PHOENIX (AP) -- A federal judge ruled Friday that the office of America's self-proclaimed toughest sheriff systematically singled out Latinos in its trademark immigration patrols, marking the first finding by a court that the agency racially profiles people.

The 142-page decision by U.S. District Judge Murray Snow in Phoenix backs up allegations that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's critics have made for years that his officers rely on race in their immigration enforcement.

Snow also ruled Arpaio's deputies unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people who were pulled over.

A small group of Latinos alleged in a lawsuit that Arpaio's deputies pulled over some vehicles only to make immigration status checks.

The group also accused the sheriff of ordering some immigration patrols not based on reports of crime but rather on letters and emails from Arizonans who complained about people with dark skin congregating in an area or speaking Spanish. The group's attorneys pointed out that Arpaio sent thank-you notes to some people who wrote the complaints.

The sheriff has repeatedly denied the allegations, saying his deputies only stop people when they think a crime has been committed and that he wasn't the person who picked the location of the patrols. His lawyers also said there was nothing wrong with the thank-you notes.

Cecillia D. Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Right Project, called the ruling a "great day for all the people of Maricopa County."

Arpaio's lead attorney Tim Casey was reading Snow's decision Friday afternoon before commenting on it.

The sheriff, known for jailing inmates in tents and making prisoners wear pink underwear, started doing immigration enforcement six years as Arizona voters grew frustrated with the state's role as the nation's busiest illegal entryway.

The ruling represents a victory for those who pushed the lawsuit. They weren't seeking money damages but a rather declaration that Arpaio's office racially profiles and an order that requires it to make policy changes. The sheriff won't face jail time or fines as a result of the ruling.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) told North Carolina television station WECT that he's unhappy the Boy Scouts of America lifted its ban on gay youth.

"I'm very disappointed," McIntyre said. "I know my church has a long history of producing Eagle Scouts including my son and I know that many organizations that sponsor scouting are quite concerned about that and did not feel like it was an appropriate step. I know I'm concerned about it and did not think it was an appropriate step."

McIntyre is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, which is identified on its website as a group of "fiscally conservative Democrats that are deeply committed to the financial stability and national security of the United States and dedicated to finding bipartisan solutions to the nation's biggest challenges." The congressman isn't the only prominent critic of the BSA's new policy. Religious groups and Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry were among those who expressed disappointment after the organization voted to end the ban.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Netflix is hoping this weekend's release of the resurrected TV series "Arrested Development" will draw more subscribers to its Internet video service.

The award-winning show about the dysfunctional Bluth family returns Sunday, seven years after Fox cancelled the series. The revival coincides with Netflix's own resounding comeback from a customer backlash over price increases and shareholders' worries about rising expenses. The adversity had raised doubts about the company's management and future.

Now, Netflix is winning back subscribers and investors with a bold attempt to establish its $8-per-month service as a home entertainment powerhouse that rivals the broadcast television networks and premium cable channels such as HBO.

"Arrested Development," a comedy that won six Emmy awards during a critically acclaimed three-year run, is the third exclusive series from Netflix Inc. this year. It's part of Netflix's effort to add more original programming to a selection that consists primarily of old TV series and movies.

With 29.2 million U.S. subscribers -- far more than the 21.9 million TV subscribers that leading cable provider Comcast Corp. has -- Netflix has already reshaped home entertainment.

The service is encouraging more people to forego cable and satellite TV service and rely on Netflix to watch popular TV series a year or more after they originally were shown. Netflix also is empowering viewers to watch an entire season of a TV series in a matter of days instead of months.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings isn't done disrupting things yet. He is spending more than $2 billion annually, including about $200 million to finance original programming that can be watched on traditional computers, smartphones, tablets, video game consoles and Internet-connected TVs.

By expanding its library of content, Netflix is hoping people will decide to spend their idle time on its Internet video service rather than play video games, fraternize on Facebook, surf cable or satellite TV or watch a DVD. (Netflix started out as a DVD-by-mail rental service, but it is phasing that out in favor of Internet streaming.)

"We want our members to choose Netflix in these moments of truth," Hastings wrote in a recent essay outlining Netflix's philosophy.

By bringing back "Arrested Development" this weekend, Netflix is also trying to prove that people still want to see quality entertainment even when the weather is getting nicer and the days are growing longer. That runs counter to the philosophy of broadcast TV networks, which for decades have typically started the new seasons of their top TV series in September and stopped showing new episodes just before Memorial Day weekend.

BTIG Research analyst Rich Greenfield believes the scarcity of compelling choices on broadcast TV at this time of year is bound to help Netflix draw more viewers to "Arrested Development." In a recent analysis posted on BTIG's blog, Greenfield predicted that the total number of hours watched on Netflix in June might even surpass the Fox broadcast network for the first time.

If that were to happen, it would be an ironic twist, given that Fox canceled "Arrested Development" in 2006 over the protest of the series' fervent fans. "Arrested Development" had low ratings during its run, but the viewers who did watch loved it. Others discovered the show later on DVD or Internet streaming -- both of which have been available through Netflix.

The first three seasons of "Arrested Development" were being watched by so many subscribers that Netflix knew another season would be well-received by its existing audience and would likely lure new subscribers, too.

Like Netflix's previous series, all 15 new episodes of "Arrested Development" will be released simultaneously to allow viewers to watch the show as if they were perusing a book and deciding how many chapters to pore through in a single sitting. "Arrested Development" is scheduled to be available at 12:01 a.m. PDT Sunday (3:01 a.m. EDT), meaning Netflix subscribers could conceivably devour the entire season before grilling on Memorial Day afternoon.

Netflix's departure from TV's traditional one-episode-per-week strategy has been well received by subscribers who have watched the service's previous forays into original programming.

February's release of "House of Cards," a political drama that stars Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey, helped Netflix add 2 million more U.S. subscribers during the first three months of the year, more than analysts anticipated. "Hemlock Grove," a quirky horror series, attracted additional viewers during the first weekend after its mid-April release, according to Netflix, although the company hasn't provided specific numbers.

It's difficult to quantify how many subscribers joined Netflix to watch "House of Cards" and then decided to stick with the service after seeing all the other material available. That's because "House of Cards" debuted during a winter period that is traditionally one of the service's prime times. For instance, Netflix added 1.74 million subscribers in the first three months of 2012. The difference between the two years could be an indication that "House of Cards" generated an additional 250,000 subscribers, although there is no way of knowing for sure.

In any case, "Arrested Development" is expected to attract even more new subscribers than "House of Cards" because of its built-in fan base and the success that several of its cast members have enjoyed since the show's cancellation. The original cast, including Jason Bateman, Michael Cera and Will Arnett, is returning to the zany series revolving around a family whose opulent lifestyle was torn apart by the arrest of a corrupt patriarch played by Jeffrey Tambor.

In the new episodes, viewers will get updates on the characters, one by one. Although that was done because of difficulties booking the actors all at once, it ended up allowing for a non-traditional viewing experience, one more fitting on Netflix than a traditional network. Viewers, for instance, will be able to pause an episode on one character to watch the same scene from another character's vantage point.

The long-awaited return of "Arrested Development" prompted Netflix to be more optimistic about subscriber growth during the traditionally sluggish April-to-June period, Hastings told The Associated Press in a recent interview. The Los Gatos, Calif., company predicted that it could gain as many 880,000 U.S. Internet streaming subscribers during the second quarter. Without the series, Hastings said, the projected increase probably wouldn't have exceeded 530,000, the growth it had during the same period a year ago.

If "Arrested Development" does as well as Hastings hopes, it will mark another triumph for a company that had fallen out of favor with subscribers and investors less than two years ago. Netflix infuriated customers in July 2011 when it announced price increases of as much as 60 percent for people who wanted to rent DVDs by mail and stream Internet video. Then, Hastings unleashed even more outrage by outlining plans to spin off the DVD-by-mail option into a separate service called Qwikster -- an idea that seemed so absurd that it was mocked on "Saturday Night Live."

Netflix didn't waver on its new pricing system, even though it resulted in the loss of 800,000 customers at the time. But Hastings scrapped the Qwikster concept amid the backlash. The DVD-by-mail service, which has lost 6 million customers in the past 18 months and now has 8 million, is being allowed to slowly fade away.

While Netflix subscribers were howling, shareholders were dumping their stock. Investors feared the company wouldn't be able to attract enough subscribers to cover the steadily rising fees for licensing video rights.

Those worries have dissipated now that Netflix is growing rapidly again, something that Hastings had promised would eventually happen after apologizing for the Qwikster mistake and the way he handled the price increase.

After hitting a high of nearly $305 in July 2011 and then falling to below $53 last August, Netflix's stock is trading at nearly $230.

"I don't have a sense of 'I told you so,' or something," Hastings told the AP last month. "I have a sense of satisfaction that we are doing what we do best, which is steadily improving our service."

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Online

http://www.netflix.com/ArrestedDevelopment

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Over the years, presidential heckling has made for some pretty memorable moments captured on video. Richard Nixon dealt with it. Ronald Reagan did, too. Bill Clinton shut down his detractors by calling them "paranoid." George W. Bush had to dodge a thrown pair of shoes.

TPM rounded up some of the best clips that prove, even when you take center stage, it's not easy being commander in chief.

Watch:

Updated: 4:53pm ET

TORONTO (AP) -- Toronto Mayor Rob Ford denied Friday that he smokes crack cocaine and said he is not an addict after a video purported to show him using the drug. The mayor of Canada's largest city did not say whether he has ever used crack.

Ford did not take questions from reporters at a news conference at City Hall held after a week of silence and after close allies released a letter urging him to address the purported video. The video apparently shows Ford smoking crack.

"I do not use crack cocaine, nor am I an addict of crack cocaine," he said before going on to criticize the media.

Ford had been ducking the media and his only comments before Friday on the scandal came a week ago, a day after the story broke, when he called the crack smoking allegations "ridiculous" and said the Toronto Star newspaper was out to get him.

Ford said he had kept quiet on the advice of his lawyer.

The alleged video has not been released publicly and its authenticity has not been verified. Reports on gossip website Gawker and in the Toronto Star claimed it was taken by men who said they had sold the drug to Ford. The Associated Press hasn't seen the video.

The Star reported that two journalists had watched a video that appears to show Ford, sitting in a chair, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. The Star said it did not obtain the video or pay to watch it. Gawker and the Star said the video was shown to them by a drug dealer who had been trying to sell it for a six-figure sum.

The Star also reported that Ford allegedly made a racist remark about the high school football students he coached.

"It is most unfortunate, very unfortunate, that my colleagues and the great people of this city have been exposed to the fact that I've been judged by the media without any evidence," Ford said.

City Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker said he was profoundly disappointed in the mayor's statement and called on Ford to resign. De Baeremaeker said he believes the reports about Ford's alleged drug use and believes Ford's tenure is over.

"I don't believe the mayor," he said. "He should resign and then go seek help."

De Baeremaeker said he's observed erratic behavior from the mayor.

"The mayor is just imploding," he said. "The mayor had an opportunity to acknowledge that perhaps he does have a problem, and to take a leave of absence, perhaps to take care of himself and his family, instead he went on the attack."

Other councilors said the mayor wasn't comprehensive enough and said the distraction clearly wasn't over.

Ford fired his chief of staff on Thursday. A statement from the mayor's office gave no reason for Mark Towhey's dismissal. Towhey, who was escorted from City Hall by security, would only say that he did not resign.

Ford was fired from his job as football coach at a Catholic high school on Wednesday for reasons unrelated to the scandal over the alleged crack video. Toronto Catholic District School Board spokesman John Yan said the decision to remove Ford as the head of Don Bosco Eagles Football program had to do with the comments the mayor made to the Sun TV Network in March that parents found offensive. Yan said Ford characterized the parent community as not caring about their kids, that the students were involved in gangs and guns and that if it weren't for him they would be in jail.

Ford has been embroiled in almost weekly controversies about his behavior since being elected in 2010, but these are the most serious allegations he's faced yet. The Toronto Star reported earlier this year that he was asked to leave a gala fundraiser for wounded Canadian soldiers because he appeared intoxicated.

During his campaign for mayor, Ford vehemently denied a 1999 arrest for marijuana possession in Florida, but later acknowledged it was true after he was presented with evidence. He pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and failing to give a breath sample to police.

While in office, he has been accused of flouting conflict of interest rules and making obscene gestures at residents from his car.

The controversy has drawn comparisons to the 1990 arrest of then-Washington Mayor Marion Barry, who was videotaped smoking crack cocaine in a hotel room during an FBI sting operation. Barry served six months in federal prison on a misdemeanor drug possession conviction and later won a fourth term as mayor in 1994.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

MILAN (AP) -- The woman who prosecutors allege had sex with Silvio Berlusconi while he was Italy's premier in exchange for money spent her second day on the witness stand Friday, denying her own sworn descriptions of racy escapades at his "bunga bunga" parties and long lists of expensive jewelry and watches received from the media mogul. Karima el Mahroug, a Moroccan known as Ruby, dismissed a series of sworn statements she made to investigators in the summer of 2010 as "all stupid things" that she now regrets saying. "I apologize to the prosecutors. They were all nonsense," she said.

They included telling investigators in 2010 that she had exchanged phone numbers with Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo at a restaurant. On the stand, she said the closest she had gotten to the soccer star were advertising billboards around Milan that summer -- and that she had not been paid to have sex with him.

"If I didn't prostitute myself with someone so handsome, then it is impossible to think I should have done it with Silvio Berlusconi and others," el Mahroug said.

She is appearing as the star witness at the trial of three former Berlusconi aides charged with procuring prostitutes for the media mogul's infamous "bunga bunga" parties. The trial is separate from the one charging Berlusconi with having paid for sex with a minor -- el Mahroug, who was 17 at the time -- and then trying to cover it up . She has not testified at that trial.

El Mahroug is not charged with any crime at either trial and is formally recognized in both of them as an injured party.

But El Mahroug was less than collaborative with prosecutors, denying having made incriminating statements to other witnesses in the case, forgetting details such as how much money she told police she had stolen as a pickpocket, and denying descriptions in sworn depositions of young women bathing nude at Berlusconi's villa.

One minute she said she didn't own a Rolex, when confronted with a list of jewelry and watches that she had told investigators that Berlusconi gave her, then she said she had bought herself a Rolex while visiting friends in Sicily.

On the stand Friday, she said she received only one piece of expensive jewelry from Berlusconi: a cross that has been sequestered by investigators. The rest of the gifts, she said, were costume jewelry. She disowned a list she had previously given to prosecutors of Berlusconi's gifts that included two separate Rolexes.

At various stages throughout the daylong testimony, el Mahroug was put back in line by the presiding judge who exhorted her to "change her behavior" and answer the questions.

El Mahroug at one point complained that the detailed questioning "was boring."

She denied ever telling a former roommate she had sex with Berlusconi, or telling investigators that she had received 187,000 euros ($241,000) from Berlusconi. Her testimony in court is that she received envelopes of 2,000 euros to 3,000 euros each of the five or six times she went to his villa, and another 30,000 euros to open a beautician salon.

"What reason did you have to make up this particular number?" prosecutor Pietro Forno asked. "I invented this number to be more credible in my wild stories," she said.

El Mahroug also was unable to remember when she told one of the defendants that she was a minor -- while she was still attending parties at Berlusconi's villa, or after. And she failed to recall other details, such as whether she had reported 7,000 euros, or another sum, stolen from her bag on May 1, 2010, by a pickpocket.

"I didn't respond rudely," Ruby retorted. "I think it is useless to focus on the amount, if I don't remember if it was 5,000 or 6,000."

Prosecutors in the trial of Berlusconi's aides are set to make their closing arguments on May 31, while a verdict in Berlusconi's sex-for-hire trial could come by the end of next month.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- When President Barack Obama pushed his health care overhaul plan through Congress, he counted labor unions among his strongest supporters.

But some unions leaders have grown frustrated and angry about what they say are unexpected consequences of the new law -- problems that they say could jeopardize the health benefits offered to millions of their members.

The issue could create a political headache next year for Democrats facing re-election if disgruntled union members believe the Obama administration and Congress aren't working to fix the problem.

"It makes an untruth out of what the president said, that if you like your insurance, you could keep it," said Joe Hansen, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. "That is not going to be true for millions of workers now."

The problem lies in the unique multiemployer health plans that cover unionized workers in retail, construction, transportation and other industries with seasonal or temporary employment. Known as Taft-Hartley plans, they are jointly administered by unions and smaller employers that pool resources to offer more than 20 million workers and family members continuous coverage, even during times of unemployment.

The union plans were already more costly to run than traditional single-employer health plans. The Affordable Care Act has added to that cost -- for the unions' and other plans -- by requiring health plans to cover dependents up to age 26, eliminate annual or lifetime coverage limits and extend coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

"We're concerned that employers will be increasingly tempted to drop coverage through our plans and let our members fend for themselves on the health exchanges," said David Treanor, director of health care initiatives at the Operating Engineers union.

Workers seeking coverage in the state-based marketplaces, known as exchanges, can qualify for subsidies, determined by a sliding scale based on income. By contrast, the new law does not allow workers in the union plans to receive similar subsidies.

Bob Laszewski, a health care industry consultant, said the real fear among unions is that "a lot of these labor contracts are very expensive and now employers are going to have an alternative to very expensive labor health benefits."

"If the workers can get benefits that are as good through Obamacare in the exchanges, then why do you need the union?" Laszewski said. "In my mind, what the unions are fearing is that workers for the first time can get very good health benefits for a subsidized cost someplace other than the employer."

However, Laszewski said it was unlikely employers would drop the union plans immediately because they are subject to ongoing collective bargaining agreements.

Labor unions have been among the president's closest allies, spending millions of dollars to help him win re-election and help Democrats keep their majority in the Senate. The wrangling over health care comes as unions have continued to see steady declines in membership and attacks on public employee unions in state legislatures around the country. The Obama administration walks a fine line between defending the president's signature legislative achievement and not angering a powerful constituency as it looks ahead to the 2014 elections.

Union officials have been working with the administration for more than a year to try to get a regulatory fix that would allow low-income workers in their plans to receive subsidies. But after months of negotiations, labor leaders say they have been told it won't happen.

"It's not favoritism. We want to be treated fairly," said Hansen, whose union has about 800,000 of its 1.3 million members covered under Taft-Hartley policies. "We would expect more help from this administration."

Sabrina Siddiqui, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, declined to discuss the specifics of any negotiations between the administration and union officials. But she said the law helps bring down costs and improve quality of care.

Katie Mahoney, executive director of health policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said employers were concerned about possible increases in health care costs and would do what was needed to keep their businesses running and retain worker talent. The Chamber has not taken a position on the union concerns, but Mahoney said it was highly unlikely that the administration would consider subsidies for workers in the union plans.

"They are not going to offset the expense of added mandates under the health care law, which employers and unions are going to pay for," Mahoney said.

Unions say their health care plans in many cases offer better coverage with broader doctors' networks and lower premiums than what would be available in the exchanges, particularly when it comes to part-time workers.

Unions backed the health care legislation because they expected it to curb inflation in health coverage, reduce the number of uninsured Americans and level the playing field for companies that were already providing quality benefits. While unions knew there were lingering issues after the law passed, they believed those could be fixed through rulemaking.

But last month, the union representing roofers issued a statement calling for "repeal or complete reform" of the health care law. Kinsey Robinson, president of the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers, complained that labor's concerns over the health care law "have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored."

"In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the act's provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer-sponsored coverage could keep it," Robinson said.

Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Firefighters, said unions have been forceful in seeking solutions from the Obama administration, but none have been forthcoming. While Congress could address the problem by amending the health care law, Schaitberger said Senate Democrats told union leaders earlier this month that any new legislation was highly unlikely.

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Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SamHananelAP

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner announced Thursday that he is resigning from Congress effective in August to take a post with the University of Alabama system.

In the letter to his congressional colleagues, the six-term Republican said he will resign to become vice chancellor of government relations and economic development at the University of Alabama System. He holds undergraduate and law degrees from the university.

His sister, Judy Bonner, is president of the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa -- one of the three campuses in the system.

Bonner, 53, represents a southwestern Alabama district that includes Mobile. He is a member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Republican Gov. Robert Bentley will call a special election to fill Bonner's seat.

The governor's press secretary, Jennifer Ardis, said the governor has not set a timetable for the special election.

"Congressman Bonner has made a tremendous difference for the people of South Alabama," Bentley said in a statement. "He's worked hard on several major issues, including the ongoing recovery from the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill."

UA system spokeswoman Kellee Reinhart said school officials have not determined how much Bonner will be paid in his new position.

The chancellor of the University of Alabama system, Robert Witt, said Bonner will officially begin his job with the university on Aug. 16. Witt said Bonner is taking a new position.

Witt said Bonner's government experience and economic development record make him well-suited for the job.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

NEW YORK (AP) -- For decades, people have been getting rid of cockroaches by setting out bait mixed with poison. But in the late 1980s, in an apartment test kitchen in Florida, something went very wrong.

A killer product stopped working. Cockroach populations there kept rising. Mystified researchers tested and discarded theory after theory until they finally hit on the explanation: In a remarkably rapid display of evolution at work, many of the cockroaches had lost their sweet tooth, rejecting the corn syrup meant to attract them.

In as little as five years, the sugar-rejecting trait had become so widespread that the bait had been rendered useless.

"Cockroaches are highly adaptive, and they're doing pretty well in the arms race with us," said North Carolina State University entomologist Jules Silverman, discoverer of the glucose aversion in that Florida kitchen during a bait test.

The findings illustrate the evolutionary prowess that has helped make cockroaches so hard to stamp out that it is jokingly suggested they could survive nuclear war.

In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, Silverman and other researchers explain the workings of the genetic mutation that gave some roaches a competitive advantage that enabled them to survive and multiply.

The key is certain neurons that signal the brain about foods.

In normal cockroaches, glucose excites neurons that tell the brain "Sweet!" In the mutant insects, glucose activates neurons that say "Sweet!" and ones that say "Yuck!" The "Yuck!" neurons dampen the signal from the others, so the brain gets the message the taste is awful. This unusual nerve activity appeared in glucose-hating cockroaches collected from Puerto Rico as well as descendants of the Florida insects.

The research focused on the German cockroach, a small kind that can hitch a ride into your home in a grocery bag, not that big lunk known as the American cockroach. Such finicky eating habits have also been seen in these smaller roaches in Southern California, Cincinnati, Indiana, South Korea and Russia. Scientists are now looking to see if other kinds of cockroaches show aversion to glucose.

The new work is nifty science. But does it explain why you can't get rid of the little buggers in your kitchen?

Probably not, said Coby Schal, another study author at North Carolina State.

Tests show that the glucose-hating cockroaches are happy to eat most types of bait these days, suggesting that manufacturers have removed the glucose or masked it, he said. (Bait ingredients are a trade secret.) What's more, the researchers found glucose-hating cockroaches in only seven of 19 populations they sampled from various locations.

Frankly, if the bait you put out isn't working, it's probably because you're using it incorrectly, suggested Schal, who said he consults to the pesticide industry free of charge.

Still, he said, the new work has potential to help many consumers. By studying how cockroaches evolve to evade our poisons, scientists may find clues to designing bait that the pests cannot resist.

It's not clear when the Florida cockroaches first encountered bait with glucose or how quickly they ditched their taste for the sugar, he said. But he said it's reasonable to estimate that it took maybe only five years for that glucose aversion to spread to so many cockroaches that the bait was no longer effective. That's about 25 generations of German cockroaches, which can reproduce about one to three months after they're born, Schal said.

The glucose aversion may have arisen in an individual cockroach in response to bait. Or it may have already been present in just a few individuals when the arrival of the bait suddenly gave them an advantage for surviving and reproducing. Their offspring would inherit the trait and increasingly replace other cockroaches.

Michael Scharf, an entomologist at Purdue University who studies urban pests but wasn't involved in the new work, noted that since the 1950s, cockroaches have shown they can also evolve resistance to insecticides. He agreed the latest results should help scientists develop better products to control roaches.

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Online: Journal Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

___

Malcolm Ritter can be followed at http://www.twitter.com/malcolmritter

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

LONDON (AP) -- British police say two men have been arrested on suspicion of endangerment of an aircraft after an incident on a civilian plane flying from Pakistan to England.

A jet was launched to divert the Pakistan International Airlines plane carrying nearly 300 passengers to Britain's Stansted Airport on Friday. It was originally supposed to have landed in Manchester.

Essex Police said that two men have been arrested and removed from the plane, which is on an isolated runway at the airport.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

LONDON (AP) -- A British fighter jet was launched to divert a civilian plane carrying nearly 300 passengers from Pakistan to England after an incident on board, British officials said Friday.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said the Typhoon was launched to investigate an incident involving a civilian aircraft. It declined to provide further details.

Mark Davison, press officer at Stansted Airport, confirmed that the plane had landed safely and is on an isolated runway.

Pakistan International Airlines confirmed that its Flight P709 traveling from Lahore to Manchester was involved.

Spokesman Mashood Tajwar said the airline has been unable to contact the pilot of the airplane despite repeated attempts, adding that 297 passengers and 11 crew are on board the flight.

Essex Police confirmed that "an incident has occurred" on the plane and that police and partners are responding.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) -- After lengthy and wrenching debate, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have voted to open their ranks to openly gay boys for the first time, but heated reactions from the left and right made clear that the BSA's controversies are far from over.

The Scouts' longstanding ban on gay adults remains in force, and many liberal Scout leaders -- as well as gay-rights groups -- plan to continue pressing for an end to that exclusion even though the BSA's top officials aren't ready for that step.

Meanwhile, many conservatives within the Scouts are distraught at the outcome of the vote and some are threatening to defect. A meeting is planned for next month to discuss the formation of a new organization for boys.

The vote was conducted by secret ballot Thursday during the National Council's annual meeting at conference center not far from Boy Scout headquarters in suburban Dallas. Of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the council who cast ballots, 61 percent supported the proposal drafted by the governing Executive Committee. The policy change takes effect Jan. 1.

"This has been a challenging chapter in our history," the BSA chief executive, Wayne Brock, said after the vote. "While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they're in Scouting."

However, the outcome will not end the membership policy debate, as was evident in the reactions of leaders of some of the conservative religious denominations that sponsor Scout units.

"We are deeply saddened," said Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee. "Homosexual behavior is incompatible with the principles enshrined in the Scout oath and Scout law."

The Assemblies of God said the policy change "will lead to a mass exodus from the Boy Scout program." It also warned that the change would make the BSA vulnerable to lawsuits seeking to end the ban on gay adults.

John Stembeger, a conservative activist and former Scout from Florida, founded a group called OnMyHonor.net to oppose the policy change. He assailed the BSA executive committee for its role in gaining a "Yes" vote.

"What kind of a message are we sending to young people about being brave when its top adult leaders don't even have the courage to stand up to the pressure of a militant lobby when the bullies in Washington D.C., Hollywood or even some of their own renegade councils start pressuring and harassing them?" he asked.

He said OnMyHonor.Net and other like-minded organizations and individuals would meet in Louisville, Ky., next month to discuss the creation of "a new character development organization for boys."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also expressed dismay.

"While I will always cherish my time as a Scout and the life lessons I learned, I am greatly disappointed with this decision," he said.

The result was welcomed by many liberal members of the Scouting community and by gay-rights activists, though most of the praise was coupled with calls for ending the ban on gay adults.

"I'm so proud of how far we've come, but until there's a place for everyone in Scouting, my work will continue," said Jennifer Tyrrell, whose ouster as a Cub Scout den leader in Ohio because she is lesbian launched a national protest movement.

Tyrrell recalled having to tell her son she had been forced out as den mother.

"He doesn't deserve to be told that we're not good enough," she said. "We're not going to stop until this is over."

Pascal Tessier, an openly gay 16-year-old Boy Scout from Maryland, had mixed emotions after the vote.

"I was thinking that today could be my last day as a Boy Scout," he said. "Obviously, for gay Scouts like me, this vote is life-changing."

Tessier is on track to receive his Eagle Scout award -- he only needs to complete his final project -- but said he is troubled that on his 18th birthday he could transform from someone holding Scouting's highest rank to someone unfit to be a part of the organization.

"That one couple hours (between 17 and 18) will make me not a good person," he said.

James Dale, 42, who was the first person to challenge the Boy Scouts gay ban in court, agreed, calling the decision "a bit of a step backward" for gay youth.

"It sends a very convoluted, mixed message to gay kids. It says that being gay is a youthful indiscretion, and that there's no future for you," Dale, of New Jersey, told The Star-Ledger.

Dale sued the Boy Scouts in 1990 after he was removed as an assistant scoutmaster because of his sexual orientation. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that the organization was within its rights to ban gays.

Tessier has indeed been an exception -- an openly gay Scout whose presence was quietly accepted by local Scout leaders. In general, the Scouts' policy has been to avoid any questioning of would-be Scouts as to their sexual orientation, but to dismiss boys who did speak openly about being gay.

For example, Scout officials refused to grant the Eagle Scout rank to Ryan Andresen, an 18-year-old Californian, after he came out as gay last year.

The vote followed what the BSA described as "the most comprehensive listening exercise in Scouting's history" to gauge opinions, including a survey sent out starting in February to members of the Scouting community.

Of the more than 200,000 leaders, parents and youth members who responded, 61 percent supported the current policy of excluding gays, while 34 percent opposed it. Most parents of young Scouts, as well as youth members themselves, opposed the ban.

The proposal approved Thursday was seen as a compromise, and the Scouts stressed that they would not condone sexual conduct by any Scout -- gay or straight.

"The Boy Scouts of America will not sacrifice its mission, or the youth served by the movement, by allowing the organization to be consumed by a single, divisive and unresolved societal issue," the BSA said in a statement.

Among those voting for the proposal to accept openly gay youth was Thomas Roberts, of Dawsonville, Ga., who serves on the board of a Scout council in northeast Georgia.

"It was a very hard decision for this organization," he said. "I think ultimately it will be viewed as the right thing."

The BSA's overall "traditional youth membership" -- Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturers -- is now about 2.6 million, compared with more than 4 million in peak years of the past. It also has about 1 million adult leaders and volunteers.

Of the more than 100,000 Scouting units in the U.S., 70 percent are chartered by religious institutions.

Those include liberal churches opposed to any ban on gays, but some of the largest sponsors are relatively conservative denominations that have previously supported the broad ban -- notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Southern Baptist churches.

While the Southern Baptists were clearly upset by the vote to accept openly gay youth, the Utah-based Mormon church -- which has more Scouting troops than any other religious denomination -- reacted positively.

"We trust that BSA will implement and administer the approved policy in an appropriate and effective manner," an LDS statement said.

Utah's largest Boy Scout councils supported the change.

"This is a win for youth and a win for the community," said John Gailey, spokesman for the Utah National Parks Council, which covers central and southern Utah. "It gives all youth the opportunity to take advantage of the values instilled by Scouting."

The National Catholic Committee on Scouting responded cautiously, saying it would assess the possible impact of the change on Catholic-sponsored Scout units

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Crary reported from New York. Associated Press writer Brady McCombs also contributed to this report from Salt Lake City.

MOUNT VERNON, Wash. (AP) -- The Interstate 5 bridge collapse into the Skagit River was caused by an oversize truck hitting the span, the Washington State Patrol chief said.

"For reasons unknown at this point in time the semi struck the overhead of the bridge causing the collapse," Batiste told an overnight news conference.

The truck made it off the bridge and the driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators.

Two other vehicles went into the water Thursday evening as the structure crumbled. Three people were rescued and are recovering.

Drivers should expect delays at the break in the major north-south highway about 60 miles north of Seattle. Detours have been set up to try to ease the congestion.

Batiste urged drivers to avoid the area if possible, especially over the Memorial Day weekend.

Dan Sligh and his wife were in their pickup truck on Interstate 5 heading to a camping trip when a bridge before them disappeared in a "big puff of dust."

"I hit the brakes and we went off," Sligh told reporters from a hospital, adding he "saw the water approaching ... you hold on as tight as you can."

Sligh, his wife and another man in a different vehicle were dumped into the chilly waters of the Skagit River. They were injured, but miraculously, authorities said it appeared nobody was killed in the bridge failure that raised the question about the safety of aging spans and cut off the main route between Seattle and Canada.

"We don't think anyone else went into the water," said Marcus Deyerin, a spokesman for the Northwest Washington Incident Management Team. "At this point we're optimistic."

Sligh and his wife were taken to Skagit Valley Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. The other man was reported in stable condition at United General Hospital in Sedro-Woolley, hospital CEO Greg Reed said.

Sligh said his shoulder was dislocated in the drop into the water, and he found himself "belly deep in water in the truck." He said he popped his shoulder back in and called out to his wife, who he described as being in shock initially as they waited for rescuers to arrive in boats.

Traffic along the heavily travelled route could be affected for some time.

"The I-5 corridor is totally disrupted," said Gov. Jay Inslee, who went to the scene Thursday night.

"Thanks to the rescuers and a little bit of luck, we had three Skagitonians who made it out of the Skagit River alive," Inslee said.

The bridge was inspected twice last year and repairs were made, Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson said.

"It's an older bridge that needs a lot of work just like a good number of bridges around the state," she said.

Transportation officials are working on plans for either a temporary or permanent replacement, she said.

The National Transportation Safety Board was sending an investigative team.

Trooper Francis said the portion of the four-lane bridge over the Skagit River collapsed about 7 p.m. Thursday.

Jeremiah Thomas, a volunteer firefighter, said he was driving nearby when he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye and turned to look.

"The bridge just went down, it crashed through the water," he said. "It was really surreal."

The bridge was about 50 feet above the water. Deyerin said it appeared that two vehicles -- a car and the pickup with the travel trailer attached -- fell into the river. He said the water depth was about 15 feet, and the vehicles half-visible in the water likely were resting on portions of the collapsed bridge.

Crowds of people lined the river to watch the scene unfold.

"It's not something you see every day," said Jimmy O'Connor, the owner of two local pizza restaurants who was driving on another bridge parallel to the one that collapsed. "People were starting to crawl out of their cars."

He said he and his girlfriend were about 400 yards away on the Burlington Bridge when they heard "just a loud bang."

"Then we looked over and saw the bridge was down in the water," he said.

He pulled over and saw three vehicles in the water, including the camping trailer that landed upside-down, he said.

The bridge was not classified as structurally deficient, but a Federal Highway Administration database listed it as being "functionally obsolete" -- a category meaning that the design is outdated, such as having narrow shoulders and low clearance underneath.

The bridge was built in 1955 and has a sufficiency rating of 57.4 out of 100, according to federal records. That is well below the statewide average rating of 80, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal data, but 759 bridges in the state have a lower sufficiency score.

According to a 2012 Skagit County Public Works Department report, 42 of the county's 108 bridges are 50 years or older. The document says eight of the bridges are more than 70 years old and two are over 80.

Washington state was given a C in the American Society of Civil Engineers' 2013 infrastructure report card and a C- when it came to the state's bridges. The group said more than a quarter of Washington's 7,840 bridges are considered structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

Democratic Rep. Judy Clibborn, who leads the transportation committee in the state House, said the bridge wasn't one that has been a focus for lawmakers.

"It is shocking that I-5 would have something happen like this," she said.

Clibborn said the collapse will call attention to the issues facing bridges -- especially the old bridge over the Columbia River that connects Vancouver and Portland, Ore.

Sligh said his wife was "doing OK" and that he had "lots of cuts."

"You're kind of pinching yourself and realize you're lucky to be alive."

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Baker reported from Olympia, Wash. Associated Press writers Chris Grygiel in Seattle and Terry Tang in Phoenix also contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service official who led the unit that targeted tea party groups and publicly disclosed the activity has been replaced, making her the third top IRS official moved aside since the episode was revealed two weeks ago.

Lois Lerner was put on administrative leave on Thursday, said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and two congressional aides.

Without naming Lerner, new Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel emailed employees that 27-year IRS veteran Ken Corbin would become acting head of the exempt organizations division -- a move the Obama administration was hoping would help ease the controversy.

Grassley said Lerner rejected a request by Werfel to resign. One congressional aide said Lerner, a career civil servant, will be on paid leave. The congressional aides spoke on condition of anonymity to describe a personnel matter.

A day earlier, Lerner proclaimed her innocence of any wrongdoing to a House committee, then invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer questions.

Republicans have shown no taste for dropping their demands for more answers about the matter, which has become a major political liability for President Barack Obama. Three congressional committees are investigating the episode and the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation.

"The agency needs to move on to fix the conditions that led to the targeting debacle," Grassley said, adding about Lerner, "She shouldn't be in limbo indefinitely on the taxpayers' dime."

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., said replacing Lerner was a "strong step" for improving the IRS but added, "This and further corrective action are vital in restoring the confidence of the American people."

Lerner oversaw the IRS unit that in early 2010 started subjecting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status to long-lasting, tough reviews, according to a report by a Treasury inspector general.

That report said Lerner learned of the activity in June 2011. Higher-ranking IRS officials say they didn't learn of the problem until nearly a year later.

Lerner revealed the wrongdoing May 10 in response to a question at a legal conference that IRS officials later conceded they planted in an attempt to get the news out before the inspector general's report was released.

Steven Miller was forced out this week as acting IRS commissioner. Joseph Grant, one of Miller's top deputies, announced last week that he will retire June 3.

All IRS offices will be closed Friday, one of five days the agency plans to be shuttered this year because of mandatory, across-the bard budget cuts that are affecting most government agencies.

TIBERIAS, Israel (AP) -- The massive circular structure appears to be an archaeologists dream: a recently discovered antiquity that could reveal secrets of ancient life in the Middle East and is just waiting to be excavated.

It's thousands of years old -- a conical, manmade behemoth weighing hundreds of tons, practically begging to be explored.

The problem is -- it's at the bottom of the biblical Sea of Galilee. For now, at least, Israeli researchers are left stranded on dry land, wondering what finds lurk below.

The monumental structure, made of boulders and stones with a diameter of 70 meters (230 feet), emerged from a routine sonar scan in 2003. Now archaeologists are trying to raise money to allow them access to the submerged stones.

"It's very enigmatic, it's very interesting, but the bottom line is we don't know when it's from, we don't know what it's connected to, we don't know its function," said Dani Nadel, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa who is one of several researchers studying the discovery. "We only know it is there, it is huge and it is unusual."

Archaeologists said the only way they can properly assess the structure is through an underwater excavation, a painstakingly slow process that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. And if an excavation were to take place, archaeologists said they believed it would be the first in the Sea of Galilee, an ancient lake that boasts historical remnants spanning thousands of years and is the setting of many Bible scenes.

In contrast, Israeli researchers have carried out many excavations in the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

Much of the researchers' limited knowledge about this structure comes from the sonar scan a decade ago.

Initial dives shortly after that revealed a few details. In an article in the International Journal of Nautical Archaeology published earlier this year, Nadel and fellow researchers disclosed it was asymmetrical, made of basalt boulders and that "fish teem around the structure and between its blocks."

The cone-shaped structure is found at a depth of between three and 12 meters (nine and 40 feet) beneath the surface, about half a kilometer (1,600 feet) from the sea's southwestern shore. Its base is buried under sediment.

The authors conclude the structure is man-made, made of stones that originated nearby, and it weighs about 60,000 tons. The authors write it "is indicative of a complex, well-organized society, with planning skills and economic ability."

The rest is a mystery.

Yitzhak Paz, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority who is involved in the project, said that based on sediment buildup, it is between 2,000 and 12,000 years old, a vast range that tells little about it. Based on other sites and artifacts found in the region, Paz places the site's origin some time during the 3rd millennium B.C., or about 5,000 years ago, although he admits the timeframe is just a guess.

"The period is hard for us to determine. No scientific work was carried out there, no excavations, no surveys. We have no artifacts from the structure," Paz said.

Archaeologists were also cautious about guessing the structure's purpose. They said possibilities include a burial site, a place of worship or even a fish nursery, which were common in the area, but they said they wanted to avoid speculation because they have so little information.

It's not even clear if the structure was built on shore when the sea stood at a low level, or if it was constructed underwater. Paz reckons it was built on land, an indication of the sea's low level at the time.

In order to fill in the blanks, archaeologists hope to inspect the site underwater, despite the expense and the complexities.

Nadel noted that working underwater demands not only a skill such as scuba diving, but also labor-intensive excavations that are particularly difficult in the Sea of Galilee, which already has low visibility and where any digging can unleash a cloud of sediment and bury what's just been uncovered.

Also, divers can remain under water only for a limited amount of time every day and must choose the best season that can provide optimal conditions for excavating.

"Until we do more research, we don't have much more to add," Nadel said. "It's a mystery, and every mystery is interesting."

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Follow Tia Goldenberg on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tgoldenberg

GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) -- The Boy Scouts of America's National Council has voted to ease a long-standing ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted as Scouts.

Of the local Scout leaders voting at their annual meeting in Texas, more than 60 percent supported the proposal.

Under the proposal drafted by the Scouts' governing board, gay adults will remain barred from serving as Scout leaders.

The outcome is unlikely to end a bitter debate over the Scouts' membership policy.

Some conservative churches that sponsor Scout units wanted to continue excluding gay youths, in some cases threatening to defect if the ban were lifted. More liberal Scout leaders -- while supporting the proposal to accept gay youth -- have made clear they want the ban on gay adults lifted as well.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Dismissing a veto threat from President Barack Obama, lawmakers in the House passed legislation that links student loan rates to the ups and downs of the financial markets in a vote largely along party lines.

The Republican-backed bill would allow students to dodge a scheduled rate hike for students with new subsidized Stafford loans next month, but rates could rise in coming years. Democrats largely opposed the measure -- which they branded the "Making College More Expensive Act" -- while the Republican chairman of the Education Committee labeled the legislation a starting point for negotiations with the Senate and White House.

"The American people sent us here to tackle tough issues, not kick the can down the road. The time to act is now. Students, families and taxpayers cannot afford further delay," House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline said after the vote.

Interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans are set to double, from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, on July 1. Lawmakers from both parties say they want to avoid the increase but were divided on how.

Some Democrats are seeking a two-year extension of the current rates until Congress takes up a higher education bill later. Republicans have rejected that proposal -- expected to cost taxpayers $9 billion -- as costly and irresponsible.

The House measure passed by a vote of 221-198. Eight Republicans and four Democrats broke from their party.

"It kind of goes without saying that you're going to be paying on your student loans for quite a while," said Ron Burruss, who will be a junior at Kentucky's University of Louisville in the autumn.

By some counts, student loan debt has topped $1 trillion and surpasses credit card debt in size. Only mortgage debt is larger.

Under the GOP proposal, student loans would be reset every year, pegged to 10-year Treasury notes with added percentage points. For instance, students who receive subsidized or unsubsidized Stafford student loans would pay the Treasury rate, plus 2.5 percentage points starting for loans issued after July 1.

Current subsidized Stafford loans are offered at a fixed 3.4 percent rate and unsubsidized Stafford loans are offered at 6.8 percent. The interest rate on loans to parents and graduate students is 7.9 percent.

Using Congressional Budget Office projections, the GOP plan would translate to a 5 percent interest rate on all Stafford loans in 2014, but the rate would climb to 7.7 percent for loans in 2023.

"We're ripping off kids," said Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.

Stafford loan rates would be capped at 8.5 percent, while loans for parents and graduate students would have a 10.5 percent ceiling under the GOP plan.

In his budget proposal, Obama included flexible rate student loan rates pegged to 10-year Treasury bills. The president did not limit interest rates but included a smaller added interest rate. His plan also expanded income-based repayment options and loan forgiveness.

Even so, many students said they were frustrated by the current rates.

"It's ridiculous that students are being charged 6.8 percent interest, when you can get a mortgage on a house for 3.5 percent," said Zach Nostdal, a 28-year-old graduate student at Seattle's University of Washington.

The House proposal faces a steep climb in the Senate despite some similarities to the White House's offer.

"The Senate is not going to pick this up," said Rep. Caroline McCarthy, D-N.Y.

The Senate planned to take up its own measure after it returns from Memorial Day holiday. Even then, it's not clear lawmakers will be able to reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions before the July 1 deadline.

"We are focused on making college more affordable while they seem focused on making it more expensive," said Sen. Tom Harkin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "The bill they passed today fails the first test of any policy: do no harm. It's worse for students than if the rate doubles."

Students who max out their subsidized Stafford loans over four years would pay $8,331 in interest payments under the Republican bill, and $3,450 if rates were kept at 3.4 percent, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Services. If rates were allowed to double in July, that amount would be $7,284 over the typical 10-year window to repay the maximum $19,000.

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Associated Press writer Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Ky., and Donna Blankinship in Seattle contributed to this report.

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Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- House members writing a bipartisan immigration bill said Thursday they had patched over a dispute that threatened their efforts, even as they and the rest of Congress prepared to return home for a weeklong recess where many could confront voters' questions on the issue.

The eight lawmakers in the House immigration group have struggled for months to come to agreement on a sweeping bill that would have a chance in the GOP-controlled House while satisfying Democrats' objectives.

Talks almost broke down last week, only to resurrect and then break down again this week over the question of providing health care for those here illegally who would gain legal status under the bill, lawmakers and aides said.

Republicans in the group want to ensure that those immigrants don't get taxpayer-funded care and could be subject to deportation if they don't pay their health bills, said Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, a member of the group. But an agreement reached last week on that question apparently sparked concern among House Democratic leaders, causing Democrats in the group to back away.

After meeting Thursday afternoon in the Capitol, the lawmakers said they were back on track. Labrador said agreement remained that immigrants shouldn't get taxpayer-funded care, but he said there had apparently been a misunderstanding that led Democrats to believe Republicans were trying to deny emergency care to immigrants.

"I think maybe there was some confusion about some details, but I think we're all good," Labrador told reporters.

"I'm very pleased," said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., also part of the group. "We're going to get there. There's going to be justice done for our immigrant community."

The developments with the House group came two days after the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a comprehensive bill with a bipartisan vote to remake immigration laws, enhance border security and put the estimated 11 million people living here illegally on a path to citizenship.

The full Senate is to take up the legislation in June. Supporters are hoping to see the bill pass by a wide margin, with as many as 70 votes in the 100-member Senate.

That's seen as a way of pressuring the House to act. If the Senate does pass a bill, it's likely to be more liberal than what the House group might produce and more to the liking of many liberals in the House, including some of the Democratic leadership.

But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, issued a statement along with his top lieutenants Thursday promising the House would act on the issue, but making clear House members would not accept any bill passed by the Senate.

"The House remains committed to fixing our broken immigration system, but we will not simply take up and accept the bill that is emerging in the Senate if it passes," the statement said.

"The House will work its will and produce its own legislation," it said.

Officials said Boehner has privately said he hopes to have a bill through the House by August, though there is no strategy yet on what it would include. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Thursday defended America's controversial drone attacks as legal, effective and a necessary linchpin in an evolving U.S. counterterrorism policy. But he acknowledged the targeted strikes are no "cure-all" and said he is haunted by the civilians unintentionally killed.

The president also announced a renewed push to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, including lifting a moratorium on prisoner transfers to Yemen. However, shutting the prison will still require help from Republicans reluctant to back Obama's call to move some detainees to U.S. prisons and try them in civilian courts.

Obama framed his address as an attempt to redefine the nature and scope of terror threats facing the U.S., noting the weakening of al-Qaida and the impending end of the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

"Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror," Obama said in remarks at the National Defense University. "What we can do -- what we must do -- is dismantle networks that pose a direct danger, and make it less likely for new groups to gain a foothold, all while maintaining the freedoms and ideals that we defend."

Since taking office, Obama's counterterrorism strategy has increasingly relied on the use of strikes by unmanned spy drones, particularly in Pakistan and Yemen. The highly secretive program has faced criticism from congressional lawmakers who have questioned its scope and legality.

The president, in his most expansive public discussion on drones, defended their targeted killings as both effective and legal. He acknowledged the civilian deaths that sometimes result -- a consequence that has angered many of the countries where the U.S. seeks to combat extremism -- and said he grapples with that trade-off.

"For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live," he said. Before any strike, he said, "there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured -- the highest standard we can set."

Ahead of the address, Obama signed new "presidential policy guidelines" aimed at illustrating more clearly to Congress and the public the standards the U.S. applies before carrying out drone attacks. Officials said the guidelines include not using strikes when the targeted people can be captured, either by the U.S. or a foreign government, relying on drones only when the target poses an "imminent" threat and establishing a preference for giving the military control of the drone program.

However, the CIA is still expected to maintain control of the drone program in Yemen, as well as in Pakistan's tribal areas, given the concern that al-Qaida may return in greater numbers as U.S. troops draw down in Afghanistan. The military and the CIA currently work side by side in Yemen, with the CIA flying its drones over the northern region out of a covert base in Saudi Arabia, and the military flying its unmanned aerial vehicles from Djibouti.

In Pakistan alone, up to 3,336 people have been killed by the unmanned aircraft since 2003, according to the New America Foundation which maintains a database of the strikes.

Obama's advisers said the new guidelines will effectively limit the number of drone strikes in terror zones and pointed to a future decline of attacks against extremists in Afghanistan as the war there winds down next year. But strikes elsewhere will continue. The guidelines will also apply to strikes against both foreigners and U.S. citizens abroad.

On the eve of the president's speech, the administration revealed for the first time that a fourth American citizen had been killed in secretive drone strikes abroad. The killings of three other Americans in counterterror operations since 2009 were widely known before a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy acknowledged the four deaths.

In that letter, Holder said only one of the U.S. citizens killed in counterterror operations beyond war zones -- Anwar al-Awlaki, who had ties to at least three attacks planned or carried out on U.S. soil -- was specifically targeted by American forces. He said the other three Americans were not targeted in the U.S. strikes.

Though Obama sought to give more transparency to the drone program, the strikes will largely remain highly secret for the public. Congress is already briefed on every strike that U.S. drones take outside Afghanistan and Iraq during the war there, Obama said, but those briefings are largely classified and held privately.

The president said he was open to additional measures to further regulate the drone program, including creating a special court system to regulate strikes, similar to one that signs off on government surveillance in espionage and terror cases. Congress is already considering whether to set up a court to decide when drones overseas can target U.S. citizens linked to al-Qaida.

White House officials said the president had originally planned to deliver Thursday's speech earlier this month, but it was delayed as the administration grappled with a trio of other controversies, including the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, the IRS' targeting of conservative groups and government monitoring of reporters.

Also Thursday, Obama reaffirmed his stalled 2008 campaign promise to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, where some terror suspects are held. Lifting the ban on transfers of some Guantanamo prisoners to Yemen is a key step in jumpstarting that process, given that 30 of the 56 prisoners eligible for transfer are Yemeni.

Obama halted all transfers to Yemen after the failed Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt of an airliner over Detroit. The convicted bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, trained in Yemen.

Congress and the White House have sparred since Obama took office in 2009 over the fate of the suspects and whether they can be brought to trial on U.S. soil. In the meantime, the detainees have been held for years with diminishing hope that they will charged with crimes or given trials.

Obama acknowledged that the politics of closing Guantanamo are difficult, but he made the case that "history will cast harsh judgment on this aspect of our fight against terrorism, and those who fail to end it."

Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was open to a proposal from Obama on the future of Guantanamo Bay. But that plan has to consist of more than political talking points, he said.

"This speech was only necessary due to a deeply inconsistent counterterrorism policy, one that maintains it is more humane to kill a terrorist with a drone than detain and interrogate him at Guantanamo Bay," McKeon said

This week, the Pentagon asked Congress for more than $450 million for maintaining and upgrading the Guantanamo prison. More than 100 of the prisoners have launched a hunger strike to protest their indefinite detention, and the military earlier this month was force-feeding 32 of them to keep them from starving to death.

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Associated Press writers Lita Baldor, Kimberly Dozier and Richard Lardner contributed to this report.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Former Congressman Anthony Weiner's tabloid infamy was apparent almost immediately when he arrived Thursday morning on the corner of 125th Street and Lenox Avenue in Harlem for the first public event of his mayoral campaign.

"Good morning sir, would you like a free paper?" a man hawking copies of AM New York asked as the candidate approached.

"Well, who's on the cover?" Weiner asked.

"You are, sir," the man said.

"Then I'll take it," Weiner replied.

Weiner didn't actually keep his copy, but many of the people who made their way through the mass of media encircling the candidate to shake his hand and speak with him carried their own papers as they posed for pictures. Throughout his time in Harlem and a subsequent subway trip downtown, Weiner tried to keep his conversations with voters and the press focused on his message of working to improve the lives of the middle class rather than his history of making scandalous headlines.

At least 30 members of the media showed up for Weiner's event outside the 125th Street subway station leaving the candidate, his staff, and even the police struggling to keep the press back so commuters could enter the train.

"I apologize my friends," Weiner said to a group attempting to make their way through the crowd. "Walk this way. I'll block for you. I might not look like much, but I can take care of myself."

Though he brought a pedestrian traffic jam with him, Weiner got an enthusiastic response from many passerby. Several people who stopped to shake his hand indicated they thought he deserved a chance to make a comeback.

"All I'm asking for is a second chance," Weiner said to multiple well-wishers.

That message resonated with a man named Chris Crawford who said he lived on 131st Street and came up to pose for a photo with Weiner. After talking to the candidate, Crawford told TPM he believes everyone deserves second chances.

"I look forward to seeing what he's going to do differently," said Crawford. "Sometimes, when you lose or you get off track it kind of gives you just much more focus on what you need to do the next time around and maybe he can attend to the peoples' needs in a stronger way."

In spite of his appreciation for Weiner's unique perspective, Crawford has not yet decided who would get his vote in the mayoral race. He said he wanted more time to see where the candidates stand on issues "that really affect myself and my community." Crawford listed the NYPD's controversial stop-and-frisk policy as a top priority for him.

Because of the intense swarm of reporters, photographers, and video cameras it was difficult to hear many of the interactions Weiner had with the people he met in Harlem. However, he discussed many local issues including stop-and-frisk, housing, and the city economy. Weiner repeatedly framed himself as a crusader for the middle class noting plans to push for more manufacturing jobs, create affordable housing and his desire to raise taxes on the "very super wealthy."

A neighborhood resident named Joe Baines clearly appreciated Weiner's populist message and felt it overshadowed the candidate's 2011 Twitter photo scandal.

"You look on Facebook today, you see a lot of people showing their whole bodies, buck naked and they don't do nothing to them," Baines said. "I think he's good ... because he's a family man and I think he cares about this world. I think he's better than Bloomberg because nobody cares about the middle class."

Before heading to the next stop on his schedule, a radio appearance at a downtown studio, Weiner spoke with the assembled reporters. He emphasized his desire to focus on his policies in his conversations with voters.

"When voters think about the issues they care about, I want to be there to try to have a conversation with them, talk about some of the ideas that I've put on my website ... and also try to hear what their concerns are," said Weiner.

Multiple early polls have shown Weiner in second place behind City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Some observers have pointed to the numbers of voters polled, specifically women, who say they have an unfavorable impression of Weiner as an indication he may not be able to pull ahead. Weiner said he believes he may be able to win over some of those who currently have a negative view of him.

"Ultimately, this is day one or two of the campaign and one of the ways I do it is by seeing people," Weiner said. "Also, you know, I frankly have been encouraged by how many people say they're prepared to give me a second chance and just listen to my ideas. And look, there may be people who ... say they'll never vote for me, and I get that, and I respect that, and people have a right to have that view. But even for those people, I want them to hear about what I have to say."

Weiner obviously wants to focus on the issues, but his past is still earning substantial attention. A late night launch announcement spared Weiner from the mocking tabloid headlines that dogged him throughout his scandal in his first day of campaigning Wednesday. However, on Thursday the New York Daily News had a special insert showing the hypothetical front page they would have run to mark the official start of Weiner's bid. It featured his face under an all-caps banner: "HE'S GOT SOME BALLS." A reporter waved a copy and asked Weiner if he thought that type of coverage would be a persistent issue during his run, but the candidate insisted voters will share his desire to concentrate on policy.

"Actually, they did not put that on their front page did they? Did they?" Weiner asked. "Look, I've got to tell you something, I think what I learned today here at the subway stop is that people are going to make their determination based on the interests that they think are important. If citizens want to talk to me about my personal failings, that's their right and I'm going to do everything I can to answer them."

When Weiner finished taking questions and headed into the subway station for his trip down Manhattan, many of the reporters stuck with him packing shoulder-to-shoulder into his car on the two train. Weiner made multiple apologies to his fellow commuters for the crush created by his press corps.

"This is what it's like to be squashed by the press, know what I'm saying?" he asked.

Photographers pushed through the crush of the crowd in an effort to get their desired shots. At one point, thanks to shoving from one of the lensman, this reporter spilled some water we were carrying onto a woman who was sitting in front of Weiner.

"You should send the bill to the Talking Points Memo," he said as the woman and her companion laughed.

When a seat opened up next to the women, Weiner sat down and joined them.

"Every morning the four of us and six still cameras, five video cameras, and nine notepads we're all going to get on the two train together," said Weiner. "And part of the way through, we're going to have the guy from Talking Points Memo pour water on one of us, and then, we're going to come back the next day."

The women were clearly charmed, but a woman named Lori Coad who was sitting across the subway car had some issues with Weiner. Throughout the ride, Coad, who said she was homeless shouting questions and criticisms at Weiner. At one point, she admonished him for his scandal.

"Stop going around texting stuff!" Coad yelled.

"You know, we were doing so well there for a minute," Weiner said. "I almost got off this train with everything going fine."

At 14th Street, Weiner and his press entourage departed the subway car.

"Thank you guys," Weiner said to the other passengers.

"We'll miss you," replied the women he had been sitting with.

He walked the rest of the way to the radio station continuing to field questions from the reporters who stayed with him. After walking about a mile, Weiner arrived at his destination and bid farewell to his press corps.

"This is my stop," he said before entering the studio.

The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to confirm President Obama's nominee to the second most powerful court in the country. The 97-0 vote to make Sri Srinivasan a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals gives the White House an important victory.

Srinivasan, who has been principal deputy U.S. solicitor general, is already rumored to be a future Supreme Court justice. His overwhelming support from across the political and legal spectrum make him a more attractive candidate.

Srinivasan will be the first ever Indian-American appellate court judge. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg previously served on the D.C. Circuit court. No judge has been confirmed to it since 2006 due to Democratic and Republican filibusters. Even after Srinivasan's confirmation, three of 11 active seats remain vacant.

Srinivasan cleared the Judiciary Committee on a unanimous 18-0 vote. He won endorsements from liberal and conservative legal stars including Paul Clement and Ted Olson. The White House did considerable heavy lifting to ensure his confirmation.

Prior to the confirmation vote, senators took turns showering praise on Srinivasan.

The federal appeals courts are just one rung below the Supreme Court. The D.C. Circuit in particular frequently decides cases on executive actions from air pollution regulations to workers rights. It leans conservative as the majority of sitting judges have been appointed by Republican presidents.

The vote to confirm Srinivasan is part of an escalating battle between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) over the filibuster. The Democratic leader has threatened to change the Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster for nominees, drawing the ire of McConnell. Republicans, who voiced support for Srinivasan, did not filibuster his confirmation.

But Senate Republicans, who blocked Obama's prior nominee to the court, Caitlin Halligan, are telegraphing a mass filibuster of the remaining three vacancies. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) recently unveiled legislation to reduce the number of active seats on the court from 11 to eight, arguing that it doesn't need any more judges. He admitted to TPM that he isn't expecting Democrats to support that legislation. They've dismissed it.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) forcefully criticized GOP obstruction again Thursday but sought to downplay his nuclear option threats, seemingly careful not to incite an all-out filibuster reform battle that could damage the prospects of immigration reform.

"We're doing nothing to interfere with immigration [reform]," Reid told reporters at a noon press conference in the Capitol. "This is no fight we've picked. We're just laying out the facts. We're not threatening anybody with anything."

Reid and Democratic leaders took turns excoriating Republicans for using the filibuster to delay or block President Obama's nominees to cabinet and judicial positions. But the majority leader demurred in response to several questions about his suggestions that he may seek to change the rules of the Senate with a bare majority of votes.

"We're not picking a fight with anybody," he said. "We're just saying this can't go on."

But Reid left no doubt that he believes the Republican obstruction is unparalleled and unacceptable and kept all options open to mitigate it.

"The agreement we reached in January has done virtually nothing to alleviate the obstruction that we have seen for five months now from the Republicans," he said. "So I'm very disappointed that we're where we are." He and his leadership colleagues cited recent GOP filibusters of nominees including Chuck Hagel, Caitlin Halligan and Richard Cordray.

The remarks reflect the tightrope Reid is walking, caught between wanting to ease the gridlock in the Senate but eager not to rattle immigration reform. Sources say he's ready to change the rules with the nuclear option but it's not clear he has the votes. The pressure appears to be having some effect on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). But raising the volume on the nuclear option threat risks damaging the immigration overhaul as it gets closer to passing the Senate.

"I'm not going to do anything to interfere with the immigration bill," Reid said, praising the Gang of Eight's work and calling it a vitally important issue that must be resolved.

A whopping 81 percent of Republicans favor background checks for private gun sales, according to a Pew Research poll released Thursday.

But just 57 percent of Republicans said they wanted a background checks bill to pass.

"Many of those who have reservations about the bill express concerns that it includes other restrictions beyond background checks, or that it opens a 'slippery slope' toward more government power," the survey concluded.

Overall, 81 percent of Americans support broader background checks, the survey said. The partisan differences were minimal: 83 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of independents.

But a majority of the public, 56 percent, has soured on the prospects of Congress passing new gun control laws this year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate has overwhelmingly rejected an amendment allowing states to require labeling of genetically modified foods.

The amendment by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders tried to clarify that states can require the labels. Both the Vermont House and Connecticut Senate voted this month to make food companies declare genetically modified ingredients on their packages.

The Senate amendment was rejected Thursday on a 71-27 vote.

Opponents are from farm states that use a lot of genetically modified crops. They say the government should leave the issue to the Food and Drug Administration, which does not require the labeling. They say it would be was expensive for food companies and therefore consumers.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
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Something unexpected and newsworthy happened on the Senate floor Thursday morning during an otherwise commonplace argument between Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell over confirmations and the "nuclear option."

It had nothing to do with truly imperiled nominees like Rich Cordray over at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau or Tom Perez at the Department of Labor. But it nonetheless reveals a great deal about power dynamics between the leaders as the Senate builds toward a showdown over key confirmations -- and perhaps another effort to change the Senate's filibuster rules.

At issue Thursday was Sri Srinivasan, whom President Obama nominated to serve on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Srinivasan has been a shoo-in for weeks. But Reid and McConnell have disagreed about precisely when he should be officially confirmed. Reid wanted the vote this week. McConnell wanted to wait three business days -- not a huge delay in most circumstances, but with the impending Memorial Day break it would've kicked the confirmation into early June.

So this week, Reid used the Senate rules to provoke a confrontation: Technically he filed cloture on Srinivasan's nomination, guaranteeing him at least a test vote this week. More meaningfully, he forced McConnell to choose between sustaining a filibuster against Srinivasan through early June (a move that would have helped Reid build his case for changing the rules this summer) and agreeing to a confirmation vote now (effectively caving).

McConnell caved Thursday morning on the Senate floor. A small cave. But a cave nonetheless. Srinivasan will be confirmed Thursday afternoon. But the "cave" is only a small part of the story.

"The effort to justify breaking the rules just fell apart," McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told TPM.

That's probably overstating things a bit. But it points to the fact that McConnell is actively trying to undermine Reid's efforts to present Republicans with a Sophie's choice between dropping their filibuster threats against nominees they oppose and standing by as Democrats do away with the filibuster on presidential nominees altogether.

As we reported Wednesday, Reid is structuring confirmation votes on existing nominees like Cordray and Perez to either break GOP filibusters or build a permission structure for his members to support a controversial rules change if their nominations fail. McConnell's move today suggests he believes Reid's case will be persuasive, if only to Democrats, and doesn't want to enable it.

Srinivasan is an easy pawn to forfeit in this game, but the fact that McConnell recognizes Reid's strategy, and its potential effectiveness, means he might have to concede more tactically significant pieces in the future.