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At least 31 are dead across Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Alabama after tornado storms ravaged the Midwest and South, essentially destroying towns. Today, the rescue effort continued, as parts of the South remained on tornado watch. "It's just nuts right here," National Weather Service meteorologist John Gordon told CNN during the storms. Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodwin told a CNN affiliate that they have "complete destruction." [CNN]

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Lauren Spierer, the 20-year-old Indiana University student from Westchester who's been missing for 60 days, is still being sought. Except now, the FBI's focus has shifted to a dump in Terre Haute, Indiana. The agency announced that they have "reason to believe that something is in that landfill."

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via @JohnBelitsky

The weekend before last two men set out with a plan that would captivate America's imagination and end up getting them at least 15 minutes in the eye of the national, and international, media, from CNN to the BBC to the morning show circuit. John Belitsky, with his friend Dan Wuebben, convinced cab driver Mohammed Alam to drive them from La Guardia Airport to L.A. for $5,000. ROAAAAD TRIP! They left on Saturday, April 16, arrived in L.A. after 6 days, and and started back across the country on Sunday the 24th. We caught up with them yesterday and it seemed that some of the initial high spirits for the trip had faded, to be replaced with realism and exhaustion (two weeks in a cab -- and hitting snow -- will do that to you).

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Belitsky and Wuebben, en route (via @johnbelitsky)

What's your longest cab ride? 35 minutes? That seemingly endless span of time in which you try to cross town during rush hour? So long that you fall asleep on the way back to Brooklyn and the cabbie has to poke you in the shoulder and shout "Lady!"? As long as it takes to drive from La Guardia to Los Angeles? John Belitsky, who happens to be the son of a former New York cab driver, was told by his dad that no cab driver would ever be convinced to drive that far. He found a cab driver who was.

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"Fox lies!" scream the protesters, part of the hullabaloo over the proposed legislation to cut public employee benefits and bargaining rights in Wisconsin. At first it's a lot of them. Then it's just one lone man, yelling right in the flustered Fox News reporter's face. He comes from a strange land where the language only has two words, "fox" and "lies." You can really communicate a lot with tone, though.

[rgray@villagevoice.com] [@_rosiegray]

A 4.3 magnitude earthquake struck Oklahoma southeast of Oklahoma City, near Norman, at about 9 a.m. this morning. Aftershocks were apparently felt in Texas and Kansas. Midwesterners are all abuzz on Twitter, not least because earthquakes are somewhat rare in the Midwest. Tulsa World has the best quote from a real, live witness:

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