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  Boy Scouts approve plan to accept openly gay boys

  GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — The Boy Scouts of America threw open its ranks Thursday to gay Scouts but not gay Scout leaders — a fiercely contested compromise that some warned could fracture the organization and lead to mass defections of members and donors.

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  Obama sees narrower terror threat, defends drones

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sought Thursday to advance the U.S. beyond the unrelenting war effort of the past dozen years, defining a narrower terror threat from smaller networks and homegrown extremists rather than the grandiose plots of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida.

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  10 Things to Know for Friday

  Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:

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  Muslim hard-liners ID suspect in London attack

  LONDON (AP) — A man seen with bloody hands wielding a butcher knife after the killing of a British soldier on the streets of London was described as a convert to Islam who took part in demonstrations with a banned radical group, two Muslim hard-liners said Thursday.

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  Belmoktar claims responsibility for Niger attack

  NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — Suicide bombers in Niger detonated two car bombs simultaneously, one inside a military camp in the city of Agadez and another in the remote town of Arlit at a French-operated uranium mine, killing 26 people and injuring 30, according to officials in Niger and France.

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  IRS replaces official in tea party controversy

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving quickly to stem a raging controversy, the new acting head of the Internal Revenue Service started cleaning house Thursday by replacing the supervisor who oversaw agents involved in targeting tea party groups.

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  Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive

  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.

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  Writer Chinua Achebe honored in Nigeria funeral

  OGIDI, Nigeria (AP) — Writer Chinua Achebe shunned Nigeria's corrupt politicians and twice turned down national honors, never fearing to criticize those he felt ruined his country. On Thursday, however, the lawmakers and the country's elite came to praise him.

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  Jurors deadlock on Jodi Arias penalty; retrial set

  PHOENIX (AP) — Jurors who spent five months determining Jodi Arias' fate couldn't decide whether she should get life in prison or die for murdering her boyfriend, sending prosecutors back to the drawing board to rehash the shocking case of sex, lies and violence to another 12 people.

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  Why worry? Less aid by Fed would point to recovery

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Investors have grown nervous that the Federal Reserve will scale back its efforts to boost the U.S. economy sooner than many expected.

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  Boy Scouts approve plan to accept openly gay boys

  GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — The Boy Scouts of America threw open its ranks Thursday to gay Scouts but not gay Scout leaders — a fiercely contested compromise that some warned could fracture the organization and lead to mass defections of members and donors.

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  Distraught mom becomes face of Oklahoma storm

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A massive tornado was carving its way through town. There was no time to hesitate. LaTisha Garcia had to get to her children.

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  Jurors deadlock on Jodi Arias penalty; retrial set

  PHOENIX (AP) — Jurors who spent five months determining Jodi Arias' fate couldn't decide whether she should get life in prison or die for murdering her boyfriend, sending prosecutors back to the drawing board to rehash the shocking case of sex, lies and violence to another 12 people.

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  The next steps in Jodi Arias case

  PHOENIX (AP) — The jury in Jodi Arias' murder trial has failed to reach a verdict against the woman they convicted of murdering Travis Alexander. The next steps:

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  Weiner gets started stumping in NYC mayoral race

  NEW YORK (AP) — Anthony Weiner set out to reintroduce himself to voters Thursday as he embarked on a mayoral bid after leaving Congress in a sexting scandal. He found a much more supportive reception in his first day of campaigning than he did from the state's top Democrat, who bluntly criticized hs candidacy a day earlier.

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  Latest deadly tornado tests Oklahoma town's mettle

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Having lived most of her life in this Oklahoma City suburb, Barbara Bryen never feared twisters. They were just part of life in a particularly deadly stretch of Tornado Alley.

• Obama lifts ban on Guantanamo transfers to Yemen

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is lifting his self-imposed ban on transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, where a leadership upheaval has improved the country's security but not eliminated a terrorist organization trying to recruit jihadists.

• Defense releases photos, texts of Trayvon Martin

  ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Data released Thursday by the defense from slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin's cellphone includes texts with a friend about fighting, smoking pot and being forced to move out of his mother's house because of trouble at school, as well as photos of a gun and what looks to bea potted marijuana plant.

• Procter & Gamble brings back A.G. Lafley as CEO

  NEW YORK (AP) — Procter & Gamble Co. is bringing back its former CEO, as the world's largest consumer-products maker tries to spur global growth.

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  Nixon library hosts reunion for Vietnam POWs

  YORBA LINDA, Calif. (AP) — U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Doug Burns was on a night reconnaissance mission searching for enemy trucks when he was shot down by anti-aircraft fire and taken prisoner during the Vietnam War.

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  Muslim hard-liners ID suspect in London attack

  LONDON (AP) — A man seen with bloody hands wielding a butcher knife after the killing of a British soldier on the streets of London was described as a convert to Islam who took part in demonstrations with a banned radical group, two Muslim hard-liners said Thursday.

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  Q&A: What is known about London attack

  A look at the key known facts about attack in south London in which two men killed a British soldier near military barracks Wednesday.

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  Military calls UK attack victim a model soldier

  LONDON (AP) — The soldier brutally murdered in a suspected terrorist attack in London was a popular 25-year-old ceremonial military drummer and machine gunner, a father and a passionate fan of the Manchester United soccer team, the British military said Thursday.

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  Clashes in Lebanon feed fear of Syria spillover

  BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.

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  Sweden's riots raise questions about inequality

  HUSBY, Sweden (AP) — Sweden has long been a bastion of generous social welfare and an egalitarian political culture. So many people were shocked when scores of youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze during rioting in several largely immigrant areas near Stockholm this week.

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  Liberia denies resource deals violated laws

  The Liberian government denied on Friday it had violated its own laws in awarding resource contracts and pledged to implement the recommendations of an independent audit into the deals.

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  Government support dips as Spaniards tire of crisis, corruption

  Public support for Spain's ruling center-right party has slipped following a high-level corruption scandal and ongoing recession, and Spaniards remain pessimistic about the political and economic outlook, a poll showed on Friday.

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  Somalia's security forces hamstrung by corruption, infiltrators

  Somalia's security forces need rebuilding to cement gains made by foreign troops against Islamist militants, but how to pay and arm recruits, tackle corruption and prevent rebels infiltrating their ranks remain hurdles for the cash-strapped government.

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  FBI releases photos of three men from Benghazi attack site

  The FBI on Thursday released the photographs of three men it said were at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, when it was attacked last September.

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  Anti-EU party shakes British PM's Conservatives in local vote

  The anti-European Union UK Independence Party made sweeping gains in local elections, siphoning support from British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives in a vote that exposed a threat to his re-election chances in 2015.

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  Milestones for Guantanamo Bay detention center

  President Barack Obama on Thursday reaffirmed his 2008 campaign promise to close the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where terror suspects have been held since 2002, and begin the transfer of some prisoners to other countries. A look the facility's history:

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  IRS replaces official in tea party controversy

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Moving quickly to stem a raging controversy, the new acting head of the Internal Revenue Service started cleaning house Thursday by replacing the supervisor who oversaw agents involved in targeting tea party groups.

• 
  Obama sees narrower terror threat, defends drones

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sought Thursday to advance the U.S. beyond the unrelenting war effort of the past dozen years, defining a narrower terror threat from smaller networks and homegrown extremists rather than the grandiose plots of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida.

• Obama lifts ban on Guantanamo transfers to Yemen

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is lifting his self-imposed ban on transferring Guantanamo Bay detainees to Yemen, where a leadership upheaval has improved the country's security but not eliminated a terrorist organization trying to recruit jihadists.

• Obama to tour Jersey Shore with Gov. Christie

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to give the Jersey Shore a boost with a post-Memorial Day visit to showcase recovery efforts in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

• Senate votes to cut crop insurance aid for wealthy

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate on Thursday voted to limit the amount of government subsidies the wealthiest farmers receive when purchasing crop insurance.

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  Maine governor moves out of office over TV dispute

  AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine's governor, who has gained attention in the past for telling the NAACP to "kiss my butt" and comparing the Internal Revenue Service to the Gestapo, has moved out of his office at the State House and says he'll work out of the governor's mansion because of a dispute over television screen.

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  Tea party vs. old guard in GOP Senate rift

  WASHINGTON (AP) — A long-simmering feud between establishment Republicans and tea partyers broke into full view Thursday, with Sen. John McCain accusing younger colleagues of overplaying their hands and tempting Democrats to change Senate rules that protect the minority party.

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  Smooth confirmation hearing for Pritzker

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's nominee for commerce secretary was questioned briefly about her ties to a subprime mortgage lender that failed in 2001 and her role as a beneficiary of family offshore trusts in the Bahamas, but those were minor bumps in an otherwise smooth Senate confirmaion hearing Thursday.

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  4 Americans killed since 2009 in US drone strikes

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009 in Pakistan and Yemen. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama.

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• Study: No higher cancer rate at Conn. Pratt plant

  HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Researchers examining the incidence of brain cancer at jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney in Connecticut say they have found no statistically significant elevations in the rate of cancer among workers.

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  Women have more options for breast cancer surgery

  CHICAGO (AP) — One of the world's most glamorous women had an operation that once was terribly disfiguring — removal of both breasts. But new approaches are dramatically changing breast surgeries, whether to treat cancer or to prevent it as Angelina Jolie just chose to do. As Jolie said, "the resuls can be beautiful.

• Portland, Ore., rejecting water fluoridation

  PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The mayor of Portland, Ore., has conceded defeat in an effort to add fluoride to the city's drinking water.

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  Cancer Society hits 100 as US cancer rate falls

  NEW YORK (AP) — The American Cancer Society — one of the nation's best known and influential health advocacy groups — is 100 years old this week.

• Alabama mystery illness solved: it's common flu

  MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Health officials investigating a cluster of mysterious illnesses in Alabama closed their investigation Thursday after determining the illnesses were unrelated and no new bacteria or viruses were involved.

• Judge in NYC refuses to suspend his Plan B ruling

  NEW YORK (AP) — A government appeal of a ruling giving women of all ages broad access to morning-after birth control is frivolous, a federal judge said Friday as he refused to suspend enforcement of his decision pending appeal.

• FDA denies request to block generic painkiller

  WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprise move Friday, federal health regulators denied a request by Endo Health Solutions to block generic versions of its painkiller Opana ER, which the company argued are more easily abused than its branded product.

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  India announces low-cost rotavirus vaccine

  NEW DELHI (AP) — The Indian government announced Tuesday the development of a new low-cost vaccine proven effective against a diarrhea-causing virus that is one of the leading causes of childhood deaths across the developing world.

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  Tougher drunken driving threshold recommended

  WASHINGTON (AP) — States should cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half — from .08 blood alcohol level to 0.5 — matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries, a U.S. safety board recommends. That's about one drink for a woman weighing less than 20 lbs.

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  US government files morning-after pill appeal

  NEW YORK (AP) — The Obama administration on Monday filed a last-minute appeal to delay the sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill to girls of any age without a prescription.

More

• 
  Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive

  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.

• 
  NASA head views progress on asteroid lasso mission

  PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Surrounded by engineers, NASA chief Charles Bolden inspected a prototype spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid and tow it closer to Earth for astronauts to explore.

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  Hurricane outlook: Another busy Atlantic season

  COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Get ready for another busy hurricane season, maybe an unusually wild one, federal forecasters say.

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  2013 hurricane names: From Andrea to Wendy

  Weather forecasters are predicting another busy Atlantic hurricane season. The storms will get their names from an alphabetical list of 21 names:

• Study: Amphibians disappearing at alarming rate

  GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A new study has determined for the first time just how quickly frogs and other amphibians are disappearing around the United States, and the news is not good.

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  Solar-powered plane takes off for flight across U.S.

  A solar-powered airplane that developers hope to eventually pilot around the world took off early on Friday from San Francisco Bay on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States with no fuel but the sun's energy.

• Space junk needs to be removed from Earth's orbit: ESA

  Space junk such as debris from rockets must be removed from the Earth's orbit to avoid crashes that could cost satellite operators millions of euros and knock out mobile and GPS networks, the European Space Agency said.

• 
  Alexander Graham Bell speaks, and 2013 hears his voice

  Nine years after he placed the first telephone call, Alexander Graham Bell tried another experiment: he recorded his voice on a wax-covered cardboard disc on April 15, 1885, and gave it an audio signature: "Hear my voice - Alexander Graham Bell."

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  Campaigners call for ban on "killer robots"

  Machines with the ability to attack targets without any human intervention must be banned before they are developed for use on the battlefield, campaigners against "killer robots" urged on Tuesday.

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  Virgin's passenger spaceship completes first rocket test flight

  (Reuters) - A six-passenger spaceship owned by an offshoot of Virgin Group fired its rocket engine in flight for the first time on Monday, a key step toward the start of commercial service in about a year, Virgin owner Richard Branson said.

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  For Philadelphia bicyclist, a cat is his co-pilot

  PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For bicyclist Rudi Saldia, you could say a cat is his co-pilot.

• Fugitive in LA attempted-murder case held in Colo.

  LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man wanted for 13 years on attempted murder charges in Los Angeles was captured in Colorado after someone called police to report he was urinating on a wall outside a KFC restaurant.

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  Council members abstain from vote on abstaining

  YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) — Three members of a Michigan city council have abstained from voting on a measure that would have prevented them from abstaining on future votes.

• Brown hounded for calling Manila 'gates of hell'

  MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Dan Brown's description of Manila as "the gates of hell" in the American novelist's latest book has not gone down well with officials in the Philippine capital.

• Crane accident cuts power to one-third of Vietnam

  HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — One mistake by a clumsy crane operator caused a 10-hour blackout over about a third of Vietnam, exposing the fragility of the nation's power grid.

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  Goat on the lam snarls NJ's Pulaski Skyway traffic

  JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A goat believed to have escaped en route to a slaughterhouse snarled the morning commute along one of the busiest roadways in northern New Jersey on Tuesday, leading police on a nearly two-hour chase.

• Thailand urged to explore edible insect market

  BANGKOK (AP) — Researchers say Thailand is showing the world how to respond to the global food crisis: by raising bugs for eating.

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  Ohio State awaits bloom of stinky corpse flower

  COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Researchers at an Ohio State University greenhouse are awaiting a rare second bloom by a rainforest plant known as a corpse flower because of its unpleasant odor.

• NKorea: Detained American smuggled in propaganda

  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea delivered its most in-depth account yet of the case against a Korean-American sentenced to 15 years' hard labor, accusing him late Thursday of smuggling in inflammatory literature and trying to establish a base for anti-Pyongyang activities at a border city hotl.

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  Texas senior, 18, bags 800-pound record alligator

  HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston-area high school senior has bagged a 14-foot, 800 pound alligator — the heaviest ever certified in Texas — on his first alligator hunt.

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• Pandora posts in-line 1Q loss, upbeat sales

  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Internet radio company Pandora Media Inc. reported higher-than-expected revenue in the latest quarter, with losses in line with analysts' forecasts, as the number of subscribers who pay for ad-free listening more than doubled to exceed 2.5 million.

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  Review: Google music plan solid, serendipitous

  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Google's new music service offers a lot of eye candy to go with the tunes. The song selection of around 18 million tracks is comparable to popular services such as Spotify and Rhapsody, and a myriad of playlists curated along different genres provides a big playground for music lvers.

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  HP's 2Q offers hope even as revenue slump deepens

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hewlett-Packard is still scrambling to meet the growing demand for more versatile and less expensive mobile devices as a slump in its personal computer sales deepens, but the company's cost-cutting measures and focus on more profitable areas of technology appear to be easing th pain.

• Twitter adds security measure to logins

  NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter is adding an extra security measure to users' accounts in an effort to prevent unauthorized logins.

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  Google to add Galapagos Islands to Street View

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

• Lenovo says quarterly profit up 90 percent

  BEIJING (AP) — Computer maker Lenovo Group said Thursday its latest quarterly profit rose 90 percent as sales of smartphones and mobile computing technology expanded.

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  First Look: New Xbox elegant, but much unknown

  REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Will gamers want One?

• 
  The new consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

  NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from ony.

• Prosecutor: IPad theft defendants ambushed victim

  LAS VEGAS (AP) — Two men accused of killing a high school freshman who refused to let go of his iPad were like wild animals ambushing a weak victim, a prosecutor said Thursday.

• Jennifer Lopez to open cellphone stores

  NEW YORK (AP) — "Jenny from the Block" wants the block to buy Verizon phones from her.

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