SEATTLE (AP) — The lawyer for the family of a missing Utah woman says there's an ongoing federal investigation into Susan Powell's disappearance.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disasters such as Monday's tornado that wiped out much of Moore, Oklahoma often prompt people to help victims by collecting goods or launching blood drives, but charitable groups said money, not goods, is the best way to help. AMERICAN RED CROSS: * "What this enables us to do is send those funds to the area where they're needed most immediately," Red Cross spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego said of financial contributions. * Donating food or clothing can hurt relief efforts as organizations must take time to sort and process them, the Red Cross said. ...

By Dominic Evans BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syria's opposition and the government of President Bashar al-Assad seem to be preparing to take part in an international peace conference against a background of some of the worst fighting this year. On Tuesday, Lebanese Hezbollah fighters and Syrian soldiers, backed by air strikes and artillery, renewed an offensive aimed at driving Syrian rebels from the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border, opposition activists said. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Carole King isn't done with music — not yet anyway.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Sprint Nextel Corp. is offering 14 percent more than before for the stake in wireless data network operator Clearwire Corp. it does not already own, but a large shareholder said the offer was still inadequate.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Emergency crews searched the broken remnants of an Oklahoma City suburb Tuesday for survivors of a massive tornado that flattened homes and demolished an elementary school. At least 24 people were killed, including at least nine children, and those numbers were expected to climb.

PHOENIX (AP) — Jodi Arias asked jurors Tuesday to give her life in prison, arguing she "lacked perspective" when she told a local reporter in an interview after she was convicted of murder that she preferred execution to spending the rest of her days in jail.

By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Bank plans substantial new funds to help Jordan cope with the influx of refugees from the civil war in Syria, and hopes new funds for central Africa will cement a peace deal there, the bank's President Jim Yong Kim said on Tuesday. "There will be significant amounts of new funding going to Jordan in the very near future to deal with this crisis," he said in an interview, after a speech at the U.N. World Health Assembly in Geneva. ...

TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — Photos taken in the aftermath of the attack that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords show the handgun, high-capacity pistol magazines and knife that Jared Lee Loughner carried with him as he carried out the January 2011 attack.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — The parents and guardians stood in the muddy grass outside an Oklahoma City area church, listening as someone with a bullhorn called out the names of children who were being dropped off — survivors of a deadly tornado that barreled through their community.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Wireless company Sprint Nextel Corp. says it can now let Dish Network Corp. see its books and talk with Dish to see whether its competing offer to buy Sprint is better than its current deal with Japan's SoftBank.

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp's new chief executive, Brian Krzanich, has launched a sweeping company reorganization and created a unit aimed at growing its market share in future mobile technologies. The shakeup, announced internally just days after the 30-year veteran took the helm, places most of the main product groups of the world's top chipmaker directly under the CEO's supervision and hands its sprawling global manufacturing operation to new president Renee James, said a source close to the company, who declined to be identified. ...

LONDON (AP) — Dozens of Mohandas Gandhi's personal items have been sold at an auction, but a sample of blood purportedly from the Indian independence leader didn't draw high enough bids.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — A high-tech startup is wading into the gun control debate with a wireless controller that would allow gun owners to know when their weapon is being moved — and disable it remotely.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft thinks it has the one.

GREENBURGH, N.Y. (AP) — Amare Stoudemire will go into next season with $45 million left on his contract and no guarantee of a starting job.

By Carey Gillam and Ian Simpson MOORE, Oklahoma (Reuters) - Emergency workers pulled more than 100 survivors from the rubble of homes, schools and a hospital in an Oklahoma town hit by a powerful tornado, and officials lowered the death toll from the storm to 24, including nine children. The 2-mile (3-km) wide tornado tore through Moore outside Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, trapping victims beneath the rubble, wiping out entire neighborhoods and tossing vehicles about as if they were toys. ...

BAGHDAD (AP) — New attacks in Iraq killed 13 people and wounded dozens on Tuesday, officials said, after a bloody day that claimed more than 100 lives across the country.

By John Whitesides and Kim Dixon WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Internal Revenue Service officials told Congress on Tuesday they were unaware of the agency's targeting of conservative groups for extra tax scrutiny until recently and did not deliberately mislead lawmakers last year when they did not reveal the practice. Exasperated senators questioned the truthfulness of former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who led the agency from 2008 to 2012, and outgoing acting IRS chief Steven Miller. Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah accused Miller of a "lie by omission. ...

CINCINNATI (AP) — Tea party activists waving flags and signs, singing patriotic songs and chanting anti-IRS slogans protested outside federal buildings across the country Tuesday to protest the agency's extra scrutiny of conservative groups.