When Jes Baker heard that Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries wasn't interested in customers her size, she decided to respond by showing him what he was missing.In an open letter to Jeffries posted on her blog "The Militant Baker" this week, Baker took aim at the CEO's remarks about his brand's target audience, and reinterpreted Abercrombie & Fitch's signature "A&F" letters to stand ...

A man committed suicide inside Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on Tuesday, prompting the clearing out of hundreds of tourists, who had been waiting in a snaking line to visit the 850-year-old landmark.Before pulling a gun and shooting himself in the head, the elderly man placed a letter on the altar, The Associated Press reported. Its contents were not known.The man said nothing before he pulled the...

Heroic action was in no short supply Monday as a massive tornado blazed a trail of destruction through Moore, Okla.Did you witness ordinary people doing extraordinary things? Share your stories, photos and video with us by email, or on Twitter using hashtag #OKheroes -- but only if it is safe to do so.Selected responses may be used in an upcoming story.

The worst of it lasted for about an hour. But the human, physical and economic toll of the Oklahoma tornado will rank among the most devastating weather events of its kind. "This is going to be one of the top five costliest tornadoes in U.S. history," said Evan Gold, senior vice president of client services at Planalytics, a weather consulting firm.The full impact of the human loss was still u...

Search teams, including some with trained dogs, are scouring the rubble left behind by the monster tornado that flattened miles of homes, schools and businesses in Oklahoma City and its suburbs Monday. More than 100 people had been found alive by rescuers as of Tuesday afternoon.While it's uncertain exactly how many people are still missing, rescuers are up against the clock to find survivors, exp...

A fourth-grader at a school that took a direct hit from Mondays deadly tornado in Moore, Okla., described the heroic actions of a teacher who saved his life and others by covering several students with her body to shield them from the storm.Damian Britton, a student at Plaza Towers Elementary School, recounted a harrowing scene to Savannah Guthrie on TODAY Tuesday. He also had an emotional reunio...

Related:'Major damage' as huge tornado slams Oklahoma

Explore the Bing map, or Google map of Moore, Okla.More on the Oklahoma tornado:Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage PlainsPhotoBlog: Aerials show destructive path of Oklahoma tornadoThe school started coming apart: Trapped students had nowhere to hideCurse or coincidence? Scientists study Tornado Alley's past and future

Officials in the Oklahoma City suburb ravaged by deadly tornadoes Monday complained earlier this year about FEMAs 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 Moores website. It...

Two people have died and five others have been hospitalized in a mysterious cluster of respiratory illnesses in southeast Alabama, state health officials said.The victims, all adults, had symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath, but the cause of the illnesses is unknown, said Dr. Mary McIntyre, the acting state epidemiologist for the Alabama Department of Public Health. The hospit...

Apple CEO Tim Cook is disputing assertions by a Senate panel that the company avoids billions of dollars in U.S. taxes by shifting profits to foreign affiliates.Cook testified at a hearing Tuesday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which released a damning report Monday on Apple's tax practices."We pay all the taxes we owe every single dollar," Cook said. "We don't depend on...

By Larry O'HanlonDiscovery NewsHumans today eat gorillas and chimpanzees, so why would our prehistoric ancestors flinch at sitting down to a nicely roasted Neanderthal?That's the shocking new hypothesis being raised by anthropologists in Spain who wonder if our closest extinct relative was exterminated in the same way as 178 other large mammals, so called megafauna, which are suspected of going at...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Thousands of healthcare workers walked off the job at the University of California's five medical centers on Tuesday, delaying surgeries, diagnostic procedures, treatments and emergency care throughout the state.The union representing nearly 13,000 vocational nurses, respiratory therapists and radiology technologists said they staged the strike -- scheduled to last two days ...

SAN FRANCISCO --A federal court in San Francisco Tuesday struck down Arizona's ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violates a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings starting with Roe v. Wade that guarantees a woman's right to an abortion before a fetus is able to survive outside the womb. That's generally considered to be about...

By Suzanne Choney, Contributing Writer, NBC NewsThe loss of life and stunning devastation in Oklahoma City suburbs after a monster tornado ripped through the area are heart-wrenching. "The streets are just gone. The signs are just gone," said Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin, after she toured the area by helicopter Tuesday. And many, many relief organizations are getting the message out on how to help.Am...

Several power utilities say they face a barrage of cyberattacks on their critical systems, a report by two Democratic lawmakers found, echoing warnings from the Obama administration that foreign hackers were trying to bring down the U.S. power grid.Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., released the report, co-authored with Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., at the House Energy and Commerce Committee's cybersecurity ...

A top IRS official scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight committee has notified Congress that she will invoke the Fifth Amendment and refuse to answer questions.Lois Lerner, head of the IRS unit which handled tax exempt organizations, won't answer questions about what she knows about the improper screening of conservative groups or about why she repeatedly failed to tell Congre...

Army Brigadier General Bryan T. Roberts, the Commanding General of the U.S. Army Training Center and Fort Jackson, located in Fort Jackson, S.C., is being investigated for adultery and for being involved in a physical altercation, the Army announced Tuesday. Roberts has been suspended from his duties.The altercation allegedly involved Roberts and an unidentified woman he is now being investigated ...

Acknowledging that it would jeopardize the passage of a sweeping immigration reform bill, a top ally of LGBT rights advocates will not call for a committee vote on an amendment that would include the spouses of LGBT individuals with the same standing as heterosexual couples in immigration law.Senate Judiciary Committee ChairmanPatrick Leahy announced "with a heavy heart" that he would withhold h...

On Tuesday at the company's campus in Redmond, Wash., Microsoft unveiled the new Xbox One console, along with plenty of content plans, including a "Halo" live-action TV show from Steven Spielberg, and an exclusive deal with Activision for "Call of Duty: Ghosts."After a thumping welcome video carrying the message that in the next generation, gamers will "stop watching and start feeling ... alive"...

If you land in an intensive care unit sick enough for doctors to consider withdrawing life support, be warned. Whether and when to pull the plug may depend in large part on the practices and culture of the ICU itself -- perhaps more than your needs or wishes, a new study finds.That may be especially true if youre so ill or incapacitated that you cant make decisions about your own care, according...

Asking the jury that convicted her of murder to let her live, Jodi Arias said in a Phoenix courtroom Tuesday that she never meant to cause her victims family so much pain and that if she was given a life sentence she would contribute to society.This is the worst mistake of my life. Its the worst thing Ive ever done, Arias said of the brutal killing of her boyfriend, Travis Alexander. To th...

A sweeping bill to overhaul the nation's immigration system cleared its first major hurdle late Tuesday night, with the 18-member committee charged with completing a first round of legislative edits voting to advance the amended bill to the full Senate. The vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee was 13-5. Three Republicans - Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Orrin...

A tornado that devastated Oklahoma City's suburbs has left dozens of people dead, numerous injured and missing and countless homes destroyed. As rescue workers continue to pick through the rubble, hoping to find survivors, here are some accounts from those who did make it out.Hero teacher: Student said, 'I love you, please don't die with me'Rhonda Crosswhite, a teacher in hard-hit Moore, Okla., us...

A 9-year-old girl who was "always smiling" is among the first of the Oklahoma tornado victims to be identified.Third-grader Ja'Nae Hornsby was one of the students who perished when the twister demolished Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla. on Monday afternoon.Members of her grieving family gathered Tuesday at a Baptist church in Oklahoma City to console each other after a night of anxio...