President Barack Obama delivers remarks on job creation at Ellicott Dredges, a manufacturer of dredging equipment, in Baltimore, Maryland on May 17, 2013. UPI/Kristoffer Tripplaar/Pool

In his weekly radio and Internet address, the president repeated much of what he said during a visit to Baltimore Friday, when he toured a company “that’s creating good jobs here at home by exporting digging equipment abroad.” He said once again government needs to focus on “making America a magnet for good jobs,” “making sure our workers have the education and skills they need to do those jobs,” and “making sure your hard work leads to a decent living.”

In what may have been a reference to the focus among many in Washington on allegations of multiple scandals, Obama said “too often, our politics aren’t focused on the same things you are. Working hard. Supporting your family and your community. Making sure your kids have every chance in life.”

“In a little over three years, our businesses have created more than 6.5 million new jobs,” he said. “And while our unemployment rate is still too high, it’s the lowest it’s been since 2008. But now we need to create even more good, middle-class jobs, and we need to do it faster.”

The president said corporate profits have “skyrocketed to all-time highs,” but the economy needs rising middle-class wages and incomes as well.

“And our deficits are shrinking at the fastest rate in decades,” he said. “But now we need to budget in a smarter way that doesn’t hurt middle-class families or harm critical investments in our future.”

Obama said he would visit more U.S. cities in the coming weeks and “I’m going to keep trying to work with both parties in Washington to make progress on your priorities.”

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

North Korea rocket

Kim Min-seok, a ministry spokesman, said two missiles were launched in the morning in a northeasterly direction away from South Korean waters, while a third was launched in the afternoon.

A Seoul official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said based on the missiles’ trajectory they did not appear to be medium- or long-range ballistic missiles.

“A more detailed analysis will be needed but the missiles launched may be a modified anti-ship missile or the KN-02 surface-to-surface missile derived from the Soviet era SS-21 that has a range of about 120 kilometers (74.5 miles),” the official said.

Kim Haing, a spokeswoman for the presidential office, said the South doesn’t consider the missile launches a serious threat to security and that they appear to be tests.

“The situation is being monitored carefully,” she said.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

An explosion in Khost city killed an Afghan border police guard and injured three others, as well as six civilians, provincial security chief Mohammad Yaqoub said.

One person died in another explosion in eastern Paktika province in the Yahya Khel district when a tractor struck a roadside bomb, Khaama Press reported. Three children and a woman were injured in the blast, the provincial governor’s media office said in a statement.

Meanwhile, six people died and 70 others were injured Friday evening after twin explosions in southern Kandahar province, provincial governor spokesman Gen. Abdul Razaq said.

Razaq said one explosion was a suicide bomb and the other was a remotely detonated vehicle packed with explosives in Aino Meena.

Six people, including three Afghan security officers died in Friday’s blasts, Razaq said, though provincial governor spokesman for Kandahar province Javid Faisal said those numbers were closer to nine dead with 50 injuries.

No group has claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

The win gives the Hawkeyes the series win over the Boilermakers — Iowa’s second straight series victory. Iowa downed Purdue, 2-1, in 11 innings last night, and took 2-of-3 games against Michigan State last weekend in Iowa City.

“We’re starting to show a little bit of character and a little bit of fight,” said UI head coach Jack Dahm. “That was my biggest concern coming in this weekend — how were we going to battle and were we going to find something to sink our teeth into to win some games?

“I am very proud of what the guys have done the last three weekends. We’re all beat up, we’re the ugliest team in America right now, but we’re finding a way, and that’s good to see.”

After seeing its 5-2 lead dwindle away in the eighth and ninth innings, the Hawkeyes shifted the game’s momentum in their favor with a four-run 10th.

With one out, sophomore Taylor Kaufman started things off with a walk before freshman Jimmy Frankos delivered a pinch-hit single through the left side to put a pair on base. Following an Iowa strikeout for the second out of the inning, freshman Nick Roscetti reached via an infield single to load the bases before the “birthday boy” — Day — delivered.

The Solon, Iowa, native roped a double down the right field line on a 2-2 count to break the game open. Day was credited with two RBIs on the play, and he advanced to third and scored on a two-base throwing error by Purdue right fielder Conner Hudnall.

“What a birthday for Nick Day,” said Dahm. “He had that huge swing of the bat to give us the big lead and score four runs. It was a great birthday present for him and it was great for the team.”

Freshman Josh Martsching entered in a non-save situation in the bottom of the inning, but he closed the door on any Purdue hope, sitting down the Boilermakers on seven pitches to send the Hawkeyes to the victory.

Iowa pounded out 14 hits in the game with three players tallying multi-hit contests. Sophomore Eric Toole went 5-of-5 — all singles — and reached base in all six plate appearances. Toole tied school records for hits and singles in a game. It is the 15th time and first since 2010 that a player has had five hits and his five singles tied his brother Justin Toole’s feat that last occurred in 2009.

Sophomore Anthony Torres went 2-of-5 with a run and RBI, while Roscetti was 2-of-5 with two RBIs and a run scored. It was Torres’ seventh and Roscetti’s sixth multi-hit game this season. Day and Kaufman both had two-RBI games.

Sophomore Nick Hibbing was credited with the victory — his second in as many games — after tossing 1/3 of an inning in relief of left-handed starter Sasha Kuebel. Kuebel received a no-decision after allowing five runs on 10 hits in 8 2/3 innings.

“Sasha was tremendous,” said Dahm. “We wanted him to get that win; we wanted him to finish this game off. It didn’t happen, but we wouldn’t have won without the way Sasha pitched.”

The Hawkeyes jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the third inning on a pair of hits. Sophomore Jake Yacinich scorched a swinging bunt down the first base line to knock in Day for Iowa’s first run before Torres followed with an RBI groundout to give the Hawkeyes the two-run advantage.

Purdue evened things up in the bottom of the fourth. The Boilermakers cut the lead in half in one swing of the bat when Sean McHugh led off the inning with a solo home run to left centerfield, and Cody Strong’s RBI single up the middle evened the tally at two.

Iowa grabbed the momentum in the sixth, pushing three runs across the plate to take a 5-2 advantage. Torres got things started with a lead-off single to centerfield before Kaufman drew a one-out walk to put a pair of runners on base. After senior Keith Brand reached via a hit by pitch — his 22nd of the season — to load the bases, junior Taylor Zeutenhorst gave the Hawkeyes the 3-2 lead after knocking in a run while reaching on a fielder’s choice.

With two on and two outs, Roscetti gave the Hawkeyes some insurance runs when he drove in a pair with an opposite field base hit to push the Iowa lead to 5-2.

Purdue, however, wouldn’t go away quietly in its final six outs. McHugh connected on his second blast of the game to lead off the eighth to make the score 5-3. In the bottom of the ninth, the Boilermakers pushed two runs in, the final coming off McHugh’s two-out, RBI triple down the right field line.

Iowa (21-27, 9-14) will go for the series sweep Saturday in the season finale beginning at 12 p.m. (CT).

“We want to get a sweep,” said Dahm. “We haven’t had a sweep all year, and that’d be a great way to finish the year. I think you’re going to see a team that will really battle and end the season on a positive.”

Shares rose to $33.42, topping the $33 per share offer at GM’s return to life as a public company in November 2010.

It has been since February 2011 that GM has closed ahead of its initial public offering or IPO price, The Wall Street Journal reported.

What is going right at GM? Shares are riding a broad based optimism in stocks and doing well due to strong sales in China and the introduction of two pickup trucks, the 2014 Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, the Journal said.

Pickup trucks on average earn the company $7,000 in profit per truck, the Journal said.

Investors are also encouraged by the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement that it would divest itself of GM stock by April 2014.

The government currently owns 241.7 million shares, 16.4 percent of the company, which is valued at about $8 billion. The shares are a hangover from GM’s 2009 bankruptcy, which prompted a government bailout.

The government would have to wait until GM shares reached $79 per share in order to break even on the bailout.

Also in GM’s favor is the possibility of its return to the Standard & Poor’s stock index, which ended when it declared bankruptcy.

An S&P spokesman would not comment on when GM might be invited back into the fold.

A GM spokesman said the company was looking past the recent gains.

“Our sights are set further down the road than a single day’s closing price,” he said.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

The group said it discovered solitary confinement cells in the centers as well as torture devices like the cross-shaped “flying carpet,” to which detainees would be attached and beaten and bent into painful positions.

Human rights groups estimate at least 25,000 Syrians are in detention for allegedly anti-government marches and protests. The number of detainees escalated sharply after the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad started in March 2011, The New York Times reported Saturday.

Human Rights Watch investigators in April visited branches of the State Security and Military Intelligence in Raqqa, which came under rebel control in March.

Lama Fakih, a researcher on the visitation, said the team found documents listing case files for local residents and security staff members.

“You could see in each case file the picture of the person who was being investigated, how old he was, where he lived and other things like the types of activities he was engaged in,” she said.

She said the team interviewed men who had been held in the centers. The men said they were detained for marching against the government and had been beaten and shocked with electricity.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

The emails from Jackson’s last manager, Frank DiLeo, were presumed lost when DiLeo’s laptop went missing after his death in 2011.

David Regoli, a Pennsylvania lawyer representing DiLeo’s estate, said the laptop had been recovered and he would submit any emails pertaining to the case after combing through them, CNN reported Friday.

Lawyers for Jackson’s mother and three children hope the emails will support their claim DiLeo was beholden to concert promoter AEG Live and not the pop star, the report said.

Jackson’s family is suing AEG for wrongful death, alleging the company was at fault because it failed to hire an appropriate physician for Jackson, and then neglected to supervise the singer properly.

AEG has maintained Jackson handpicked Dr. Conrad Murray — who is serving a four-year prison sentence for involuntary manslaughter for administering lethal levels of propofol and sedatives to the singer in an effort to help him sleep as he prepared for a high-profile concert residency in London. AEG said Jackson kept his sleeping problems a secret.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

In the film, Anne Hathaway’s character is in search of software referred to as “clean slate” that will erase her criminal past from every computer database in the world.

A computer company, Fortres Grand, sued Warner Bros. for its use of the “clean slate” name, which the company said is the trademark name of its computer security program. Fortres’ Clean Slate is used to erase the history on a person’s computer.

Judge Philip Simon said there’s a marked difference between the fictional world of Batman and that of the real world, and ruled against Fortres, The Hollywood Reporter said Friday.

“Warner Bros. ‘clean slate’ software only exists in the fictional world of Gotham; it does not exist in reality. This may seem to be a small point, but it has big ramifications for the consumer confusion analysis, which become apparent once you realize the argument that Fortres Grand has not made — and cannot make,” he said.

“Plaintiff is not in the motion picture business, and it would be absurd to think that customers buy tickets to ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ or purchase the DVD/Blu-ray because of a perceived association of the Film with Fortres Grand’s products,” Warner Bros. said of the case.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Hulu is owned by Walt Disney Co., News Corp. and Comcast Corp. — which, due to a regulatory agreement, has investor-only status and does not have voting rights.

The Journal said Saturday Disney and News Corp. do not agree on the direction Hulu should take.

The service has 4 million paid streaming subscribers, compared to Netflix, which has 28 million, the Journal said.

DirectTV’s motivation could be to expand its “TV Everywhere” services, the report said. That service allows TV service subscribers to download content from the Internet, an option executives say is underutilized.

On the other hand, the growth of television service subscribers has been slowing, giving television service firms a reason to look around for complimentary acquisitions, the Journal said.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

U.S. Capitol

Harris, in the weekly Saturday Republican media address, questioned the federal tax agency’s responsibility for levying fines against individuals who fail to meet new health insurance mandates, ABC News Radio reported.

“If we’ve learned anything this week, it’s that the IRS needs less power, not more,” he said, referring to news this week that the Internal Revenue Service was applying extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

“As a matter of fact, it turns out that the IRS official who oversaw the operation that’s under scrutiny for targeting conservatives is now in charge of the IRS’ ObamaCare office,” Harris said. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Harris touted support of the House, which voted to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act this week, citing a report from the House Energy and Commerce Committee that found premiums for people in 45 states would double on average under ObamaCare.

“Instead of the lower costs you were promised, you could pay a whole lot more,” he said. “According to new data from the nation’s insurers, under ObamaCare, premiums in the individual market will skyrocket by an average of double what we pay now, with some rates rising by more than 400 percent.”

“This week marked the third time in three years that the people’s House has listened to the people and voted for full repeal of the healthcare law,” Harris said. “Now it’s time for the Senate to listen to the people as well.”

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Trump — in comments he made after completing a second day of testimony — accused the woman of being “disgraceful,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday.

Jackie Goldberg alleges Trump, 66, fraudulently sold her two $1 million condos in his Trump Tower hotel in downtown Chicago.

She says the real estate magnate promised her a share of the profits from the hotel’s two ballrooms and catering business in 2006 if she bought two condo units. After she signed a contract and put down a $500,000 deposit, Goldberg charges Trump changed his mind.

Trump called Goldberg a “very sophisticated investor” who only filed the suit to get her deposit back.

“Nobody that I’ve ever seen has ever played the age card better than her,” he added. “She knows everything that’s going on and it’s really disgraceful.”

Goldberg’s attorney, Shelly Kulwin, called Trump’s remarks “ludicrous.”

Kulwin said his client “comes from an era when a deal was a deal.”

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Judge Allen Nielson of Stevens County, Wash., Superior Court sentenced the unidentified boy to three-to-five years for planning, with an 11-year-old friend, to kill a classmate at Fort Colville Elementary School, The (Spokane, Wash.) Spokesman-Review reported Thursday.

A teacher caught the pair bringing a knife and gun into class. They intended to kill the classmate because “she was really annoying,’ court records indicate.

“It never escaped my mind that these are children,” Stevens County prosecutor Tim Rasmussen said. “It is very troubling when children do things adults do.”

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Defense attorney Paul Johnson told jurors considering the fate of Naim Rasool Muhammad his client led a life of “abandonment” and “neglect” because his mother had been a crack-addicted prostitute and he never knew his father, The Dallas Morning News reported Wednesday.

A Dallas County jury found Muhammad, 34, guilty of capital murder in the death of his sons Elijah, 3, and Naim, 5, by drowning them in a river in August 2011.

In an effort to spare Muhammad the death penalty, Johnson said his client believed his sons would endure a fate similar to his because their mother, Kametra Sampson, had left the children alone, had recently sought treatment for crack addiction and was a prostitute.

Prosecutors Tammy Kemp and Sherre Sweet told jurors Muhammad deserved to die because he is a threat to society. He also has a history of domestic violence and a 23-year criminal record dating back when he was a juvenile, they said.

Kemp said Muhammad killed his children after Sampson left with the kids and went into a drug treatment facility where she could live with the boys.

Muhammad abducted the boys as their mother walked them to school, the prosecutors said.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

A Miami-Dade jury on Wednesday convicted Robert DeNapoli of eight counts of knowingly possessing child porn, The Miami Herald reported.

Prosecutors said DeNapoli, 52, used a private room in a computer lab at the University of Miami to download and view child pornography.

Alejandro Laza, a lab monitor at the university who testified in court Wednesday, said that on multiple occasions, he caught DeNapoli searching the Internet for “topless preteens” and “underage topless,” and took screen captures of DeNapoli’s computer. Laza informed his boss at the university, who then alerted police.

DeNapoli, who earned a master’s degree in elementary education from the school in 2004 and began teaching shortly thereafter, pleaded not guilty to the charges against him, saying he was a fan of erotic art.

“Evidence will show that Mr. DeNapoli did not knowingly possess these images,” defense attorney Mark Seiden told jurors. “The evidence will show that Mr. DeNapoli viewed the images, viewed the images as one might view a basketball game on TV or a picture in a museum.”

The jury ultimately sided with prosecutors and found DeNapoli guilty. He now faces up to 40 years in prison and will be sentenced on a later date.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Gays and lesbian inmates also reported higher rates of unwanted sexual activity.

The “National Inmate Survey, 2011-12″ was conducted in 233 state and federal prisons, 358 local jails, and 15 special correctional facilities (operated by the U.S. Armed Forces, Indian tribes, or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) between February 2011 and May 2012, with a sample of 92,449 inmates age 18 or older and 1,738 inmates ages 16 to 17, the department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said.

The study said an estimated 6.3 percent of prison inmates and 3.6 percent of jail inmates identified with serious psychological distress reported inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, compared to 0.7 percent for both prison and jail inmates without a mental health problem.

Inmates who had been told by a mental health professional they had a mental disorder, the study said, reported higher rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization (3.8 percent in prisons and 2.9 percent in jails) than other inmates (0.8 percent in prisons and 0.6 percent in jails).

“Sexual victimization” is defined as any unwanted sexual activity with other inmates, abusive sexual activity with other inmates, and both willing and unwilling sexual activity with staff, BJS said.

The study said juvenile inmates (1.8 percent) reported rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization similar to those of adults.

The rate of staff sexual misconduct direct at jail inmates ages 16 to 17 (3.3 percent) was higher than for jail inmates ages 35 to 44 (1.5 percent), ages 45 to 54 (0.9 percent) and age 55 or older (0.3 percent), the study said.

For prison inmates, the rate of staff sexual misconduct did not vary among age groups.

Nationwide, 2.0 percent of all prison inmates and 1.6 percent of all jail inmates reported at least one incident involving another inmate; 2.4 percent of prison inmates and 1.8 percent of jail inmates reported having had sex or sexual contact with facility staff, the study said.

An estimated 80,600 adult inmates — 57,900 in prisons and 22,700 in local jails — reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another inmate or facility staff during 2011-12.

The study found high rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization were reported by violent sex offenders and inmates who identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, bisexual or other. Inmates held for violent sex offenses reported higher rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization (3.7 percent in prisons and 3.9 percent in jails) than inmates held for other offenses.

Inmates who identified their sexual orientation as gay, lesbian, bisexual or other were among those with the highest rates of sexual victimization in prisons (12.2 percent) and jails (8.5 percent), the study said.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

IOWA CITY, Iowa

“We are very proud of the Iowa student-athletes who qualified for this competition, as it requires a performance that ranks amongst the Division I elite,” said head coach Layne Anderson. “It is a well-rounded group with student-athletes in all event groups, further illustrating the comprehensive nature of our program.”

The men’s team is represented by a total of 16 qualifiers, made up of 13 student-athletes competing in 15 individual events and one relay. The men are seeded 10^th or higher in seven events, including the 400-meter relay, where the reigning conference champions earned the No. 4 seed.

Justin Austin, the Big Ten Track Athlete of Year, earned a pair of top 10 seeds. Austin enters the 100 meters as the No. 8 seed, and the 200 meters as the No. 7 seed.

Ten Hawkeye women qualified for 10 individual events, led by Majesty Tutson and Khanishah Williams. Tutson, the school record holder in the discus, earned the event’s No. 7 seed. Williams earned the No. 7 seed in the high jump. Three Hawkeyes – Jasmine Simpson, Ashlyn Gulvas and Annemie Smith – qualified in the hammer throw.

“It may very well be one of the more competitive groups we have qualified relative to previous years,” added Anderson. “We have a number of the student-athletes ranked high and positioned well with regard to qualifying on to the semifinal and final round in Eugene.”

The top 12 individuals or relays in each event from each preliminary site (East and West) will move on to the NCAA Championships final round in Eugene, Ore., on June 5-8.

QUALIFIERS BY EVENT (SEED, ATHLETE, QUALIFYING TIME/MARK)

Women’s 100 meters

30. Lake Kwaza                  11.56

Men’s 100 meters

8. Justin Austin                  10.22

19. Josh Larney                 10.39

Men’s 110-meter hurdles

9. Jordan Mullen              13.76

Men’s 200 meters

7. Justin Austin                  20.54

Women’s 400-meter hurdles

42. Montayla Holder       59.90

Men’s 400-meter hurdles

10. Ethan Holmes             50.67

15. Keaton Rickels            51.16

Women’s 800 meters

39. Adrianna Alexia         2:08.61

46. Kaitlyn Nelson            2:09.19

Men’s 800 meters

37. Ryan Weir                    1:50.01

Women’s 5,000 meters

22. Mareike Schrulle       16:12.66

Men’s 5,000 meters

42. Kevin Lewis                 14:08.04

Women’s high jump

7. Khanishah Williams     5-11 1/4 (1.81m)

Women’s discus

7. Majesty Tutson            181-1 (55.19m)

Men’s discus

5. Gabe Hull                        196-2 (59.80m)

Women’s hammer

22. Jasmine Simpson      197-7 (60.23m)

33. Ashlyn Gulvas             189-6 (57.76m)

38. Annemie Smith          188-4 (57.41m)

Men’s hammer

44. Ben Stancombe         193-6 (58.98m)

Men’s pole vault

46. Kyle Reid                      16-8 3/4 (5.10m)

Men’s triple jump

29. Klyvens Delaunay     50-6 1/4 (15.40m)

Men’s shot put

38. Gabe Hull                     56-9 1-4 (17.30m)

Men’s javelin

9. Matt Byers                     234-8 (72.45m)

43. Sam Joens                    206-9 63.03m

Men’s 4×100 meter relay

4. IOWA

     39.35

There were no winners in Wednesday evening’s drawing, which means the jackpot for Saturday’s drawing will be at least $550 million, CNN reported.

The largest jackpot in U.S. history was a $656 million in a Mega Millions game that was split by three tickets sold in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland in March 2012, followed by Powerball jackpot of $587.6 million jackpot in November that was won by players in Arizona and Missouri.

Powerball, which costs $2 to play, is played in 43 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There is a 1 in 175 million chance of winning the game.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Two of the plaintiffs say they were molested as young girls by John Loftness, a pastor in Maryland, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal reported. Another plaintiff says that when he told Loftness he had been molested the pastor ordered him to re-enact the sexual act and then to forgive the man who abused him.

Sovereign Grace was founded in the 1970s and changed its name from People of Destiny in 1998. The church relocated to Louisville from Maryland last year.

Loftness, who recently resigned as head of the group, denied any misconduct.

The allegations made in the lawsuit involve Covenant Life Church of Gaithersburg, Md., and Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax, Va. The two churches were the largest in Sovereign Grace Ministries but have cut their ties with the denomination.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

Evelyn Cecelia Himes, 49, of Duncansville, entered a no contest plea to charges of endangering the welfare and simple assault of her grandson, The Altoona (Pa.) Mirror reported.

The charges against Himes were filed after an investigation into an incident that happened inside her home on March 26, 2012.

Police on Monday showed President Judge Jolene G. Kopriva a picture of the child as he demonstrated how he was tied up by his grandmother — his arms were behind his back and his ankles were tied together.

Kopriva then sentenced Himes to 60 days to two years in prison, to begin on June 6.

“We do not treat children this way in our society. We just do not,” Kopriva said to Himes.

Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).