NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. (AP) — The winter’s deep freeze has transformed Niagara Falls into an icy spectacle, encasing the trees around it into crystal shells and drawing tourists who are braving below-zero temperatures.

The Niagara River keeps flowing below the ice cover, so the falls aren’t completely frozen over. But the massive ice buildup near the brink has become a tourist magnet for the second straight year after several relatively mild winters.

Visitors have been flocking to Niagara Falls State Park, next to the American Falls, one of three waterfalls that make up the natural attraction. Days of subzero temperatures have created a thick coating of ice and snow on every surface near the falls, including railings, trees and boulders.

Things aren’t expected to thaw out soon: Temperatures dipped to 7 below zero in Niagara Falls on Friday morning.

Yahoo News

The Obama administration revealed Friday that it sent about 800,000 HealthCare.gov customers a tax form containing the wrong information, and asked them to hold off on filing their 2014 taxes.

The self-inflicted bungle follows weeks of administration officials touting a successful enrollment season — one that saw far fewer technical glitches than the rocky launch in late 2013.

About 11.4 million people signed up this season. But the errors in tax information mean that nearly 1 million people may have to wait longer to get their tax refunds this year.

California, which is running its own insurance market, just announced a similar problem affecting about 100,000 people in that state.

For those using HealthCare.gov, the federal health department said on its blog on Friday that some people received a form that included faulty premium information. The blog said that information “needs to be corrected,” and new forms should be available by early March.

“This does not mean that your tax credit was incorrect; this is purely an error in what was printed on the form,” the blog post said.

But the administration is urging customers, that, “If your form was incorrect, please wait to file your 2014 Federal income taxes.”

That’s a hiccup for anyone trying to get their taxes filed early this year. And the 50,000 or so who already filed may have to resubmit their returns.

The error became fast fodder for ObamaCare critics. Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., said the administration has built a law so complex “that even they don’t know how to properly administer it.”

She said: “This is beyond embarrassing for President Obama and is an unfair blow to taxpayers who are once again left holding the bag for this administration’s incompetence.”

The tax error highlights the complicated links between Obama’s health care law and taxes, connections that consumers will experience for the first time this year as some who do not have insurance will be charged a penalty.

A Health and Human Services official stressed that the 800,000 represent just 1 percent of total tax filers — though they represent about one-fifth of filers who used HealthCare.gov coverage last year and got tax credits.

“Based upon preliminary estimates, we understand that approximately 90-95 percent of these tax filers haven’t filed their tax return yet,” the official said. “We are advising them to wait until the first week of March when they receive their new form or go online for correct information before filing.”

Meanwhile, federal officials also announced a special sign-up extension for uninsured people facing the health care law’s tax penalties.

Several million households could benefit from that grace period, which had been sought by Democratic lawmakers in Congress. Uninsured people who go to file their taxes and learn they’re facing a penalty will have between March 15 and April 30 to sign up for subsidized coverage through HealthCare.gov. The fines for being uninsured are going up in 2015.

The errors disclosed Friday are in new forms that HealthCare.gov sent to millions of consumers receiving coverage through the federal insurance market that serves most states. Those forms, called 1095-As, are like a W-2 for health care. They provided a month-by-month accounting of the subsidies consumers received to help pay their premiums. That information is then used to make sure everybody got the right amount, not too much, or too little.

Andy Slavitt, a top administration official overseeing federal health insurance programs, said the administration is still investigating the root cause of the problem. Slavitt said it had to do with erroneous calculations of a “benchmark” premium that is used to help determine the amount of subsidies that individuals receive.

Slavitt said the administration started notifying the affected consumers Friday.

“We’re not doing any victory laps,” HealthCare.gov CEO Kevin Counihan told reporters.

Fox News’ Mike Emanuel and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON –  President Obama defended his administration’s approach to the terror threat at a White House summit Wednesday, standing by claims that groups like the Islamic State do not represent Islam — as well as assertions that job creation could help combat extremism.

Obama, addressing the Washington audience on the second day of the summit, said the international community needs to address “grievances” that terrorists exploit, including economic and political issues.

He stressed that poverty alone doesn’t cause terrorism, but “resentments fester” and extremism grows when millions of people are impoverished.

“We do have to address the grievances that terrorists exploit including economic grievances,” he said.

He also said no single religion was responsible for violence and terrorism, adding he wants to lift up the voice of tolerance in the United States and beyond.

Obama’s address came as Republican lawmakers and others criticized the administration for declining to describe the threat as Islamic terrorism.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf has also come under fire for suggesting several times this past week that more jobs could help address the terrorism crisis.

On Tuesday, Rob O’Neill, former Navy SEAL Team 6 member who claims to have fired the shot that killed Usama bin Laden, told Fox News: “They get paid to cut off heads — to crucify children, to sell slaves and to cut off heads and I don’t think that a change in career path is what’s going to stop them.”

Obama also called on Muslim leaders to “do more to discredit the notion that our nations are determined to suppress Islam, that there is an inherent clash in civilizations.”

Obama acknowledged that some Muslim-Americans have concerns about working with the government, particularly law enforcement, and that their reluctance “is rooted in the objection to certain practices where Muslim-Americans feel they’ve been unfairly targeted.”

He said it was important it make sure that abuses stop and are not repeated and that “we do not stigmatize entire communities.” He also said it was vital that “no one is profiled or put under a cloud of suspicion simply because of their faith.”

Although Obama called for a renewed focus on preventing terrorists from recruiting and inspiring others, some thought his message seemed to miss the mark.

“He was meandering, unfocused and weak,” said Richard Grenell, former U.S. spokesman at the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration and a Fox News contributor. “He was talking about isolating terrorists. He doesn’t understand the threat that we face… People are being burned in cages and he’s talking about more investments?”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in an interview with Fox News, called Obama an “apologist for radical Islamic terrorists.” And he mocked the president for recently comparing modern-day atrocities to those committed during the Crusades.

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask the president to stay in the current millennia,” Cruz said, describing the rhetoric as “bizarre politically correct double-speak.”

Recent Fox News polling showed most voters think Obama should be tougher on Islamic extremists. It showed 68 percent think Obama should be tougher; only 26 percent said he’s being tough enough.

The poll of 1,044 registered voters was taken Feb. 8-10. It had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Leaders from 60 different countries traveled to Washington for the summit this week.

Community leaders from Boston, Minneapolis and Los Angeles were also in attendance and discussed how their cities could help empower communities to protect themselves against extremist ideologies.

FoxNews.com

A federal judge has granted a request by 26 states to temporarily block President Obama’s executive action on illegal immigration, allowing a lawsuit aimed at permanently stopping the orders to make its way through the courts.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen granted the preliminary injunction Monday after hearing arguments in Brownsville, Texas last month. He wrote in a memorandum accompanying his order that the lawsuit should go forward and that without a preliminary injunction the states will “suffer irreparable harm in this case.”

“The genie would be impossible to put back into the bottle,” he wrote, adding that he agreed with the plaintiffs’ argument that legalizing the presence of millions of people is a “virtually irreversible” action.

The first of Obama’s orders — to expand a program that protects young immigrants from deportation if they were brought to the U.S. illegally as children — was set to start taking effect Wednesday. The other major part of Obama’s order, which extends deportation protections to parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents who have been in the country for some years, was not expected to begin until May 19.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in a statement, reiterated the administration’s position that Obama’s executive actions were within the bounds of the law — and indicated they would appeal.

“The Supreme Court and Congress have made clear that the federal government can set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws-which is exactly what the President did when he announced commonsense policies to help fix our broken immigration system,” Earnest said, later adding “The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision.”

An appeal by the administration would be handled by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

House and Senate Republican leaders pointed to the judge’s decision in amplifying calls to advance a stalled bill that would both fund the Homeland Security department and undo Obama’s immigration plan. The GOP-authored bill passed the House, but is stuck in the Senate. “This ruling underscores what the President has already acknowledged publicly 22 times: He doesn’t have the authority to take the kinds of actions he once referred to as ‘ignoring the law’ and ‘unwise and unfair,'” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said in a statement. “Senate Democrats — especially those who’ve voiced opposition to the President’s executive overreach — should end their partisan filibuster of Department of Homeland Security funding.”

Hanen, who’s been on the federal court since 2002 after being nominated by President George W. Bush, regularly handles border cases but wasn’t known for being outspoken on immigration until a 2013 case. In his ruling in that case, Hanen suggested the Homeland Security Department should be arresting parents living in the U.S. illegally who induce their children to cross the border illegally.

The coalition, led by Texas and made up of mostly conservative states in the South and Midwest, argues that Obama has violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution, which they say limits the scope of presidential power. They also say the order will force increased investment in law enforcement, health care and education.

“Judge Hanen’s decision rightly stops the President’s overreach in its tracks,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement.

In their request for the injunction, the coalition said it was necessary because it would be “difficult or impossible to undo the President’s lawlessness after the Defendants start granting applications for deferred action.”

Congressional Republicans have vowed to block Obama’s actions on immigration by cutting off Homeland Security Department spending for the program. Earlier this year, the Republican-controlled House passed a $39.7 billion spending bill to fund the department through the end of the budget year, but attached language to undo Obama’s executive actions. The fate of that House-passed bill is unclear as Republicans in the Senate are six votes shy of the 60-vote majority needed to advance most legislation.

Others supporting Obama’s executive order include a group of 12 mostly liberal states, including Washington and California, as well as the District of Columbia. They filed a motion with Hanen in support of Obama, arguing the directives will substantially benefit states and will further the public interest.

A group of law enforcement officials, including the Major Cities Chiefs Association and more than 20 police chiefs and sheriffs from across the country, also filed a motion in support, arguing the executive action will improve public safety by encouraging cooperation between police and individuals with concerns about their immigration status.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Egyptian warplanes struck hard at ISIS militants in neighboring Libya, killing as many as 64 militants and destroying the Islamist terror group’s training camps and weapons caches a day after a sickening video surfaced showing black-clad jihadists beheading 21 Coptic Christians.

The strikes came after Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi went on national television in the world’s most populous Arab nation and vowed revenge was coming. The address was followed by the airing of military video showing the planes taking off for the mission and an Armed Forces General Command statement saying the strikes were “to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers.”

“Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield that protects them,” it said.

The ISIS video released online showed the Egyptian victims, poor men from Egypt’s rural areas who had traveled to Libya looking for work, kneeling before Islamic State executioners. In Egypt, which by some estimates is about 10 percent Christian, the video sent shockwaves through both Muslim and Christian communities. El-Sisi, the U.S.-trained, former military leader who in a landmark New Year’s day address called on the Arab world to reject radical terror, and then took the unprecedented step of attending services at a Christian church, told his nation the deaths would be avenged.

“These cowardly actions will not undermine our determination” said el-Sissi, who also banned all travel to Libya by Egyptian citizens. “Egypt and the whole world are in a fierce battle with extremist groups carrying extremist ideology and sharing the same goals.”

On Monday, el-Sissi visited the main Coptic Cathedral of St. Mark in Cairo to offer his condolences on the Egyptians killed in Libya, according to state TV.

Egyptian state-run news service Al-Ahram, citing a Libyan military spokesman, reported that the strikes, which were coordinated with Libyan officials, killed 64 Islamic State fighters and left dozens wounded. Egyptian officials told the news service the strikes were the first of several to come.

Egypt is already battling a burgeoning Islamist insurgency centered in the strategic Sinai Peninsula, where militants have recently declared their allegiance to ISIS and rely heavily on arms smuggled across the porous desert border between Egypt and Libya.

The strikes also come just a month before Egypt is scheduled to host a major donor’s conference at a Sinai resort to attract foreign investment needed to revive the economy after more than four years of turmoil.

The Egyptian government had previously declared a seven-day period of mourning and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi addressed the nation late Sunday night, saying that his government reserved the right to seek retaliation for the killings.

“These cowardly actions will not undermine our determination” said el-Sissi, who also banned all travel to Libya by Egyptian citizens. “Egypt and the whole world are in a fierce battle with extremist groups carrying extremist ideology and sharing the same goals.”

Libya’s air force commander, Saqr al-Joroushi, told Egyptian state TV that the airstrikes were coordinated with the Libyan side and that they killed about 50 militants. Libya’s air force also announced it had launched strikes in the eastern city of Darna, which was taken over by an ISIS affiliate last year. The announcement, on the Facebook page of the Air Force Chief of Staff, did not provide further details. Two Libyan security officials told the Associated Press civilians, including three children and two women, were killed in the strikes. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The video was released late Sunday by militants in Libya affiliated with the Islamic State group. The militants had been holding 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian laborers rounded up from the city of Sirte in December and January. The killings raise the possibility that the extremist group — which controls about a third of Syria and Iraq in a self-declared caliphate — has established a direct affiliate less than 500 miles from the southern tip of Italy, Libya’s former colonial master. One of the militants in the video makes direct reference to that possibility, saying the group now plans to “conquer Rome.”

In Washington, the White House released a statement calling the beheadings “despicable” and “cowardly”, but made no mention of the victims’ religion, referring to them only as “Egyptian citizens” or “innocents.” White House press secretary Josh Earnest added in the statement that the terror group’s “barbarity knows no bounds.”

Also Sunday, Secretary of State John Kerry called Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry. He offered his condolences on behalf of the American people and strongly condemned the killings. Kerry and the foreign minister agreed to keep in close touch as Egyptians deliberated on a response, according to a release from the State Department.

The U.N. Security Council meanwhile strongly condemned what it called “the heinous and cowardly apparent murder in Libya of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” using another name for the terror group.

The foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, also condemned the mass killing, calling it an “ugly crime.”

“The United Arab Emirates is devoting all its resources to support the efforts of Egypt to eradicate terrorism and the violence directed against its citizens,” he said.

Sheikh Abdullah added that the killing highlights the need to help the Libyan government “extend its sovereign authority over all of Libya’s territory.”

The oil-rich Emirates, along with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, has given billions of dollars in aid to Egypt since el-Sissi, who was then military chief, overthrew Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 amid massive protests against his yearlong rule.

Egypt has since waged a sweeping crackdown against Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood group, which it has officially branded a terrorist organization. El-Sissi has insisted the crackdown in Egypt, as well as support for the government in Libya, is part of a larger war on terror.

Libya in recent months has seen the worst unrest since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, which will complicate any efforts to combat the country’s many Islamic extremist groups.

The internationally recognized government has been confined to the country’s far east since Islamist-allied militias seized the capital Tripoli last year, and Islamist politicians have reconstituted a previous government and parliament.

Egypt has strongly backed the internationally recognized government, and U.S. officials have said both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have taken part in a series of mysterious airstrikes targeting Islamist-allied forces.

FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The Southern Poverty Law Center apologized on Wednesday to Ben Carson after placing the potential Republican presidential candidate on its “Extremist Watch List” — which is mostly made up of hate groups and white supremacists.

Carson was placed on the list last October by the civil rights advocacy group for allegedly being “anti-gay.” The group drew criticism after the listing was reported on last week.

“In October 2014, we posted an ‘Extremist File’ of Dr. Ben Carson,” SPLC wrote on its website. “This week, as we’ve come under intense criticism for doing so, we’ve reviewed our profile and have concluded that it did not meet our standards, so we have taken it down and apologize to Dr. Carson for having posted it.”

Among the reasons the SPLC gave for initially putting Carson on the list includes a March 26, 2013 interview on Fox News’ “Hannity.”

In that interview, Carson said, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [North American Man/Boy Love Association], be they people who believe in bestiality — it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition.”

The SPLC also took Carson to task for similar remarks made to “The Baltimore Sun” on March 29, 2013 as well as in his book, “America the Beautiful,” where he linked redefining marriage based on societal pressures to the “dramatic fall of the Roman Empire.”

Though the SPLC apologized for putting Carson on the list, it maintains Carson has “made a number of statements that express views that we believe most people would conclude are extreme” and said “we believe that his views should be closely examined.”

Other “featured” extremists on the SPLC’s list include Craig Cobb, who is best known for his botched effort to turn Leith, N.D., into an Aryan stronghold and Harry Cooper, the founder of Sharkhunters International, a company that organizes tours to places like Adolf Hitler’s vacation home in Bavaria.

Carson, a neurosurgeon and vocal Obama critic who is popular among conservative groups across the country, is currently the only high-profile black candidate considering a White House bid. He has not made a formal announcement about his 2016 plans.

FoxNews.com

In a world where insults and epithets are bandied about without thought or provocation, we hesitate to thrust into the public’s discourse a concept so crude as questioning the actual mental capacity of one who has twice been elected to the office of the presidency by a “majority” of the electorate.

However, every day we see Barack Obama’s face on television and hear his words, and it is apparent that he is not in touch with reality. In every aspect of his governance, he has failed, and things have gotten much worse–yet he tells us daily what a great job he’s doing, and how successful his presidency is.

Mr. Obama tells us that the economy is soaring and that employment is nearly full, while every economic indicator tells us that earning and buying power have diminished significantly since Obama took office, and that millions of Americans have lost their careers, and are now either entirely unemployable or flipping burgers to scrape by.

Mr. Obama tells us that America is now loved by the countries of the world, and respected as never before. He tells us that there is peace throughout the world and that it is a much safer place since his brand of foreign policy has been implemented. He has apologized to the world for America’s delusional thinking of the past, and has bowed and scraped before foreign potentates, and has almost single-handedly handed the Middle East and much of Europe to Islamic extremists and the atomic bomb to Iran, while lecturing American’s that Islam is due his special attention because of the Crusades (which followed Islamic attacks on Christians) that occurred 1,000 years ago. All this while tens of thousands (and more) of innocent Christians, women and children are murdered annually for no other reason than refusing to embrace Islam and submit to its backward and savage tenets.

The media, academia and like-minded politicos on the left for years have told the sane of the world to just wait and we will eventually behold the fruits of Mr. Obama’s leftist world view–and we have waited, and watched as things have declined into the spiraling trajectory we now see. It was all extremely foreseeable, and we who are old enough watched as the same things spiraled out of control during the presidency of Obama’s spiritual predecessor, Jimmy Carter–or for those who have read a book, e.g., how Hitler nearly enslaved the world while people like Obama tried to pacify him by signing documents in front of cameras.

The difference now is that the media and educational institutions are ‘all in’ with Obama’s leftist panacea, and only now are any of them beginning to question the sanity of Obama’s moves. Only now are pundits beginning to raise an eyebrow at the daily briefings coming out of the White House, telling us how successful Mr. Obama’s policies are, while the walls are falling down around us.

No–Mr. Obama is not f______ing retarded, as so ineloquently expressed by many of his detractors, nor is he necessarily less intelligent than most of those who have declared themselves to be the world’s intelligentsia.

The truth is that Mr. Obama is a true believer and the foreseeable product of leftist thinking, which holds that 1) if you divert as much money from an economy as possible, you will strengthen it (much like treating illnesses with leaches) and empower the poor, 2) the more people that eventually drop off the unemployed rolls because they can’t find disappearing jobs, the better the unemployment figures are, 3) by letting Islam overtake the world, you will spread its inherent message of peace and tolerance and replace Constitutional/colonial bigotry, and 4) by taking away the property of the hard working and productive and giving it to the indolent, you will increase productivity and spread wealth.

It’s not that Mr. Obama suffers from mental retardation any more than anyone else on the left does–the problem is that they all suffer from an inability to deal with reality, or to mentally project the natural result of a political or economic policy: a + b = c; or higher taxes plus deficit spending = bankruptcy

Reality is that Islam hates women, homosexuals, and anyone who isn’t Islamic–and the Islamic movement will force itself into every country and every state until it has removed all obstacles and replaced them with the Islamic caliphate–where women are subjugated, gays are beheaded or burned, and Christians and Buddhists are murdered to the point of extinction. Yet we see gay people marching with pro-Islam signs–with Mr. Obama cheering from the Oval Office. Reality is that stealing from one person and giving to another only makes the recipient dependent and the victim loses incentive to produce more than the recipient. Reality is that increasing the size of a national government and giving it authority to regulate every aspect of someone else’s life, enslaves everyone within its borders–including you.

Wherever and whenever leftists have risen to power, enslavement and murder soon follow. The Soviet Union, China, North Korea–which Democrat would want to live in one of those countries? Which gay man or woman? Which proponent of free expression? Yet these are exactly the people who respond so eagerly to the battle cry of the left–“Give us the power over your neighbor, so that we can bestow our gifts on you.”When the Red Army marched through China they were cheered by the people of the cities because the rich were now going to suffer for their sins. They were shocked to learn that anyone with more than 1 acre of land or anyone who had ever hired a laborer to help harvest the land was considered “rich,” and was murdered by the Red Army. China lost all of its ambitious producers in a matter of months, and it took several decades and the relinquishment of leftist principles to begin to create sufficient supplies for the people of that country.

It never works out the way leftists tell us it will–and it is never intended to work out that way. They are liars–and there are always enough people stupid enough to believe them. In fact, about half the people are gullible enough to continue to fall for the lie. Elections are close, but they have severe and long-term consequences. Who’s the f______ing retard now?

PUBLIUS