House panel gives airing to complaints about IRS

WASHINGTON — Republicans gave an election year airing to their complaints about IRS chief John Koskinen Tuesday, telling a GOP-run House committee that he should be impeached for lying to lawmakers and destroying evidence.

“Mr. Koskinen was sent to the IRS to clean it up, but it's gotten worse,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told the House Judiciary Committee, pressing a long shot effort he has led since last year to remove the agency's commissioner. “As members of Congress, we have no reason to have any confidence that Mr. Koskinen will run one of the most powerful agencies with any integrity.”

Koskinen and his Democratic defenders denied the allegations and accused Republicans of pursuing a political vendetta. While the IRS has conceded that it treated conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status unfairly earlier this decade, Democrats said Republicans were ignoring previous investigations that found the IRS' destruction of some emails was due to incompetence, not a purposeful effort to hide evidence.

Citing recent travel, Koskinen declined to testify Tuesday but provided a written statement saying the IRS “has responded comprehensively and in good faith” to congressional requests for documents.

Republicans on the committee refused to formally make Koskinen's statement part of the record, with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., calling it “self-serving.”

Even if the House votes to impeach Koskinen, it would take a two-thirds majority for the Senate to oust him — a margin Democrats could easily block.

French police force open fuel depot amid protests

French police used water cannons on Tuesday to disperse projectile-throwing protesters and force open a key fuel depot in Fos-sur-Mer, as gasoline shortages spread around the country amid increasingly tense labor actions.

Strikes have spread to all eight of France's refineries, and 1 in 5 gas stations are now dry or running low. A two-month protest movement against a bill weakening worker protections reached a new level — and now poses the biggest challenge yet to President Francois Hollande's government.

Hate crime law in La. may be extended to cops

BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana is poised to become the first state to expand hate crime laws to protect police, firefighters and emergency medical crews.

If signed by Gov. John Bel Edwards, the new law would allow additional penalties against anyone convicted of intentionally targeting first responders because of their profession.

Existing hate crime laws provide for more fines and prison time if a person is targeted because of race, gender, religion, nationality or sexual orientation.

U.S. seeks death penalty in S.C. church shooting

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department plans to seek the death penalty against Dylann Roof, the man charged with killing nine black parishioners last year in Charleston, S.C, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Tuesday.

Roof is awaiting trial on federal hate crime charges in connection with the June 17 shooting. He is also charged in state court, and South Carolina prosecutors already announced plans to seek the death penalty. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson has said she wants her case tried first.

Biden to host national cancer research summit

WASHINGTON — Vice President Joe Biden will bring together scientists, oncologists, donors and patients for a national conference on cancer research in Washington, the White House said Tuesday.

Dubbed the National Cancer Moonshot Summit, the daylong conference is intended to galvanize Biden's final-year push to double the pace of research toward curing cancer. The summit is scheduled for June 29 at Howard University.

The Newsmaker

Speller breaks barriers

Making it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee that begins Wednesday is an amazing achievement for anyone, but for Neil Maes, 11, being born deaf made his journey especially unlikely. The only assistance he requires is that the pronouncer will speak into a microphone that transmits an FM signal directly into his cochlear implants.

VA chief regrets likening wait time to Disney lines

WASHINGTON — Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald said Tuesday he regrets remarks he made Monday comparing long wait times at VA health care sites to waiting in line at a Disney amusement park.

“It was never my intention to suggest that I don't take our mission of serving veterans very seriously,” McDonald said in a written statement.

GOP lawmakers and veterans' service groups had slammed his remarks Monday as insulting and inappropriate.

Canada Wildfire

1,000

?

The number of fire crews from across Canada, the United States and South Africa that will be joining the fight this week against a massive wildfire near Fort McMurray, Alberta. Officials said Tuesday that the blaze is moving northeast away from towns and oil sands facilities, but that the fire has grown to about 2,019 square miles, with about 9 square miles spreading into Saskatchewan.

S.F. adds leeway in law on immigrant felons

SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco leaders have retained strict protections for people who are in the country illegally, with clarifications.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to allow leeway for the city's sheriff to consider contacting federal immigration authorities in the cases of defendants charged with a felony if they have been convicted of other crimes in the past. The vote came nearly a year after a Mexican national was accused of killing a woman along a popular pier.