The Slatest

Two firefighters break through concrete during the search for survivors in the remains of the Plaza Towers Elementary School after it was hit by a tornado on May 20, 2013 in Moore, Okla.

Photo by Maj. Geoff Legler, Oklahoma National Guard Public Affairs/U.S. Department of Defense via Getty Images

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Search Nears End: Associated Press: "The search for survivors and the dead is nearly complete in the Oklahoma City suburb that was smashed by a mammoth tornado, the fire chief said Tuesday. Gary Bird said he's '98 percent sure' there are no more survivors or bodies to recover under the rubble in Moore, a community of 56,000 people. His comments came after emergency crews spent much of the day searching the town's broken remnants for survivors of the twister that flattened homes and demolished an elementary school. The storm killed at least 24 people, including at least nine children. Every damaged home has been searched at least once, Bird said. His goal is to conduct three searches of each location just to be sure. He was hopeful the work could be completed by nightfall, but the efforts were being hampered by heavy rain. No additional survivors or bodies have been found since Monday night, Bird said."

Death Toll Difficult to Pin Down: More AP: "Earlier in the day, the state medical examiner's office cut the estimated death toll by more than half.  ... Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner, said she believes some victims were counted twice in the early chaos of the storm that struck Monday afternoon. Downed communication lines and problems sharing information with officers exacerbated the problem, she said. 'It was a very eventful night,' Elliott said. 'I truly expect that they'll find more today.'"

Safe Rooms Tied Up In Red Tape: NBC News: "Officials in the Oklahoma City suburb ravaged by deadly tornadoes Monday complained earlier this year about FEMA’s foot-dragging over $2 million in federal grants for 'safe rooms' in 800 homes that would protect people from severe weather. 'Our countywide Hazard Mitigation Plan still has not been approved by the State and FEMA,' said a statement posted in February on the City of Moore’s website. It said that changes to federal requirements occurred while the city’s contractor was preparing the plan, adding, 'We’ve found that the FEMA requirements …  seem to be a constantly moving target.' ... In October 2011, the city collected the name of Moore residents interested in applying for the federal money. In order for residents to be eligible for the money, the city and other communities in Cleveland County had to submit an updated 'Hazard Mitigation Plan' for FEMA and state approval. ... In May 2012, according to city’s website, the county-wide plan was almost finished and the city anticipated final approval of the plan by November. ... But in an update in February,  the officials said the Hazard Mitigation Plan had to be rewritten because of the 'new wrinkles.'"

(Another) Storms A-Comin': CBS News: "More severe weather is in the forecast for parts of the central United States already reeling from powerful tornadoes this week. Forecasters say golf ball-sized hail, powerful winds and isolated, strong tornadoes could strike areas of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma on Tuesday. The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for Central and North Texas until 7 p.m. ET and much of south and southwestern Arkansas until 10 p.m. ET. ... The area at risk for the worst weather does not include Moore, Okla., near Oklahoma City where dozens of people were killed in a monstrous tornado Monday. However, intermittent reports of lightning and strong rains continued throughout Tuesday in the area around Oklahoma City. Severe weather warnings extend through most of the central United States, with conditions ripe for large storms from Michigan to Texas."

Happy Tuesday and welcome to the Slatest PM, follow your afternoon host on Twitter at @JoshVoorhees and the whole team at @slatest.

Volunteers help clean out Jean McAdams' mobile home after it was overturned by a tornado May 20, 2013 near Shawnee, Oklahoma

Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images

A powerful, two-mile-wide tornado tore through Moore, Okla., Monday afternoon, killing an untold number of people, leveling at least two elementary schools, and destroying countless homes and buildings in the process. The latest word out of the Oklahoma City suburb puts the official toll at 24, a figure well below Monday's official estimates. Still, things don't look good and the tally may still climb higher. "Numerous neighborhoods were completely leveled," Sgt. Gary Knight of the Oklahoma City Police Department told the New York Times by telephone. "Neighborhoods just wiped clean."

Billionaire David Koch, chairman of the board of the conservative Americans for Prosperity (AFP) advocacy group, attends a rally in Washington on November 5, 2011

Photo by Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

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The White House's IRS Timeline Comes Into Focus: Washington Post: "Senior White House officials, including Chief of Staff Dennis McDonough, learned last month about a review by the Treasury Department’s inspector general into whether the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, but they did not inform President Obama, the White House said Monday. The acknowledgement is the White House’s latest disclosure in a continual release of details concerning the extent to which White House officials knew of the IG’s findings that IRS officials engaged in the 'inappropriate' targeting of conservative non-profits for heightened scrutiny. Previously, the White House said counsel Kathryn Ruemmler did not learn about the final results of the investigation until the week of April 22nd, and had not disclosed that McDonough and other aides had also been told about the investigation. On Monday, Carney said the chief of staff and other aides learned of the probe the week of April 16, along with a member of Ruemmler’s staff. The White House has said President Obama did not learn of the IRS’s actions until he saw news reports on the matter earlier this month."

The Senate Still Has Questions: New York Times: "If the Internal Revenue Service and the Obama administration thought the Senate Finance Committee and its Democratic leaders would offer something of a respite from the battering they have been taking from Congressional Republicans, they learned otherwise on Monday. Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who is the chairman of the committee, and Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the ranking Republican, forwarded a six-page letter to Steven Miller, the acting I.R.S. commissioner, who announced his resignation last week. It contained 41 pointed questions about the I.R.S.’s efforts to single out for special scrutiny conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status. Those questions, which are to be answered by May 31, go well beyond the agency’s actions and address the questions Republicans have been asking for a week: Who in the Obama administration knew what? And when did they know it?"

Specifically: From the letter: "Provide copies of all documents between I.R.S. employee(s) and anyone else regarding the targeting of applications based on the existence of certain phrases and/or subjecting those targeted applications to full development and heightened scrutiny ... Was the decision to target any tax-exempt applications for review and subject them to full development or heightened scrutiny influenced or prompted in any way by political pressure directed at the I.R.S. from any members of the Congress or other elected officials? ... Provide documents relating to communications between any and all I.R.S. employees and any and all White House employees, including, but not limited to, the president, regarding the targeting." The panel also demanded the identiy "by name, grade and position title" of "every I.R.S. supervisor, I.R.S. manager or other I.R.S. employee who became aware that any individual in the White House or Treasury Department became aware of any improper targeting."

Rove's Crossroads Cries Foul: Los Angeles Times: "Crossroads GPS, the behemoth conservative advocacy group behind some of the most robust attacks against President Obama’s administration, said Monday that it believes it is among the organizations subjected to special scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. ... [O]n Monday, a spokesman for Crossroads said the group’s experience with the IRS indicates that it was also caught in the dragnet. The organization, which was co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove, applied to be recognized as a tax-exempt social welfare group in September 2010 and still has not been approved by the IRS. Its application, which is supposed to remain confidential unless the group’s status is approved, was released by the IRS to the investigative website ProPublica in December 2012 in response to a public records request. 'From everything we know -- the criteria used by the IRS to target conservative groups, the timing, the still outstanding application after nearly three years, the leaking of the application from the Cincinnati office, and other factors—Crossroads was one of the targeted groups,' Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio wrote in an email."

Happy Monday and welcome back to The Slatest PM, follow your afternoon host on Twitter at @JoshVoorhees and the whole team at @slatest.

Banners and gay pride flags mark the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots at the Stonewall Inn in 2009 in New York. The bar is less than a quarter mile from where Mark Carson was gunned down over the weekend.

Photo by Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

A 33-year-old man with a criminal past was charged on Sunday with gunning down a gay man on a busy stretch of New York City's West Village, only blocks from what is considered to be the birthplace of the American gay-rights movement. The alleged killer, police say, was only motivated by one thing: That the victim was gay.

"It's clear that the victim here was killed only because and just because he was thought to be gay," New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a press conference yesterday. "There is no question about that. There were these derogatory remarks. The victim did nothing to antagonize or instigate the shooter in this case. It's only done because the shooter believed him to be gay."

Elliot Morales was charged with murder as a hate crime, along with weapons charges, in the death of Mark Carson. According to police, Morales hurled anti-gay slurs at Carson and a male friend around midnight Saturday before ultimately shooting Carson in the head with a single bullet. Here's how the Wall Street Journal pieced together the chilling incident based on court records and police statements: