Farmers face labor shortages in the fields

AP Photo/Gosia Wozniacka

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- With the harvest in full swing on the West Coast, farmers in California and other states say they can't find enough people to pick high value crops such as grapes, peppers, apples and pears.

In some cases, workers have walked off fields in the middle of harvest, lured by offers of better pay or easier work elsewhere.

The shortage and competition for workers means labor expenses have climbed, harvests are getting delayed and less fruit and vegetable products are being picked, prompting some growers to say their income is suffering. Experts say, however, the shortage is not expected to affect prices for consumers.

But farmworkers, whose incomes are some of the lowest in the nation, have benefited, their wages jumping in California to $2 to $3 over the $8 hourly minimum wage and even more for those working piece rate.

The shortage - driven by a struggling U.S. economy, more jobs in Mexico, and bigger hurdles to illegal border crossings - has led some farmers to offer unusual incentives: they're buying meals for their workers, paying for transportation to and from fields, even giving bonuses to those who stay for the whole season.

And a few have stationed foremen near their crews to prevent other farmers from wooing away their workers.

"In the past, we were overrun with farmworkers. But not anymore," said labor contractor Jesus Mateo, whose crews saw a 20 percent pay increase. "Employers have to do something to attract them. The fastest workers can now earn more than $1,000 per week."

A California Farm Bureau Federation member survey being conducted this year thus far has found about half of farmers are experiencing shortages, said bureau manager Rayne Pegg. Many of the growers say their workforce has decreased by up to one-third.

In some cases, farmers are being paid below market prices, because their produce is past its prime, having stayed on the branch or vine for too long. Hardest hit are small farmers, who can't afford to pay more for labor, Pegg said.

Farmers say immigration reform, which would legalize their current workforce and create a guest worker program to legally bring farmworkers from other countries, could solve the labor shortage problem. Immigration reform, however, has stalled in Congress.

Farmers in other states are also facing shortages. In Washington, apple growers are having a hard time finding enough workers in time for peak harvest in October. And in Oregon, pear growers - whose crop is very big this year - are facing the same problem.

"They are really struggling to get that crop off the trees," said Barry Bushue, president of the Oregon Farm Bureau. "These growers have decades of investment into plant stock, they can't just transition overnight to be less labor-intensive."

For years, farmers throughout the U.S. had access to an abundant, cheap, mostly unauthorized labor force streaming in from Mexico. Workers say they often had to beg growers for even a few hours of work and their wages were low.

As the U.S. plunged into a recession and Mexico's economy improved, some seasonal migrant workers chose to remain home.

Increased border security and drug cartel violence made crossings more dangerous and expensive, deterring workers. A sharp drop in Mexico's fertility rate further decreased the number of young men crossing into the U.S. to work in the fields.

The trend appears long-lasting, spelling trouble for farmers, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. While the recession is over, the report finds, mass migration from Mexico has not resumed.

"This year, it has become even more challenging to find agricultural employees, and it's going to get worse in the next few years," said Noe Cisneros Jr. of Freedom AG, a Kern County labor contractor who manages a crew of up to 300 workers.

On a recent September morning in an endless stretch of San Joaquin Valley vineyards, workers lifted paper trays filled with raisins and heaped them onto a trailer - the final step in an exceptionally profitable raisin harvest for the workers.

With farmworkers in such high demand, many said they shun remote locations and choose fields closer to home; they pick crops that pay better; they also prefer lighter work instead of tougher jobs that require being bent over all day. More women are also in the fields.

Because most workers now have smartphones, they text each other information about pay and working conditions - and some switch employers mid-way through harvest if better opportunities arise.

As a result, labor contractors and growers must work harder to fill and retain work crews. Cisneros said he even trained and hired high school students this summer to pick grapes - something he was not willing to do in the past.

Growers like Carson Smith, in turn, have raised wages by 20 percent over the past two years. The wine grape grower, who farms 800 acres near Fresno, said his biggest competition for workers is from table grape growers who are also raising wages for their pickers.

"The fear of a shortage drove us to increase pay," said Smith, who paid his machine drivers $12.75 per hour, $2 more than previous years. "We set our wages to where we thought we could attract people, though it was still tougher than other years to fill our positions."

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Contact Gosia Wozniacka at https://twitter.com/GosiaWozniacka

NY state shifts judicial approach to prostitution

NEW YORK (AP) -- New York is creating the nation's first statewide system of courts to help prostitutes escape a life of exploitation and violence and move on to productive lives, the state's chief judge said.

"We have come to recognize that the vast majority of children and adults charged with prostitution offenses are commercially exploited or at risk of exploitation," Judge Jonathan Lippman told attorneys, advocates for women and service providers at a breakfast meeting Wednesday in Manhattan.

"Human trafficking is a crime that inflicts terrible harm on the most vulnerable members of society: victims of abuse, the poor, children, runaways, immigrants," said Lippman, chief judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. "It is in every sense a form of modern-day slavery. We cannot tolerate this practice in a civilized society, nor can we afford to let victims of trafficking slip between the cracks of our justice system."

While human trafficking includes labor trafficking, nearly 80 percent of victims in New York are trafficked for sex, Lippman said.

Most are U.S. citizens, Lippman said.

"It is not just halfway across the globe. It is around the corner from all of us," he said.

Three pilot courts in Queens, midtown Manhattan and Nassau County in suburban Long Island are up and running. The specialized courts will be operating throughout New York City by mid-October and around the state by the end of October.

The courts will have presiding judges trained in the dynamics of sex trafficking and the services available to victims.

Lippman said the courts will identify appropriate defendants and refer them to services "that will assist them in leading productive lives, rather than sending them right back to the grip of their abusers."

He said the initiative "will stop the pattern of shuffling trafficking victims through our criminal courtrooms without addressing the underlying reasons why they are there in the first place."

The project will be a model for the nation and should improve the lives of countless victims, Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice said.

"We have to think differently about how we prosecute prostitution cases and who we prosecute to combat the exploitation and the demand that fuel human trafficking," Rice said.

Treating the victims of sex trafficking as criminals can hamper their ability to secure housing, employment and financial aid for education, said Steven Banks, attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society of New York City. "Our clients in these cases are the victims of crimes," Banks said. "They've been branded in many cases on their bodies by people treating them as if they are nothing more than property."

Colo. farmers arrested in fatal listeria outbreak

DENVER (AP) -- The owners of a Colorado cantaloupe farm have been arrested on charges stemming from a listeria outbreak in 2011 that killed 33 people.

Federal prosecutors say brothers Eric and Ryan Jensen were arrested Thursday on charges of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce.

The Jensens' attorney didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Prosecutors say the federal Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control determined the Jensens didn't adequately clean the cantaloupe.

The FDA has said the melons likely were contaminated in Jensen Farms' packing house. The agency concluded that dirty water on a floor, and old, hard-to-clean equipment probably were to blame.

A number of lawsuits were filed by people who were sickened or who had a family member die after the outbreak.

Clinton pushes effort to protect African elephants

AP Photo/Craig Ruttle

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hillary Rodham Clinton is jumpstarting an $80 million effort to curb the poaching and trafficking of elephants in Africa.

The former secretary of state and her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, say the killing of elephants to sell ivory around the globe has reached a crisis point.

The Clinton Global Initiative project hopes to prevent the killing and trafficking of elephants and rhinos. It also wants to address the demand for ivory in Asia and the United States.

The leaders of several African nations joined the Clintons at the event. They support a moratorium on imports, exports and sales of tusks and ivory until the elephant population is no longer threatened.

The former first lady says the African forest elephant could be extinct in 10 years. She calls it a "great disaster."

Health law online sign-up delayed for small firms

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Small businesses seeking to buy health insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law will have to wait a couple of months before they can complete the process online, administration officials said Thursday in the latest delay of the high-stakes rollout.

New online health insurance markets created by the law for individuals and small businesses are scheduled to open Tuesday. Small- business owners will be able to go online, compare their options and start an application, but they won't be able to finalize it until sometime in November. That would still allow the firms to get coverage for their employees by Jan. 1.

"We wanted to make sure this was going to work properly and be effective for small businesses," Gary Cohen, the Health and Human Services Department official overseeing the rollout, said in an interview. "We just felt like taking the additional time to make sure everything was functioning the way we wanted was the right thing to do."

Delays and pared-back expectations are a standard feature of most big technology rollouts. Although the Obama administration has tried to project an image of efficiency, the small business delay was the second announced in as many days.

On Wednesday, the administration told Hispanic groups that the Spanish-language version of the healthcare.gov website will not be ready to handle enrollments for a few weeks. An estimated 10 million Latinos are eligible for coverage, and 4 million of them speak Spanish primarily.

Cohen said no further delays are anticipated. "The individual market will open on time Oct. 1 with full online enrollment and plan shopping," he said.

Some states may still be able to launch fully functional small business markets Oct 1. The delay applies to 36 states where the federal government is taking the lead in building the insurance markets.

Obama's health care law created small business markets known as SHOP exchanges for companies with up to 100 employees to buy coverage from a range of competitive plans. Small firms with low-wage workers can also apply for tax credits to help make the coverage more affordable.

Under the law, most small businesses do not have to provide coverage. But firms with 50 or more employees face a mandate to offer insurance or risk fines from the government. That mandate was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, but the administration earlier delayed it by a year to address employer complaints about overly complicated paperwork.

USDA to test new trap to catch Everglades pythons

AP Photo

MIAMI (AP) -- Federal wildlife officials alarmed by an infestation of Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades have tried radio tracking devices, a massive public hunt and even snake-sniffing dogs to control the invasive species. Now there's talk of snaring the elusive pythons in specially designed traps.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture received a patent in August for a trap that resembles a long, thin cage with a net at one end for the live capture of large, heavy snakes.

Researchers say Burmese pythons regard the Everglades as an all-you-can-eat buffet, where native mammals are easy prey and the snakes have no natural predators. The population of Burmese pythons, which are native to India and other parts of Asia, likely developed from pets released into the wild, either intentionally or in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992.

Wildlife officials are racing to control the python population before it undermines ongoing efforts to restore natural water flow through the Everglades. According to a study released last year, mammal sightings in the Everglades are down sharply in areas where pythons are known to live.

The Gainesville field station for the National Wildlife Research Center, which falls under the USDA, is preparing to test the trap in a natural enclosure that contains five pythons.

Over the coming months, the researchers will try baiting the traps with the scent of small mammals such as rats, and they will try camouflaging them as pipes or other small, covered spaces where pythons like to hide, said John Humphrey, a biologist at the research center. Future tests may use python pheromones as bait.

"There's still more to be learned, there's still more to be tested," Humphrey said. "This is just one of your tools that you have to put together with other things to get the problem solved."

The trap was developed to catch exotic snakes without ensnaring smaller, lighter native species, Humphrey said.

The 5-foot-long trap is made from galvanized steel wire with a tightly woven net secured to one end. Two separate triggers need to be tripped simultaneously for it to close, which should keep it from snapping shut on such native snakes as the eastern diamondback rattlesnake or the water moccasin.

"The largest native snakes are generally somewhat smaller than the youngest of the pythons," Humphrey said. "That was the impetus of the design."

The longest python ever caught in Florida was an 18-foot-8-inch specimen found in May beside a rural Miami-Dade County road.

Humphrey developed the trap in collaboration with Wisconsin-based Tomahawk Live Trap, which is working on a licensing agreement to sell the traps along with other snake-handling equipment such as tongs, hooks and secure bags.

"We don't expect to sell a lot of them; it's not an everybody thing, not like a chipmunk or a squirrel trap," said co-owner Jenny Smith. But she said it has potential for wildlife removal companies when they get calls about "a big snake."

It's not clear where exactly the traps would be deployed, or whether they would be effective in an area as vast as Florida's Everglades.

Everglades National Park alone encompasses 1.5 million acres, and all but roughly a hundred thousand acres of that is largely inaccessible swampland and sawgrass, vital breeding grounds for a variety of protected species.

It might not make sense, or even be possible, to place and monitor traps in hard-to-reach swamplands, said park spokeswoman Linda Friar.

Traps have been used in the park to collect pythons for research but not for population control, Friar said.

Most of the state and federal efforts aimed at pythons have focused on learning how the elusive snakes have adapted so well in the wild, and that learning process continues, she said.

"They're so difficult to track and find," Friar said. "What we do know is they've adapted. We don't know how many there are."

One of the challenges facing wildlife officials is that the tan, splotchy snakes are incredibly difficult to spot in the wild, even for seasoned hunters. Researchers say they'll fail to see a python they're tracking with a radio tracking device until they're practically standing on it.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission allows hunters with special permits to remove pythons and other exotic reptiles from some state lands. Earlier this year, a state-sanctioned hunt that attracted worldwide media attention. Roughly 1,600 amateur python hunters joined the permit holders for a month, netting a total of 68 snakes.

In an Auburn University experiment, specially trained dogs found more pythons than their human counterparts, but researchers also found that the dogs, much like humans, would falter the longer they worked in South Florida's often oppressive humidity.

State wildlife officials also try to catch pythons through "exotic pet amnesty days" where people can relinquish non-native species with no questions asked. They also urge residents to report encounters with pythons and other invasive species to a hotline, http://www.IVEGOT1.org . Florida prohibits the possession or sale of pythons for use as pets, and federal law bans the importation and interstate sale of the species.

A prolonged cold snap has proven to be one of the better methods of python population control, killing off large numbers of the snakes in 2010. The population rebounded, though, because low temperatures aren't reliable in subtropical South Florida and because pythons reproduce quickly and in large numbers.

Other traps set for pythons in the past haven't been effective, but traps have been successfully used to capture other exotic species such as black-and-white tegu lizards, said conservation commission spokeswoman Carli Segelson.

"It may be something that if it doesn't work for the python, it may work for other species," she said.

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Follow Jennifer Kay on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jnkay .

More kids protected from flu; CDC says keep it up

AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More children than ever got vaccinated against the flu last year, and health officials urged families Thursday to do even better this time around.

Far too many young and middle-aged adults still forego the yearly protection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned.

And this year, Americans have an unprecedented number of vaccine options to choose from: The regular shot; the nasal spray; an egg-free shot for those allergic to eggs; a high-dose shot just for those 65 and older; and a tiny-needle shot for the squeamish. The bigger change: A small number of the regular flu shots, and all of the FluMist nasal vaccine, will protect against four strains of influenza rather than the traditional three.

"There's something for everyone this year," said CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat.

A severe flu strain swept the country last winter, sparking a scramble for last-minute vaccinations. There's no way to predict if this year will be as bad. But it takes about two weeks for the vaccine to take effect, so health officials say early fall - before flu begins spreading widely - is the best time to start immunizations.

"Now is the time to get vaccinated," said Dr. Paul Biddinger of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "Don't wait until it's in your community."

Boston declared a public health emergency last January when hospitals were filled with flu patients, and Biddinger said he treated many who openly regretted not having been vaccinated.

January and February typically are the peak flu months in the U.S. But small numbers of flu cases circulate for much of the year, and Biddinger said a couple of people have been hospitalized already.

"That first cough or fever is not the time to think about influenza vaccine," Schuchat said.

Flu vaccine is recommended for nearly everyone ages 6 months and older. Yet just 45 percent of the population followed that advice last year. Flu is particularly risky for seniors, children, pregnant women and people of any age with asthma, heart disease and other chronic diseases.

Two-thirds of adults 65 and older were vaccinated last year. So were nearly 57 percent of children, an increase of 13 percentage points over the past two years. The number is even higher among babies and toddlers - 77 percent - and Schuchat said pediatricians get the credit for pushing flu vaccination in recent years.

About half of pregnant women are vaccinated, a number also on the rise since the 2009 flu pandemic illustrated that population's vulnerability.

But only 42 percent of adults younger than 65 were vaccinated, Schuchat said, with rates even lower among 18- to 49-year-olds.

It's not clear why. But "there are no good reasons to skip the influenza vaccine," said Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University and past president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

The flu shot cannot give anyone the flu, he stressed. But while it's estimated to cut by about 60 percent the chances of getting the flu, Schaffner said it's "a good vaccine, but it's not a perfect vaccine."

How to choose among the vaccine options, including the new four-strain version? The CDC doesn't recommend one type of flu vaccine over another. All flu vaccine protects against two strains of Type A flu, typically the most severe kind, and one strain of Type B. The new so-called quadrivalent versions protect against two Type B strains.

Japan car parts makers in price-fixing plea

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nine Japanese auto parts manufacturers and two of their executives will plead guilty and pay $740 million in criminal fines for conspiring to fix the prices of more than 30 products sold to many of the world's largest automakers operating in the U.S., the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The action is the latest development in the largest criminal investigation the Justice Department's criminal division has ever carried out. To date, it has resulted in charges against 20 companies and 21 executives, and the companies have agreed to pay $1.6 billion in criminal fines.

From steering assemblies to seat belts, the price-fixing conspiracies went on for more than a decade and affected more than $5 billion in auto parts sold to U.S. car manufacturers and installed in cars sold in the United States and elsewhere. In all, more than 25 million cars purchased by American consumers have been affected by the illegal conduct.

"As a result of these conspiracies, Americans paid more for their cars," Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference. Holder said American companies such as Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. were affected, as were U.S. subsidiaries of Honda Motor Co., Mazda Motor Corp., Mitsubishi, Nissan Motor Co., Subaru and Toyota Motor Corp.

The government will continue to "check every hood and kick every tire" to end the price fixing, said Holder.

Company executives used code names and met face to face in remote locations in the U.S. and Japan to rig bids, fix prices and allocate the supply of auto parts, the government alleged.

Seventeen of the 21 executives charged so far have been sentenced to serve prison terms in the U.S. or have plea agreements calling for significant time behind bars.

The companies charged Thursday are Hitachi Automotive Systems; Mitsubishi Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; Mitsuba; Jtekt; NSK; T.RAD; Valeo Japan and Yamashita Rubber.

Wife says George Zimmerman has changed since trial

MIAMI (AP) -- Shellie Zimmerman said Thursday that she hasn't been able to find her estranged husband to serve him divorce papers and that she doesn't know what he's capable of because he has changed since he was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Shellie Zimmerman said on NBC's "Today" Show on Thursday that she is conflicted over her George Zimmerman's assertion that he killed the 17-year-old Martin in self-defense. But she said she believes the evidence and respects the jury's verdict.

Martin, who was unarmed, was fatally shot in February 2012 after getting into a scuffle with Zimmerman as he walked home from a convenience store in Sanford, Fla. Shellie Zimmerman later pleaded guilty to perjury for lying about the couple's finances after her husband's arrest. She was sentenced to probation and community service.

"After standing by him, he kind of left and I guess kind of went on a victory tour without me," Shellie Zimmerman said. "I thought I was living a life with him and that we were going to kind of rebuild after all this, and he had other plans for me."

Zimmerman told Lauer she doesn't believe her believe her husband profiled Martin, who was black. However, she said she now "doubts" his innocence on the self-defense claim.

Shellie Zimmerman, 26, also said she stands by her account of a Sept. 9 altercation with her husband at the house they shared in Lake Mary. She told a 911 dispatcher that her husband was threatening her with a gun.

The dispute took place just days after she filed for divorce. Shellie Zimmerman, her father and a friend were removing items from the home when her husband showed up and began taking photos.

"I didn't see a gun, but I know my husband," she said. "I saw him in a stance and a look in his eyes that I've never seen before. His shirt was half-way unbuttoned and he was putting his hand in his shirt and saying, `Please step closer, please step closer.' So I think that just logically I assumed he had a gun on him."

She added later: "This person that I'm married to and that I'm divorcing, I kind of realize now that I don't know him and I really don't know what he's capable of."

George Zimmerman hasn't stayed at the home since then, and his whereabouts are unknown even to his wife and her attorney.

No charges were filed in that dispute, though deputies are still trying to retrieve footage of what happened from an iPad smashed by George Zimmerman during the argument.

Holocaust Museum barracks to be returned to Poland

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington is returning one of its most powerful artifacts to Poland: a wooden barracks that once housed prisoners at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

The Washington Post (http://wapo.st/1bey5oq ) reports the World War II-era barracks are being returned after the end of a long-term loan from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The barracks, a centerpiece of the museum, have been at the museum since its opening in 1993.

The museum has obtained a similar barracks that will replace the ones that are leaving. And the new barracks will belong to the museum.

The museum closed a portion of its third floor on Tuesday so the old barracks could be removed and the new one installed. The space will remain closed for five months while the switch is made.

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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com

Getaway vehicle of NY shooting suspect is found

AP Photo

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) -- The getaway car of a disgruntled vendor wanted in a fatal shooting at a suburban light fixture company was found abandoned in upstate New York, but the suspect is still on the run, authorities said Thursday.

The white SUV in which Sang Ho Kim of Queens is believed to have fled was found at 11 p.m. Wednesday at Sandy Beach Park in Putnam County, about 50 miles north of New York City, Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano said.

The Putnam County Sheriff's office ordered the Haldane Central School District closed Thursday as a precaution.

Authorities said the 63-year-old suspect walked into a room where the owner and employees of the Long Island light fixture import firm, Savenergy, were standing and opened fired Wednesday morning. The wounded man was identified as John Choi, the chief executive of the company. Nassau University Medical Center spokeswoman Shelley Lotenberg said he was in the intensive care unit in critical condition.

The name of the person who was killed has not been released.

The shooting led to the lockdown of schools and businesses at Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, about 30 miles east of New York City.

Nassau County police Chief Steven Skrynecki said at a news conference that police believe Kim once served as a vendor to Savenergy.

"There was some disgruntlement between him and the company he was attacking," he said. "We have nothing to suggest that this individual is on a random, shooting rampage."

New Windsor police told The Times Herald-Record of Middletown that state and local police helicopters searched along Routes 9W and 32 in the Newburgh, New Windsor and Cornwall areas for the suspect. The search focused on a cemetery along 9W, among other locations some 55 miles north of New York City. Their search was scaled down Wednesday night.

Skrynecki said about four people were inside the building when the shooting happened. He refused to say what type of weapon was used or whether one was recovered.

A call to Savenergy wasn't returned. The company's website said it develops energy reduction technology that promises to reduce lighting, air conditioning, heating and electrical costs.

The shooting took place near a perimeter road that leads to the Roosevelt Field mall. The area isn't far from where Charles Lindberg took off on his historic trans-Atlantic flight to Paris in 1927.

When reports of the shooting surfaced, no customers or workers were allowed to leave the mall and no one was allowed to enter, but customers were able to roam around inside. Some stores, like Bloomingdale's, closed.

At nearby Nassau Community College, 18-year-old student Robert Brown said he huddled in a hallway for about two hours after police arrived on campus in search of the gunman.

"We saw Nassau County police running around the campus telling people to go inside," he said. "It was a crazy feeling. I just ran into the nearest building."

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Associated Press writers Jim Fitzgerald and Verena Dobnik, AP National Writer Martha Mendoza and AP researcher Judith Ausuebel contributed to this report.

ACC, Maryland exit lawsuit before NC appeals court

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Judges in North Carolina will weigh in on the big-money game of musical chairs involving universities, athletics conferences and billions of dollars in broadcast revenues.

North Carolina's Court of Appeals is hearing arguments Thursday into whether the University of Maryland will pay a $52 million exit fee for leaving the Atlantic Coast Conference. A ruling could take several months, and any decision could be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The ACC sued Maryland in North Carolina, where the conference is headquartered, after the school said in November it is leaving for the Big Ten Conference. The university responded by suing the ACC in Maryland in January, calling the amount an illegal penalty. A Maryland judge has put the school's lawsuit on hold until North Carolina courts issue a final judgment.

Coming court decisions will set the size of a likely financial settlement as well as help develop ground rules on financial penalties tied to shifting sports allegiances, said Paul Haagen, a Duke University law professor and co-director of the school's sports law center.

"Exit fees are here. They're here to stay and they're here basically to prevent schools from capitalizing on their own short-term self-interest at the expense of the other schools in the conference," he said.

The $52 million fee is the highest penalty ever assessed on a school for leaving an athletic conference and would be nearly equal to the school's yearly athletic budget, Maryland's attorney general's office said in May. The school's athletic department last year cut seven sports teams as it struggled with multi-million dollar annual losses.

Maryland's ACC departure is scheduled for July.

Maryland's attorneys argue in court filings that North Carolina courts have no jurisdiction because the school is an arm of the state, and states enjoy sovereign immunity that protects them from lawsuits. The ACC's lawyers dispute that argument, contending sovereign immunity doesn't exist across state lines or in contract claims.

These are preliminary issues before courts have to decide the bigger issue - whether the exit fee's size is justifiable, Haagen said.

The ACC's exit fee was around $12 million to $14 million before September 2011. That's when the league announced it would add Pittsburgh and Syracuse from the Big East, which led the league to raise the cost to $20 million. The fee was raised again last September with the addition of Notre Dame in all sports except football. The revised fee is equal to three times the conference's $17 million annual operating budget.

Maryland argues the increased exit payment provision adopted about two months before it announced it is leaving - over the votes of Maryland President Wallace Loh and Florida State University - is invalid.

If a settlement isn't reached, the dispute could have a lasting influence by setting a guidepost on how athletic conferences can enforce unity, Duke University's Haagen said. Courts will have to decide whether the ACC exit provision was set by estimating the damages to other schools when conference members depart, or is an illegal penalty clause, he said. For example, while a home construction contract with a builder can make the builder responsible for hotel bills if the job isn't done by an expected date, it can't seek to simply punish the builder with an extreme penalty, Haagen said.

"Here the amounts are very high. Is it really what the ACC and other institutions will lose as a result of losing Maryland in terms of scheduling, planning, damage to the brand?" Haagen said. "Or, is this an attempt to hold them in or punish them for leaving that has nothing to do with the actual harm suffered?"

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Emery Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio

Frustration, gridlock for Conn.-NYC rail commuters

AP Photo/John Minchillo

NEW YORK (AP) -- Parts of Interstate 95 turned into a virtual parking lot Thursday as tens of thousands of Metro-North Railroad commuters scrambled for alternate routes between the densely populated Connecticut suburbs and New York City after a power failure on a heavily trafficked rail line.

Officials were working to find alternative power sources to end the hours-long delays that they cautioned could last for weeks after a high-voltage feeder cable failed early Wednesday at a suburban New York station.

Metro-North, the nation's second-largest commuter railroad, said it could accommodate about 33 percent of its regular ridership and urged customers to stay at home or find alternative transportation.

At Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan on Thursday, ticket windows for the New Haven, Conn., line were closed. Commuters who rode other lines said those trains were more crowded than usual.

Matt Sullivan, 27, an architect, said it usually takes him half an hour to get to Grand Central from his home in Greenwich. That doubled when he drove to White Plains, N.Y., and took the Harlem line.

"It's disappointing but my company will give me a laptop so I can work from home a couple of days," he said.

The broken circuit could take two to three weeks to repair, the New York-based utility Consolidated Edison said.

"This is going to be a substantial disruption for a substantial period of time," Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said at a Wednesday evening news conference in Hartford, adding the line serving New Haven was the busiest in the nation, with 125,000 daily passengers and serving 38 stations and 23 towns. "Folks, plan on long-term lack of service or being underserved."

"I'm just trying to get through the next two days," said Pete Hartney, 64, who makes a daily two-hour commute from Guilford, Conn., to New York City that has stretched by 90 minutes. "I'm going to try to put up with whatever they throw our way ... then formulate a plan over the weekend."

Amtrak said it would offer limited service between New York and Boston on Thursday because of the power problem.

Irate Metro-North passengers vented online. The head of a commuter advisory group complained that rail service was disrupted frequently over the summer for needed track work in New York. Wednesday's disruption, though not Metro-North's fault, adds to frustration among commuters, commuter advocate Jim Cameron said.

"It means commuters must have a Plan B and a Plan C," he said.

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Associated Press writers Karen Matthews in New York, Susan Haigh in Mashantucket, Conn., and Stephen Singer in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.

Victim's mother says Mont. rapist eluding justice

AP Photo/Matt Brown

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- A former Montana high school teacher due to be released Thursday after serving a 30-day prison sentence for raping a 14-year-old student is "still skating" justice six years after the assault, the victim's mother said.

Stacey Rambold, 54, will leave the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge after completing the term handed down by District Judge G. Todd Baugh of Billings last month for the 2007 rape of Cherice Moralez.

The sentence drew protests for being too lenient and outrage over comments the judge made that appeared to pin some of the blame on Moralez.

Tears streamed down Auliea Hanlon's face as she described the emotions that have at times overwhelmed her since a church counselor her daughter confided in first told Hanlon about the rape. Moralez committed suicide in 2010 before Rambold went to trial.

"I figured he'd be fired, go to jail, and she would be vindicated, and that would be the end of it," Hanlon said Wednesday. "Instead, here it is six years later, still going on, and he's getting out. ... He's still skating."

State officials say Rambold must register as a sex offender and will remain on probation as prosecutors appeal the case to the Supreme Court in hopes of sending him back to prison for a longer term.

Rambold's attorney, Jay Lansing, declined to comment on the defendant's release.

In court documents and during the sentencing hearing, Lansing described his client as a one-time offender with no prior record who took responsibility for his actions when he admitted to a single count of rape under a 2010 deferred prosecution agreement that was made after Moralez killed herself.

Hanlon has said Rambold's actions were a "major factor" in her daughter's suicide. Moralez felt guilty for ruining Rambold's life, and was ostracized and ridiculed by her peers after details in the case became public, Hanlon said.

The agreement with prosecutors allowed Rambold to remain free for more than three years until he was kicked out of his sex offender treatment program for unauthorized visits with relatives' children and for not disclosing that he was in a sexual relationship with a Washington woman.

At the time, Rambold was renting an apartment in Billings and working as a telephone trainer for a technology company, according to court documents.

When Rambold came back before the court in August, Baugh appeared to show sympathy for the defendant and agreed with Lansing's recommendation that Rambold receive a 15-year sentence with all but one month suspended.

The judge also made comments pinning some of the responsibility in the case on Moralez, whom he described as "older than her chronological age."

The comments drew a strong backlash from many women's groups, victims' rights advocates and others, who said the judge was blaming a victim who had not reached Montana's age of consent, which is 16.

Prosecutors said Baugh's lenient sentence was not allowed under a state law that requires Rambold to serve a mandatory minimum of two years in prison.

A formal complaint to have Baugh removed from the bench for alleged bias is pending before the state Judicial Standards Commission.

But Hanlon said her focus remains on Rambold and the appeal of his sentence, which prosecutors said could take six to 18 months to work its way through the Montana Supreme Court.

For years, Hanlon said she carried around a photograph of her daughter's rapist, so she would recognize him if they ever crossed paths. With his return to Billings, she said she likely would walk away if she encountered him now.

"I considered going down to the jail to forgive him, but I don't know," she said. "I'm still waiting for a sign from God."

Ex-Guatemala soldier on trial in US

AP Photo/HOPD

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) -- A former Guatemalan soldier testified in a U.S. courtroom Wednesday that he saw one of his officers fire a rifle and throw a grenade inside a well to silence the screams of dying victims in a massacre carried out by the army three decades ago.

The witness, Gilberto Jordan, said he saw then-2nd Lt. Jorge Sosa standing near a well in the village of Dos Erres after they had been given an order to kill everyone there while on a mission for a special forces unit of the army in 1982.

Federal prosecutors contend that Sosa helped command the massacre and lied about it on his application to become a U.S. citizen. If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison and lose his citizenship.

Speaking in Spanish through a translator, Jordan sobbed as he told the courtroom that as he took a small boy to the well to be killed, Sosa told him it was "a job for a man."

Sosa, who was superior in rank to Jordan but not the most senior officer there, later shot into the well and threw in a grenade as people were screaming from within, according to the witness.

"The people that were there half dead were all screaming," said Jordan, adding the killing went on all day. "When he threw the grenade the people that were there were quiet because they were killed."

The killing of 160 men, women and children in the midst of the Central American nation's bloody 36-year-old civil war is now central to the case being heard in Riverside County, 60 miles east of Los Angeles. About 200,000 people were killed during the war, mostly by state forces and paramilitary groups.

In opening statements Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeannie Joseph told jurors that Sosa was part of a patrol that descended upon Dos Erres searching for stolen weapons and decided to kill all of its residents after some of the soldiers began raping the women and children.

The villagers were taken to a well and hit over the head with a sledgehammer before being thrown inside. When one of the villagers cried out, Sosa fired his rifle and threw a grenade inside, Joseph said.

Sosa sought U.S. asylum in 1985, claiming that Guatemalan guerrillas were after him. The asylum was denied and he ended up moving to Canada. He later returned to the U.S, married an American, got a green card and eventually citizenship after filing an application in 2007.

Prosecutors claim that the former Riverside County resident concealed his involvement with the Guatemalan military and the massacre when he was asked, during the citizenship application process, about his previous affiliations and whether he'd ever committed a crime. He's charged with making a false statement and obtaining naturalization unlawfully.

"The government will present an overwhelming amount of evidence establishing the crimes the defendant committed at Dos Erres while a member of the Guatemalan military," Joseph told the court. "The government will show the defendant obtained citizenship by lying on his application and during his naturalization interview."

But defense attorney Shashi Kewalramani said Sosa told U.S. officials about his role in the Guatemalan army when he applied for asylum in 1985.

And while some of the evidence presented in the case will be horrible, so is war, Kewalramani said - and that's not what the case is about.

"It's not a war crimes tribunal. We're not here to decide that," he told jurors. "It's `Did he lie?'"

Sosa is one of four former members of the Guatemalan army arrested by U.S. officials in connection with the Dos Erres massacre.

Jordan, the witness in the government's case against Sosa, is currently serving time in federal prison for lying on his U.S. naturalization application about his role in Dos Erres.

Pedro Pimentel was deported from the U.S. and sentenced in Guatemala to 6,060 years in prison for the massacre. The fourth, Santos Lopez, is detained as a material witness in the government's case against Sosa, according to court documents.

Governor signs bill hiking California minimum wage

AP Photo/Nick Ut

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Calling it a "matter of justice," Gov. Jerry Brown put his signature on a bill that will hike California's minimum wage to $10 an hour within three years, making it one of the highest rates in the nation.

The legislation signed Wednesday at a ceremony in downtown Los Angeles will gradually raise the current minimum of $8 an hour to $9 on July 1, 2014, then to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016.

The increase is the first to the state's minimum wage in six years and comes amid a national debate over whether it's fair to pay fast-food workers, retail clerks and others wages so low that they often have to work second or third jobs.

Brown called the bill an overdue piece of legislation that will help working-class families and close the gap between "workers at the bottom and those who occupy the commanding heights of the economy."

The governor was joined by state legislators and business owners who supported the measure, saying increased wages would boost the state's economy.

The state Senate approved AB10 on a 26-11 vote Sept. 12, and the Assembly followed hours later on a 51-25 vote. Both chambers voted largely along party lines.

Miguel Aguilar, a worker at a Los Angeles car wash, thanked the governor for signing the bill.

"We work really long hours," said Aguilar, who has a union contract. "Now, with the increase in the minimum wage, we'll be able to sustain an income that can support our families."

Supporters said the bill by Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, would help workers left behind during the recent recession.

"A higher minimum wage will mean much-needed money in the pockets of millions of workers in the state, and that's good news for businesses throughout California that will benefit from increased consumer spending," Gary Gerber, founder and CEO of Sun Light & Power in Berkeley, said in a statement.

In opposing the measure, Republican lawmakers said increased wages would encourage businesses to cut jobs and automate.

The California Chamber of Commerce was against the bill, saying it will drive up businesses' costs by ratcheting up other wages and workers' compensation payments.

"Small business owners will now be forced to make tough choices including reducing employee hours, cutting positions entirely, and for many, closing their doors altogether," said John Kabateck, head of the California branch of the National Federation of Independent Business.

Federal law sets a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, but California is among 19 states and the District of Columbia that set a higher state minimum wage.

The federal minimum provides $15,080 a year assuming a 40-hour work week, which is $50 below the federal poverty line for a family of two. More than 15 million workers nationally earn the national minimum, which compares with the median national salary of $40,350, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

President Barack Obama has sought an increase of the federal minimum wage to $9 an hour.

Among states, Washington has the top minimum wage at $9.19 an hour, an amount pegged to rise with inflation. But some cities have set higher rates, including San Francisco, which has the nation's highest minimum wage at $10.50 an hour.

The California bill does not index the rate to inflation, meaning it would remain at $10 per hour unless the Legislature raises it again in the future.

Private firms under scrutiny after Okla. escape

AP Photo

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- The escape of eight inmates from an unattended van in Oklahoma highlights problems with private prison transport companies that don't face the same scrutiny as state corrections systems, officials said Wednesday.

If the transport van belonged to the state's prison system, the offenders would never have been left unattended, Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesman Jerry Massie told The Associated Press.

"It's DOC policy: You don't leave them out of your sight," Massie said in an interview Wednesday.

State corrections policy also maintains that during any transport, "all offenders will be considered high risk" and the transporting officer "will not stop the vehicle for any unnecessary purpose."

"I'm just glad they weren't our prisoners," Massie said.

The inmates escaped Tuesday after guards employed by Prisoner Transportation Services of Nashville, Tenn., had stopped in Weatherford to deliver one or two sick inmates to a hospital.

Guards left the inmates alone in the van, with the keys inside and the motor running so the inmates could enjoy the air-conditioning, the Weatherford Daily News reported Wednesday. Two prisoners kicked out a partition and moved into the front of the van.

According to the newspaper, one of the guards stepped outside the hospital and noticed the van was gone, then asked people in the emergency room whether anyone had moved it. After he explained there were inmates still inside, the hospital workers called police, the newspaper reported.

Schools were locked down temporarily as police searched the city for two inmates in street clothes - one in a camouflage shirt and the other wearing a T-shirt depicting a teddy bear.

The inmates were from jails in the western and northern United States and were being transported among agencies in the same regions of the country.

Weatherford is about an hour west of Oklahoma City on Interstate 40.

All eight prisoners were back in police custody by late Tuesday and are being held in the Weatherford city jail until the Nashville company sends a replacement van to pick them up, Assistant Police Louis Flowers said Wednesday.

"I'm not going to comment on the policies of a private company," Flowers said Wednesday. "Our policy in our department wouldn't leave a prisoner in a van by himself or a transport van like that."

Thor Catalogne, an owner of the transport company, declined comment Wednesday on his company's policies.

Police said the van traveled about a mile before stopping. Two inmates ran away while the other six stayed nearby. Officers recovered a 12-gauge shotgun that had been inside the vehicle. No injuries were reported.

Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford was locked down for about two hours while police searched for the two inmates who ran away.

The pair, Lester Burns and Michael Coleman, were taken into custody in Weatherford. Coleman, who was wearing the teddy bear shirt, was being held for assault and Burns for failure to pay child support, police said.

Critics of private prison transportation companies have complained that they are poorly regulated.

"This is an example of what happens when we privatize functions that belonged to the government," said Richard Allen Smith, a spokesman for In The Public Interest, a Washington-based research and policy nonprofit that studies the effects privatization has on communities. "We lose two things: transparency and accountability.

"We've seen this in many sectors, specifically with the prison system, when we contract and outsource public services," he said in an interview Wednesday.

Teen arrested in Vegas in deaths of mom, brother

AP Photo/HOPD

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Authorities say they've arrested a Las Vegas-area teenager accused in the stabbing deaths of his mother and 9-year-old brother last week.

Henderson police issued a statement saying 16-year-old Adrian Navarro-Canales was found sitting in an open-air food court near the Las Vegas Strip and taken into custody late Wednesday morning.

Police found Elvira Canales-Gomez and 9-year-old Cesar Navarro dead Friday in a bloody bathroom in the suburban apartment where they celebrated Navarro-Canales' birthday just days earlier.

Police say Navarro-Canales dropped out of high school last November, and his cousin told police the teen has said he wanted to return to Mexico.

Navarro-Canales was first sought as a possible victim, then named Monday in a murder warrant.

Henderson police investigators think the killings happened Sept. 17.

FBI: Navy Yard gunman left note about radio waves

AP Photo

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Washington Navy Yard gunman Aaron Alexis left a note saying he was driven to kill by months of bombardment with extremely low-frequency radio waves, the FBI said Wednesday in a disclosure that explains the phrase he etched on his shotgun: "My ELF Weapon!"

Alexis did not target particular individuals during the Sept. 16 attack in which he killed 12 people, and there is no indication the shooting stemmed from any workplace dispute, said Valerie Parlave, head of the FBI's Washington field office.

Instead, authorities said, his behavior in the weeks before the shooting and records later recovered from the hotel room where he was staying reveal a man increasingly in the throes of paranoia and delusions.

"Ultra-low frequency attack is what I've been subject to for the last 3 months, and to be perfectly honest that is what has driven me to this," read an electronic document agents recovered after the shooting.

The attack came one month after Alexis had complained to police in Rhode Island that people were talking to him through the walls and ceilings of his hotel room and sending microwave vibrations into his body to deprive him of sleep.

He scrawled "My ELF Weapon!" - an apparent reference to extremely low-frequency waves - on the shotgun, along with "End to the Torment!" "Not what yall say" and "Better off this way."

Alexis, a 34-year-old former Navy reservist and computer technician for a defense contractor, used a valid badge to get into the Navy Yard with a sawed-off Remington shotgun he had legally purchased two days earlier.

He was killed by a U.S. Park Police officer on the building's third floor following a rampage the FBI said lasted about an hour.

The FBI said it believes he was prepared to die when he went on the murderous attack.

Surveillance video released by the FBI on Wednesday shows Alexis pulling his rental car into a garage, walking into the building with a bag and then pacing deliberately down a corridor with a shotgun, ducking and crouching around a corner and walking briskly down a flight of stairs.

Alexis had started his job as a contractor in the building just a week before.

Although there was a "routine performance-related issue addressed to him" on the Friday before the Monday morning shooting, "there is no indication that this caused any sort of reaction from him," Parlave said.

"We have not determined there to be any previous relationship between Alexis and any of the victims," she said. "There is no evidence or information at this point that indicates he targeted anyone he worked for or worked with. We do not see any one event as triggering this attack."

The shooting revealed flaws in the issuing of security clearances.

Alexis maintained his clearance despite past brushes with the law. Defense officials said he also lied about an arrest and failed to disclose thousands of dollars in debts.

At the Pentagon on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary Ash Carter said the department will complete three reviews in late December, including assessments of base safety procedures and the security clearance process.

"Bottom line is, we need to know how an employee was able to bring a weapon and ammunition onto a DoD installation, and how warning flags were either missed, ignored or not addressed in a timely manner," Carter said.

Carter said the reviews will include consideration of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus' recommendation that the department require that all police reports - not just arrests or convictions - be included in background checks.

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Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

Nairobi attack puts spotlight on mall safety

AP Photo/Ben Curtis

NEW YORK (AP) -- Some malls around the world have been scrambling to add security guards to look for suspicious people following a deadly attack on a shopping center in Nairobi over the weekend. But for other malls, it's been business as usual.

The mixed reactions by malls across the globe isn't unusual in an industry whose security efforts vary from unarmed guards in most shopping centers in the U.S. to metal detectors and bag searches in places like Israel to main entrances that resemble airport security lines in India.

The disparity offers a glimpse at why any moves following the Nairobi incident to increase mall security in countries that have less strict procedures aren't likely to last: The industry continues to struggle with how to keep shoppers safe without scaring them away.

"No one wants, when you go shopping, to be strip searched, to be interviewed in a room by a security guard," said Simon Bennett, director, Civil Safety and Security Unit at the University of Leicester in England. "That might be acceptable in aviation, but it is not in commercial retail."

Security concerns come after 12 to 15 al-Shabab militants, wielding grenades, took control of Westgate mall in Nairobi. Terrorists held Kenya security forces for four days, killing at least 67 civilians and government troops and injuring 175 others. The Kenyan government said Tuesday that the attackers were defeated, with several suspects killed or arrested.

In the aftermath, security was tight at the Junction Mall in Nairobi. Two of three entry gates were locked shut. Cars were searched more carefully than usual, with guards looking in glove compartments. Two armed soldiers were stationed inside the mall and mall security guards who search patrons with metal detector wands at entry points said the soldiers had been deployed after the Westgate attack.

In the U.S., the International Council of Shopping Centers, a trade group of shopping centers representing about one third of retail space globally, said the U.S. government's Department of Homeland Security is reaching out to corporate security at all malls.

At the same time, the group said some of the malls in the U.S. and South Africa are beefing up private security personnel, while others are bringing in more off duty police officers. Mall of America, the biggest U.S. mall, added extra uniformed security officers and stepped up other measures, but officials at the Bloomington, Minn.-based mall declined to elaborate. "We will ... remain vigilant as we always do in similar situations," said Dan Jasper, a mall spokesman.

In general, U.S. malls focus on reacting to a shooting more than preventing one. Malls depend on private security personnel, most of whom don't carry guns, though they do work with local police. And while they're trained to look for suspicious behavior and report that to authorities, they're discouraged from intervening.

"Shoppers at this point perhaps don't have an appetite for extraordinary measures," said Kenneth Hamilton, executive vice president of IPC International, the largest provider of shopping center security of malls in the U.S.

Indeed, heightened security hasn't been welcomed in U.S. malls. The International Council of Shopping Centers spent $2 million to develop a terrorism training program after the Sept. 2011 terrorist attacks in the U.S. But surveys conducted by the group following the attacks show that people don't want to be subjected to metal detectors and bag searches at malls.

Jeff Wohl, 45, of Atlanta, said Tuesday that while he's horrified by the Nairobi attack, he doesn't want to go through bag checks at malls. "Any public gathering ... can become a target," he said. "But you have to live your life."

U.S. malls have made changes to their security strategies following attacks. A shooting on Dec. 5, 2007 at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Neb., for instance, was an impetus for malls to change how they deal with shooters themselves. After a 19-year-old man shot and killed eight people and injured five others before taking his own life, malls began working with Homeland Security on a plan to have the first responders from the police department enter the building to stop the shooter and free those who are trapped rather than wait for backup.

Many mall operators now also have evacuation drills once or twice a year that focus on lockdown situations. A growing number of malls also use cameras that scan license plates in parking lots. And many malls use technology that enables them to share three-dimensional virtual blue prints of their layout with law enforcement.

The reaction to attacks can be more muted in other parts of the world. In China and Hong Kong, malls are operating normally following the Nairobi attack, typically monitored by closed-circuit cameras and with unarmed private security guards stationed throughout.

"We review our security system and conduct emergency drills regularly to ensure that we are ready to respond to any breach of security swiftly and effectively," said Elizabeth Kok, Retail Portfolio Director at Swire Properties Ltd., which operates three upscale malls in Hong Kong.

At the busy PPR shopping mall in downtown Shanghai, a security guard who gave only his surname, Zhang, said he saw no need for any heightened security. "I can say that the possibility of the same kind of thing happening here is almost zero," he said. "Everyone knows that China prohibits guns, and Shanghai is such a safe city."

In Australia, a similar sentiment was expressed. Tobias Feakin, senior analyst for national security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said malls in Australia would likely make a point of ensuring their security staff will operate on a heightened level of awareness in light of the attacks. But given the relatively low risk of terrorism in Australia, it's unlikely they'll make major security changes.

Meanwhile, Michael Green, chief executive of the British Council of Shopping Centers, a mall trade group, said that they work closely with police forces like Scotland Yard and would respond to warnings with appropriate measures. But they don't want to make malls like prisons.

"We have to make them welcoming," he said.

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AP Writers Adam Schreck in Nairobi, Kenya; Kay Johnson in Mumbai, India; Kirka Danica in London, Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok; Kristen Gelineau in Sydney, Aust.; Rod McGuirk in Canberra, Aust.; Fu Ting in Shanghai; and Kelvin Chan in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

Scalia expects NSA wiretaps to end up in court

AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

McLEAN, Va. (AP) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says the courts will ultimately have to determine the legality of wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

And he's not sure that's a good thing.

Scalia addressed NSA wiretapping Wednesday in a speech to the Northern Virginia Technology Council when he was asked about technology companies' role in protecting customers' privacy when their data has been unconstitutionally collected.

Scalia said the high court originally ruled that there were no constitutional prohibitions on wiretaps because conversations were not explicitly granted privacy protection under the Fourth Amendment, which protects against Americans against unreasonable search and seizure of "their persons, houses, papers, and effects."

That 1928 opinion, in Olmstead v. U.S., was overturned nearly 40 years later by the Warren court, which found, Scalia said, "there's a generalized right of privacy that comes from penumbras and emanations, blah blah blah, garbage."

"The consequence of that is that whether the NSA can do the stuff it's been doing ... which used to be a question for the people ... will now be resolved by the branch of government that knows the least about the issues in question, the branch that knows the least about the extent of the threat against which the wiretapping is directed," he said.

He also said the Constitution calls for a balancing test to determine whether any search or seizure is reasonable, and that depends on the threat that is posed - another question he said courts are ill-equipped to answer.

He talked about the pat downs and other searches that occur at airports as an example of that balancing act.

"That's a terrible intrusion of privacy," he said. "But you're willing to do it because of the seriousness of the threat."

As for the question about tech companies' obligations to inform clients about an illegal intrusion of their information, Scalia said that, yes, a company should speak up if it knows a customer has had its data illegally seized. "But it's pretty hard to know that. ... If it's a governmental wiretap, presumably it's been approved by somebody, some lawyer expert in the field who said it was OK, and you better be damn sure you're right before you blow the cover."

In July, following the disclosures by NSA leaker Edward Snowden about the extent of the agency's surveillance programs, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a direct appeal to the Supreme Court asking it to bar NSA from collecting phone call records on millions of U.S. customers. The court has not yet decided whether to hear the case.

Earlier this year, the Court ruled in a 5-4 vote that clients represented by the American Civil Liberties Union lacked standing to challenge a 2008 law under which the NSA conducts aspects of its surveillance. Scalia voted with the majority to turn away that challenge to the law.

US borrowing authority to be exhausted by Oct. 17

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Wednesday the government will have exhausted its borrowing authority by Oct. 17, leaving the United States just $30 billion cash on hand to pay its bills.

That's a slightly worse financial position than Treasury predicted last month and adds to the pressure on Congress to increase the government's borrowing cap soon to avert a first-ever U.S. default on its obligations.

In a letter to top congressional leaders, Lew warned that a repeat of the debt brinksmanship of 2011 could inflict great harm on the economy and that "if the government should ultimately become unable to pay all of its bills, the results could be catastrophic."

The government reached its $16.7 trillion debt limit in May. Since then, it has been using "extraordinary measures" such as suspending U.S. investments in federal employee trust funds to create about $300 billion in additional borrowing room.

But on the 17th the government will be left with only its cash cushion and daily receipts to pay its bills. Lew warned that before long it would not be able to meet all of its obligations. Economists and financial market experts warn that the stock market could plummet and that investors would demand higher returns on Treasury notes, which could raise interest rates and harm the economy.

It's generally assumed that Treasury would make sure that the government wouldn't default on Treasury notes held by investors, including foreign countries like China, If it did default on such debt obligations it could be a catastrophe for the economy.

A House-passed stopgap spending measure pending before the Senate contains a GOP-backed provision that would give Social Security recipients and bondholders priority in receiving payments from the government.

Lew again rejected the idea.

"The United States should never have to choose, for example, whether to pay Social Security to seniors, pay benefits to our veterans, or make payments to state and local jurisdictions and health care providers under Medicare and Medicaid," Mr. Lew said. "There is no way of knowing the damage any prioritization plan would have on our economy and financial markets. It would represent an irresponsible retreat from a core American value: We are a nation that honors all of its commitments."

Lew again warned that President Barack Obama would not negotiate with Republicans over the debt limit.

"The president remains willing to negotiate over the future direction of fiscal policy, but he will not negotiate over whether the United States will pay its bills for past commitments," Lew wrote. Extending borrowing authority does not increase government spending; it simply allows the Treasury to pay for expenditures Congress has already approved."

Republicans want to add budget cuts and other legislation like a one-year delay of "Obamacare." House leaders hope to bring a debt limit increase to the floor by the end of this week but they haven't released any details yet.

US: ATF misplaced 420 million cigarettes in stings

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government agents acting without authorization conducted dozens of undercover investigations of illegal tobacco sales, misused some of $162 million in profits from the stings and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes, the Justice Department's inspector general said Wednesday.

In one case, ATF agents sold $15 million in cigarettes and later turned over $4.9 million in profits from the sales to a confidential informant - even though the agency did not properly account for the transaction.

The ATF's newly-appointed director, B. Todd Jones, said the audit covered only selected, "historical" ATF investigations between 2006 and 2011, and said the agency had tightened its internal guidelines since then.

The audit described widespread lack of ATF oversight and inadequate paperwork in the agency's "churning investigations," undercover operations that use proceeds from illicit cigarette sales to pay for the ATF's costs. The audit came as a new blow to a beleaguered agency still reeling from congressional inquiries into the ATF's flawed handling of the Operation Fast and Furious weapons tracking probes in Mexico.

"ATF's guidance regarding churning investigations lacked breadth and specificity, and managers at ATF headquarters as well as managers and special agents at ATF field offices often disregarded it," Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz wrote in the 53-page audit.

The inspector general recommended tightened ATF procedures for documenting, tracking and reviewing proceeds from its undercover tobacco stings.

Jones said the agency has adopted most of those guidelines. While accepting responsibility for "management and oversight lapses that allowed those deficiencies to develop," he insisted that "the report's findings do not reflect current ATF policy or practice in this area."

In a written response, Horowitz approved the ATF's moves in April 2013 to tighten its standards. Horowitz cautioned that his office "has not been provided evidence to verify the sufficiency of actions taken."

Reviewing three-dozen ATF undercover cigarette stings between 2006 and 2011, the inspector general found that none of those income-generating probes had been given proper prior approval by an internal ATF review committee, as required by agency policy.

One of those sting operations did not have any approval, either from the ATF or the Justice Department. In that 2009 case, ATF officials allowed a tobacco distributor working as an ATF confidential informant to keep $4.9 million in profits from cigarette sales to criminal suspects. ATF officials justified the move by explaining the $4.9 million covered the informant's expenses. But the inspector general said the agency failed to "require the informant to provide adequate documentation to support or justify those expenses."

The remaining profits were used by agency officials to pay for a separate ATF cigarette smuggling sting - which the inspector general said violated ATF rules that profits from a "churning investigation" could only be used to fund that specific operation, not other cases.

The inspector general said shoddy documentation and inventory controls made it impossible to account for more than 2.1 million cartons of cigarettes - totaling 420 million cigarettes - during at least 20 separate ATF sting operations. The watchdog estimated the retail value of those items at $127 million.

USPS seeks increase in cost of stamps, to 49 cents

AP Photo/David Goldman

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It soon could cost 49 cents to mail a letter.

The postal Board of Governors said Wednesday it wants to raise the price of a first-class stamp by 3 cents, citing the agency's "precarious financial condition" and the uncertain prospects for postal overhaul legislation in Congress.

"Of the options currently available to the Postal Service to align costs and revenues, increasing postage prices is a last resort that reflects extreme financial challenges," board chairman Mickey Barnett wrote customers.

The rate proposal must be approved by the independent Postal Regulatory Commission. If the commission accepts it, the increase would become effective Jan. 26.

Under federal law the post office cannot raise its prices more than the rate of inflation unless it gets approval from the commission. In seeking the increase, Barnett cited "extraordinary and exceptional circumstances which have contributed to continued financial losses" by the agency.

As part of the rate increase request, the cost for each additional ounce of first-class mail would increase a penny to 21 cents while the price of mailing a postcard would rise by a cent, to 34 cents. The cost to mail a letter to an international destination would jump 5 cents to $1.15.

Many consumers won't feel the increase immediately. Forever stamps bought before an increase still would cover first-class postage. The price of new forever stamps would be at the higher rate, if approved.

The Postal Service also said it would ask for adjustment to bulk mail and package rates in a filing with the commission Thursday. No details were immediately provided.

Media and marketing businesses say a big increase in rates could hurt them and lower postal volume and revenues.

The post office expects to lose $6 billion this year and is seeking help from Congress to fix its finances.

Barnett said the increase, if approved, would generate $2 billion annually in revenue for his agency.

The agency last raised postage rates on Jan. 27, including a penny increase in the cost of first-class mail to 46 cents.

Congress is considering cost-cutting moves that include ending Saturday mail delivery and most door-to-door delivery. The agency says ending Saturday mail delivery would save $2 billion each year. But many lawmakers, along with postal worker unions, have resisted such changes, saying they would inconvenience customers.

The Postal Service supports the proposed delivery changes. It also is seeking to reduce its $5.6 billion annual payment for future retiree health benefits. It missed two of those $5.6 billion payments last year, one deferred from the previous year, and is expected to miss another at the end of this month when its fiscal year ends.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe was to appear before a Senate panel on Thursday to press lawmakers for swift action on legislation to fix his agency's finances.

Donahue has said that without help from Congress, the agency expects its multibillion-dollar annual losses to worsen. He has warned that the agency's cash liquidity remains dangerously low.

The Postal Service is an independent agency that receives no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.

Sen. Cruz ends talkathon against Obamacare

AP Photo

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Sen. Ted Cruz has ended a marathon Senate speech opposing President Barack Obama's health care law after talking for 21 hours, 19 minutes.

The tea party conservative stopped speaking at 12 noon EDT Wednesday, sitting down to yield the floor. The Texas freshman began talking Tuesday afternoon, seeking the urge defunding of the 3-year-old health system overhaul. Fellow conservatives helped by making occasional remarks.

Cruz had virtually no chance of prevailing.

The Senate debated the House bill defunding the health care law while preventing a government shutdown on Tuesday. Cruz wanted to derail it because Senate Democrats have the votes to remove the health care provision before sending the bill back to the House.

Many Republicans opposed Cruz's effort, fearing their party might be blamed if the government closes.

Dispute over Newtown 911 tapes tests new Conn. law

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- A dispute over the 911 recordings from the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School is shaping up as a test of a new Connecticut law - adopted in response to the massacre - that prevents public release of certain records in homicide cases.

The Associated Press is challenging the refusal by investigators to release the tapes from the Dec. 14 shooting. A hearing officer for Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission has recommended the tapes be released, and the full commission is meeting Wednesday to consider the case.

Twenty-six people, including 20 first-graders, were killed inside the school by the gunman, Adam Lanza, who committed suicide as police arrived.

The AP requested documents including copies of 911 calls, as it does routinely in newsgathering, in part to examine the response of law enforcement to one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. If the recordings are released, the AP would review the content and determine how much of them, if any, would meet the news cooperative's standards for publication.

A state law passed earlier this year creates exemptions to the freedom-of-information law for the release of photographs, film, video and other images depicting a homicide victim if those records constitute "an unwarranted invasion" on the privacy of the surviving family members. It also created a one-year moratorium on the release of certain portions of audiotape and other recordings - with the exception of 911 tapes - in which the condition of a homicide victim is described.

In her Aug. 27 recommendation siding with the AP, hearing officer Kathleen Ross wrote that the new law "specifically does not shield from disclosure recordings of 911 calls from members of the public to law enforcement agencies."

The prosecutor leading the Newtown investigation, Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky III, argued in reply that certain content of 911 calls could be shielded by the law. He gave the example of a possible call from a sexual assault victim.

"It is highly doubtful that the legislature would have wanted a sexual assault victim to have to choose between calling the police and having his or her 9-1-1 call on every radio station, therefore it could not have been the intent of the legislature to eliminate all exemptions simply because they were in the context of a 9-1-1 call," Sedensky wrote.

Sedensky has argued that releasing the 911 tapes could jeopardize the police investigation, subject witnesses to harassment from conspiracy theorists and violate survivors from the school who deserve special protection as victims of child abuse. His arguments were rejected by Ross, who said she was dismayed that the Newtown Police Department withheld the tapes at the direction of a state's attorney.

If the full Freedom of Information Commission agrees the recordings should be released, Newtown officials and Sedensky would have 45 days to decide whether to appeal to Superior Court.

A state task force created by the new freedom-of-information legislation is expected to come up with proposals to help strike a balance between victim privacy under the state's law and the public's right to know. The task force faces a Jan. 1 deadline.

Ohioan who shot black man, officer nears execution

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio planned to execute a white gunman who spewed racial slurs before fatally shooting a black man and a police officer in a 1994 rampage at his suburban Cleveland apartment complex, using a lethal injection that was to be the last before the state's supply of its execution drug expires.

Harry Mitts Jr., 61, was scheduled to die Wednesday at the state prison in Lucasville after years of acknowledging his crimes and saying he's repented.

Mitts was convicted of aggravated murder and attempted murder in the rampage against random neighbors and responding police officers.

He was on constant watch headed into the 10 a.m. execution after two recent high-profile prison suicides in the state. With his execution, Ohio's valid supply of the execution drug pentobarbital was also set to expire, with a new procedure expected next month.

With clemency denied and his legal appeals exhausted, Mitts has been concentrating on spiritual matters on what are expected to be his final days, his attorney Jeff Kelleher said Tuesday.

"He is more concerned with the higher power right now than what those like myself or the state might or might not do," Kelleher said.

Mitts has said he's repented for the crimes committed during his drunken racially-charged rampage. His criminal record was minimal before and since.

Wearing what witnesses described as yellow goggles and wielding a gun with a laser sight and later other weapons, Mitts first shouted racial epithets and killed a neighbor's black boyfriend, John Bryant, and then shot and killed white Garfield Heights police Sgt. Dennis Glivar as he responded to the scene. Mitts also shot and wounded two other police officers.

Mitts told the Ohio Parole Board he had drunk heavily because he was distraught over his divorce and had likely shot Bryant to draw police to his home in hopes they would shoot and kill Mitts. He said he wasn't a racist and didn't remember directing racial slurs at Bryant before shooting him. He said he couldn't say why he didn't shoot two white neighbors he encountered ahead of Bryant.

The current Garfield Heights police chief, Bob Sackett, told the panel during an August hearing that Mitts' denial of his racial motivation was an insult to Bryant's family.

"Nothing Mitts said or did on the night of the crime suggested that Mitts did in fact want to die at the police's hands or that he was not in control of his own actions," he told the board. "Mitts murdered two men in cold blood, one because of the color of his skin, one because of the uniform he wore."

Among a patchwork of actions that day, Mitts called and threatened the husband of his ex-wife, then-Grand River Police Chief Jonathon Salerno, saying he at one time intended to kill him, too. Salerno said Mitts was an aggressive person who hated blacks and the police.

Prosecutors said that, with the murders, multiple shootings and additional death threats carried out that day, Mitts "exhibited complete disregard for the lives of officers and innocent bystanders at the scene."

"That further tragedy did not result from the bedlam that Mitts created on August 14, 1994, is in many respects a miracle," a clemency report said.

His pleas for mercy were denied by the Ohio Parole Board and Republican Gov. John Kasich.

Mitts, at his clemency hearing, said he had found God in prison. After his conviction, he spoke of receiving a Bible from Glivar's mother and sister and a letter expressing their forgiveness and urging him to seek repentance.

2013 MacArthur 'genius grant' winners unveiled

CHICAGO (AP) -- The old man couldn't control his diabetes, no matter how closely he followed his doctor's instructions. A nurse visited him to find out why the insulin wasn't working, only to watch the nearly blind man inadvertently inject himself with a syringe filled with nothing but air.

It sounds simple to track a patient outside of office visits. But the Chicago-based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation found the idea genius.

Jeffrey Brenner, a doctor and founder of the organization that dispatches medical professionals to the doors of the desperately poor residents of Camden, N.J., was named Wednesday as one of 24 to receive a $625,000 "genius grant" from the foundation.

"This is an acknowledgment that we are headed in the right direction," Brenner said.

The 44-year-old created the Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers as a means to find and track the poorest patients with the most complex medical issues. Those patients are visited wherever they are - at home, in shelters - and escorted to doctor's appointments.

"We cut, scan, zap and hospitalize (patients)," said Brenner, whose group is now working with 10 communities to develop similar systems. "But we forget we need to take care of them."

The eclectic group of grant recipients includes scientists, artists, historians, writers, a lawyer, a statistician and a photographer. They can spend the money however they like, for seeing things others haven't, asking questions others haven't asked and finding new solutions to old problems.

The awards, given annually since 1981, are doled out over a five-year period. This year's class brings the number of recipients to nearly 900, and also will be given the largest amount ever - $125,000 more than last year. Shrouded in secrecy, the selection process involves anonymous nominators and selectors who make final recommendations to the foundation's Board of Directors.

A National Public Radio report about the Library of Congress worrying about damaging old recordings just by playing them sparked the imagination of Carl Haber, a 54-year-old experimental physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

He began to think how one could use precision optical measuring techniques employed in particle research to try to pull sounds from fragile or crumbling cylinders as well as discs and tinfoil.

"Using scientific cameras and measurement tools that just use light, we create essentially a picture ... and then write a program where the computer analyzes the image and calculates mathematically how the needle would move rather than use the needle," he said.

The result: Bringing alive the voices of the dead, from Alexander Graham Bell's voice from the 1800s to a Native American language that fell silent with the last of its possessors. The thousands of recordings from bygone eras around the world are of "great value to anthropologists, the study of folklore, national culture," he said.

But there's more to it, as Haber found out when he heard Bell respond to a small mistake made during the recording.

"To hear someone caught off guard, you are actually seeing the humanity of these people," Haber said.

Robin Fleming's work has been to show the humanity of nations passed over in history books. A Medieval historian at Boston College, she has focused on Great Britain after the fall of the Roman Empire, starting in the 5th century, by analyzing things like coins, pots and even tooth enamel found in settlements and cemeteries to create a picture of their lives.

What she discovered was the people of the time were so determined to carry on the ways of those who came before, they went to cemeteries to dig up artifacts that would help them do that - including containers that held cremated remains.

"They knock(ed) the ash out, give them a wash and put them on the table," Fleming, 57, said.

With an eye to a more contemporary, but just as forgotten, issue, attorney Margaret Stock focuses on military personnel and their families who she says are victimized by the nation's immigration laws.

After Sept. 11, as politicians asked the nation to take care of those fighting for their country, Stock was getting call after call, hearing things like a soldier begging her to stop immigration officials from deporting his wife to Mexico.

"He's on the tarmac ... about to be deployed and says his wife took a wrong turn into a construction zone, was picked up by immigration, they had her in jail and were trying to deport her." said Stock, who lives in Anchorage, Alaska. "The pain that's being caused right now is tremendous."

To help, Stock created the American Immigration Lawyers Association Military Assistance Program, which puts volunteer attorneys across the nation with military families that need help.

Recipients of the grants say the money will only aid their work, giving them time to research and time off from figuring out how to pay for it.

Fiction writer Karen Russell worked at a veterinarian clinic part-time while writing the acclaimed novel "Swamplandia." Her grant money buys her time.

"Just the idea of having a stretch of time where you can commit your time wholeheartedly to a project, nobody gets that," the New York City resident said.

For Stock, her thousands of dollars will mean one thing: People will be seeing more of her.

"This is going to let me advocate more," she said.

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http://www.macfound.org