10 things you need to know today: May 13, 2013

(Image credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for Campbell's))

last updated 8 January 2015

1. IRS TARGETED MORE THAN JUST TEA PARTY GROUPS

Internal Revenue Service officials didn't target just Tea Party and "patriot" nonprofits for special scrutiny, according to a review by the agency's inspector general acquired by The Washington Post. They also focused on applications for tax-exempt status from groups that criticized the government or educated Americans about the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called the practice "absolutely chilling," and urged President Obama to condemn it. [Washington Post]

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Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), head of a panel investigating last year's deadly attack on U.S. diplomats in Benghazi, said on Sunday that he would request sworn depositions from former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, who led the State Department's review of the case. Issa says the White House "knew it was a terror attack from the get-go" but lied to the public, and he denied Democratic charges that he's using the hearings to damage former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or President Obama. [The Hill]

Authorities in Bangladesh said Monday that they were ending the search for bodies in the rubble of a collapsed garment factory building, because they didn't expect any more victims to be found. Since the eight-story structure pancaked on April 24, 1,127 bodies have been recovered, but none have been found since Sunday. The government, facing widespread calls to improve factory conditions, said Monday that garment workers could form trade unions without permission from employers. [Associated Press]

A gunman opened fire on hundreds of revelers in a neighborhood Mother's Day parade in New Orleans on Sunday, wounding 19 people. Three victims were seriously injured. Police were investigating the case as street violence — not terrorism. It wasn't the first celebration interrupted by violence in the city this year. Four people were wounded in the French Quarter in a shooting before Mardi Gras, and five were wounded after a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in January. [Associated Press]

Groundbreaking ABC News anchor Barbara Walters is announcing Monday that she will retire in 2014. "It's time," she said. Walters, 83, has been a pioneer for women in TV news, working her way up from researcher for NBC's Today show to co-host of the morning program. In 1976, after moving to ABC, she became the first woman to host an evening newscast. She plans to announce her plans to the audience of her daily show, The View, then continue to work for exactly one more year. [New York Times]

Hong Kong's top court ruled Monday that a transsexual woman has the right to marry her boyfriend. The woman had been turned down by the marriage registrar because her birth certificate says she's male and the former British colony's marriage law prohibits same-sex marriage. The court said that portion of the law was unconstitutional. It gave lawmakers 12 months to fix the law, but said the judgment was not intended to address the question of same-sex marriage. [BBC News]

Former football and film star O.J. Simpson is returning to court on Monday to try to get his 2008 conviction and 33-year prison sentence for robbery, assault, and kidnapping thrown out. Simpson was convicted after he and five men, two of whom had guns, confronted sports memorabilia dealers in a Las Vegas hotel. Simpson says his old lawyer, Yale Galanter, told him he had the right to take back what Simpson thought were stolen mementos, and mounted a weak defense in court. [USA Today]

Baz Luhrmann's 3-D adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic The Great Gatsby made an impressive $51 million at the box office in its opening weekend, but that wasn't enough to knock comic book blockbuster Iron Man 3 out of the No. 1 spot. The Iron Man sequel, starring Robert Downey Jr., fell 58 percent from its debut haul in its second weekend, but still made $72.5 million in the U.S., pushing its global take close to $1 billion. [BBC News]

Tiger Woods won a tense duel with Sergio Garcia of Spain on Sunday to win the Players Championship in Florida. Woods joined Fred Couples, Davis Love III, and Steve Elkington as the only two-time winners at the tournament. The win was Woods' fourth (in seven tournaments) this year, and the 78th PGA Tour win of his career, leaving him just four short of the record held by Sam Snead. [Associated Press]

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.

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