Jeb Bush faces tough path in Iowa, supporters say

DES MOINES — Jeb Bush, a change-agent governor, has a gold-plated record that no other 2016 contender can match — but many Iowans don't know what he's done because his accomplishments have been overshadowed by his family name, his backers here say.

The curtain went up Monday on Bush's presidential bid, so his campaign can now spread the word about an eight-year Florida governor who orchestrated significant tax cuts, job creation, a downsized government and improvements to K-12 schools, all while helping the most vulnerable in society, Iowa Republicans said.

"He has a big heart. He has a keen mind. He's thoughtful, purposeful, energetic," said Des Moines businessman and former Iowa GOP Chairman David Oman, who is working to elect Bush. "People have to get to know him as someone other than a name in a headline."

"What sets Jeb Bush apart from others in the field," said Mark Jacobs, an education reform advocate and retired CEO who ran for U.S. Senate in Iowa in 2014, "is this is a man who has actually done it."

But with early resistance to Bush from Iowa conservatives and stiff competition from prominent contenders such as Scott Walker and Marco Rubio and well-funded upstarts like Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson, Bush will need to dig in early and aggressively or there won't be space for him late in the game, Iowa strategists said.

Prison teacher charged with aiding escapees appears in court

DANNEMORA, N.Y. — A woman charged with helping two murderers escape from a maximum-security prison by providing them hacksaw blades, chisels and other tools made another court appearance Monday as a manhunt in far northern New York marked its 10th day.

The local schools reopened with added police patrols and more than 800 law enforcement officers continued their search for Richard Matt and David Sweat, who escaped from the Clinton Correctional Facility near the Canadian border June 6. The main road leading into the community remained closed.

Prosecutors say Joyce Mitchell, a prison tailoring shop instructor who had befriended the inmates, had agreed to be the getaway driver but backed out because she still loved her husband and felt guilty for participating.Mitchell, 51, made her second court appearance in Plattsburgh wearing a striped prison jumpsuit and a bulletproof vest. She waived a preliminary hearing, and the case headed to a county court.

"Basically, when it was go-time and it was the actual day of the event, I do think she got cold feet and realized, 'What am I doing?'" Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie said Sunday. "Reality struck. She realized that, really, the grass wasn't greener on the other side."

Wylie said there was no evidence the men had a Plan B once Mitchell backed out, and no vehicles have been reported stolen in the area. That has led searchers to believe the men are still near the prison in Dannemora.

Sweat, 35, was serving a life sentence without parole for killing a sheriff's deputy. Matt, 48, was doing 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of his former boss.

Mitchell was charged Friday with also supplying a punch and a screwdriver to the two inmates. Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea on her behalf. She has been suspended without pay from her $57,000-a-year job overseeing inmates who sew clothes and learn to repair sewing machines at the prison.

Brian Barrett, a criminal defense lawyer in Lake Placid not involved in the case, said Mitchell could face liability if Matt and Sweat commit new crimes and she's found responsible for helping them escape.

"She could have accomplice liability for that," Barrett said. "Certainly she would be civilly liable."

Authorities say the convicts used power tools to cut through the back of their adjacent cells, broke through a brick wall, then cut into a steam pipe and slithered through it, finally emerging outside the prison walls through a manhole. Wylie says they apparently used tools stored by prison contractors, taking care to return them to their toolboxes after each night's work.

Workers have welded shut three manholes, including the one from which the convicts climbed out.

Tropical Storm Bill forms in Gulf of Mexico, Texas landfall expected Tuesday

Tropical Storm Bill formed in the Gulf of Mexico late Monday and was expected to make landfall in Texas early Tuesday.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that Bill was centered about 160 miles east-southeast of Port O'Connor, Texas, and about 155 miles south-southeast of Galveston, Texas. A tropical storm warning was in effect for the coast of Texas from Baffin Bay to High Island until at least 4 a.m. local time Tuesday. 

Bill had maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and was moving northwest at about 12 mph. On the current forecast track, the storm would make landfall along the Texas coast Tuesday morning before moving inland over south-central Texas on Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday night.

The center said some slight strengthening is possible before landfall. Bill is expected to weaken after moving over land.

The storm threat has already closed some schools in Texas, with school districts in Galveston and in southern Houston suburbs canceling classes for Tuesday. Houston school district officials said late Monday they had not made a decision but were monitoring the weather closely.

The eastern half of Texas is under flood watches, with up to 10 inches of rain expected in some areas. The southeastern quarter of the state is under a watch through Wednesday, while the northeastern quarter is under a watch from Tuesday through Thursday.

The NHC forecast calls for the storm to bring 4 to 8 inches of rain to eastern Texas and eastern Oklahoma. Another 2 to 4 inches were expected in western Louisiana and Arkansas. Some parts of eastern Texas were expected to see a foot of rainfall. 

Charter Deal for Time Warner Cable Signals Shift in TV Industry

Trying to succeed where Comcast failed, Charter Communications has struck a deal to buy Time Warner Cable, an acquisition that would create a powerhouse in the consolidating American cable and broadband industry.

Charter plans to announce on Tuesday a $55 billion deal for its larger rival and an approximately $10 billion takeover of a smaller competitor, Bright House Networks, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday.

With those deals, Charter will become a significantly stronger rival to Comcast, the giant of the cable industry, which had until last month sought to buy Time Warner Cable itself until the plan met resistance from federal antitrust regulators.

The flurry of deal-making reflects the efforts of an industry grappling with a tectonic shift in how Americans watch and pay for television. With customers increasingly turning to the Internet for videos, cable companies have sought to combine to gain bigger scale and leverage in negotiations with content providers.

That has often meant strikingly huge acquisitions. In the last week alone, the European telecom giant Altice bought a controlling stake in the small cable operator Suddenlink to extend its broadband and pay television empire across the Atlantic as part of a campaign that may eventually extend to buying other smaller cable operators.

Time Warner Cable, spun off from the parent it was named after in 2009, is the No. 2 cable operator in the country and has long been viewed as an important trophy for any company looking to dominate the American cable and broadband landscape.

Buying Time Warner Cable, as well as Bright House, will transform Charter — a small operator born in St. Louis in 1993 — into the most serious competitor to Comcast to date. The two acquisitions will approximately quadruple Charter’s customer base to about 24 million, compared with Comcast’s 27 million.

Also intensifying the high-stakes competition for video subscribers is AT&T’s deal last year to buy the satellite television operator DirecTV for $48.5 billion. Opposition to that deal is not nearly as contentious as the Comcast-Time Warner Cable deal was, in part because that deal does not pose nearly as much consolidation in video or broadband.

Under the terms of its deal, Charter will pay about $195 per Time Warner Cable share in cash and stock. That is almost 14 percent higher than Time Warner Cable’s closing stock price on Friday — and 47 percent higher than Charter’s original bid for its rival from early last year.

To help finance the deal, Charter will sell $5 billion worth of stock to Liberty Broadband, part of the telecom empire owned by the billionaire John C. Malone.

Time Warner Cable operates in 29 states, from Maine to Hawaii.

Charter and its main backer, Mr. Malone, have coveted the company as a way to improve its national reach and bargaining power with programmers like CBS and Discovery Communications. But last year the two were thwarted by Comcast, which bid $45 billion to unite the country’s two biggest cable operators.

Owning its next-biggest competitor would have given Comcast nearly 60 percent of the nation’s high-speed Internet customers and about a third of American pay television subscribers.

Despite its wealth of connections and army of lobbyists, Comcast proved unable to persuade the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission that the deal would not lead to higher consumer prices or anticompetitive roadblocks for online video providers like Netflix.

As that takeover was falling apart, Charter and Mr. Malone again approached Time Warner Cable, promising both friendlier deal negotiations and a higher price tag, people briefed on the discussions have said.

Charter again appeared to face competition, this time from Altice, which had held preliminary discussions with Time Warner Cable, people briefed on the matter have said. Yet the French telecom company will be busy integrating Suddenlink and is not expected to put up a serious fight for Time Warner Cable.

Representatives of Charter and Time Warner Cable declined to comment on the matter, which was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

Charter is still likely to face close scrutiny from the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, though some analysts and industry watchdogs said that the company was unlikely to face the same level of opposition that Comcast did.

Together, Charter and Time Warner Cable will still be smaller than Comcast. And the newly enlarged Charter also does not run a big media operation, as Comcast does through its NBCUniversal division.

“It does not look to be nearly as big an antitrust concern as the Comcast deal was,” Gene Kimmelman, the chief executive of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group, and a former antitrust official at the Justice Department, said of the Charter deal. “In this instance, you’re combining the No. 2 company with a smaller player that can be a bit of a counterweight to Comcast.”

But the government may still take a tough look, particularly since Comcast and the newly enlarged Charter will all but control the nation’s landline high-speed broadband connections, according to Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG.

“It is much easier to prevent others from getting to Comcast’s size,” he wrote in an email. “With no broadband competition in most of the country, it is hard to see how the positives outweigh the risks for the F.C.C. and the D.O.J.”

As part of the deal with Charter, Time Warner Cable will receive a $2 billion breakup fee if the transaction falls apart. (It received nothing when Comcast withdrew its takeover bid last month.)

The deal’s rich premium will benefit the hedge fund manager John Paulson, whose Paulson & Company owns 8.7 million shares of Time Warner Cable stock, making the hedge fund firm the sixth-largest institutional investor in the cable concern, according to regulatory filings. Time Warner Cable is the third-largest stock investment for Mr. Paulson’s firm, based on market valuation.

Another top hedge fund investor in Time Warner Cable based on the most recent regulatory filings is the Children’s Investment Fund Management, a fund based in Britain and operated by Chris Hohn. It last reported owning 15 million shares of the cable company, adding about five million shares since the end of last year, regulatory filings show.

In the near term, it is unclear whether existing Time Warner Cable subscribers will see much difference in their service.

Charter is likely to argue that the deal will lead to faster services, newer options for streaming video products and potentially lower prices by bargaining with content providers. Comcast has already been developing its X1 service, which lets customers record shows and stream content to their devices.

Also unclear is whether customers’ opinions of Time Warner Cable or Charter services will improve. Charter ranks near the bottom ofcustomer satisfaction surveys, along with Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Twister kills 13 in Mexico border city; 12 missing in Texas

A tornado raged through a city on the U.S.-Mexico border Monday, destroying homes, flinging cars like matchsticks and ripping an infant from its mother's arms. At least 13 people were killed, authorities said.

In Texas, at least 3 people are dead and 12 people were reported missing after the vacation home they were staying in was swept away by rushing floodwaters in a small town popular with tourists.

The baby was also missing after the twister that hit Ciudad Acuna, a city of 125,000 across from Del Rio, Texas, sent its infant carrier flying. Rescue workers began digging through the rubble of damaged homes in a race to find victims.

The twister hit a seven-block area, which Victor Zamora, interior secretary of the northern state of Coahuila, described as "devastated."

Mayor Evaristo Perez Rivera said 300 people were being treated at local hospitals, and up to 200 homes had been completely destroyed. Three people were unaccounted for.

"There's nothing standing, not walls, not roofs," said Edgar Gonzalez, a spokesman for the city government, describing some of the destroyed homes in a 3-square kilometer (1 square mile) stretch.

By midday, 13 people were confirmed dead — 10 adults and three infants.

Family members and neighbors gathered around a pickup truck where the bodies of a woman and two children were laid out in the truck's bed, covered with sheets. Two relatives reached down to touch the bodies, covered their eyes and wept.

Photos from the scene showed cars with their hoods torn off, resting upended against single-story houses. One car's frame was bent around the gate of a house. A bus was seen flipped and crumpled on a roadway.

The twister struck not long after daybreak, around the time buses were preparing to take children to school, Zamora said.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto said he planned to travel to Acuna later in the day with officials from government agencies.

In the U.S., a line of storms that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes dumped record rainfall on parts of the Plains and Midwest, spawning tornadoes and causing major flooding that forced at least 2,000 Texans from their homes.

A 14-year-old boy and his dog were found dead in a suburban Dallas storm drain Monday evening. Investigators say both apparently had drowned but their investigation continues.

A police statement says Damien's family had reported him missing about 10 p.m. Sunday after one of his two dogs showed up alone at the house, wet and extremely muddy.

The family said Damien was last seen with his two dogs about 4 p.m. that afternoon and that he enjoyed exploring the culverts and storm drains of his neighborhood.

Authorities have said at least one other person was killed in flooding on Sunday, and a high school senior died Saturday night after her car was caught in high water.

Witnesses reported seeing the swollen Blanco River push the vacation house off its foundation and smash it into a bridge. Only pieces of the home have been found, according to Hays County Judge Bert Cobb.

One person who was rescued from the home told workers that the other 12 inside were all connected to two families, Cobb said.

The two-story house sat about 50 feet from the normal river bank and about 20 feet above it, closer than any of the houses further up a slope.

Carissa Smith owns property next to the home. She tells The Associated Press that her mother, who lives on the property, described the sound of "firecrackers" during the flooding but said she couldn't see anything in the dark and torrential rain.

The house was in Wimberley Valley, an area known for its bed-and-breakfast inns and weekend rental cottages.

Dana Campbell, a retired engineer who lives on a bluff above the river, said the floodwaters left behind damage that resembled the path of a tornado "as far as the eye can see."

The storms were blamed for three deaths Saturday and Sunday, including two in Oklahoma and one in Texas, where a man's body was recovered from a flooded area along the Blanco River, which rose 26 feet in an hour and created huge piles of debris.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott flew over parts of the Blanco on Monday, a day after heavy rains pushed the river into surrounding neighborhoods.

Abbott said the storms had "relentless tsunami-type power." He urged communities downstream to monitor flood levels and take the threat seriously.

The governor added 24 counties to his disaster declaration, bringing the total to 37, most in the eastern half of the state.

Among the worst-affected communities were Wimberley and San Marcos, along the Blanco in the corridor between Austin and San Antonio.

About 1,000 homes were damaged throughout Hays County. Five police cars were washed away, and the firehouse was flooded, said Kristi Wyatt, a spokeswoman for San Marcos.

Rivers swelled so quickly that whole communities awoke Sunday surrounded by water. The Blanco crested above 40 feet — more than triple its flood stage of 13 feet. The river swamped Interstate 35 and forced parts of the busy north-south highway to close. Rescuers used pontoon boats and a helicopter to pull people out.

Hundreds of trees along the Blanco were uprooted or snapped, and they collected in piles of debris that soared 20 feet high.

"We've got trees in the rafters," said Cherri Maley, property manager of a house where the structure's entire rear portion collapsed with the flooding, carrying away furniture.

"We had the refrigerator in a tree," she said. "I think it's a total loss."

A tornado briefly touched down Sunday in Houston, damaging rooftops, toppling trees, blowing out windows and sending at least two people to a hospital. Fire officials said 10 apartments were heavily damaged and 40 others sustained lesser damage.

Dallas faced severe flooding from the Trinity River, which was expected to crest near 40 feet Monday and lap at the foundations of an industrial park. The Red and Wichita rivers also rose far above flood stage.

Texas, Oklahoma Floods: 12 People Missing as More Rain Forecast

Tornadoes and dangerous thunderstorms menaced Texas and Oklahoma on Monday while rescuers searched for 12 people, including at least three young children, still missing from historic flooding over the weekend.

At least seven people were confirmed dead over the holiday weekend's storms and flooding, including a 14-year-old boy in Texas who was found inside a storm drain and believed to have drowned and a homecoming queen who was driving home from her prom. Four were confirmed dead in Oklahoma, including a Claremore firefighter who died during a water rescue, and a 33-year-old woman who died in a storm-related traffic accident in Tulsa.

Across the border in Mexico, a twister killed at least 13 more.

The 12 missing in the small town of Wimberley, Texas, between Austin and San Antonio, included members of two families who were vacationing together. The house they were staying in was swept away by flash floods on Sunday, relatives told NBC News.

Among them were Laura McComb and her two children. Laura's husband, Jonathan, was hospitalized with a collapsed lung, broken ribs and a broken sternum, his father, Joe McComb, told NBC News.

Grandfather Holds Out Hopes That Family Swept in Texas Floods Will Be Found

"They think a tree came along and knocked the house off, it was on piers," he said. "At some point the house hit a bridge or something. They were being tossed around the house and then it hit something. They became separated at that point."

He said his son was "still in a state of shock because of everything that just happened."

Up to 72 structures in Wimberley were washed away, and 1,200 structures were damaged, said Kharley Smith, the emergency management coordinator in Hays County. Waters rose so quickly Sunday that roads turned to torrents, and 1,000 people were forced to evacuate.

"We have roads full of slabs now," Smith said.

The mayor of Wimberley said Sunday afternoon that search operations were suspended so crews could be on hand for possible rescue situations.

The search was complicated by another round of severe weather. At least eight tornadoes were reported in Texas on Monday, including one at the LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, according to the National Weather Service. Another was reported in Amory, Mississippi.

Tornado watches were posted for broad sections of Texas and Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City, Dallas and Waco.

In North Texas, forecasters warned of the possibility of the weather phenomenon known as a derecho — wind damage of more than 240 miles, coupled with wind gusts of 75 mph or greater. The threat was greatest for late afternoon.

On Monday, flash-flood warnings stretched from the Texas-Mexico border to western Tennessee and northern Missouri. Much of Oklahoma was under a flood warning.

Forecasters also warned that widespread heavy showers and thunderstorms could occur across most of Oklahoma, central and eastern Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, possibly including damaging wind gusts, hail and isolated tornadoes.

The flooding over the weekend was described as "catastrophic."

In Hays County, the Blanco River rose to 34 feet in just three hours on Sunday — its height of 40.2 feet breaking a record crest dating to 1929 by nearly six feet. Memorial Day events were canceled in the nearby Hays County city of San Marcos, which said in a statement that the flooding was the "the most severe in recent memory."

Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in 24 counties, including Hays and Houston, where heavy winds damaged an apartment building and left two people injured Sunday.

Abbott flew over parts of the Blanco River on Monday, a day after heavy rains pushed the river into surrounding neighborhoods. Abbott said the storms had "relentless tsunami-type power." He urged communities downstream to monitor flood levels and take the threat seriously.

About 200 miles to the west, a twister left 13 people dead and at least 230 injured in Ciudad Acuna, a city in Mexico situated across the border from Del Rio, Texas, according to The Associated Press.

A reported tornado in Amory, Mississippi, downed large trees, but no injuries had been reported, according to the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.

As the storms moved north and east through Texas, Austin and surrounding Travis County experienced considerable flooding.

The Austin-Travis County EMS said it responded to 21 rescue calls on Sunday, including 17 in a three-hour period.

The storms were the latest in what has been a particularly wet year for the Plains, with several towns and cities already breaking their all-time wettest month records this May.

Records continued to tumble Sunday, with the 3.3 inches that fell in Dallas making it the wettest May 24 in 117 years. Oklahoma City added to what is already its wettest ever month, the 18.69 inches to fall this May far outweighing the 14.92 inches that fell in May 2013, according to The Weather Channel.

Across the nation, 21 river gauges were recording a "major flood" and 47 were showing "moderate flooding," most of which were in Texas and Oklahoma, according to Weather Channel lead meteorologist Kevin Roth.

In Broken Bow, Oklahoma, 13 people were trapped in a rental cabin on a river. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol said they were not in danger, but were stuck on an island when authorities opened the flood gates at a nearby lake and the water level rose.

The weather system also triggered 36 reported tornadoes on Sunday in Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Colorado and Iowa, according to the National Weather Service. Roth said that while that twister threat would persist in some areas on Monday it would be significantly lower than over the weekend.

The storms were expected to calm significantly from Tuesday through Friday. As of 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, much of the storms' fury had dissipated with active tornado warnings in just three counties on northwest Louisiana.

Golden State Warriors 1 win away from NBA Finals

HOUSTON (AP) — Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors aren't worried about a letdown in Game 4 after taking a 3-0 lead over the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference finals.

"It's easy for us to stay hungry because none of us have really experienced this before or accomplished really anything," Curry said.

The Warriors are one win away from reaching the NBA Finals for the first time since they won the 1975 title after Curry poured in 40 points in a 115-80 win in Game 3 on Saturday night. The MVP made seven 3-pointers in the victory to set an NBA record for most 3s in a postseason with 64.

Coach Steve Kerr doesn't believe anything will change for his team now that the Warriors are on the cusp of advancing heading into Monday night's game in Houston.

"They know that the most important thing is just the next play," Kerr said. "Keying in on competing and paying attention to all the little details, focusing on the mission and not the result, that's always been our mantra and it's especially true in moments like these. Just keep going, keep pushing."

The Rockets are hoping to turn the page after an embarrassing showing in front of their home crowd that came after playing well in two close losses to start the series in Oakland. The Warriors controlled Game 3 from beginning to end and Houston looked listless and overmatched in the blowout.

"We've got to stay positive," Houston center Dwight Howard said. "It's that negative energy that can go from one person to the next, and we just seemed to fold. We don't want to be the team that folded under pressure."

Houston has experience in rebounding from a series deficit this postseason after falling behind 3-1 to the Clippers in the conference semifinals before reeling off three straight victories to advance. They're undaunted by the fact that no team in NBA history has won a series after trailing 3-0.

"The rest of the series is about pride," Houston point guard Jason Terry said. "It's about coming out and establishing that you are a tough team, and we've been doing that throughout this postseason. There's no doubt in my mind that will be the case (Monday) night."

Some things to know heading into Game 4.

HOWARD THE LEADER

Howard has emerged as Houston's leader in its playoff run and discussed the team's plight at length on Sunday when fellow star James Harden was unavailable to the media. Howard, who missed half of the regular- season games with injuries and who is playing through a knee injury suffered in Game 1, was upset about how the Rockets responded when they got down early Saturday night.

He was asked if he saw quit from his teammates in that game.

"I saw quit from everybody in the arena," he said. "We can't have that ... no matter how far you fall you're never out of the fight. That's the way you've got to look at it. We may be down 3-0, but we've got to continue to fight. That's the only way. If we don't believe, then who else will?"

CURRY'S REBOUND

For all of his great attributes, Curry isn't known for his rebounding. But the 6-foot-3 point guard got some love for that skill after jumping in front of the almost-7-foot tall Howard on Saturday to grab an offensive rebound. Curry shook his head when told it was one of the top 10 plays on ESPN's SportsCenter on Saturday night and said it was a stretch for that play to make the list.

"It's probably unexpected and surprising for most people," he said. "Right place, right time."

Howard, who led the Rockets with 14 rebounds, downplayed the moment.

"I didn't even see Curry," he said. "My man was out on the perimeter, so I just thought nobody was there, and I turned around, and Steph Curry ... got a rebound. It happens. It's basketball."

INSIDE GAME

The Warriors dominated inside Saturday night, grabbing 21 more rebounds than Houston and outscoring the Rockets 58-42 in the paint. Houston coach Kevin McHale was particularly unhappy with his team's offensive rebounding as they had just nine to 17 by Golden State.

"If we don't win the points in the paint, don't win the rebound battle, we don't win a lot of games," McHale said. "You can look at our record throughout the course of the year. We've got to win at least one of those, and if we win both of those, we do pretty well."

THE WOW FACTOR

Kerr has had a front row seat to Curry's heroics all season, but said there are still times he is wowed by the things the superstar can do.

"(Saturday) night I had a few of those moments," Kerr said. "Third quarter when we're kind of sputtering and he makes a few 3s in transition. He's a special player. He's the MVP for a reason and guys like that they sort of lift you up when you most need it and he continues to do it."

Messi’s Barca won, but Ronaldo second to none

SHARJAH: Barcelona were crowned 2014-15 La Liga champions on Saturday. The Catalan club owe their sparkling success in no uncertain terms to one man more than any other - the magical Lionel Messi.

However, it was Real Madrid and Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo who ended the season on top of the League’s scoring charts with 48 goals as against Messi’s tally of 43. This was after his hat-trick for Real Madrid against Getafe on the last day of the La Liga season on Saturday.

The same day saw a Messi brace in Barcelona’s 2-2 draw against Deportivo La Coruna that put the Argentine sensation on second spot of the scoring charts with 43.

So, despite Barcelona lifting their 23rd first division title - their first trophy of the season - the Portuguese star continued to steal the limelight along with Messi.

Therefore, win or lose, both the talented players deserve equal respect and appreciation.

The two football phenomena - with contrasting styles - continued where they left off last year, and have been thrilling football fans with their sublime skills and goal-scoring prowess this season as well. Some mind-blowing statistics tell their story: 61 goals for Ronaldo (La Liga (48), Champions League (10), King’s Cup (3); Messi: 56 (La Liga (43), Champions League (10), King’s Cup (3).

Records have literally followed every match that these two football icons have featured in.

The Portuguese forward has scored 29 hat-tricks in all competitions for Real, surpassing the long-standing club record of 28 held by Alfredo Di Stefano.  Messi has 32, three more than Ronaldo, in all competitions for Barcelona.

Both the players enjoy tremendous fan following. While Real fans are heavily inclined towards Ronaldo, Barcelona fans root for Messi and, so the debate over who is the best continues.

Messi is soccer legend Pele’s favourite while former Manchester United coach Sir Alex Ferguson gives his vote to Ronaldo. However, both admit that it is difficult to separate the two.

Even though comparisons between Ronaldo and Messi seem odious, they become inevitable as long as these two outstanding footballers of their generation continue to mesmerise fans with their skills in their quest for more titles and records going forward.

 

Three Killed in Oklahoma, Texas Floods; More Bad Weather on the Way

Weekend flooding that had killed three people through Sunday night left eight other people missing and forced the evacuations of hundreds more across Oklahoma and Texas as emergency crews took stock of the damage caused by the severe weather.

A man was killed in the floods that washed over San Marcos, Texas, according to city officials. A thousand residents in San Marcos' Hays County were displaced by the heavy flooding, which damaged or destroyed at least 400 homes, Hays County emergency management coordinator Kharley Smith told reporters.

Rescue crews were searching for eight people from two families who were missing in the Hays County town of Wimberly, authorities told NBC News. Among them were three children under age 10.

"Now is not the time to try to return to your homes," San Marcos Fire Marshal Ken Bell said Sunday, adding that buildings, power lines and bridges were damaged "throughout the entire region."

The Blanco River in Hays County rose to 40.2 feet — breaking a record crest dating to 1929 by nearly six feet,The Weather Channel reported. The National Weather Service in San Antonio said the river was causing "catastrophic" flooding.

Hays County officials said numerous rescues were under way along the Blanco in the Wimberley area, adding that more officers have been called in to assist. The city of San Marcos announced a 9 p.m. curfew to keep people out of the dangerous weather.

In Houston, heavy rain and winds caused an apartment building to collapse, injuring two people and severely damaging 10 of the 41 units, the Houston Fire Department said.

About 40 miles north of Houston, hundreds of residents were evacuated from their homes Sunday in Montgomery County, where officials feared heavy rainfall might cause the Lewis Creek Dam to break, according to the county's office of emergency management.

A kayaker had to be rescued Sunday morning on the on the San Gabriel River in Georgetown, Texas, after his kayak flipped over, the Georgetown Fire Department said. He was caught in the current for five to seven minutes before a passing family pulled him to safety with a rope.

Fire officials said the looking for excitement in a very unsafe way.

Two people were killed in Oklahoma, one of them a firefighter who drowned after being swept away by flood waters. Claremore Fire Chief Sean Douglas said Capt. Jason Farley was assisting in the rescue of about 10 people who were trapped in duplexes Sunday morning when he was swept into a drainage ditch and drowned. Farley had been a firefighter for 20 years, Douglas said.

The heavy rainfall washed out roads, trapped residents and knocked out power to thousands. A 33-year-old woman died after a car hydroplaned in Tulsa and smashed into the car in which she was a passenger Saturday, the state Department of emergency Management told NBC News on Sunday.

Tornado watches also were in effect for much of eastern Oklahoma and parts of central and south Texas overnight.

A large tornado was confirmed in Oklahoma's Grady County, and several others were reported in the state Saturday evening, The Weather Channel reported.

Six inches of rain triggered flash flooding in Elk City, about 100 miles west of Oklahoma City. Emergency management officials said as many as 30 people were displaced.

The wet and stormy weather was forecast to last into next week for the Plains, Texas and the Mississippi Valley. While there will be a chance of isolated tornadoes, flooding will pose the main threat. One to 3 inches of rain could fall over the next week in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri and parts of Louisiana and Arkansas — and some areas could see 5 inches or more.

71 arrested after acquittal of Cleveland police Officer Michael Brelo

Calm returned to the streets of Cleveland on Sunday, a day after protests broke out in the wake of the Michael Brelo verdict.

City officials said police tried to give peaceful protesters the space to exercise their First Amendment rights, but some of them crossed the line several times, resulting in 71 arrests.

Demonstrations were peaceful earlier in the day Saturday, but they grew more aggressive in the afternoon and evening when most of the arrests occurred, Police Chief Calvin Williams said in a news conference on Sunday.

His officers were tolerant of protesters who expressed their anger and frustration in a constructive manner, he said.

"We allowed people to express their First Amendment rights," he said. "We gave people the space and provided a safe environment for them."

Some exceptions: A protest shut down state Route 2 before police convinced those blocking the highway's 60-mph traffic to disperse; demonstrators became "disruptive" at the mixed-use Tower City Center, resulting in arrests and businesses closing their doors; a protester threw a restaurant sign at a bystander and other protesters stepped in when police tried to arrest the sign thrower; and protesters pepper-sprayed patrons dining on restaurant patios, Williams said.

Those arrested included 39 men and 16 women, with juveniles and "other adults" filling out the arrest tally, the chief said.

The charges include felonious assault, aggravated rioting, unlawful congregation and failure to disperse, he said. The misdemeanors will be charged within 24 hours of the arrests, and the felonies within 36 hours, he said.

"We only moved in to make arrests when things got violent and people refused to disperse," Williams told reporters.

Unlike protests in other cities, where violence has resulted in curfews and certain areas being shut down, in Cleveland the mayor said residents and visitors should carry on normally without worrying about the protests.

"If they cross the line, we will deal with them accordingly and the citizens should not be concerned about that and they should come downtown and enjoy themselves," Mayor Frank Jackson said.

'Move back!'

Protests erupted in downtown Cleveland on Saturday after Judge John P. O'Donnell acquitted Brelo, a police officer who stood trial in the 2012 shooting deaths of two unarmed people, on charges of voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault.

CNN video showed police in riot gear moving down East Fourth Street, a strip of restaurants, and pushing back protesters. The officers yelled, "Move back!" in unison as they advanced.

A CNN crew saw at least 15 people being taken into custody by police in riot gear, accompanied by troopers.

Three people were arrested for aggravated riot, felonious assault and obstructing justice after an object was thrown through a restaurant window, injuring a patron,police said in in a tweet.

Multiple arrests were made at East Fourth Street because of "unlawful behavior by large crowd," another tweet said. Police appeared to greatly outnumber protesters.

The crowd assembled outside the judicial center in Cleveland for two hours following the announcement of the verdict. Law enforcement officers formed a line and kept them from entering the judicial center.

Some chanted "no justice, no peace" and "black lives matter," words heard in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, where sometimes-violent demonstrations occurred after African-Americans died at the hands of white police officers.