Q. Is global warming to blame?

A. You can't blame a single weather event on global warming. In any case, scientists just don't know whether there will be more or fewer twisters as global warming increases. Tornadoes arise from very local conditions, and so they're not as influenced by climate change as much as larger weather systems like hurricanes and nor'easters. They're not easy to incorporate in the large computer simulations scientists use to gauge the impact of global warming.

And when scientists ponder the key weather ingredients that lead to twisters, there's still no clear answer about whether to expect more or fewer twisters. Some scientists theorize that the jet stream is changing because sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking. And the jet stream pattern drives weather in the Northern Hemisphere.

Q. How does this tornado season stack up against previous ones?

A. The season got off to a quiet start this year. Typically, there are more during spring, and the numbers dwindle in the worst heat of the summer. An unusually cool spring kept the funnel clouds at bay until mid-May this year. The last two seasons illustrate the extremes in tornado activity. In 2011, the United States saw its second-deadliest tornado season. Last year, it was busy in April but there were few twisters after that.

Q. What happened in Oklahoma?

A. The tornado destroyed two elementary schools and flattened neighborhoods with winds estimated between 200 and 210 mph. The National Weather Service on Tuesday gave the twister a top-of-the-scale ranking of EF5. The tornado at some points was 1.3 miles wide, and its path went on for 17 miles and 40 minutes.

Q. How did it form?

A. Like the most destructive and deadly tornadoes, this one came from a rotating thunderstorm. The thunderstorm developed in an area where warm moist air rose into cooler air. Winds in the area caused the storm to rotate, and that rotation promoted the development of a tornado.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Eight-time world champion Floyd Mayweather refused to be drawn into a war of words at the final news conference for his WBC welterweight title clash with Robert Guerrero on Wednesday, despite being labeled a "woman beater" by his opponent's father.

The undefeated Mayweather (43-0, 26 KOs), who has said he has 30 months of boxing left before he brings the curtain down on his career, was a picture of calm as Ruben Guerrero screamed at him: "We are going to beat the woman beater".

Mayweather served two months of a 90-day sentence for domestic violence last year.

"I don't have to sit here and badmouth his father," shrugged Mayweather after the news conference. "Only God can judge me."

The fight in Las Vegas on Saturday will mark a turning point in Mayweather's often contentious relationship with his own father, Floyd Sr, who will be in his corner for the first time since a March 2000 win over Gregorio Vargas.

"My dad is sick, and if I never made a bond with my father and something harsh happened, it would hurt me," said Mayweather of his father, who has been suffering from sarcoidosis. Mending fences with his father, he adds, has yielded professional as well as personal benefits.

"There's certain things only my dad may see in training camp," he told reporters. "For this fight, I made sure I got more rest.

"My dad said, 'You need the rest. And when you've rested, you can come back and box in the gym and you're going to look a lot better.' And he was right. I feel like I'm in tip-top shape, tip-top condition. I'm ready to fight."

Guerrero, too, is ready to fight, and believes Mayweather has invited more stress on himself by starting the countdown clock on his career.

"They say the pressure is on me. The pressure is on him to stay undefeated, to keep his legacy going," Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KOs) told reporters on Wednesday. "He has these 30 months left, and he's got a lot of stuff to fulfill, so I think the pressure is on him and not me."

Guerrero first called for a fight with Mayweather in 2011, even though at lightweight he was two weight divisions lower.

However, he made the step up to welterweight and scored two victories last year, including a thrilling brawl with former title holder Andre Berto in November, to earn the shot at Mayweather's title.

"Definitely, I absolutely believed I would get (the fight)," said Guerrero. "That's why I kept on it, and kept fighting the fights I needed to get myself in position to make it happen, and here it is."

The 53-year-old, who led the Bills to four successive Super Bowl appearances in the early 1990s, is suffering from squamous-cell carcinoma and will have surgery on Friday.

"This past couple of weeks has been difficult for me and because of the nature of social media I thought it would be best to share with everyone what has been going on with my health," Kelly said in a statement.

"I have undergone tests which have shown that the cancer is isolated to my upper jaw and has not spread to other parts of my body ... and doctors have told me that the prognosis for my recovery is very good."

Kelly spent his entire 11-season National Football League career with the Bills, throwing for a franchise record 35,467 yards and 237 touchdowns. He retired after the 1996 season and was inducted into Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2002. (Reporting by Julian Linden in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

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This article was

They, and some small businesses, will have to find replacement plans and that has some state insurance officials worried about consumer confusion.

Rollout of the Affordable Care Act is going full speed ahead, despite repeal efforts by congressional Republicans. New insurance markets called exchanges are to open in every state this fall. Middle-class consumers who don't get coverage on the job will be able to pick private health plans, while low-income people will be steered to an expanded version of Medicaid in states that accept it.

The goal is to cover most of the nation's nearly 50 million uninsured, but even Obama says there will be bumps in the road. And discontinued insurance plans could be another bump.

Also, it doesn't seem to square with one of the president's best known promises about his health care overhaul: "If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan."

But supporters of the overhaul are betting that consumers won't object once they realize the coverage they will get under the new law is superior to current bare-bones insurance. For example, insurers will no longer be able to turn people down because of medical problems.

Other bumps on the road to the new health care law include potentially unaffordable premiums for smokers unless states act to waive them, a new $63-per-head fee that will hit companies already providing coverage to employees and dependents, and a long-term care insurance program that had to be canceled because of the risk it could go belly up

The Obama administration did not respond directly to questions about the potential fallout from cancellation notices. Instead, Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters released a prepared statement saying: "Beginning in October, individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for insurance in the marketplace, where we are already seeing that increased competition and transparency are leading to a range of options for quality, affordable plans."

For the most part, state insurance commissioners are giving insurers the option of canceling existing plans or changing them to comply with new federal requirements. Large employer plans that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected.

Seen as consumer safeguards by the administration, the new requirements limit costs paid by policyholders, and also expand benefits. That includes better preventive care, and also improved prescription coverage in many cases. The most important feature may be protection for your pocketbook if you get really sick: The new plans limit copayments and other out-of-pocket costs to $6,400 a year for individuals.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners says it is hearing that many carriers will cancel policies and issue new ones because administratively that is easier than changing existing plans.

About 14 million Americans currently purchase their health policies individually, a number expected to more than double eventually because of the new law's subsidies and one-stop insurance markets. But the transition may not be seamless.

"The impending changes ... have the potential to cause policyholder confusion," said a recent memo from Iowa Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart to insurers. Though a Republican-led state, Iowa is helping to carry out major portions of the health care law.

Nationally a considerable number of people could be affected by cancellations. Information from insurers is still dribbling in to state regulators.

In Washington state, the changes will affect more than 400,000 people, said Stephanie Marquis, spokeswoman for insurance commissioner Mike Kreidler. Marquis said she expects the premiums for replacement plans to be similar to current ones, but with better coverage.

"Your costs involve more than your premiums," Marquis explained. "It's also what you would have to pay out of pocket if you had actually used your health plan."

Others see an encroaching nanny state.

"You're going to be forcibly upgraded," said Bob Laszewski, a health care industry consultant. "It's like showing up at the airline counter and being told, 'You have no choice, $300 please. You're getting a first-class ticket, why are you complaining?'"

Obama's promise dates back to June of 2009, when Congress was starting to grapple with overhauling the health care system to cover uninsured Americans. Later that summer, public anxieties about changes would erupt at dozens of angry congressional town hall meetings with constituents.

"If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period," the president reassured the American Medical Association. "No one will take it away, no matter what."

At the time, some saw the promise as too broad, given that health plans are constantly being changed by the employers that sponsor them or by insurers directly.

Nonetheless, Democrats in Congress devised a complicated scheme called "grandfathering" to try to deliver on Obama's pledge. It can shield plans from many of the law's requirements, provided the plans themselves change little.

State officials said it has proven impractical in most cases for insurers to "grandfather" plans sold to individuals.

Questions and answers for Virginia insurers provided by state regulators say most carriers are expected to file new policies "given the extensive amount of changes resulting from state and federal laws."

A Washington state insurance department presentation for insurers says plans must mail their discontinuation and replacement notices to consumers by Sept. 15.

State insurance spokeswoman Marquis said, "I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing that they are going to be getting a replacement notice, because they going to be able to go out and shop in this marketplace and they'll be getting better coverage."

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co raised its 2013 earnings outlook after quarterly results beat low expectations, as CEO Meg Whitman's turnaround plan helped offset shrinking personal computer sales with enterprise computing services.

While fiscal second-quarter profit plummeted 32 percent, Wall Street had braced for worse. HP shares gained 14 percent after the company projected full-year earnings per share of $3.50 to $3.60, raising the lower end by 10 cents, and fiscal third-quarter profit that topped analyst estimates.

Whitman, who took the helm at the world's largest PC maker more than a year ago, is orchestrating a turnaround, trying to recapture some of the Silicon Valley icon's former strong growth. She has said the process could take years.

HP received a warmer welcome from investors for its results than smaller rival Dell Inc, which last week reported a 79 percent slide in profit and is now mired in a takeover battle between founder Michael Dell and activist investor Carl Icahn.

"This is another good deposit on the road to our turnaround here," HP Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak said in an interview. "We are roughly where we want to be in total on the company."

Enterprise services and printing units are "probably a little bit ahead," she said, adding the two businesses helped drive the company's gross margin improvement during the quarter.

HP's net income fell to $1.08 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $1.59 billion, or 80 cents a share, a year earlier.

The company earned 87 cents per share on an operating basis during the second quarter on revenue of $27.6 billion.

HP had been expected to post earnings of 81 cents a share on revenue of just over $28 billion, according to the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

For its fiscal third quarter, it estimated non-GAAP earnings per share of 84 to 87 cents, higher than 83 cents expected by Wall Street analysts.

Its shares, which have climbed 51 percent in 2013 as investors gradually gained confidence in its prospects, rose 13 percent to $24.08 in extended trading after closing at $21.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.

STEEP DECLINE IN PC SALES

HP, whose name is synonymous with the birth of Silicon Valley, has suffered years of turbulence. Whitman became HP's third CEO in as many years after Leo Apotheker's abrupt dismissal.

She is now pushing layoffs, cost cutting, and expansion into markets and areas with longer-term potential such as enterprise computing services. The move, intended to bolster margins, pits HP against the likes of IBM.

HP is laying off 29,000 employees over the next two years and has written off $10.8 billion mostly related to the writedown of its EDS services business.

Lesjak said so far the company had reduced 18,800 jobs and intends to cut a total of 26,000 by the end of the year.

On Wednesday, the company reported that revenue fell across HP's main business divisions, with the steepest decline in the personal systems group. Sales from HP's largest, PC-focused unit dived 20 percent to $7.58 billion.

But that same division recorded a 3.2 percent operating margin, up from about 2.7 percent in the previous quarter, as the company focused on improving profitability.

The printing division had the smallest revenue decline, of 1 percent, year over year, but the company said it had a "strong operating margin" of 15.8 percent.

HP generated $3.6 billion in cash flow during the quarter and used some of the funds to reduce net debt by $1.8 billion to $2.9 billion. The company had $13.6 billion in gross cash at the end of the quarter.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Richard Chang and David Gregorio)

Though Tatum is currently filming Jupiter Ascending in London (where his wife will give birth to their firstborn child any day), the 33-year-old star jokes that he'd like to find a project that requires less exercise.

"I feel like I have to do a chess movie that requires very little movement at some point, just so I can eat pizza and play chess on the beach all day," Tatum says. "And then eat more pizza and cheeseburgers and drink beer. That'd be amazing. I'd give anything for that. I gotta figure that movie out!"

Though Tatum doesn't divulge any baby details, he does reveal his secret to a happy marriage. "You have to want it," he explains. "Jenna's and my thing is checking in with each other all the time, like 'On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you love me right now?' And you gotta be honest, and you've got to want an honest answer."

The 10 Years actress isn't the only one who's honest with Tatum. The Magic Mike actor tellshis childhood pals go to great lengths to ensure he doesn't get too big for his britches. "My friends keep me grounded. It's embarrassing to tell you how much my friends make fun of me," he laughs. "Seriously, when you have a doll made of your face, it's ridiculous how creative your friends can get -- pictures, videos, little animated cartoons they've made. And they're way, way not PG-13. So I get chopped down to size all the time."

This article originally appeared on Usmagazine.com:

BRUSSELS/PARIS (Reuters) - Growing concern in European capitals about aggressive tax avoidance by high-profile corporations such as Amazon, Google and Apple looks set to steal the agenda of a European Union summit in Brussels on Wednesday.

The summit was originally called to discuss energy policy and tax coordination, but press reports in Britain, France and the United States exposing how little tax major international companies have been paying by carefully structuring their European operations has forced the issue up the agenda.

France and Britain in particular have grown concerned by the sheer scale of the legal tax schemes, with a U.S. investigation revealing on Monday that Apple Inchad paid just 2 percent tax on $74 billion in overseas income, largely by exploiting a loophole in Ireland's tax code.

That followed reports that the British unit of Amazonpaid just $3.7 million tax on 2012 sales of $6.5 billion, and similar revelations concerning Google'sand Starbucks'sUK operations.

In all, officials have said that tax avoidance and evasion costs the EU around 1 trillion euros a year.

"A lot of these revenues (from the digital economy) are not getting taxed," said a French diplomat briefing reporters in Paris ahead of the EU summit. "We need to find a way of bringing home the tax on these activities."

Officials said French President Francois Hollande could raise the issue with the EU's 27 leaders, although it was unclear what agreement could be reached with little advanced preparation and just four hours of talks scheduled.

A draft of the summit's declaration, which is agreed in advance but can be changed, set out nine specific proposals for strengthening tax policy and coordination, including fighting tax avoidance schemes and the process of routing profits abroad.

"Work will be carried forward as regards the Commission's recommendations on aggressive tax planning and profit shifting," a draft seen by Reuters read.

"The Commission intends to present a proposal before the end of the year for the revision of the 'parent/subsidiary' directive, and is reviewing the anti-abuse provisions in relevant EU legislation."

NAME NO NAMES

But officials played down the possibility of immediate steps to close tax loopholes or any 'naming and shaming' of companies in the final summit declaration, saying it was primarily up to EU member states to craft the necessary legislation.

"We agree that companies shouldn't be able to avoid tax by pursuing aggressive tax avoidance schemes," said an EU official involved in handling preparations for the summit.

"But while companies may be using loopholes to pay as little tax as possible, the truth is it's a national issue. It's up to the relevant member states to change their tax codes and tighten the net."

The official said the most likely outcome from the talks was tougher language on strengthening bilateral tax treaties and bolstering so-called "anti-abuse" rules in national legislation.

"I can see the issue hijacking this summit, but the fact is there are recommendations out there already and it's up to countries to explore them," he said, referring to recommendations the Commission made last December on tackling aggressive tax planning and the erosion of the tax base.

France has already shown its willingness to take on major U.S. companies. In 2011, French authorities raided Google in an investigation of whether its Paris office does sales work. The company was asked to pay 1.7 billion euros in back taxes.

A similar issue has arisen with how Google operates in Britain, with questions raised about whether its sales staff are based abroad or actually in the country.

Google has said it follows tax rules everywhere it operates and that references to selling in job ads reflect the fact Google likes to hire people with a sales background.

In a briefing ahead of the Wednesday's gathering, a senior EU diplomat sidestepped suggestions that EU leaders were looking to take on specific companies, but said the issue was serious.

(Writing by Luke Baker; additional reporting by Adrian Croft in Brussels and Mark John in Paris)

KUWAIT (Reuters) - After two lackluster decades, Kuwait is experiencing a quiet revival of an arts scene once known as the most avant garde in the Gulf, thanks to a new generation eager to tackle sensitive issues using cutting-edge art forms.

The artists have been exhibiting works in the graphic arts, photography, animation and fashion in private galleries but also bypassing traditional venues and arts groups - and possible censorship - by showing their work online to reach an audience beyond the 3.7 million people in Kuwait.

"They are creating an excellent buzz," said Lucy Topalian, who runs the Dar Al Funoon gallery in Kuwait which showcases contemporary art from around the world.

Young people in tailored trousers and elegant jackets packed her small gallery earlier this month to view Abdullah al-Saab's dark dresses, shirts and capes hanging from the ceiling in front of large black-and-white photographs.

The people in the photographs were blindfolded, some with labels such as "wife", "lover" or "friend". One depicted a man - the designer himself - bound with a thick rope, another a woman in a smart dress spilling coffee from a paper cup as a foreign maid kneeled on the floor to clear up the mess.

"I thought that some people would take it a little bit sensitively. The amazing thing is that they actually have an open mind and they can relate to it," said Saab, 27, on the opening night of the show, "Boundaries".

Art aficionados and experts say those like Saab in their 20s and 30s are helping to revive a cultural life damaged by indifference, religious conservatism and, possibly most importantly, the Iraqi invasion in 1990.

Kuwait has since rebuilt its badly damaged oil infrastructure and in recent years private companies have poured money into building skyscrapers, shopping malls and restaurants.

But many believe the arts have been neglected in a country where state spending on basic public infrastructure has slowed in recent years due to bureaucracy and political infighting, despite huge oil revenues.

They point out that elsewhere in the Gulf, governments have not only spent heavily on transport and transforming public spaces, but also invested in museums and art projects.

DESTRUCTION OF WAR

When Sheikha Paula al-Sabah came home after U.S.-led troops expelled Saddam Hussein's forces in 1991, she found her house had been wrecked and the walls stripped of Middle Eastern and Western art collected over decades. It took her several years before she could bear to collect again.

"We have to catch up on a lot of things, but obviously there were so many other things that were a priority when your whole infrastructure was destroyed," Sheika Paula, an American who married a member of Kuwait's royal family, told Reuters.

Other Gulf cities like Dubai and Doha pulled ahead in the international arts world in the period, but some connoisseurs say Kuwait still holds the edge thanks to its rich cultural history and relative openness.

"The rest of the Gulf hasn't caught up with where Kuwait was 50 years ago, not only politically but also culturally," said Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, an influential UAE collector and commentator and founder of the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation.

He cited Kuwaiti theatre, art exhibitions, commissions and patronage, television and radio drama as examples of creative innovation.

"However, today the art scene is in need of a long-overdue revival," he said, calling for national museums to be renovated and reopened.

Sheikha Paula agreed it was time for the country to improve its exhibition spaces, renovate museums and celebrate its comprehensive Islamic art collection.

She cited the opening of the Contemporary Art Platform gallery and annual auctions organized by her daughter Lulu as evidence of a new phase in Kuwait's cultural life.

"It is a moment whose time has come," the former New Yorker said. "These young collectors now are in their late 20s and 30s. So this is a whole new energy. This is a whole new way of looking at art."

That energy comes from challenging traditional ideas, said Wafaa al-Husaini, a 23-year-old design student at the American University of Kuwait who uses 3D animation and graphics to explore issues such as sectarianism and feminism.

She set up a feminist group called Neda, which is organized online and distributes posters of women doing things normally seen as culturally unacceptable for them such as riding a motorbike, fixing a car or smoking.

"I think it is the younger generation that is rebelling against the norms and boundaries," she said, dressed in a T-shirt she designed with the slogan "I am a man" in decorated Arabic script.

CREATIVE FREEDOM

Kuwait enjoys greater political freedom and debate than the other countries in the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council and this feeds into an environment where artists can afford to take bigger risks, artists and art lovers said. Limits remain, however.

Graphic designer Mohammad Sharaf described his bemusement on reading news reports from neighboring Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive, that women would no longer be stopped from bicycling in parks as long as they were accompanied by a male guardian.

"It was so silly, I did not expect it was true actually, when I saw (the news) the first time," Sharaf, 31, said in his office scattered with posters and art books in a shopping mall. "I illustrated the real scene according to what they described."

"Allowed" shows a Saudi woman on a bicycle with her guardian in a small basket behind her, staring out over the top of her head. The simple black, white and red image was used widely in Arab and Western media and reposted on hundreds of blogs and other Websites.

Sharaf has also produced work about his native Kuwait, such as a poster showing the parliament building made of bones or pieces about free speech, inspired in part by the explosion of democratic debate in North Africa and the Middle East sparked by the Arab Spring uprisings.

He says he has not faced any restrictions in Kuwait, but adds he keeps his works subtle and any criticism indirect.

"I don't assign names, or something very certain; it's always vague. Actually it protects me, and from another aspect, each viewer can absorb it differently," he said.

Some more established artists have run into difficulties after pushing the boundaries. Shurooq Amin's "It's a Man's World" exhibition was shut down in 2012 in Kuwait after authorities said her paintings were "obscene".

A painting of a woman in a mini-dress sitting on a man's lap entitled "My Mistress and Family" and another showing three men playing cards and drinking what appeared to be contraband alcohol were deemed by authorities a step too far.

Yet in April this year she received an "Artist of the Year" prize at the Arab Woman Awards held in Kuwait, in what she sees as a sign of an improved appreciation of bold artwork.

Amin said it was important to quietly encourage young artists in a country where such a career can be especially difficult.

"It is not a big gigantic scream from the top of a mountain, it's a little whisper in someone's ear," she said.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, later informed the White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior staff members about the politically damaging preliminary findings of inappropriate activity by some IRS employees.

President Barack Obama was not told and no one at the White House intervened in what was an ongoing probe at the time into the IRS targeting of conservative groups, Carney told reporters.

(Reporting By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason)