WASHINGTON - Despite Democratic fears, predictions of the demise of President Barack Obama's agenda appear exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies, political triage by the administration and party leaders in Congress and lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office. "Absolutely not," Steven Miller, the recently resigned acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, responded Friday when asked if he had any contact with the White House about targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for special treatment.

New York, May 17 (EFE).- Bill Gates has regained the title of the world's richest person, a position he lost in 2007 to Mexico's Carlos Slim due to fluctuations in the Microsoft mogul's stock market investments, according to Bloomberg's daily index. Gates's fortune is now estimated at $72.7 billion, having risen 16 percent over the past year thanks to a resurgence of financial markets in recent months.

BALTIMORE - President Barack Obama tried on Friday to leave behind the political battles that have overshadowed his second-term agenda, saying lawmakers should work on creating more middle-class jobs in the slowly growing economy. "Our work is not done, and our focus cannot drift," Obama said.

Tucson, Arizona, May 16 (EFE).- Deaths of undocumented immigrants in the Arizona desert are down 36 percent in the 2013 fiscal year, the U.S. Border Patrol said. From Oct. 1 through May 1, 64 migrants died while trying to sneak across the border into the United States, down from 101 during the same period of fiscal 2012, according to official figures. "The deaths have gone down, but as temperatures begin to rise in the desert, the dangers increase," Andres Adame, spokesman for the Border Patrol Tucson Sector, told Efe. The most recent fatality was last Saturday.