young people and improved access to services for veterans. The overall goal is reducing the stigma of mental health problems and encouraging those who are struggling to get help.

Vice President Joe Biden, the president's point man on gun violence, is scheduled to close it from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Around 150 invited attendees include mental health advocates and patients, educators, health care providers, faith leaders, lawmakers and local government officials from across the country.

Cooper and Close bring their advocacy and a celebrity buzz to the event.

Cooper has been promoting mental health awareness since his Oscar-nominated leading role as a man with bipolar disorder in last year's "Silver Linings Playbook," and plans to help Biden and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki close the conference.

Close said Monday that her experience is "a family affair." Her sister, Jessie, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 51 and Jessie's son, Calen, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at 19. In 2009, Close's family battles led her to help start a non-profit called Bring Change 2 Mind, which produces public service announcements to fight the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness. She is listed on a panel discussion on how to address negative attitudes about mental illness.

"What's important is social inclusion. There's a lot of stigma," Close said in an interview Monday morning with MSNBC from the White House briefing room. She said her nephew feels his brain is healing and that he's "living a full and wonderful life." Close said her sister is doing well, "but what it would have meant to her if she had early diagnosis."

"We need people living with mental illness with the courage to say this is what I am living with. I can talk about this," Close said.

The conference comes after Obama's defeat on gun control legislation. Unable to get Congress to approve background checks, an assault weapons ban and other limits on firearms, the president has vowed to do what he can through executive action.

Among 23 executive orders Obama signed in response to the shooting at Connecticut's Sandy Hook Elementary School that killed 26 was a directive that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Education Secretary Arne Duncan launch a national dialogue on mental health. The conference is part of that, with Sebelius hosting the panel on addressing negative attitudes and Duncan moderating a session on successful mental health outreach efforts.

In announcing the conference, the White House stressed that the vast majority of people with mental health conditions are not violent and are more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crimes. But the need to improve the country's mental health care system is something all sides of the gun debate have advocated, including the National Rifle Association.

"That is something substantive that Congress and the president could do right now that would actually help prevent future tragedies, unlike the gun control proposals that the president unsuccessfully tried to push through Congress," said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam

Obama announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs will conduct mental health summits nationwide to increase awareness of VA programs and link veterans and their families with community resources to support their needs. The conference also plans to tout improvements in mental health coverage under Obama's health care law, including a ban beginning next year against denying coverage to those who are mentally ill.

The White House also plans to focus on commitments being made in the private sector to increase understanding and awareness, including a campaign by the National Association of Broadcasters through television and radio ads and social media. Several organizations that work with young people also are planning to make new commitments, including high school principals holding mental health assemblies, to YMCA instructing staff and camp counselors to recognize the signs of mental health issues in kids, to religious leaders launching conversations on the issue.

___

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Christie's auction house raised $38.8 million through a charity art auction and donations, Christie's said on Tuesday, with proceeds to benefit environmental and conservation causes.

The 33 works in The 11th Hour Auction organized by the star of the new film "The Great Gatsby" sold for $31.74 million on Monday evening and set 13 records for artists including Carol Bove, Joe Bradley, Mark Grotjahn, Raymond Pettibon and Mark Ryden among others.

A $5 million matching donation for three of the lots and additional gifts from donors brought the overall total to $38.8 million for The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, according to Christie's.

"All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you," DiCaprio told the audience at the end of the auction.

Many of the works, which were created for and donated to the auction by the artists, sold in spirited bidding in a packed auction house. Art collectors from around the globe also placed bids by telephone.

"Christie's is thrilled with the exceptional results of the sale, which realized $38.8 million," said Loic Gouzer, international specialist at Christie's and the head of the sale.

"The works of art were of incredible quality and range, and highlight the generosity of the many artists who donated," he added.

A panel of environmental experts and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation will decide which conservation projects will benefit from the proceeds of the sale.

At the opening of the auction, DiCaprio, who has supported environmental issues through his foundation since 1988 and also produced and narrated the 2007 documentary "The 11th Hour" about the state of the environment, urged the audience to dig deep into their pockets.

"Bid as if the fate of the planet depended on us," he said.

And they did. All of the 33 works were sold and many fetched prices that were three or four times their pre-sale estimates.

The top lot of the sale was an oil on cardboard mounted on canvas by Mark Grotjahn called "Untitled (Standard Lotus No. II, Bird of Paradise, Tiger Mouth Face 44.01)," which sold for $6.2 million as two determined bidders pushed up the price.

Zeng Fanzhi's "The Tiger," an oil on canvas, fetched nearly double its high estimate with a price of $4.8 million, and Bharti Kher's sculpture "The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own" went for $1.7 million.

Each of the three works had a pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

DiCaprio donated "Ocean V" by Andreas Gursky, which sold for $600,000, and he bought an acrylic on canvas by Takashi Murakami for $700,000.

A portrait of DiCaprio painted by Elizabeth Peyton sold for $1 million.

Gouzer and DiCaprio had approached the artists and explained what they had hoped to accomplish with the auction, which they have been planning for a year.

"We explained that we wanted great works and they were very reactive because of the cause. The artists are very sensitive to the fact that we are destroying our planet," Gouzer said in an interview ahead of the sale.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Elias Kanengoni, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Organization, died Wednesday after collapsing at his country home. He was 60.

He was buried Monday with full military honors at Heroes' Acre, a shrine for politicians and fallen former guerrillas in the bush war that led to independence in 1980.

Kanegoni, an ex-guerrilla, and an associate were sentenced to seven years in jail for repeatedly shooting an opposition politician during an election campaign in 1990. They were freed on an immediate pardon from President Robert Mugabe.

The politician survived severe groin injuries and was a lawmaker in the prime minister's party before his death in 2009.

"We don't recognize his status as a hero at all," said Douglas Mwonzora, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party spokesman.

The heroes' shrine was meant be the resting place for defenders of people's rights and not for "hired assassins" with a history of violence, he said.

Patrick Kombayi, a former stalwart in Mugabe's party, helped found the opposition Zimbabwe Unity Movement before he was shot in the central town of Gweru.

He was wounded by seven pistol shots into his groin and abdomen and underwent genital surgery in Britain afterward.

Kombayi, elected a senator in Tsvangirai's party, had become prominent in business and served as the mayor of Gweru, where he owned the main downtown hotel.

After his 2009 death, his family mounted a permanent photographic exhibition in the hotel depicting his activism against colonial-era rule and his burgeoning opposition to Mugabe's increasingly authoritarian rule.

In a brief statement Monday, family members said they recalled Kombayi's "horrific gunshot wounds" that left him to endure years of physical pain.

Kanengoni was now honored for "protecting Mugabe's interests. What can we do as a family? Nothing. It is the system which is wrong," the statement said.

Mugabe's vice president Joice Mujuru told mourners at Heroes' Acre outside Harare on Monday that the spy chief's death left "a deep void" in the nation's intelligence service that fought against internal subversion and outside political interference.

She described him as "a dedicated freedom fighter who sacrificed life and limb to change the course of history and ensure the country remains secure."