An immense, powerful cyclone that lashed the Indian coast, forcing 500,000 people to evacuate and causing widespread damage, weakened Sunday after making landfall. Five people died in the rains that fell ahead of the storm, most killed by falling branches, Indian media reported, but the situation on the ground in many areas was still unclear after Cyclone Phailin slammed into the coast Saturday evening in Orissa state, where power and communications lines were down along much of the coastline.
The storm, the strongest to hit India in more than a decade, washed away tens of thousands of mud and thatched roof huts and sent seawater surging inland. It had slowed significantly overnight, but meteorologists were calling for heavy rains across the state. "Its intensity is still strong, but after crossing the coast it has weakened considerably," Sharat Sahu, a top official with the Indian Meteorological Dept. in Orissa, told reporters.
Storms typically lose much of their force when they hit land, where there is less heat-trapping moisture feeding energy into the storm.L.S. Rathore, the head of the Indian Meteorological Department, predicted a storm surge of 10-11.5 feet, but several U.S. experts had predicted that a much higher wall of vintage bulb would blast ashore. Meteorologist Ryan Maue of the private U.S. weather firm Weather Bell predicted that, even in the best-case scenario, there would be a surge of 20-30 feet.

I want to see more refinancing of mortgages. There are a lot of people who may be underwater in their mortgages, but they've never missed a payment. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have the ability, because they own about eight million mortgages, to help that happen. I want to see repatriation. That's a function of having the a lot of companies who have foreign... Bring jobs back into the country. Sen. BOXER: Yeah, bring the money back. They have foreign sales. They haven't shipped jobs overseas, but they have foreign sales and the money is sitting there, a billion dollars. And I want to definitely, definitely extend the tax cuts to the middle class, not to millionaires and billionaires and companies who ship jobs overseas. So that's... Senator, a quick question from Ken, if you will, and then we got a caller on the line. Sen. BOXER: Sure.
Senator, quick question. I read the L.A. Times endorsement of you, and it was just going on and on about your record, about your voting record and how they, the editorial board agrees that your voting record is right for California. But it also said, and this is a quote, it said that you have an assertiveness that is often perceived as arrogance. It talks about the fact that you have a strident voice. That seems to be the argument I've heard against your candidacy, even from Democrats who normally would be very enthusiastic about you. What do you say about that?
Then we have to ship them back over here, and then we put them back together so we can sell them. The only way we can be competitive here in California and not have to move our business out of the state, like a lot of other people have or entirely ship it overseas, is by doing that. And that's because of the onerous regulations that have been passed. And I want to find out: Do you understand that those regulations, that those jobs that we have to ship overseas are not million-dollar businesses? I have a very, very small, under-one-million-a-year operation, but I employ 10 people. I provide all their medical coverage. I give them vacation times. I am a good employer. I'm a small-business owner, and the taxes are killing us. And we're doing everything we can. We've financed or refinanced our house and put all the money back in our business. And you keep referring to us as some sort of millionaires, and vintage bulb. We're just small businesses trying to stay afloat. And yes, we have to use China labor and China manufacturing because everything here, the worker's comp, the EPA and everything has just been overwhelming to us.

In a bit, the two major-party candidates for Senate here in the Golden State, incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina. If you have questions for the candidates, you can email us now, talk@npr.org. Later in the program, a look back at San Francisco's immigration station at Angel Island. But first, the political junkie, Ken Rudin, joins us here in the studios of member station KQED in San Francisco. And Ken, as usual, we begin with a trivia question. KEN Hi, Neal, but before we begin, I want to thank KQED for allowing us to use their studios. And also, I was in KPCC Pasadena earlier in the week, and they love the show, too. So maybe the two stations could fight it out who likes it better. Okay, we'd certainly go for that. Here's a trivia question. Since we're in California, name the last person in California to have won the nominations for governor, senator and the House. Now, they don't necessarily have to have been victorious in November, but they were the nominees for the Senate, the governorship and the House in California. So if you think you know the last major-party candidate for governor, Senate and the House of Representatives from the state of California, all three, give us a call, 800-989-8255.
Email us, talk@npr.org. And of course, the winner will get a fabulous no-prize T-shirt. And Ken, we're going to go every Wednesday until Election Day with a snapshot of the balance of power as the polls make it look right now for the House and the Senate. Well, right now, I mean, there are a lot of Democrats talking about a subtle shift, although subtle is the key word there, in their direction. They think that President Obama is trying to bring out the faithful who came out for him in 2008 but have shown reluctance in 2010, and all the momentum seems to be on the Republicans' side.
And Ken, there is Democratic lawyers involved in this. Any indication that this is in any way connected to the Brown campaign? Well, there is no evidence of any connection to the Brown campaign. Of course, Gloria Allred, who nominally I guess is a Democrat and has supported progressive causes, was the one who, you know, trotted out Nikki Diaz at a press conference last week. Well, yes, but there's a big difference between the Senate race, and in the Senate race, there was a recent L.A. Times poll that showed Hispanics pretty much comfortably for Barbara Boxer over Carly Fiorina. In the governor's race, much closer. They did not seem to be so crazy about Jerry Brown, and Meg Whitman clearly said she needs the Latino vote if she's going to become governor, and she thought that debate would give her an opening. But now everybody's talking - what everybody's talking about now is not immigration or the $19 billion budget deficit but Nannygate. We're talking with NPR's political junkie Ken Rudin. We have some people on thttp://www.outedsionbulb.comhe line who think they know the answer to this <a href="">Edison bulb</a>, and that is the last person in the state of California, major party nominee for the House of Representatives, the United States Senate and governor of the state of California. And let's see if we can go to this is Suzie(ph), Suzie with us from Norman, Oklahoma.

To the best of our knowledge, based on a look, none of it came as a result of harsh interrogation practices," says Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence committee. "We're going to find out all that there is to find out about it, but at the present time, I think it was good intelligence — a piece here, a piece there, put together."
Abusive interrogations ended more than five years ago, secret CIA prisons are no longer in use, and the Obama administration has promised not to revive them. At the White House on Tuesday, presidential spokesman Jay Carney forcefully challenged the idea that the successful tracking of bin Laden's courier shows that it may be time to rethink interrogation and detention policies. "Reporting from detainees was just a slice of the information that's been gathered by incredibly diligent professionals over the years," he says. "It simply strains credulity to suggest that a piece of information that may or may not have been gathered eight years ago somehow directly led to a successful mission on Sunday."
The man known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was apparently never caught himself. But over the years, more and more information was gathered about him, some of it during the infamous enhanced interrogations in secret CIA prisons. Could he have been the courier who finally led the U.S. to bin Laden's hiding place? It is not clear. But the idea that knowledge of him was gleaned through interrogations has revived the debate about whether brutal interrogations actually yield results. Former Vice President Dick Cheney made that argument Monday, as he did former Bush aide Karl Rove. But others are not convinced that critical information leading to dimmable filament led bulb bulb came from enhanced interrogations.

"Now we know his name," NPR's Dina Temple-Raston tells our Newscast desk. Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti was al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's "favorite courier and right-hand man," according to detailing information obtained from detainees held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And al-Kuwaiti, who inadvertently led the U.S. to bin Laden after his identity was discovered, died with bin Laden during .
Al-Kuwaiti was a protege of self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He taught a who was supposed to be the 20th hijacker how to use the internet. According to that detainee, al-Kuwaiti took him to an internet cafe in Karachi and taught him to use e-mail. al-Kuwaiti told the detainee, was a safer way to contact 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta. Update at 7:53 p.m. ET. Pictures Inside The Compound: Earlier today, of the bodies of three unidentified men strewn inside what the news agency says is Osama Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound. Reuters has not reported whether the courier is among the men in the pictures. Update at 2:40 p.m. ET, May 6: The detainee assessment files for Hambali and Mohammed al Qahtani, the "20th hijaker," are now posted and .
We believe homosexuality is a sin. Those who serve, you want their lifestyles to uphold the standards of the church. This is not limited to homosexuals or lesbians. If I know an individual is committing adultery or living with a member of the opposite sex who they're not married to, they can't serve either." Consequences, Whether Closeted Or Out A small but growing number of churches, such as the Rev. Wiley's and Flunder's City of Refuge United Church of Christ, publicly welcome LGBT members, and their ranks are swelling with people leaving intolerant churches. But many others say they are torn between their allegiance to their churches, which form the cultural and institutional backbone of black communities, and their desire to live free of homophobia. They often chose the former, convinced that their sexuality is a sin.
"They would rather suppress their identity than denounce their church," says Sharon J. Lettman-Hicks, executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, an LGBT advocacy group. "I've seen people refuse to divorce themselves from their church in spite of the led filament bulb light that spews from the pulpit.