Defense of Marriage Act heads to US Supreme Court

Defense of Marriage Act heads to US Supreme Court

FILE - In this June 23, 2009 file photo, Keegan O'Brien of Worcester, Mass., leads chants as members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community protest the Defense of Marriage Act outside a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Boston. A battle over the federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman appears headed for the Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled Thursday, May 31, 2012, that denying benefits to married gay couples is unconstitutional.

BOSTON (AP) -- A battle over a federal law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman appears headed for the Supreme Court after an appeals court ruled Thursday that denying benefits to married gay couples is unconstitutional.

In a unanimous decision, the three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston said the 1996 law deprives gay couples of the rights and privileges granted to heterosexual couples.

The court didn't rule on the law's more politically combustible provision - that states without same-sex marriage cannot be forced to recognize gay unions performed in states where it's legal. It also wasn't asked to address whether gay couples have a constitutional right to marry.

The law was passed at a time when it appeared Hawaii would legalize gay marriage. Since then, many states have instituted their own bans on gay marriage, while eight states have approved the practice, led by Massachusetts in 2004.

The court, the first federal appeals panel to rule against the benefits section of the law, agreed with a lower court judge who in 2010 concluded that the law interferes with the right of a state to define marriage and denies married gay couples federal benefits given to heterosexual married couples, including the ability to file joint tax returns. The ruling came in two lawsuits, one filed by the Boston-based legal group Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) and the other by state Attorney General Martha Coakley.

"For me, it's more just about having equality and not having a system of first- and second-class marriages," said plaintiff Jonathan Knight, a financial associate at Harvard Medical School who married Marlin Nabors in 2006.

"I think we can do better, as a country, than that," said Knight, a plaintiff in the GLAD lawsuit.

Knight said the Defense of Marriage Act costs the couple an extra $1,000 a year because they cannot file a joint federal tax return.

Opponents of gay marriage blasted the decision.

"This ruling that a state can mandate to the federal government the definition of marriage for the sake of receiving federal benefits, we find really bizarre, rather arrogant, if I may say so," said Kris Mineau, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute.

Since Congress passed the law, eight states have approved gay marriage, including Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maryland, Washington state and the District of Columbia. Maryland and Washington's laws are not yet in effect and may be subject to referendums.

Last year, President Barack Obama announced that the Department of Justice would no longer defend the constitutionality of the law. After that, House Speaker John Boehner convened the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group to defend it. The legal group argued the case before the appeals court.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the appeals court ruling is "in concert with the president's views." Obama, who once opposed gay marriage, declared his unequivocal personal support on May 9.

Carney wouldn't say whether the government would actively seek to have the law overturned if the case goes before the Supreme Court.

"I can't predict what the next steps will be in handling cases of this nature," Carney said.

The 1st Circuit said its ruling would not be enforced until the Supreme Court decides the case, meaning that same-sex married couples will not be eligible to receive the economic benefits denied by the law until the high court rules.

That's because the ruling only applies to states within the circuit - Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine and New Hampshire - and Puerto Rico. Only the Supreme Court has the final say in deciding whether a law passed by Congress is unconstitutional.

Until Congress passed the law, "the power to define marriage had always been left to individual states, the appeals court said in its ruling.

"One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage," Judge Michael Boudin wrote for the court. "Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

Several times in its ruling, the appeals court noted that the case will probably end up before the high court, at one point saying, "only the Supreme Court can finally decide this unique case."

Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said the court kept its ruling narrow, declaring unconstitutional only the section of the law on federal benefits. Although supporters and opponents of gay marriage may depict the ruling as the beginning of the end of the law, he said, the Supreme Court is likely to limit its ruling to the benefits issue as well.

"I think lawyers could argue that the arguments are equally applicable to the other sections of the law, but you have to stretch. You have to take those out of the context in which it's being applied, and I don't think the court will do that," Tobias said.

During arguments before the court last month, a lawyer for gay married couples said the law amounted to "across-the-board disrespect." The couples argued that the power to define and regulate marriage had been left to the states for more than 200 years before Congress passed the law.

Paul Clement, a Washington, D.C., attorney who defended the law on behalf of the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, argued that Congress had a rational basis for passing the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, when opponents worried that states would be forced to recognize gay marriages performed elsewhere.

The group said Congress wanted to preserve a traditional and uniform definition of marriage and has the power to define terms used to federal statutes to distribute federal benefits.

"But we have always been clear we expect this matter ultimately to be decided by the Supreme Court, and that has not changed," he said in a statement.

Two of the three judges who decided the case Thursday were Republican appointees, while the other was a Democratic appointee. Boudin was appointed by President George H.W. Bush. Judge Juan Torruella was appointed by President Ronald Reagan. Chief Judge Sandra Lynch is an appointee of President Bill Clinton.

In California, two federal judges have found this year that the law violates the due-process rights of legally married same-sex couples.

In the most recent case, a judge found the law unconstitutional because it denies long-term health insurance benefits to legal spouses of state employees and retirees. The judge also said a section of the federal tax code that makes the domestic partners of state workers ineligible for long-term care insurance violates the civil rights of people in gay and lesbian relationships.

Edwards acquitted on 1 count, mistrial on others

Edwards acquitted on 1 count, mistrial on others

Ex-presidential candidate John Edwards speaks outside a federal courthouse as his daughter, Cate Edwards, left, and father Wallace Edwards, listen after his campaign finance fraud case ended in a mistrial Thursday, May 31, 2012 in Greensboro, N.C. Jurors acquitted Edwards on one charge and deadlocked on the other five, unable to decide whether he used money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president and his wife was dying of cancer.

GREENSBORO, N.C. (AP) -- John Edwards' campaign finance fraud case ended in a mistrial Thursday when jurors acquitted him on one of six charges but were unable to decide whether he misused money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president.

The trial exposed a sordid sex scandal that unfolded while Edwards' wife was dying of cancer, but prosecutors couldn't convince jurors that the ex-U.S. senator and 2004 vice presidential candidate masterminded a $1 million cover-up of his affair.

"While I do not believe I did anything illegal, or ever thought I was doing anything illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong and there is no one else responsible for my sins," Edwards said on the courthouse steps.

He also said he had hope for his future.

"I don't think God's through with me. I really believe he thinks there's still some good things I can do."

Edwards would have faced up to 30 years in prison and $1.5 million in fines if convicted of all charges. He did not testify, along with his mistress Rielle Hunter and the two donors whose money was at issue.

Jurors acquitted him on a charge of accepting illegal campaign contributions, involving $375,000 from elderly heiress Rachel "Bunny" Mellon in 2008. He had also been charged with illegally accepting $350,000 from Mellon in 2007, other donations from wealthy Texas attorney Fred Baron, filing a false campaign finance report and conspiracy.

The jurors, who deliberated nine days, did not talk to the media as they left the courthouse. Several media organizations, including The Associated Press, have filed a motion asking for the names to be released but the judge has refused to release the information for at least a week.

Federal prosecutors are unlikely to retry the case, a law enforcement official told AP on the condition of anonymity because the decision will undergo review in the coming days.

The case was thrown into confusion earlier Thursday after observers filled the courtroom expecting to hear a verdict on all six counts. Jurors had sent a note to U.S. District Court Judge Catherine Eagles, reading, "we have finished our deliberations and have arrived at our decision on counts one through six."

But when the jury came into court, the foreman said jurors only had a decision on one count. Eagles sent jurors back to deliberate. About an hour later, the jury sent another note saying it had exhausted its discussions.

When the not guilty verdict was read, Edwards choked up, put a single finger to his lip and took a moment to compose himself. He turned to his daughter, Cate, in the first row and smiled.

After Eagles declared a mistrial and discharged the jury, Edwards hugged his daughter, his parents and his attorneys. Later, he thanked the jury and his family, even choking up when talking about the daughter he had with his mistress Rielle Hunter.

He called Frances Quinn Hunter precious "whom I love, more than any of you can ever imagine and I am so close to and so, so grateful for. I am grateful for all of my children."

The 6-week-long trial recounted the most intimate details of Edwards' affair with Hunter, including reference to a sex tape of the two together that was later ordered destroyed and the drama of Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, tearing off her shirt in front of her husband in a rage about a tabloid report of the affair.

It also featured testimony that sometimes read like political thriller, as aide Andrew Young described meeting Edwards on a secluded road, and Edwards warning him, "you can't hurt me."

Prosecutors said Edwards knew of the roughly $1 million being funneled to former aide Andrew Young and Hunter and was well aware of the $2,300 legal limit on campaign donations.

Edwards' attorneys said prosecutors didn't prove that Edwards knew that taking the money violated campaign finance law. They said he shouldn't be convicted for being a liar, and even if he did know about some of the money, it was a gift, not a campaign contribution.

"This is a case that should define the difference between a wrong and a crime ... between a sin and a felony," attorney Abbe Lowell told the jury. "John Edwards has confessed his sins. He will serve a life sentence for those."

They also said the money was used to keep the affair hidden from his wife, not to influence his presidential bid.

Baron died in 2008 and Mellon, who is 101 years old, did not testify.

Edwards met Hunter in a New York hotel bar in 2006 and they spent the night together. She soon joined his campaign, and despite a lack of filmmaking experience, the politician arranged a $250,000 contract for her to make a series of behind-the-scenes documentaries from the campaign trail.

Word of the affair eventually got back to Edwards' wife. On Dec. 30, 2006, the day Edwards officially announced his bid for president at an event in his hometown of Chapel Hill, Elizabeth Edwards bumped into Hunter for the first time and became visibly upset, according to testimony. She told her husband to get rid of her, and while Hunter officially left the campaign, John Edwards continued to meet with her on the road.

Hunter became pregnant in the summer of 2007. As Hunter's belly began to show that September, tabloid reporters began tailing her. Within weeks, the Youngs had set up Hunter in a $2,700-a-month rental home not far from the Edwards estate in Chapel Hill, using the donated money.

In October 2007, a day after a tabloid reported the affair, Elizabeth Edwards blew up at her husband, according to testimony from former adviser Christina Reynolds. Edwards' now-deceased wife stormed away from her husband at a private hangar, collapsing into a ball on the pavement. After composing herself in a nearby ladies room, Elizabeth Edwards ripped off her shirt and bra and screamed, "You don't see me anymore!" As staffers scrambled to cover her up and whisk her into a car, her husband boarded a jet and headed to a campaign event in South Carolina.

That December, in an attempt to contain the scandal, Young issued a statement claiming the baby was his. Prosecutors presented phone records showing Edwards and Young - and Young and Baron - talked with each other that day and claimed they conspired to come up with the plan.

About a month later, Edwards' presidential campaign began to fold with poor showings in the early presidential primary states. Even before he officially suspended his presidential campaign at the end of January 2008, Edwards had begun wooing the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for a spot in their administration, perhaps as vice president.

Meanwhile, Hunter was on the run with the Youngs. Baron let them stay at his vacation mansion in Aspen, Colo., and paid for them to live in a $20,000-a-month manor in Santa Barbara, Calif. Hunter gave birth to Francis Quinn Hunter in February 2008.

Records at trial showed Baron paid Hunter a $9,000 monthly cash allowance, on top of providing flights on private jets and stays at luxury resorts.

The deposits began in June 2008 - several months after Edwards ended his White House run - and continued until December 2008, two months after Baron died.

The timing of the payments may have been important. The defense argued most of the money was spent after Edwards ended his presidential bid. Prosecutors claim Edwards was still seeking the Democratic vice presidential nomination or a future appointment as attorney general.

Although Edwards' attorneys have conceded he had some limited knowledge of Baron's support for Hunter, they deny he knew anything about $725,000 provided to Young by the wealthy heiress Mellon, an ardent supporter of Edwards' campaign.

Edwards admitted to the Hunter affair in August 2008. Days later, he met with Young briefly on a secluded road near the Edwards estate outside Chapel Hill. According to Young's testimony at the trail, the two talked about the secret checks Mellon had provided to the campaign aide.

"I didn't know about these, did you?" Edwards said, according to Young.

Worried he was being taped, Young lied and said no. Young told Edwards he had kept evidence of the cover-up, including voicemails, emails and the tape that purportedly showed Edwards and Hunter having sex. He said he threatened to go public if Edwards' didn't come clean about the baby.

"You can't hurt me, Andrew," Edwards told Young as he opened the door to get out, Young said. "You can't hurt me."

Edwards announced he was the father of Francis Quinn Hunter in January 2010, nearly two years after she was born and his candidacy ended.

Elizabeth Edwards died in late 2010.

The jurors, whose identities were withheld throughout the trial, asked to see dozens of trial exhibits during deliberations, relating to Mellon and Baron's donations. Some jurors raised eyebrows in recent days by wearing matching colored shirts to court, and one alternate juror was said to be flirting with Edwards. Eagles warned the jury on its sixth day of deliberations not to discuss the case in small groups.

As Edwards left the courthouse steps, a tabloid reporter asked whether he loved Hunter and would marry her. Edwards did not answer and turned away.

World powers worry Syria sliding to civil war

World powers worry Syria sliding to civil war

A Syrian man Nidal Kodssi, 27, who was wounded in his legs after the Syrian forces shelled his house and killed his wife and his eight month son at Baba Amr in Homs Province in February, is being treated by a Lebanese nurse at a hospital, in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Wednesday May 30, 2012. Since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March 2011, thousands of Syrian refugees who fled the violence in their country now live in Lebanon, and many wounded Syrians are smuggled across the border for treatment in Lebanese hospitals, mostly in the northern city of Tripoli which is largely sympathetic to the Syrian uprising. But Lebanon is sharply divided by the Syrian conflict, and even in hospitals, Syrian opposition activists are fearful of retaliation.

GENEVA (AP) -- World powers share a belief that Syria could descend into civil war and plan to map out possible ways to avoid such a disaster for the region, a deputy to international envoy Kofi Annan said Wednesday.

Jean-Marie Guehenno told reporters after privately briefing the U.N. Security Council, the world body's most powerful unit, that diplomats are deeply troubled by Syria's cycle of violence.

"I believe that in the council there's an understanding that any sliding toward full-scale civil war in Syria would be catastrophic, and the security council now needs to have that kind of strategic discussion on how that needs to be avoided," Guehenno said in Geneva after speaking to the New York-based Security Council by videoconference.

However, there was no indication that Russia, one of the veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, was changing it's position on Syria.

Dmitry Peskov, President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency Wednesday that "there can be no talk" about a shift in Russia's stance on Syria under foreign pressure.

Russia, along with China, has twice shielded Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime from the U.N. sanctions over his crackdown on protests. Syria is Russia's last ally in the region, providing Moscow with its only naval base outside the former Soviet Union and a top customer for Russian weapons industries.

Guehenno, the Annan deputy and a former U.N. peacekeeping chief, also warned of the possibility of outside groups and terrorists taking advantage of the violence. "In any situation where there is a risk of civil war you have opportunistic actors, if one can say that, that can try to exploit that," he said.

Guehenno said he told the closed session of the 15-nation council that Annan's six-point peace plan to end the 15-month conflict must be fully implemented and that political process must include talks between the Syrian government and the opposition.

"It's very important that the Security Council be united in pushing for a political process," Guehenno said.

Annan held talks with Assad in Damascus on Tuesday following the weekend massacre in Houla of more than 100 people, many of them women and children.

At the U.N. headquarters in New York, Germany's U.N. Ambassador Peter Wittig said Guehenno told the council that while Annan was in Damascus he appealed to Assad's government "to take bold steps forward" to end to end the violence immediately and implement the peace plan.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said the worst but most probable scenario in Syria is a failure of Annan's peace plan and a spreading conflict that creates "a major crisis" not only in Syria but also region-wide.

"And members of this council and members of the international community are left with the option only of considering whether they are prepared to take actions outside of the Annan plan and the authority of this council," she told reporters.

The best scenario would be for the Syrian government to immediately start complying with the plan, she said, but that doesn't seem to be "a high probability."

And if Assad refuses to implement it, Rice added, then the Security Council should set aside its differences and up the pressure on Syria with added sanctions.

Minutes after she spoke, Russia's U.N, Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters that "our attitude to sanctions frankly continues to be negative."

But Rice, Churkin and other council members agree the best scenario is full implementation of the Annan plan, with talks between opposing sides, despite the increasing worry that will never happen.

They also agree on the need for all sides to immediately halt the violence and for Syrian troops and heavy weapons to be withdrawn from towns and cities, with the government also providing access to detainees, journalists and humanitarian workers.

Annan said in Damascus that the situation has reached "a tipping point" and many council ambassadors agreed, including Rice.

"I think we may be beginning to see the wheels coming off this bus," she said.

Britain's U.N. Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said Guehenno and one of his French successors, the current U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, provided a grim briefing.

Lyall Grant said there was a sense of "revulsion" at the weekend massacre and the increase in extremist attacks with a new sectarian element, all of which are throwing up roadblocks to Annan's peace plan.

"The key thing is unity of the council," he said, calling for discussion at the U.N. and in world capitals on how to avoid a civil war in Syria.

Odd politics, presidential tradition: Bush is back

Odd politics, presidential tradition: Bush is back

FILE - In this Jan. 16, 2010 file photo, President Barack Obama shakes hands with former President George W. Bush, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama frequently blames President George W. Bush for America's shaky economy, high unemployment and foreign policy woes. But he's sure to change his tune on Thursday when Bush comes back to the White House in a rare limelight moment, The man who led the country for eight tumultuous years will have his portrait hung and Obama will be there applauding.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- This is a little awkward.

President Barack Obama can't seem to stop bad-mouthing the record of former President George W. Bush. But on Thursday, Obama is going to welcome his predecessor and proudly preside as Bush's image and legacy are enshrined at the White House forever.

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama will join Bush and his wife, Laura, as their official portraits are unveiled. The incumbent is keeping up a presidential tradition typically defined by cheer and graciousness, but not without some uneasiness.

Hardly a day goes by without Obama or his aides talking about the mess they inherited - meaning, from Bush.

It was just one week ago that Obama, revving up campaign donors, turned Bush into a punch line. Obama depicted Republican rival Mitt Romney as a peddler of bad economic ideas, helping the rich at the expense of the middle class, and then added to laughs: "That was tried, remember? The last guy did all this."

Now the last guy is coming back.

So, too, will his father, former President George H.W. Bush and the former first lady Barbara Bush. The Obamas will hold forth in the ornate East Room as George and Laura Bush are honored for their service before an invited audience of Bush friends and former staff members.

It will be a rare limelight moment for Bush, who has not been back in more than two years.

Obama and Bush have a cordial and respectful relationship, but they are not close. Both are political veterans who are able to separate political tactics from what they see as an overarching community among people who have served in the Oval Office, according to people close to them.

Only 44 men in history, and five men alive, have held the job.

"President Bush has been around politics a long time. He's been around how presidents deal with each other for a long time," said Tony Fratto, one of his former spokesmen at the White House. "He has an understanding for separating the necessities of political rhetoric from the job itself."

Bush showed that all through 2008, when Obama assailed his record on war and the economy en route to the White House. It was hard to remember at times that Obama was running not against Bush, who was finishing the last year of a tumultuous eight-year term, but rather Arizona Sen. John McCain.

When it was done, Bush welcomed Obama to the White House with grace and demanded that his team ensure a smooth transition.

History has marked this moment before, with grudges put aside.

When Bill Clinton came back for his portrait unveiling, Bush lauded him for "the forward-looking spirit that Americans like in a president." Never mind that Bush had run for the presidency to "restore honor and dignity" after Clinton's sex scandal.

And when Clinton welcomed back George H.W. Bush, whom he had defeated, he said to him and his wife: "Welcome home. We're glad to have you here."

"I would be surprised if there's very much tension" this time around, said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University who has long followed Bush's career.

Obama has enlisted Bush's help on earthquake relief for Haiti, and the two stood together in New York City last year in marking the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on America. They have also spoken at least three times at signature moments over the last three years, including the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Still, in the midst of a tight election year, the Obama-bashing-Bush's-record sets a backdrop.

"This president is looking for someone to blame," Romney said while campaigning in Colorado this week. "Of course, he started off by blaming George Bush, and that worked for a while but, you know, after three and a half years that wears kind of thin."

The White House points out that Obama praises Bush sometimes, too, as he did in March over Bush's willingness to take on immigration.

The visit is layered with political story lines.

Bush's brother Jeb is a potential vice presidential candidate to Romney. Bush's father has developed a kinship of sorts with Obama. And then there is Bush himself, who has endorsed Romney but is still viewed by many in his party as politically toxic.

More than any president in recent memory, Bush has not just intentionally faded from the public spotlight but all but disappeared from it.

"George W. Bush has been remarkably, and even strangely silent, even once you respect his sentiment that he did not want to get in Barack Obama's way," said Jillson. "I think part of that is just giving himself time to recover from what had to be an astoundingly difficult close to his presidency."

The politically impassioned issues of that time have faded. The Iraq war is over. The financial sector has stabilized after a devastating crash in late 2008. But the nation is still feeling the cost of the enormous recession, which is Obama's problem now.

Bush was last at the White House in January 2010. That was to join Obama and Bill Clinton in support of Haiti humanitarian relief.

Aides to both Obama and Bush are downplaying the Thursday reunion as a time of politics. Bush spokesman Freddy Ford said the former president and first lady are grateful to the Obama and looking forward to catching up with faces from their past, including staff at the Executive Mansion.

"I think there is a community here with very few members that transcends political and policy differences," White House spokesman Jay Carney said. He made that comment in the same briefing Wednesday in which he reminded everyone that Obama inherited a huge budget deficit (from Bush.)

Jenna Bush Hager, one of the George W. Bush's daughters, said she was invited for the ceremony and that the day will include a private lunch for the Bushes with the Obamas. She told "Fox & Friends" the day will be a chance to "celebrate his work, 'cause he worked pretty hard so I think he deserves at least a painting."

As to where it will go, she said: "Probably in the very back somewhere. I'm just kidding."

The painting will actually hang prominently in the formal entrance hall to the White House, the Grand Foyer.

Patz suspect's mental illness history could be key

Patz suspect's mental illness history could be key

A newspaper with a photograph of Etan Patz is part of a makeshift memorial in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, Monday, May 28, 2012. For prosecutors, the work is just beginning after the astonishing arrest last week of a man who police say confessed to strangling the 6-year-old New York City boy 33 years ago in one of the nation's most bewildering missing children's cases. Pedro Hernandez, 51, was charged with second-degree murder in the 1979 death of Etan Patz, based largely on a signed confession he gave to detectives.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Pedro Hernandez has confessed to killing the 6-year-old boy at the heart of one of the nation's most prominent missing-child cases, police say. And he has schizophrenia and a history of hallucinations, his lawyer says.

Court-appointed doctors are still assessing Hernandez's mental state, and it's unclear how much it will factor in the case charging him with the 1979 murder of young Etan Patz.

But if his psychiatric record becomes an issue, he'll encounter a justice system that seeks to strike a balance between recognizing mental illness and holding people responsible for their actions - a balance that has shifted back and forth over more than a century and a half.

Hernandez, 51, remained in a psychiatric hospital Tuesday as authorities continued trying to flesh out his startling admission in a case that galvanized the movement to publicize the problem of missing children. Meanwhile, Etan's father made clear that the attention to the case since Hernandez's arrest last week had taken a toll, telling reporters they had "managed to make a difficult situation even worse."

"It is past time for you to leave me, my family and my neighbors alone," Stan Patz said in a note posted on his apartment building's door.

Police encountered Hernandez, who worked in a nearby convenience store, shortly after Etan vanished on his way to school on May 25, 1979. But investigators never considered Hernandez a suspect until a tipster pointed them his way this month, saying he had made incriminating statements. He responded with an emotional and gruesome confession: He said he strangled the boy, hid his body in a bag and a box and dumped it near some trash, police said.

His statements launched police and the Manhattan district attorney's office into a complex process of building a 33-year-old case with, so far, no physical evidence.

And it has started the courts on a parallel path of exploring Hernandez's mental health. After defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein told a judge that Hernandez was schizophrenic, bipolar, had had visual and auditory hallucinations, and had been on psychiatric medication for some time, the judge ordered an examination to see whether he was mentally fit to stand trial.

The results aren't yet known, and the judge may ultimately hold a hearing to decide whether Hernandez can go to trial. If not, he would be sent to a psychiatric hospital and evaluated periodically to see whether he had improved enough to go to court.

Such exams aim to assess whether someone is well enough to participate in a trial and aid his or her own defense. They are separate from an insanity defense, which revolves around the defendant's psychological state at the time of the alleged crime.

In New York and many other states, defendants have to prove they were so mentally ill that they didn't know what they were doing was wrong. If successful, they are sent to psychiatric hospitals until judged well enough for release, if ever.

Fishbein, who didn't immediately return a call Tuesday, hasn't said whether he might pursue an insanity defense. It could be challenging to portray Hernandez's mindset so long ago, potentially involving digging up decades-old medical records, tapping friends' and relatives' memories of his behavior at the time, or both.

"The closer you can bring his mental health and treatment issues to the time of the crime, the more plausible it becomes that he was suffering from mental disorder at the earlier time," said Stephen J. Morse, a University of Pennsylvania law and psychiatry professor who's not involved in the case.

Insanity defenses are venerable - they date to a case in 1840s England - and all but a handful of U.S. states allow them. But they are rare. They are offered in less than 1 percent of felony cases nationwide and successful only about 20 percent of the time, according to Richard E. Redding, a professor at Orange, Calif.-based Chapman University School of Law.

Among the hundreds of thousands of criminal cases closed in New York state each year, an average of only about 40 end with either an insanity acquittal or both sides agreeing on an insanity plea, according to state statistics. That statistic might not capture some insanity acquittals that get reported simply as acquittals.

Legal standards for insanity defenses nationwide have loosened and tightened at points over the decades, with a significant tightening after John Hinckley Jr. successfully offered an insanity defense in the 1981 shooting of President Ronald Reagan. Many states stopped allowing insanity defenses for conduct people knew was wrong but couldn't control, among other changes.

Instead of an insanity defense, Hernandez could invoke psychiatric problems to say his confession wasn't valid or voluntary, notes Bryan Konoski, a New York criminal defense lawyer who has worked on insanity defenses. He isn't involved in Hernandez's case.

"One of the psychiatric issues you really have in this case is whether his confession is a false confession," Konoski said.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said Hernandez gave specific details that persuaded investigators his confession was true. He also told people long ago that he had "done something bad" and killed a child in New York City, according to the commissioner.

One of Hernandez's sisters, Norma Hernandez, said Tuesday that she went to police in Camden, N.J., years ago to report a rumor he had confessed at a prayer group. Camden police declined to comment on her remarks.

Kelly said Tuesday that detectives were speaking to Hernandez's siblings and members of the prayer group - and listening judiciously.

"Any high-profile case, you have to be careful, because people come out of the woodwork and make all sorts of claims and statements," the commissioner said.

Hernandez hasn't been linked to any other missing children's investigations, but Kelly said investigators aren't ruling anything out.

Western nations expel Syrian envoys over massacre

Western nations expel Syrian envoys over massacre

In this photo provided by the Syrian official news agency SANA, Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, meets with Kofi Annan, the U.N.-Arab League Joint Special Envoy for Syria, in Damascus, Syria. The meeting Tuesday followed a massacre in Houla, Syria, last week in which more than 100 people were killed, some of them women, children and entire families gunned down in their own homes. Following the meeting, Annan told reporters "We are at a tipping point."

BEIRUT (AP) -- Eyewitness accounts from the Syrian massacre emerged Tuesday, describing shadowy gunmen slaughtering whole families in their homes and targeting the most vulnerable in poor farming villages. Western nations expelled Syrian diplomats in a coordinated move against President Bashar Assad's regime over the killing of more than 100 people.

U.N. special envoy Kofi Annan met with Assad in Damascus to try to salvage what was left of a peace plan, which since being brokered six weeks ago has failed to stop any of the violence on the ground.

Survivors of the Houla massacre blamed pro-regime gunmen for at least some of the carnage as the killings reverberated inside Syria and beyond, further isolating Assad and embarrassing his few remaining allies.

"It's very hard for me to describe what I saw, the images were incredibly disturbing," a Houla resident who hid in his home during the massacre told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "Women, children without heads, their brains or stomachs spilling out."

He said the pro-regime gunmen, known as shabiha, targeted the most vulnerable in the farming villages that make up Houla, a poor area in Homs province. "They went after the women, children and elderly," he said, asking that his name not be used out of fear of reprisals.

Assad's government often deploys fearsome militias that provide muscle for the regime and carry out military-style attacks. They frequently work closely with soldiers and security forces, but the regime never acknowledges their existence, allowing it to deny responsibility for their actions.

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said there are strong suspicions that pro-Assad fighters were responsible for some of the killings, adding that he has seen no reason to believe that "third elements" - or outside forces - were involved, although he did not rule it out.

The Syrian regime has denied any role in the massacre, blaming the killings on "armed terrorists" who attacked army positions in the area and slaughtered innocent civilians. It has provided no evidence to support its narrative, nor has it given a death toll.

Following his meeting with Assad, Annan called on the government and "all government-backed militias" to stop military operations and show maximum restraint. He also called on the armed opposition to stop all violence.

"We are at a tipping point," Annan told reporters in Damascus. "The Syrian people do not want the future to be one of bloodshed and division."

Cranking up the pressure on Assad, the Obama administration gave Syria's most senior envoy in Washington, the charge d'affaires at the Syrian Embassy, 72 hours to leave the United States. Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria also expelled Syrian diplomats.

"We hold the Syrian government responsible for this slaughter of innocent lives," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington. "This massacre is the most unambiguous indictment to date of the Syrian government's flagrant violations of its U.N. Security Council obligations."

The massacre in Houla could prove to be a watershed moment in the Syrian crisis, which began in March 2011 with peaceful protests inspired by the wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab world.

Nearly 15 months later, the country is in many ways unrecognizable from the days before the revolt. Assad, once considered a potential reformer in a region filled with aging dictators, is a global pariah. A country that once boasted it was the safest in the Middle East is riven with violence, some of it reminiscent of the worst days of the Iraq war. The economy is in tatters. Syrians are facing price increases for basic goods and endure regular power cuts.

And in some haunting cases, neighbors who have lived side by side for years are turning on each other, driven by sectarian hatred that so many months of violence is laying bare.

According to witnesses, the massacre, which began late Friday in an area about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of the city of Homs, had dangerous sectarian overtones.

The victims lived in the Houla area's Sunni Muslim villages. But the shabiha forces allegedly behind many of the killings came from an arc of nearby villages populated by Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Most shabiha fighters belong to the Alawite sect, to which the Assad family and the ruling elite also belong. This ensures the gunmen's loyalty to the regime, built on fears they will be persecuted if the Sunni majority gains the upper hand.

Sunnis make up most of Syria's 22 million people, as well as the backbone of the opposition. Even as much of the opposition insists the movement is entirely secular, disturbing reports from the ground suggest religious tensions are boiling over.

The volatile sectarian divide makes civil war one of the most dire scenarios.

Activists say as many as 13,000 people have been killed in the uprising. The U.N. put the toll at 9,000 as of March - one year into the revolt - but many hundreds more have died since.

On Tuesday, the U.N.'s human rights office said most of the 108 victims of the Houla massacre were shot at close range. The U.N. report indicated that most of the dead were killed execution-style, with fewer than 20 people cut down by regime shelling.

Deaths from heavy artillery can be blamed on regime forces with relative confidence because rebel fighters do not have such weapons. But it is more difficult to determine who is behind the close-range killings - particularly as Syria sharply restricts media access.

Still, the U.N. cited survivors and witnesses blaming the house-to-house killings on shabiha. Witnesses also told the AP that shabiha were behind the attacks.

"What is very clear is this was an absolutely abominable event that took place in Houla, and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, women and children," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. High commissioner for Human Rights.

"At this point, it looks like entire families were shot in their houses," he said.

It is not clear what touched off the convulsion of violence. Houla activists reached by Skype said government troops shelled the area after anti-government protests on Friday and clashed with local rebels. Later, shabiha from nearby villages swept through the area, stabbing residents and shooting them at close range.

Videos posted online by anti-regime activists show explosions in Houla and dismembered bodies in the streets, then row upon row of the dead laid out before being buried in a mass grave. Some videos showed dozens of dead children, some with gaping wounds.

According to the state-run news agency, SANA, Assad on Tuesday blamed terrorists and weapons smugglers for scuttling the peace plan, which called for a cease-fire and dialogue with the opposition. The regime denies there is any popular will behind the country's uprising, saying foreign extremists and terrorists are driving the unrest.

Although Damascus has remained largely impervious to international condemnation over the course of the uprising, Tuesday's diplomatic squeeze will increase pressure on Syria's remaining allies, including Russia.

Russia has provided a key layer of protection for the Syrian government in the uprising. Russia and China have used their veto power to block U.N. resolutions against Assad. But Russia has grown increasingly critical of Damascus in recent months, and the Houla massacre has prompted some of the strongest condemnations yet from Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is traveling to Germany and France this week and is likely to come under even greater criticism for his support of the regime.

"We have to continue our work with the Russians," British Foreign Secretary William Hague said. "We will continue to discuss this with Russia. Russia has particular leverage on the regime and therefore has a particular role in this crisis."

Despite some shift in Russia's stance recently, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday the Houla massacre must not be a pretext to push for military intervention from outside. Instead, he urged all sides to focus on the Annan plan.

Hague said that the situation in Syria is more complicated than what international powers faced in Libya last year, when a U.N. resolution ushered in NATO military intervention against dictator Moammar Gadhafi's regime.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the Obama administration remains opposed to military action, reasoning that it would lead only to more carnage. He said the U.S. will continue offering non-lethal assistance to the Syrian people and said Tuesday's coordinated move to expel Syrian diplomats was a signal of the international community's "absolute disgust" with Assad's rule.

Assad still commands a strong army that has proven largely unwilling to turn on him. The entire structure of the state has been built to preserve Assad's power, with the military, the police and security services - even the economy - tied up with the survival of his presidency.

But as the violence engulfs the country, many see Assad's departure as the only way out.

Fawaz Zakri, a member of the opposition Syrian National Council, urged action by the U.N. Security Council, saying the world body "must do something to save the Syrian people's souls."

Activists: Troops kills up to 50 in central Syria

Activists: Troops kills up to 50 in central Syria

This image made from amateur video released by Shaam News Network and accessed Friday, May 25, 2012 purports to show shelling in Jobar, Syria.

BEIRUT (AP) -- President Bashar Assad's forces killed at least 50 civilians, including 13 children, in central Syria on Friday, activists said, in one of the highest death tolls in one specific area since an internationally-brokered cease-fire went into effect last month.

Syrian troops using tanks, mortars and heavy machine guns pounded the area of Houla, a region made up of several towns and villages in the province of Homs, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees activist groups said.

Both groups said at least 50 people were killed. The Observatory, which has a network of activists around the country, said the dead included 13 children. It added that about 100 people were wounded.

An amateur video posted online by activists showed more than a dozen bodies lined up inside a room. They included about 10 children who were covered with sheets that only showed their bloodied faces.

"Houla was subjected to a massacre," a man could be heard saying inside the room.

The Observatory said in one incident in Houla, a family of six was killed when their home received a direct hit.

Homs has been among the hardest hit provinces in a government crackdown since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime began in March last year. The U.N. said several weeks ago that 9,000 people have been killed in Syria in the past 15 months. Hundreds more have died since.

Attacks like Friday's, as well as strikes by rebel forces on government troops, have persisted despite the deployment of more than 250 U.N. observers who have fanned out across Syria to monitor a cease-fire brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan.

Despite the daily violations, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday that there was no "plan B" for the Annan initiative.

The northern city of Aleppo, a major economic hub, has remained largely supportive of Assad throughout the uprising but anti-regime sentiment has been on the rise in recent weeks.

On Friday, Syrian forces fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse thousands of protesters in Aleppo calling for Assad's ouster, killing five people, activists said.

Aleppo-based activist Mohammad Saeed said more than 10,000 people were protesting in the city

"The regime is desperately trying to put down the protests in Aleppo but all this violence will backfire," he said. He added that security forces shot dead five people, including a 12-year-old boy, identified as Amir Barakat.

"Wounded and bloodied people are in the streets," Saeed said.

Also Friday, a group of Lebanese Shiites who were kidnapped in Syria were released in good health, three days after gunmen abducted the men as they returned from a religious pilgrimage.

The kidnappings fueled fears that Lebanon is getting drawn into the bloody conflict in neighboring Syria. In the hours after Tuesday's abductions, protests erupted in Beirut's Shiite-dominated southern suburbs, where residents burned tires and blocked roads.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati confirmed the men were released, saying they were "in good health and on their way to Beirut." The pilgrims were believed to have been returning from a trip to visit holy sites in Iran when they were abducted.

The hostages were believed to be 11 Lebanese and one Syrian driver. Lebanese and Syrian officials have blamed Syrian rebels for the kidnappings, but nobody has claimed responsibility.

Sunnis form the backbone of the Syrian revolt, which has unleashed seething sectarian tensions. Assad and the country's ruling elite belong to the tiny Alawite sect, which is an offshoot of Shiism.

The leader of Lebanon's powerful Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has stood by the Syrian regime, welcomed the pilgrims' release. Speaking by satellite link, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said the group's support for Syria is firm.

"If you aim to put pressure on our political stance, this will not make any difference," he said of the kidnappings.

The abductions came at a time of deep tension in Lebanon over Syria. The countries share a web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries, which can quickly turn violent. Clashes linked to the Syria conflict have killed at least 10 people in Lebanon the past two weeks.

Nasrallah's comments appeared to be an attempt to de-escalate the recent tensions.

"I also thank all the people who controlled their emotions and responded to our call for calm, wisdom and patience," Nasrallah said, referring to a speech he gave earlier this week calling on his supporters not to take to the streets in anger.

NJ man charged with murdering NY boy Patz in 1979

NJ man charged with murdering NY boy Patz in 1979

CORRECTS YEAR OF KELLY'S STATEMENT - This undated file image provided Friday, May 28, 2010 by Stanley K. Patz shows a flyer distributed by the New York Police Department of Patz's son Etan who vanished in New York on May 25, 1979. New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday May 24, 2012, that a person who's in custody has implicated himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Thirty-three years to the day after 6-year-old Etan Patz vanished without a trace while walking to catch a school bus, a man accused of strangling him and dumping his body with the trash was arraigned on a murder charge on Friday in a locked hospital ward where he was being held as a suicide risk.

A lawyer for Pedro Hernandez, who was a teenage convenience store stock clerk at the time of the boy's disappearance, told the judge that his client is mentally ill and has a history of hallucinations.

Hernandez, now 51, appeared in court on Friday evening via video camera from a conference room at Bellevue Hospital, where he was admitted earlier in the day after making comments about wanting to kill himself.

The legal proceeding lasted only around 4 minutes. Hernandez didn't speak or enter a plea, but his court-appointed lawyer, Harvey Fishbein, told the judge that his client was bipolar and schizophrenic and has a "history of hallucinations, both visual and auditory."

A judge ordered Hernandez held without bail and authorized a psychological examination to see if he is fit to stand trial.

Hernandez was expressionless during the hearing. He wore an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. A police officer stood behind him.

The prosecutor who appeared in court, Assistant District Attorney Armand Durastanti, said it was "33 years ago today that 6-year-old Etan Patz left his home on Prince Street to catch his school bus. He has not been seen or heard from since. It's been 33 years, and justice has not been done in this case."

Hernandez, a churchgoing father now living in Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested Thursday after making a surprise confession in a case that has bedeviled investigators and inspired dread in generations of New York City parents for three decades.

Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his two-block walk to his bus stop in Manhattan. It was the first time his parents had let him walk the route by himself.

Next to the bus stop was a convenience store, where Hernandez, then 18, worked as a clerk. When police, acting on a tip, interviewed him this week, he said he lured Etan into the basement with a promise of a soda, choked him to death, then stuffed his body in a bag and left it with trash on the street a block away, police said.

Etan's remains were never found, even after a massive search and a media campaign that made parents afraid to let their children out of their sight and sparked a movement to publicize the cases of missing youngsters. Etan was one of the first missing children to be pictured on a milk carton.

Hernandez's confession put investigators in the unusual position of bringing the case to court before they had amassed any physical evidence or had time to fully corroborate his story or investigate his psychiatric condition.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said investigators were retracing garbage truck routes from the late 1970s and deciding whether to search landfills for the boy's remains, a daunting prospect.

Crime scene investigators also arrived Friday morning at the building in Manhattan's SoHo section that once held the bodega where Hernandez worked. Authorities were considering excavating the basement for evidence.

They were also looking into whether Hernandez has a history of mental illness or pedophilia.

Browne said letting Hernandez remain free until the investigation was complete was not an option: "There was no way we could release the man who had just confessed to killing Etan Patz."

Legal experts said that even though police have a confession in hand, they are likely to work hard to make certain Hernandez isn't delusional or simply making the story up.

"There's always a concern whether or not someone is falsely confessing," said former prosecutor Paul DerOhannesian.

As Fishbein arrived at the courthouse, he asked reporters to be respectful of some of Hernandez's relatives there, including his wife and daughter.

"It's a tough day. The family is very upset. Please give them some space," Fishbein said.

Etan's father, Stanley Patz, avoided journalists gathered outside the family's Manhattan apartment, the same one the family was living in when his son vanished.

Former SoHo resident Roberto Monticello, a filmmaker who was a teenager when Patz disappeared, said he remembered Hernandez as civil but reserved and "pent-up."

"You always got the sense that if you crossed him really bad, he would hurt you," Monticello said, although he added that he never saw him hit anyone.

Monticello said Hernandez was also one of the few teenagers in the neighborhood who didn't join in the all-out search for Etan, which consumed SoHo and the city for months. "He was always around, but he never helped. He never participated," Monticello said.

Hernandez, who moved to New Jersey shortly after Etan's disappearance, suffered a back injury that has kept him on disability for years, according to police.

The Rev. George Bowen Jr., pastor at Hernandez's church in Moorestown, N.J., said he attended services regularly.

"I would judge him to be shy and maybe timid. He never got involved in anything," Bowen said.

He said Hernandez's wife, Rosemary, and daughter, Becky, a college student, went to see him Thursday morning after he was taken into police custody.

"They were just crying their eyes out," Bowen said. "They were broken up. They were wrecked. It was horrible. They didn't know what they were going to do."

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Hernandez gave a detailed confession that led police to believe they had the right man. He also said Hernandez told a relative and others as far back as 1981 that he had "done something bad" and killed a child in New York.

Day 2 Of Cross Examination In Priest Sex Abuse Trial Proves Intense

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Monsignor William Lynn walked to lunch with his family surrounding him, and for the first time all morning, his face wasn’t blazing red.

The second day of cross examination was intense from the start.

The prosecutor, Assistant DA Patrick Blessington, named cases involving notorious priests — with credible allegations of sexual abuse of children who remained in ministry.

For full story go to: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/

Food stamp fraud raising concerns in gov't offices

Food stamp fraud raising concerns in gov't offices

File - In this file photo taken Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010, an Electronic benefit Transfer card, food stamp recipients use to purchase food, is seen at the Sacramento County Economic Development Department in Sacramento, Calif. Food stamp recipients are ripping off the government for millions of dollars by illegally selling their benefit cards for cash _ sometimes even in the open, on eBay or Craigslist _ and then asking the government for replacement cards. The Agriculture Department is proposing new rules Thursday May 24, 2012 to curb the practice by giving states more power to investigate people who repeatedly claim to lose their benefit cards.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Food stamp recipients are ripping off the government for millions of dollars by illegally selling their benefit cards for cash - sometimes even in the open, on eBay or Craigslist - and then asking the government for replacement cards.

The Agriculture Department wants to curb the practice by giving states more power to investigate people who repeatedly claim to lose their benefit cards.

It is proposing new rules Thursday that would allow states to demand formal explanations from people who seek replacement cards more than three times a year. Those who don't comply can be denied further cards.

"Up to this point, the state's hands have been tied unless they absolutely suspected fraudulent activity," said Kevin Concannon, the department's undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.

Overall, food stamp fraud costs taxpayers about $750 million a year, or 1 percent of the $75 billion program that makes up the bulk of the department's total budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Most fraud occurs when unscrupulous retailers allow customers to turn in their benefits cards for lesser amounts of cash. But USDA officials are also concerned about people selling or trading cards in the open market, including through websites.

Last year, the department sent letters urging eBay and Craigslist to notify customers that it's illegal to buy and sell food stamps. USDA officials followed up last month, saying they are still getting complaints that people are using the websites to illegally market food stamps.

Both eBay and Craigslist have told the government they are actively reviewing their sites for illegal activity and would take down ads offering food stamp benefits for cash. The USDA also has warned Facebook and Twitter about the practice.

South Dakota, Oklahoma, Washington, D.C., Minnesota and Washington state have the highest percentage of recipients seeking four or more replacement cards over a year. But USDA officials said that doesn't necessarily indicate a high rate of fraud. All states are required by law to reissue lost or stolen cards to those who are eligible for benefits.

Wyoming, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Alabama have the lowest percentage of households requesting four or more cards in a 12-month period.

In North Carolina, the state already issues warning letters to people who request four replacement cards in a year, letting them know that officials are monitoring them closely. Dean Simpson, chief of economic family services for the North Carolina Division of Social Services, said the new rules would give her state even more of a boost in curbing food stamp fraud.

"I think it would help with the trafficking and let individuals know they are being observed and watched," said Simpson, who oversees the state's distribution of food stamps.

More than 46 million people receive food stamps, nearly half of them children. The average monthly benefit is $132 per person.

Benefit cards work like debit cards, allowing users to swipe them for food purchases at some 231,000 stores around the country that are authorized to take part in the food stamp program. Once a card is reported lost or stolen, it can be disabled immediately. But the USDA does not require photo identification, since several members of a family, including children, may use the cards at different times.

Concannon stressed that the USDA wants to be sensitive to vulnerable people who may lose their cards for innocent reasons. While it may sound suspicious for someone to lose a card two or three times a year, food stamp recipients include many people who are homeless or have dementia or mental illness, he said.

"Our concern is that in many instances, it may point to a trafficking issue," he said.

Last year, about 850,000 people were investigated for possible food stamp fraud. About 2,000 stores were sanctioned for illegal conduct, and 1,200 stores were permanently removed from the food stamp program.

Large supermarkets are seldom involved in illegal activity, Concannon said. The vast majority of fraud is found in smaller shops and convenience stores.

The USDA is currently developing tougher sanctions and penalties for retailers engaging in food stamp fraud. It is also taking steps to make sure that people disqualified from the program for illegal activity are not able to use it again in other states.

Man arrested in 1979 disappearance of NYC boy Patz

Man arrested in 1979 disappearance of NYC boy Patz

This undated file image provided Friday, May 28, 2010 by Stanley K. Patz shows a flyer distributed by the New York Police Department of Patz's son Etan who vanished in New York on May 25, 1979. New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly said Thursday May 24, 2010, that a person who's in custody has implicated himself in the disappearance and death of Etan Patz,

NEW YORK (AP) -- A New Jersey man who confessed to choking a 6-year-old New York City boy to death in 1979 was arrested on a murder charge on Thursday, police said, the first arrest in a case that helped give rise to the nation's missing-children movement.

Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, N.J., was charged with the slaying of Etan Patz, who vanished on his way to school in his lower Manhattan neighborhood, police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Hernandez, who had worked at a convenience store near Etan's home, confessed after hours of police questioning, Kelly said. Kelly said Hernandez told police he lured the boy to the convenience store with the promise of a soda, then took him into the basement and choked him.

"He was remorseful, and I think the detectives thought that it was a feeling of relief on his part," Kelly said. "We believe that this is the individual responsible for the crime."

Detectives are typically barraged with hoaxes, false leads and possible sightings around the anniversary of Etan's disappearance, which became National Missing Children's Day by presidential proclamation in 1983.

The focus on Hernandez came after other leads arose and stalled, at one point taking investigators as far as Israel tracking reported sightings of the boy.

For most of the past decade, the investigation focused on Jose Ramos, a convicted child molester now in prison in Pennsylvania. He had been dating Etan's baby sitter. In 2000, authorities dug up Ramos' former basement in lower Manhattan, but nothing turned up.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. announced in 2010 that his office was renewing the investigation into the case. A few weeks ago, investigators excavated another basement, down the street from the Patz apartment. The search found no human remains.

Investigators questioned a 75-year-old handyman who had a workspace in the cellar in 1979. But he was not named as a suspect and denied any involvement in the boy's disappearance.

Hernandez, who moved to New Jersey shortly after the boy vanished, was picked up there late Wednesday and was questioned Thursday at the Manhattan district attorney's office.

He had been tied to the case in the past, and investigators recently received a phone call with a new tip, according to the law enforcement official. The official gave no details on the tip.

Neighbors in Maple Shade, N.J., said Hernandez lived with his wife and a daughter who attends college.

Sandy-haired Etan vanished while walking alone to his bus stop for the first time, two blocks from his home in New York's busy SoHo neighborhood, which was a working-class part of the city back then but is now a chic area of boutiques and galleries.

Police conducted an exhaustive search. Thousands of fliers were plastered around the city, buildings canvassed and hundreds of people interviewed about a disappearance that ushered in an era of anxiety about leaving children unsupervised.

Etan's parents, Stan and Julie Patz, were reluctant to move or even change their phone number in case their son tried to reach out. They still live in the same apartment.

They did not return a call for comment Thursday.

Obama team trumpets new polling on gay marriage

Obama team trumpets new polling on gay marriage

FILE - In this May 21, 2012 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in Joplin, Mo. Obama's re-election campaign is touting new polls that show growing support for gay marriage following the president's public embrace of same-sex unions.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is beginning to express some confidence that the president's historic, yet politically risky, embrace of gay marriage may not hurt him in the November election.

In a conference call announcing efforts to get gay and lesbian voters engaged in the Obama campaign, officials said poll numbers on same-sex marriage were increasingly tilting in their favor.

"A lot of recent polls show that support for gay marriage across the country is growing," said Clo Ewing, an Obama campaign spokeswoman.

That includes a Washington Post-ABC News poll out Wednesday showing 53 percent of Americans say gay marriage should be a legal, a new high for the poll. Thirty-nine percent, a new low, say gay marriage should be illegal.

A separate poll showed that just 7 percent of registered voters said Obama's public support for gay marriage raised concerns about supporting him. For 31 percent of voters, the president's announcement reinforced their support of him and for 62 percent of voters, it did not make a difference, according to the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll.

Immediately following Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage, White House and campaign aides readily acknowledged that the political fallout was unclear. Obama himself said it was "very hard to say" whether the issue would hurt him in his fall campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Despite the new national polling, Obama's embrace of gay marriage comes with political risks. Thirty states have voted against gay marriage, including North Caroline, a key battleground state where voters approved a ban on same-sex unions the day before Obama announced his public support in a television interview.

The president's announcement earlier this month ended his lengthy self-described "evolution" on the hot-button social issue. While the White House insisted Obama always planned to make his views on gay marriage known this summer, some aides worried that doing so could hurt him politically with socially conservative voters in swing states, like Virginia and North Carolina.

Other Obama aides see the president's support for same-sex marriage as an opportunity to boost enthusiasm and fundraising among gay supporters and young people. With that in mind, the Obama campaign has sought to turn the president's embrace of gay marriage into an area of contrast with Romney, highlighting the former Massachusetts governor's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions.

"Romney's position on same-sex marriage is also historic but not in the way it should be," said Joe Solmonese, a co-chair of Obama's campaign. "He has pledged to write discrimination into the constitution."

The Obama campaign also announced a new effort Wednesday to boost voter registration and turnout in the gay and lesbian community through phone banks, house parties and other grassroots outreach efforts.

Obama team trumpets new polling on gay marriage

Obama team trumpets new polling on gay marriage

FILE - In this May 21, 2012 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in Joplin, Mo. Obama's re-election campaign is touting new polls that show growing support for gay marriage following the president's public embrace of same-sex unions.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama's re-election campaign is beginning to express some confidence that the president's historic, yet politically risky, embrace of gay marriage may not hurt him in the November election.

In a conference call announcing efforts to get gay and lesbian voters engaged in the Obama campaign, officials said poll numbers on same-sex marriage were increasingly tilting in their favor.

"A lot of recent polls show that support for gay marriage across the country is growing," said Clo Ewing, an Obama campaign spokeswoman.

That includes a Washington Post-ABC News poll out Wednesday showing 53 percent of Americans say gay marriage should be a legal, a new high for the poll. Thirty-nine percent, a new low, say gay marriage should be illegal.

A separate poll showed that just 7 percent of registered voters said Obama's public support for gay marriage raised concerns about supporting him. For 31 percent of voters, the president's announcement reinforced their support of him and for 62 percent of voters, it did not make a difference, according to the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll.

Immediately following Obama's announcement of support for gay marriage, White House and campaign aides readily acknowledged that the political fallout was unclear. Obama himself said it was "very hard to say" whether the issue would hurt him in his fall campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

Despite the new national polling, Obama's embrace of gay marriage comes with political risks. Thirty states have voted against gay marriage, including North Caroline, a key battleground state where voters approved a ban on same-sex unions the day before Obama announced his public support in a television interview.

The president's announcement earlier this month ended his lengthy self-described "evolution" on the hot-button social issue. While the White House insisted Obama always planned to make his views on gay marriage known this summer, some aides worried that doing so could hurt him politically with socially conservative voters in swing states, like Virginia and North Carolina.

Other Obama aides see the president's support for same-sex marriage as an opportunity to boost enthusiasm and fundraising among gay supporters and young people. With that in mind, the Obama campaign has sought to turn the president's embrace of gay marriage into an area of contrast with Romney, highlighting the former Massachusetts governor's support for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex unions.

"Romney's position on same-sex marriage is also historic but not in the way it should be," said Joe Solmonese, a co-chair of Obama's campaign. "He has pledged to write discrimination into the constitution."

The Obama campaign also announced a new effort Wednesday to boost voter registration and turnout in the gay and lesbian community through phone banks, house parties and other grassroots outreach efforts.

Inquiry hears of wider Secret Service misbehavior

Inquiry hears of wider Secret Service misbehavior

U.S. Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, May 23, 201, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senators investigating the Secret Service prostitution scandal said Wednesday that dozens of reported episodes of misconduct by agents point to a culture of carousing in the agency and urged Director Mark Sullivan to get past his insistence that the romp in Cartagena was a one-time mistake.

The disconnect between the senators and Sullivan reappeared again and again throughout the two-hour hearing, even as the Secret Service chief for the first time apologized for the incident that tarnished the elite presidential protection force. By the end, Sullivan's job appeared secure even as new details emerged that left little doubt, senators said, that a pattern of sexual misbehavior had taken root in the agency.

"He kept saying over and over again that he basically does think this was an isolated incident and I don't think he has any basis for that conclusion," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the Homeland Security panel that heard Sullivan's first public accounting of the episode.

"For the good of the Secret Service," added Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the panel chairman, "he's got to assume that what happened in Cartagena was not an isolated incident or else it will happen again." Still, Sullivan insisted repeatedly that in his 29-year Secret Service career he had never heard anyone say that misconduct was condoned, implicitly or otherwise.

"I just do not think that this is something that is systemic within this organization," Sullivan said.

The misconduct became public after a dispute over payment between a Secret Service agent and a prostitute at a Cartagena hotel on April 12. The Secret Service was in the Colombian coastal resort for a Latin American summit before Obama's arrival. Twelve employees were implicated, eight of them ousted, three cleared of serious misconduct and one is being stripped of his security clearance. Sullivan said two who initially resigned now are fighting for their jobs back.

"These individuals did some really dumb things," Sullivan told the Senate panel. "I'm hoping I can convince you that it isn't a cultural issue."

He didn't make much progress on that front, as senators offered fresh evidence of what they considered reckless behavior. Lieberman said 64 allegations or complaints of sexual misconduct were made against Secret Service employees in the last five years.

Three of those, Lieberman said, were complaints of inappropriate relationships with a foreign national and one of "nonconsensual intercourse," on which he didn't have enough information to elaborate. Sullivan said that complaint was investigated by outside law enforcement officers, who decided not to prosecute.

Thirty other cases involved alcohol, Lieberman said, almost all relating to driving under the influence.

Sullivan also told the committee an agent was fired in a 2008 Washington prostitution episode, after trying to hire an uncover police officer.

Charles Edwards, the inspector general at the Homeland Security Department conducting his own probe, and Sullivan discussed an episode from the 2002 Olympics when at least three agents were caught in a rowdy, drunken party in the agents' hotel rooms with college-age women under 21, the legal drinking age.

They were accused of plying the women with alcohol, and two were accused of but not charged with sexual misconduct. One agent was charged with disorderly conduct. The agents involved left the Secret Service, Edwards and Sullivan said.

Against that backdrop, Colombia was probably not an aberration, lawmakers said.

"It's just hard to believe that this is just a one-time occurrence," said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.

But Sullivan stuck to that reasoning, pointing out that the dozen agents and supervisors implicated in the Colombia incident were a tiny fraction of the agency's 7,000 employees.

"I can understand how the question could be asked," Sullivan said, calling his employees "among the most dedicated, hardest-working, self-sacrificing employees within the federal government."

He also told senators that Obama's security was never at risk. The officers implicated in the prostitution scandal could not have inadvertently disclosed sensitive security details because their confidential briefing about Obama's trip had not taken place.

"At the time the misconduct occurred, none of the individuals involved in the misconduct had received any specific protective information, sensitive security documents, firearms, radios or other security-related equipment in their hotel rooms," Sullivan said.

Collins dug in. She pointed out that several small groups of Secret Service employees separately visited clubs, bars and brothels and engaged in sexual and other conduct that could have exposed them to blackmail or coercion by foreign intelligence service, drug cartels or others.

She noted that two participants were Secret Service supervisors - one with 21 years of service and the other with 22 years - and both were married. Their involvement "surely sends a message to the rank and file that this kind of activity is tolerated on the road," Collins said. Nor, she said, did they try to hide their activities. The agents signed themselves and their guests into the hotel registry.

Both she and Lieberman seized on Sullivan's account of a government-wide survey taken that found only about 60 percent of Secret Service agents said they would report misconduct by their colleagues.

Lieberman told the hearing it is impossible to establish a historical pattern of Secret Service conduct from what is known so far.

But he said: "It is hard for many people, including me, to believe that on one night in April 2012 in Cartagena, Colombia, 11 Secret Service agents - there to protect the president - suddenly and spontaneously did something they or other agents had never done before."

Prostitution is legal in Colombia, but Sullivan quickly issued new guidelines that made it clear that agents on assignment overseas are subject to U.S. laws.

Biden dismisses Romney's experience in business

Biden dismisses Romney's experience in business

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Keene State College , Tuesday, May 22, 2012 in Keene, N.H.

KEENE, N.H. (AP) -- The presidential campaign debate over Republican Mitt Romney's tenure at a private equity firm is going down the drain.

Vice President Joe Biden argued Tuesday that Romney's experience doesn't make him any more qualified to be president than it does to make him a plumber.

"That doesn't mean that private equity guys are bad guys - they're not," Biden said at New Hampshire's Keene State College. "But that no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber. And, by the way, there're an awful lot of smart plumbers. All kidding aside, it's not the same job requirement."

Romney argues that his business experience with the Boston-based firm Bain Capital makes him best suited to fix the economy and create jobs.

Biden's fourth trip to New Hampshire this year was an acknowledgment of the state's battleground status in the upcoming election.

Though he briefly criticized Romney on social issues such as contraception and touched on Romney's lack of foreign policy experience, most of his speech was devoted to echoing what Obama has been saying this week - that Romney's success making money for investors at Bain Capital is not reason alone to be elected president.

The Romney campaign has called such criticism a distraction, an affront to free markets and a misreading of the firm's success. The campaign released a Web video last week featuring workers from an Indiana company that benefited from Bain's involvement.

Democrats have been focusing on the companies that Bain took over only to close them or let them fail. In addition to running ads and Web videos, the Obama campaign has been sending Biden to battleground states to press the issue.

In New Hampshire, Biden argued that when companies fail, it costs taxpayers in unemployment benefits and costs businesses that end up paying into a fund that helps laid-off workers recover their pensions. Like Obama, however, Biden stopped short of criticizing profit-making in general.

"That's their job. It's legitimate. But folks, making money regardless of the consequences for the workers at the companies they acquire or the communities that get wasted is another question," he said.

Biden said voters have an easy choice between what he described as the Obama administration's "commonsense approach" to a Republican philosophy that he asserted advocates "no rules for the big guys" and "no accountability when the fail."

"We will not go back to the `50s on social policy, to the Cold War on foreign policy, and the policies of our last administration on our economic policies," he said. "We will not do it their way again."

Biden said the economy is recovering, pointing to a chart showing job growth during Obama's tenure as president.

"That doesn't mean a lot of people aren't still hurting, and we're determined to change that," he said. "We've made important progress, but there's much more to do. But progress you can measure, just look at the chart. Progress that cannot be denied. Progress you can see."

The Romney campaign dismissed Biden's argument.

"Vice President Biden today claimed the Obama administration's economic progress `cannot be denied,'" Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in a statement. "He must not be talking to the millions of Americans who are suffering from declining incomes, fewer jobs and skyrocketing household costs in the Obama economy."