Most Recent Posts

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City's crumbling casino market disintegrated even further Saturday as the owners of the Trump Plaza casino said they expect to shut down in mid-September.

Trump Entertainment Resorts told The Associated Press that no final decision has been made on the Boardwalk casino. But the company said it expects the casino to close its doors Sept. 16.

Notices warning employees of the expected closing will go out to the casino's 1,000-plus employees Monday.

If Trump Plaza closes, Atlantic City could lose a third of its casinos and a quarter of its casino workforce in less than nine months. The Atlantic Club closed in January, the Showboat is closing next month and Revel might do likewise if a buyer can't be found in bankruptcy court.

The head of Atlantic City's main casino workers' union demanded state lawmakers help head off what he called a "pending catastrophe" that will affect the state's tourism industry and tax collections.

Trump Entertainment Resorts told the AP that its managers and board of directors "have been reviewing alternatives for the property. Although this review has not been completed and no final decision has been made, the company expects that it will terminate the operations of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino on or shortly after September 16, 2014."

A source with direct knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak to the media told the AP that the company has hired a search firm to solicit buyers for Trump Plaza, an effort that remains ongoing. So far, no buyer has emerged.

The company did not indicate what might become of the building after it is closed.

Bob McDevitt, president of local 54 of the Unite-HERE union, said 7,000 casino workers — or about one in four — have been warned their jobs could disappear within 60 days.

"While this is a personal tragedy for every family involved, it is also a crisis for the state," he said. "We expect Trenton to react with more than just sympathetic sound bites; we demand action equal to the magnitude of this pending catastrophe."

Trump Plaza, which cost $210 million to build, opened in May 1984 as one of Donald Trump's pet projects. The real estate mogul has since limited his dealings in Atlantic City to a 10 percent stake in Trump Entertainment Resorts.

"I let them use my name, but I have nothing to do with it," Trump told the AP on Saturday. "Atlantic City has suffered for years. Many mistakes were made by government, tremendous mistakes, including no reinvestment in town; they would take casino revenue and put it in places that had nothing to do with Atlantic City. I got out seven years ago; my timing was tremendous."

New Jersey in recent years has required casino development taxes to be used only in Atlantic City.

The news is the latest in a cascade of setbacks for Atlantic City's gambling market, which until just a few years ago was the second-largest in the nation after Nevada; Pennsylvania has now taken over that spot. Analysts have long said that the casino market here, and in the Northeastern United States, has been oversaturated, and that some casinos need to close to ensure the survival of others.

On Jan. 1, Atlantic City had 12 casinos. By the end of September, it could have eight.

The Atlantic Club closure cost 1,600 workers their jobs. An additional 2,100 at Showboat will be unemployed as of Aug. 31, in addition to the 1,009 Trump Plaza workers on the payroll. Revel has 3,100 workers who could lose their jobs if the 2-year-old casino resort is not sold.

Trump Entertainment Resorts has tried for years to sell Trump Plaza, the poorest performing casino in Atlantic City. A deal to sell it last year for $20 million to a California firm fell through.

It won less than $73 million from gamblers in all of last year, ranking last out of the 12 casinos that operated then. So far this year it has taken in nearly $21 million, down almost 27 percent from the same period last year.

___

Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Adam Wainwright pitched seven strong innings and the St. Louis Cardinals sent Milwaukee to its seventh straight loss, 10-2 on Saturday as the Brewers mourned the death of shortstop Jean Segura's young son.

Segura left the team and traveled home to the Dominican Republic, a day after his 9-month-old son died. The Brewers observed a moment of silence for Janniel Segura, and the clubhouse was closed before the game.

The 24-year-old shortstop was put on the bereavement list when he learned after the Brewers' 7-6 loss to St. Louis on Friday night that his son had died. Manager Ron Roenicke said the boy had been ill.

Tony Cruz drove in a career-high three runs and Kolten Wong homered as the Cardinals pulled into a first-place tie with Milwaukee in the NL Central. St. Louis trailed by 6 1/2 games on July 1.

The Brewers have lost 11 of 12. They had held sole possession of first place since April 9.

Frustrated Brewers star Carlos Gomez struck out swinging in the fifth inning and tried three times without success to break the bat over his leg. He slammed his helmet and tore up his batting gloves.

Wainwright (12-4) helped himself with an RBI single and tied Cincinnati's Alfredo Simon and the Yankees' Masahiro Tanaka for the most wins in the majors.

Wainwright gave up two runs and five hits. He has allowed just four earned runs in his last six starts.

Jimmy Nelson (1-1) went 4 1/3 innings, giving up eight runs and eight hits. He was recalled from Triple-A Nashville on Thursday to make his first start since replacing ineffective Marco Estrada in the rotation.

St. Louis took a 3-0 lead in the first inning. A two-out error by second baseman Scooter Gennett on a grounder set up Cruz's two-run single.

Wong hit a two-run homer in the second. It was his fifth home run in the last six games since coming back from the disabled list.

Cruz doubled home a run in the third.

NOTES: Milwaukee recalled INF Elian Herrera from Triple-A Nashville to replace Segura on the roster. ... The Brewers will start RHP Wily Peralta (9-6) in the series finale Sunday against Carlos Martinez (2-3).

More than 50 Palestinians have been killed and 450 wounded in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, rockets continue to fly toward Israel from Gaza, but so far, no Israelis have been reported killed.

For people living in and around the Gaza Strip, this conflict has turned daily routines upside down. Life is punctuated by sirens and explosions.

NPR correspondent Ari Shapiro and producer Ahmed Abu Hamda recorded the stories of two families taking shelter from the escalating conflict.

NEW YORK (AP) — A person with knowledge of the details says Carmelo Anthony is staying with the New York Knicks.

Anthony has decided to stay in New York after meeting with a number of teams during free agency, the person told The Associated Press on Saturday on condition of anonymity because no announcement was made.

The Knicks offered Anthony a maximum contract worth nearly $130 million over five years. He also met with Chicago, Houston, Dallas and the Lakers, though the Knicks were able to offer about $35 million more than any of them under NBA rules.

Yahoo Sports and the Daily News of New York first reported Anthony's plans.

Anthony came to the Knicks in February 2011 after a trade with the Denver Nuggets. He led the NBA in scoring in 2012-13 and was second last year.

___

AP Basketball Writer Jon Krawczynski contributed to this report.

Look! Up in the sky! It's supermoon!

Because our celestial neighbor is relatively close to Earth, these full moons will appear to be unusually large. That distance varies because the moon follows an elliptical orbit. When it's close and full, it appears bigger and brighter than normal, although the difference can be hard to detect.

The full moon Saturday may seem huge, but it's just an illusion caused by its position in the sky.

Two other supermoons will come later this summer on Aug. 10 and Sept. 9.

Check out these supermoons from around the world:

___

Online:

NASA on supermoons: http://1.usa.gov/1jxZkPt

Follow AP photographers on Twitter: http://apne.ws/XZy6ny

Comedian Tracy Morgan, who was seriously hurt last month when his limousine was hit by a Wal-Mart truck going 20 mph over the speed limit, is suing the retail giant for negligence.

The complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, says that Wal-Mart should have known that the driver of the truck had been awake 24 hours and alleges that he fell asleep at the wheel.

The Associated Press says:

"'As a result of Wal-Mart's gross, reckless, willful, wanton, and intentional conduct, it should be appropriately punished with the imposition of punitive damages,' according to the complaint."

"Morgan's lawsuit seeks a jury trial and punitive and compensatory damages.

"In a statement issued Saturday, Wal-Mart reiterated that it was 'cooperating fully' in the ongoing investigation.

"'We know it will take some time to resolve all of the remaining issues as a result of the accident, but we're committed to doing the right thing for all involved,' Wal-Mart said."

Look! Up in the sky! It's supermoon!

Because our celestial neighbor is relatively close to Earth, these full moons will appear to be unusually large. That distance varies because the moon follows an elliptical orbit. When it's close and full, it appears bigger and brighter than normal, although the difference can be hard to detect.

The full moon Saturday may seem huge, but it's just an illusion caused by its position in the sky.

Two other supermoons will come later this summer on Aug. 10 and Sept. 9.

Check out these supermoons from around the world:

___

Online:

NASA on supermoons: http://1.usa.gov/1jxZkPt

Follow AP photographers on Twitter: http://apne.ws/XZy6ny

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is asking the Federal Aviation Administration permission to use drones as part of its plan to deliver packages to customers in 30 minutes or less.

The news sent Amazon's shares up 4 percent in midday trading.

The online retailer created a media frenzy in December when it outlined a plan on CBS' "60 Minutes" to deliver packages with self-guided aircrafts that seemed straight out of science fiction.

In a letter to the FAA dated Wednesday, Amazon said it is developing aerial vehicles as part of Amazon Prime Air. The aircraft can travel over 50 miles per hour and carry loads of up to 5 pounds. About 86 percent of Amazon's deliveries are 5 pounds or less, the company said.

"We believe customers will love it, and we are committed to making Prime Air available to customers worldwide as soon as we are permitted to do so," Amazon said in the letter.

The FAA allows hobbyists and model aircraft makers to fly drones, but commercial use is mostly banned. Amazon is asking for an exemption so it can test its drones in the U.S. The Seattle company says its drone testing will only take place over Amazon's private property, away from airports or areas with aviation activity —and not in densely populated areas or near military bases.

The FAA is slowly moving forward with guidelines on commercial drone use. Last year, Congress directed the agency to grant drones access to U.S. skies by September 2015. But the agency already has missed several key deadlines and said the process would take longer than Congress expected.

So far, two drone models — Boeing and the Insitu Group's ScanEagle, and AeroVironment's Puma — are certified to operate commercially, but only in Alaska.

"We're continuing to work with the FAA to meet Congress's goal of getting drones flying commercially in America safely and soon," said Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, in a statement. "We want to do more research and development close to home."

The FAA did not respond to a request for comment.

Amazon's stock rose $13.67, or 4.2 percent, to $341.59 in midday trading. The stock is down about 18 percent since the beginning of the year.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's two rival candidates reached a breakthrough agreement Saturday to a complete audit of their contested presidential election and, whoever the victor, a national unity government.

The deal, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, offers a path out of what threatened to be a debilitating political crisis for Afghanistan, with both candidates claiming victory and talking of setting up competing governments.

Such a scenario could have dangerously split the fragile country's government and security forces at a time the U.S. is pulling out most of its troops and the Taliban continues to wage a fierce insurgency.

Instead, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah agreed to abide by a 100 percent, internationally supervised audit of all 8 million ballots in the presidential election. They vowed to form a national unity government once the results are announced, presumably one that includes members of each side.

Kerry, who conducted shuttle diplomacy between the two candidates late into the night Friday and Saturday, warned that much work still remained.

"This will be still a difficult road because there are important obligations required and difficult decisions to be made," Kerry told reporters after briefing Afghanistan's current president, Hamid Karzai, shortly after midnight.

The audit, which comes after widespread fraud allegations, is expected to take several weeks, beginning with the ballot boxes in the capital of Kabul.

Boxes from the provinces will be flown to the capital by helicopter by U.S. and international forces and examined on a rolling basis. Representatives from each campaign as well as international observers will oversee the review, and the candidate with the most votes will be declared the winner and become president.

Both candidates agreed to respect the result, and the winner would immediately form a national unity government. The inauguration, which had been scheduled for Aug. 2, would be postponed, with Karzai staying on a little longer as president.

Abdullah said the election created "serious challenges." But he praised Ahmadzai for working toward the accord on the the audit and the unity government.

Ahmadzai returned the compliments, lauding his competitor's patriotism and commitment to a dialogue that promotes national unity.

"Stability is the desire of everyone," Ahmadzai said. "Our aim is simple: We've committed to the most thorough audit" in history. Such a process would remove any ambiguity about the result, he added.

Abdullah and Ahmadzai spoke first in English, then in Dari. Ahmadzai also spoke in Pashto. When they were done, they shook hands and hugged. Kerry later joined them as they raised their arms in triumph hand-in-hand.

The announcement came as a relief to a country on edge and worried about how the election dispute would resolve itself. Both the full audit and the agreement to form a unity government drew praise from television commentators immediately after the speeches.

The prolonged uncertainty about the outcome of the election had jeopardized a central plank of President Barack Obama's strategy to leave behind a stable state after the withdrawal of most U.S. troops at year's end.

Preliminary runoff results, released earlier this week against U.S. wishes, suggested a massive turnaround in favor ofAhmadzai, the onetime World Bank economist. He had lagged significantly behind Abdullah in first-round voting.

Abdullah, a top leader of the Northern Alliance that battled the Taliban before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, claimed massive ballot-stuffing. He was runner-up to Karzai in a fraud-riddled 2009 presidential vote before he pulled out of that runoff, and many of his supporters see him being cheated for a second time. Some, powerful warlords included, have spoken of establishing a "parallel government."

Kerry and Karzai discussed the deal past midnight Saturday. When they emerged early Sunday, the Afghan leader endorsed the outcome.

Speaking alongside Karzai at the Presidential Palace, Kerry said the democracy springing up in Afghanistan "deserved its full bloom." He offered robust U.S. support to ensure the deal holds.

The U.N. chief in Afghanistan, Jan Kubis, who will direct much of the technical aspects of the audit, delivered his strongest praise for Kerry. He said Kerry's work wasn't typical diplomacy but almost a "miracle."

Extended instability would have immediate consequences for Afghanistan. If no process had been established and both Ahmadzai and Abdullah attempted to seize power, the government and security forces could have split along ethnic and regional lines. The winner amid such chaos could be the Taliban, whose battle against the government persists despite the United States spending hundreds of billions of dollars and losing more than 2,000 lives since invading the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Taliban have intensified their spring offensive in a bid to undermine the Western-backed government. Saturday's breakthrough came after two roadside bombs killed at least 10 people, authorities said. The Taliban was blamed for the larger attack in Kandahar province.

Kerry repeatedly stressed in his mediation that Washington isn't taking sides.

Kubis and other officials said the talks in Kabul focused on the technical particulars of the U.N. audit. Kerry spent significant time hammering home the point that each side must come together at the end of the contest for the good of the country.

With Iraq wracked by an extremist Sunni rebellion, the Obama administration moved quickly to ensure Afghanistan's political instability also didn't break out into violence. A prolonged crisis also could have had other security implications for Washington.

Both Ahmadzai and Abdullah have vowed to seal a bilateral security pact with the U.S. that Karzai has refused to sign.

The United States says it needs the legal guarantees in order to leave behind some 10,000 troops in Afghanistan next year. If the pact isn't finalized, U.S. officials say they may have to pull out all American forces, an undesired scenario that played out three years ago in Iraq.

___

Associated Press writer John Daniszewski contributed to this report.

The Two-Way

Book News: Co-Author Of Book On How Not To Be Gored By A Bull Gets Gored

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military launched a major offensive Tuesday in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, striking more than 100 sites and mobilizing troops for a possible ground invasion in what Israel called an operation aimed at stopping a heavy salvo of rocket attacks from the Palestinian territory.

At least 19 Palestinians, including three children, were killed in the air and sea attacks, Palestinian medical officials said.

The military said the open-ended operation aims to strike a blow against the Islamic militant group and end the rocket fire that has reached deeper into Israel in recent days.

"It won't end in a day and it won't end in two days. It will take time," Yitzhak Aharonovitch, the country's Cabinet minister for internal security, told Channel 2 TV, during a visit to the rocket-scarred southern city of Ashkelon.

"If we need to go inside in a ground operation, then we will do it. These things are on the table. These options exist. We will not stop anything until the rocket firing ends," he added. Asked whether there were any efforts to reach a cease-fire, Aharonovitch said, "Not now."

Israeli officials said the government had authorized the army to mobilize an additional 40,000 troops, if needed, for the operation. By nightfall, the army said it had mobilized half of the forces, in addition to 1,500 reservists earlier activated.

The rocket attacks and Israeli counterstrikes have intensified in recent weeks as tensions have soared over the killing of three Israeli teenagers and the apparent revenge killing of a Palestinian teenager by three Jewish suspects. Following the kidnappings of the Israeli teens June 12, Israel launched a massive crackdown on Hamas in the West Bank, leading to the surge in rocket fire from Gaza.

Tuesday's fighting was the heaviest since a similar Israeli offensive in November 2012. Israel's military said 130 rockets were fired into Israel.

Late Tuesday, two separate rocket attacks targeted Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial capital. Both were intercepted by Israel's "Iron Dome" rocket defense system. Another salvo set off air-raid sirens in Jerusalem.

Two distant booms could be heard in downtown Jerusalem. There was no word on where the rockets landed or were intercepted. Israeli Channel 10 TV said one rocket hit a house near Jerusalem, but there were no injuries.

Both cities are nearly 50 miles, or 80 kilometers, north of Gaza, the deepest strike yet.

The siren set off panic in Tel Aviv, the country's commercial capital, as people scurried for cover in nearby buildings.

Israel's military said it targeted the homes of several Hamas operatives allegedly involved in rocket fire, militant compounds and concealed rocket launchers. Later, it also took out what it said was a Hamas command center embedded within a civilian building.

Palestinian medical official Ashraf al-Qidra reported at least 15 people dead, including at least five civilians.

Among the dead were six people, including two children, who were killed in an airstrike that flattened the concrete home of a Hamas leader in the southern town of Khan Younis, Hamas officials said. The blast set off a scene of panic as crowds of people, some of them bloodied, fled the smoldering remains. Screaming Palestinians took away motionless bodies, including what appeared to be the two children.

A separate airstrike on a motorcyclist killed two people, including a young boy who was passing by, al-Qidra said.

Late Tuesday, Israeli troops shot and killed four militants who tried to infiltrate a military base in southern Israel by sea. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman, said the attackers made it ashore and attacked the base with grenades and assault rifles. An Israeli soldier was slightly wounded.

Lerner said Israeli forces were searching the area for other attackers. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israeli troops continued to move toward the border in anticipation of a possible ground invasion, most likely in the coming days.

"We will not tolerate rocket fire on Israel cities, and we are preparing to expand the operation with everything at our disposal to strike Hamas," said Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, who announced a special state of emergency in southern Israel.

In Gaza, Abu Obeida, a masked spokesman for Hamas' military wing, accused Israel of violating a cease-fire that ended a 2012 round of fighting. "In the face of this aggression, we affirm the Zionist enemy should not dream of calm and stability," it said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas urged Israel to halt the airstrikes immediately and appealed for calm.

"The Palestinian leadership is conducting intensive and urgent contacts with regional and international parties to stop the escalation," he said.

Abbas, however, has little influence over the Gaza Strip. Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, and despite a recent unity deal that ostensibly handed control back to Abbas, the militant group remains the dominant power there. Smaller and more radical forces than Hamas are also involved in rocket fire from Gaza.

The military says Hamas has amassed about 10,000 rockets, including longer-range rockets that can reach central Israel. The military ordered hundreds of thousands of Israelis within a 40-kilometer (25-mile) radius of the Gaza Strip, including Israelis in the major southern city of Beersheba, to stay indoors and near shelters.

The renewed rocket fire from Gaza comes as Hamas is increasingly isolated and under pressure from Egypt, where the new regime ousted its former patron the Muslim Brotherhood.

Israel is also cracking down on the organization's West Bank operation following last month's kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the West Bank. Israel blames Hamas for the teens' abduction and is conducting a manhunt for two Hamas-affiliated Palestinians in the West Bank it believes carried out the kidnapping and killing.

Tensions have been high since the three Israeli teens were kidnapped June 12 in the West Bank and were later found dead. That was followed by last week's slaying of the Palestinian youth. Six Jewish suspects have been arrested.

___

Heller reported from Jerusalem.

Four years after famously leaving, NBA superstar LeBron James has decided to return to the team where he started his professional career. Many fans in Cleveland say they're excited to have him back.

Six years into his administration, President Obama has apparently not given up on the "hope" that was a major theme of his first run for president.

What else but undying optimism could explain the president's hope for the Texas congressional delegation expressed in his visit to their state this week.

Speaking of his conversation with Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in which the president asked the governor to lobby that delegation on behalf of the $3.7 billion in additional funding to address the border crisis, the president said:

"I urged the governor to talk to the Texas delegation, which is obviously at the heart of the Republican caucus both in the House and has great influence in the caucus in the Senate. If the Texas delegation is in favor of this supplemental — which, by the way, does not include some things that I know many of them object to around dealing with undocumented workers who have been in this country for quite some time — this is just a very narrow issue, this supplemental, in terms of dealing with the particular problem we have right now — if the Texas delegation is prepared to move, this thing can get done next week."

That has a snowball's chance in Houston of happening, of course. The influential Texas delegation members have made few statements suggesting that they are prepared to support the president's emergency funding request.

Instead, they blame the president for the crisis, saying his 2012 executive action that allowed some young people in the U.S. illegally to remain is a magnet for the surge. They also accuse him of not securing the border.

Rep. Pete Sessions, chair of the powerful House Rules Committee, reflected the view of other House Republicans in a statement Thursday:

"Yesterday President Obama stopped in Dallas where he discussed the ongoing crisis at the border and his ideas for how to solve it. Unfortunately, the problem is one of his own doing and his so-called solutions are not sufficient to put an end to this crisis. Instead of proposing productive solutions, President Obama has requested $3.7 billion dollars to enforce policies that have not worked. Instead of throwing more money at the problem, we should solve our underlying problems at the border and put an end to this crisis once and for all."

NPR's Kelly McEvers talks to correspondent Emily Harris about the situation in Gaza, and the ongoing conflict with Israel.

i i

ROCKLEDGE, Fla. (AP) — Call it a different kind of energy jolt. Thousands of gallons of Red Bull spilled onto Interstate 95 in central Florida after two tractor-trailers collided.

The Florida Highway Patrol says the crash happened Monday evening near Rockledge.

Troopers say the truck hauling more than 30,000 pounds of Red Bull was heading north when the driver tried to move over to the center lane because another truck was disabled on the shoulder of the road. When the driver swerved back into the outside lane, his truck sideswiped the parked vehicle. The trailer on the first truck ripped open and the energy drink spilled onto the road.

The driver of the truck was ticketed for failure to maintain a single lane. No injuries were reported.

SAN JOSE LAS FLORES, Guatemala (AP) — A 15-year-old Guatemalan migrant was buried in his hometown Saturday, nearly a month after he became a symbol of the perils facing unaccompanied children who have been flooding illegally into the U.S.

Residents of Gilberto Francisco Ramos Juarez's mountain hometown of San Jose de las Flores filled the house where he grew up to pay respects to the boy lying in a gray and silver coffin beside an altar filled with highland flowers and candles.

A monja blanca orchid, the national flower of Guatemala, was placed on the front door in a sign of mourning. Women prayed inside the house while men waited outside to carry Ramos Juarez's body to the mountaintop cemetery overlooking his village.

"Here, only sadness will remain," said the boy's father, Francisco Ramos.

The discovery of the boy's decomposed body in the Rio Grande Valley on June 15 highlighted the hardships that afflict young migrants as the U.S. government searches for ways to deal with record numbers of children from Central America who are sneaking into the country.

Gilberto was found with a rosary that his mother gave him still around his neck and a brother's Chicago phone number scribbled on the inside of his belt buckle. The body was less than a mile from the nearest U.S. home. He apparently got lost on his way north and likely died from exposure. An autopsy did not find signs of trauma.

His father said that the family had borrowed the $2,500 the boy needed to make the trip north and that they still owe the money.

The boy's uncle, Catarino Ramos, said workers make about $3.50 for a day's work where they live in the mountains of northern Guatemala.

"He left because of poverty, because he wanted to help buy his mother's medicine," Catarino Ramos said.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Chris Carter is back.

Largely absent from the scene since "The X-Files" series and films he masterminded years ago, Carter is returning with a sci-fi thriller, "The After."

Arriving on the Amazon Prime website in early 2015, "The After" follows a group of strangers thrown together by a mysterious calamity that strikes Los Angeles and brings it to a panic-ridden halt.

During a panel discussion Saturday at the summer TV critics' tour, Carter said he resists the label of "post-apocalyptic" for what has befallen the city: "We are doing a show where something is happening, and we're playing it in real time."

The idea for the series had gestated for more than 20 years, he said, sparked by an incident in the 1980s when a box of nails was dropped on an LA highway.

"It brought the city to a standstill," Carter recalled. Inspired by that, he began plotting his own, much more elaborate "box of nails."

The cast of the eight-hour first season includes Aldis Hodges, Andrew Howard, Arielle Kebbel, Louis Monot, Jania Lee Ortiz and Adrian Pasdar.

After "The X-Files" ended its nine-season Fox run in 2002 (with a follow-up film in 2008), Carter took what was largely a decade-long hiatus.

Then in his mid-forties, he was ready to do other things, he explained: "I surfed, I climbed mountains, I read a lot, I watched a lot. I got ready to come back to do what I'm doing now."

He plans to do a lot of it. The first season of "The After" will be eight hours, but "I have a goal of 99 episodes for this. I'm serious. There are a number of influences here, but one is Dante's 'Inferno.' There are 99 cantos, and I'm kind of using that as my model."

___

Contact Frazier Moore at http://twitter.com/tvfrazier

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Former "Saturday Night Live" star Tracy Morgan has been released from a rehabilitation facility as he heals from serious injuries he suffered in a car crash that left a fellow comedian dead, his spokesman said Saturday.

Morgan will continue his recovery at home with an "aggressive outpatient program," spokesman Lewis Kay said.

The former "30 Rock" star suffered a broken leg and broken ribs when the limousine van he was riding in was hit from behind June 7 by a Wal-Mart truck on the New Jersey Turnpike.

The wreck killed 62-year-old comedian James McNair, who went by the name Jimmy Mack. Comedian Ardley Fuqua and another passenger, Jeffrey Millea, were injured.

On Thursday, lawyers for Morgan filed a lawsuit against Bentonville, Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, claiming the retailer was negligent when a driver of one of its tractor-trailers rammed into Morgan's limousine van.

The complaint claims the retail giant should have known that its driver had been awake for over 24 hours and that his commute of 700 miles from his home in Georgia to work in Delaware was "unreasonable." It also alleges the driver fell asleep at the wheel.

"As a result of Wal-Mart's gross, reckless, willful, wanton, and intentional conduct, it should be appropriately punished with the imposition of punitive damages," according to the complaint.

Morgan's lawsuit seeks a jury trial and punitive and compensatory damages.

In a statement issued Saturday, Wal-Mart reiterated that it was "cooperating fully" in the ongoing investigation.

"We know it will take some time to resolve all of the remaining issues as a result of the accident, but we're committed to doing the right thing for all involved," Wal-Mart said.

Truck driver Kevin Roper, 35, of Jonesboro, Georgia, has pleaded not guilty to death by auto and assault by auto charges. A criminal complaint also accuses him of not sleeping for more than 24 hours before the crash, a violation of New Jersey law.

A report by federal transportation safety investigators said Roper was driving 65 mph in the 60 seconds before he slammed into the limo van. The speed limit on that stretch of the turnpike is 55 mph and was lowered to 45 mph that night because of construction.

Roper had been on the job about 13 1/2 hours at the time of the crash, the report concluded. Federal rules permit truck drivers to work up to 14 hours a day, with a maximum of 11 hours behind the wheel.

Morgan, a New York City native, was returning from a standup performance at Dover Downs Hotel & Casino in Delaware when the crash occurred.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Once the World Cup and its traveling circus leaves town, four gleaming stadiums that cost $1.6 billion and hosted massive crowds will echo noisily as their owners struggle to find a use for them or even partially fill them.

In the western Brazilian city of Cuiaba, Chilean and Colombian fans produced sellouts at the Arena Pantanal of 40,000 at the World Cup. The next big game at the $260 million stadium is July 20 — Paysandu vs. Cuiaba for the championship of Brazil's Serie C, or the third division. Officials are hoping for 4,000 fans.

Similar letdowns await at least three other new stadiums built for the World Cup: in the capital Brasilia, the Amazon jungle city of Manaus, and in Natal on the northeastern coast.

None of them has a big-time team, which means no permanent tenants to fill the stands, pay the bills or service the debt. Those venues cost about $1.6 billion, lavish spending that could have been aimed at rundown schools, shabby hospitals and poor public transportation, instead going to white-elephant football stadiums.

Government auditors say the bill for the Brasilia stadium will reach $900 million, the most expensive football venue ever built after Wembley Stadium in London.

Brazil did not require all 12 stadiums used at the World Cup. FIFA demanded a minimum of eight, but organizers decided it would build four more than were needed, mostly to satisfy local politicians.

"The only thing worse than spending a bunch of money on a stadium, is spending a bunch of money on a stadium that no one uses," said Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. "No academic economist thinks that spending money on sports facilities is a particularly good investment."

All four stadiums bill themselves as multi-functional venues that can also play host to social and cultural events, and conventions. They have websites advertising themselves and looking for occupants.

Mauricio Guimaraes, who heads World Cup projects in Cuiaba, said the stadium might host agricultural fairs, business events and "could provide an incentive for the area's third- and fourth-division teams to seek promotion."

In Natal, the stadium will hold a Serie B match next week between America and Bragantino that is expected to draw about 3,000.

The situation is similar in Manaus and Brasilia.

Jose Maria Marin, the president of the Brazilian Football Confederation, said several times that finding uses after the World Cup would "all depend on the creativity, the imagination of the owners and the operators of these stadiums."

History suggests the four are ill-advised outlays. But even if they are, it's a tiny expense for a country with a $2.5 trillion economy. If the World Cup pays off in international goodwill, more tourism and boosts the re-election chances in October of President Dilma Rousseff, politicians — if not economists — will conclude it's been worth it.

Recent World Cups and Olympics have left expensive relics.

The $600 million Cape Town stadium from the 2010 World Cup has hosted just seven football matches in four years. It was the postcard image of South Africa's Cup, built on the seashore and under Cape Town's famous Table Mountain. Officials argue it will pay off in time.

The future is worse for a stadium built in the northern city of Polokwane, which has no major sports team and no way of generating revenue.

The symbol of Beijing's 2008 Olympics, the Bird's Nest's stadium, sits as what Rio de Janeiro Mayor Eduardo Paes recently called "a mausoleum to honor wasted public money."

"We don't see a lot of clear evidence from an economic point of view that countries that host these big events have these great legacy effects," Matheson said. "Maybe a stadium can hold a Beyonce, or a Mick Jagger concert. But there are not 50,000 people who will pack in for many bands."

Brazil tourist officials hope the World Cup exposure offers a boost. A recent World Bank study shows Brazil gets only 5.7 million foreign tourists annually. The Dominican Republic gets almost as many at 4.6 million. France receives 15 times more than Brazil — 83 million.

Robert Baade, an economist at Lake Forest College near Chicago, said he visited Brazil and spoke to sports ministry officials, warning about overspending on stadiums.

"There is the idea that somehow these stadiums are going to serve as a catalyst for other economic development," he said. "It just doesn't work that way. It's not like building a shopping mall where it's open from 9 to 9. There is a lot of dead time. You're talking about a stadium that might be occasionally used."

Baade said he visited Barcelona recently — seen as the most successful Olympics in generating urban renewal — and went to the part of the city where the Olympic stadium is located.

"There was virtually no activity up there," he said. "And Barcelona is seen as a big success."

Mega-events have been awarded recently to the so-called BRICS — an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — countries with fast-growing economies that are marketing themselves using the Olympics or World Cup.

"They want their place on the global stage," Baade said.

Brazil spent about $4 billion — 80 percent of it public money — on 12 new or renovated stadiums for the World Cup, which replaced old, run-down stadiums. Total World Cup spending was about $11.5 billion.

New stadiums will make matches safer, but they are also driving up ticket prices and shutting out the working class and poor who have traditionally supported the game.

"Natal and other northern cities have had a history of violence associated with football matches," said Luis Eduardo Pereira, a spokesman for the Natal stadium. "We hope that the more secure arena will encourage families to come back to football."

Brazil's top league draws fewer fans than the MLS in the United States, or China's up-start Super League.

"We need to find a way to get the poor and working class into the stadiums," Brazil Sports Minister Aldo Rebelo said at the World Cup. "You cannot take the democratic character out of the stands. Such is the soul of football."

A recent study showed that average ticket prices at Rio's Maracana stadium, the site of the World Cup final, had increased about 30 times over the last nine years.

Wolfgang Maenning, a sports economist at the University of Hamburg, defended building the new stadiums, though he said FIFA and the IOC should allow smaller, even temporary venues. It would reduce costs, and for television purposes doesn't really matter.

"If you build a new airport, you will not build it with a capacity that just fits what you have right now," he said. "But you will build thinking of 30 years of potential growth. Of course the stadiums are too big right now."

Maenning argues one way to measure success of the World Cup, Olympics and sports infrastructure is to see "if it increases happiness."

He said both events are similar to giving a big party for your friends; you hope your guests enjoy themselves, and the host picks up all the bills.

"Brazilians are experiencing that it's nice to have the all international teams here," Maenning said. "It makes people feel better to be at the center of media attention worldwide."

Maenning said Germany's 2006 World Cup made people feel better. Brazil might follow suit, although a humiliating 7-1 loss to Germany in the semifinals may sour the mood.

"It is hard to show direct economic benefit for this event, but the goal should be making people happy," he said. "I cannot say about the cost. But we have to accept that the World Cup is a very good instrument to make people happy."

___

Associated Press writer Ana Santos in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

___

Stephen Wade on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP

SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — One year later, Inbee Park is still chasing history at the Women's British Open.

Instead of trying to win an unprecedented fourth straight major, Park has a chance to become only the seventh woman to win four of the LPGA's majors. Instead of photographers capturing her every move at St. Andrews, the 26-year-old South Korean has gone about her work without fanfare at Royal Birkdale.

That changed Saturday with a remarkable start, and a late ruling that put Park in the lead.

On the tough opening stretch at Royal Birkdale, she ran off three birdies that sent her to a 4-under 68. Then, Park went from a one-shot deficit to a one-shot lead when Ahn Sun-Ju was penalized two shots after her round for building a stance in the bunker on the 18th hole.

"I definitely enjoyed it last year," Park said. "But this year has just been a little bit different. Last year I enjoyed it and having pressure and experiencing something I never have experienced before. If I end up winning tomorrow, I'll definitely enjoy this year better."

The 18 holes remaining could be a sprint among a dozen players.

Park had a one-shot lead over a pair of major champions — Suzann Pettersen of Norway (68) and Shanshan Feng of China (69) — along with Ahn. Julieta Granada (72) and Amelia Lewis (71) were another shot behind.

Ahn appeared to be the player to catch after what she thought was a 69 for a one-shot lead.

She was summoned to the rules trailer, where officials determined she used her left foot to build her stance in a pot bunker left of the 18th green. Ahn was assessed two shots for violating Rule 13-3. Her par turned into a double bogey. Her 69 became a 71. And she went from a one-shot lead in the final group to having to make up ground against Park, the LPGA Tour's reigning player of the year.

"It's disappointing, but it's my mistake and I have to follow the rules of the game," Ahn said through an interpreter. "I still have a day to go and I have to stay focused and try my best tomorrow."

The penalty also created a wide-open final round at Royal Birkdale.

Park was at 4-under 212, though 12 players were within three shots of the lead.

One of them was Charley Hull, the go-for-broke English teenager who made nine birdies early Saturday for a tournament-best 66 that suddenly put her into contention to become the youngest major champion in LPGA Tour history. She was at 1-under 215.

Also in the mix was Mo Martin, the 31-year-old American done in by a four-hole stretch on the back nine that sent her to a 77. She also was at 215, along with former U.S. Women's Open champion So Yeon Ryu, who made one bad decision and one bad swing, both leading to double bogey. Ryu had a 74.

Defending champion Stacy Lewis had a 70 and was three shots behind.

Park has been virtually ignored all week, a big difference from last year. That could be about to change.

"Yeah, I start to feel a little bit of pressure from now and tomorrow," Park said. "But I'd rather be having the pressure than not being in contention."

Ahn took the outright lead with a 25-foot birdie putt on the 16th hole, and was poised to stretch the margin.

Her penalty on the 18th actually began with a photographer who took a sequence of pictures at the top of her swing on her second shot. She caught it heavy and pulled it left, into the bunker, as she and her caddie looked back to see who was the culprit.

She blasted out of the sand and over the green, and did well to get down in two putts. Only later did officials determine she had built her stance. She said the ball was on the slope of the bunker and it was hard to make a stance.

"So what I was trying to do was fix a stance," she said. "But after the review, it was determined that I used my feet to try to make an even lie. My intent wasn't to break the rules. It was just to set my feet firm in the sand just to be able to make the shot. But that's the rule. There was no intent and I can't do anything about it."

A one-shot lead is next to nothing in golf. Three shots can disappear quickly. And what could make this Women's British Open go down to the wire is the finish at Royal Birkdale — three par 5s over the last four holes.

"You can make a double so quick on this golf course that you've just got to keep hanging in there," Lewis said. "I you get in trouble, get out, and just stay patient. If you make a bogey, it's OK because you've got some par-5 finishing holes here."

NEW YORK (AP) — The Ramones always seemed too fast. Their songs rushed by, often two minutes or less of pure adrenaline. Their influence outstripped their sales. And now, with the death of drummer Tommy, all four original members of the seminal punk rock band are gone.

Tommy Ramone, born Erdelyi Tamas in Budapest, Hungary, died Friday at age 65, said Dave Frey, who works for Ramones Productions and Silent Partner Management. Frey had no further details.

Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy Ramone, taking their surname from an alias Paul McCartney used to check into hotels, formed in Queens, N.Y. in 1974. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members were among the leaders of the original punk rock movement with songs like "I Wanna Be Sedated," "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "Rockaway Beach."

Wearing ripped jeans, black leather and bad haircuts, the Ramones stripped rock down to its essentials: two guitars, drums, a singer and no solos. Their 1976 debut album had 14 songs in less than 30 minutes, with "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" and "Beat on the Brat" reflecting their twisted teen years.

Their taste also reflected a love for early 1960s rock, before it became "progressive."

The Ramones never had a Top 40 hit, although not for lack of trying. They brought in the eccentric Phil Spector to produce an album. After seeing the Ramones in Asbury Park, N.J., Bruce Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for them — then kept it for himself when his manager smelled a hit.

"This is art," Tommy wrote in the liner notes for a Ramones compilation. "Sometimes it doesn't sell at first. Sometimes it takes a while for the world to catch on."

Their concerts were a bolt of energy, songs tumbling upon one another. "Hello, Schenectady!" Joey shouted upon taking the stage in Syracuse, N.Y., one night in the late 1970s, before Dee Dee let loose with the familiar, rapid-fire "1-2-3-4" call that signaled the music's start.

Upstate New York city. Starts with an 'S.' Close enough.

Bands like Nirvana, Blink-182 and Green Day — who inducted the Ramones into the rock hall — came later and did sell, with sounds unimaginable without the Ramones' influence.

Now, teenagers not yet born when the Ramones played their last gig in 1996, perhaps even unaware of their legacy, wear black T-shirts to the mall emblazoned with the band's distinctive insignia.

Tommy Ramone was the last to see it all. Singer Joey died first, of cancer, at age 49 in 2001. Bass player Dee Dee was killed by a drug overdose the next year at age 50, three months after the band's rock hall induction. Guitarist Johnny, then 55, died of cancer in 2004.

Tommy was the band's original manager and helped produce some of their earlier albums. He was a guitar player in a band with Johnny that predated the Ramones, but went behind the drums when they couldn't find anyone else to keep up. He got out early, leaving the stage in 1978, although he produced the Ramones' 1980s album "Too Tough to Die."

"If you're cooped up in a van with the Ramones, it can eventually get to you," he said in a later interview.

He stayed active as a producer, working with the Replacements, among other bands. He played mandolin, banjo and guitar for a bluegrass band in his later years.

___

Associated Press writer Kristen de Groot contributed to this report from Philadelphia.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's foreign minister said Friday he will tell U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry at a meeting this weekend that Berlin wants to reinvigorate the two countries' friendship "on an honest basis" after asking Washington's top spy to leave.

Thursday's decision to demand the departure of the intelligence representative at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin was "the right decision, a necessary step and an appropriate reaction to the breach of trust that has taken place," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters in Berlin.

It followed reports over the past 10 days that U.S. intelligence had recruited two Germans — a man who worked at the country's foreign intelligence agency and a defense ministry employee. Steinmeier said those reports were "troubling."

They added to friction and frustration over reports last year that the U.S. was intercepting Internet traffic in Germany and eavesdropping on Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone calls

Steinmeier said he will meet Kerry on the sidelines of talks in Vienna about Iran's nuclear program. The U.S. State Department confirmed that a bilateral meeting would take place.

There is "no alternative" to Germany's longstanding partnership with the United States in view of challenges in Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere, Steinmeier stressed. "That is why this cooperation must be marked not just by trust but by mutual respect."

"We want to reinvigorate our partnership, our friendship on an honest basis — we in any case are prepared to do that," he said. "And that will be the message I will give to my American colleague."

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany expects the unidentified American spy to leave the country "promptly."

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man has been convicted of killing a 6-year-old boy who was trying to protect his sister from a sexual assault.

Osvaldo Rivera, of Camden, was found guilty Friday of felony murder and numerous other charges by a jury that reached its verdict after deliberating for less than three hours. He faces life in prison when he's sentenced Oct. 23.

Authorities said Rivera, 33, broke into the children's home in September 2012 while they were asleep and their mother was in the hospital recovering from a surgical procedure. Rivera was trying to assault a 12-year-old girl when her little brother intervened to protect her, investigators said.

Rivera slashed the children's throats, authorities said. The girl ran to a neighbor's house for help.

Two other girls, ages 9 and 14, were inside the home but weren't injured.

At the time of Rivera's arrest, there was speculation that he had been smoking "wet," or marijuana laced with PCP. But authorities said that has never been confirmed, and the issue wasn't raised during the trial.

Claims were made at trial that Rivera was drunk when the assault occurred, but prosecutors said there was no evidence Rivera had consumed alcohol around the time of the attacks.

They also noted his winding escape route, which they said showed a clear awareness of having committed an offense, and his physical actions — such as leaping fences — that demonstrated balance and coordination unlikely in a person so intoxicated they would be unaware of their actions.

Besides the felony murder count, Rivera was also found guilty of murder, attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault, burglary, making terroristic threats, weapons offenses and two counts of child endangerment.

i i

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) — Atlantic City's crumbling casino market disintegrated even further Saturday as the owners of the Trump Plaza casino said they expect to shut down in mid-September.

Trump Entertainment Resorts told The Associated Press that no final decision has been made on the Boardwalk casino. But the company said it expects the casino to close its doors Sept. 16.

Notices warning employees of the expected closing will go out to the casino's 1,000-plus employees Monday.

If Trump Plaza closes, Atlantic City could lose a third of its casinos and a quarter of its casino workforce in less than nine months. The Atlantic Club closed in January, the Showboat is closing next month and Revel might do likewise if a buyer can't be found in bankruptcy court.

The head of Atlantic City's main casino workers' union demanded state lawmakers help head off what he called a "pending catastrophe" that will affect the state's tourism industry and tax collections.

Trump Entertainment Resorts told the AP that its managers and board of directors "have been reviewing alternatives for the property. Although this review has not been completed and no final decision has been made, the company expects that it will terminate the operations of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino on or shortly after September 16, 2014."

A source with direct knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak to the media told the AP that the company has hired a search firm to solicit buyers for Trump Plaza, an effort that remains ongoing. So far, no buyer has emerged.

The company did not indicate what might become of the building after it is closed.

Bob McDevitt, president of local 54 of the Unite-HERE union, said 7,000 casino workers — or about one in four — have been warned their jobs could disappear within 60 days.

"While this is a personal tragedy for every family involved, it is also a crisis for the state," he said. "We expect Trenton to react with more than just sympathetic sound bites; we demand action equal to the magnitude of this pending catastrophe."

Trump Plaza, which cost $210 million to build, opened in May 1984 as one of Donald Trump's pet projects. The real estate mogul has since limited his dealings in Atlantic City to a 10 percent stake in Trump Entertainment Resorts and does not control its day-to-day operations.

The news is the latest in a cascade of setbacks for Atlantic City's gambling market, which until just a few years ago was the second-largest in the nation after Nevada; Pennsylvania has now taken over that spot. Analysts have long said that the casino market here, and in the Northeastern United States, has been oversaturated, and that some casinos need to close to ensure the survival of others.

On Jan. 1, Atlantic City had 12 casinos. By the end of September, it could have eight.

The Atlantic Club closure cost 1,600 workers their jobs. An additional 2,100 at Showboat will be unemployed as of Aug. 31, in addition to the 1,009 Trump Plaza workers on the payroll. Revel has 3,100 workers who could lose their jobs if the 2-year-old casino resort is not sold.

Trump Entertainment Resorts has tried for years to sell Trump Plaza, the poorest performing casino in Atlantic City despite its prime location at the center of the Boardwalk at the end of the Atlantic City Expressway, the resort's main gateway into the city. A deal to sell it last year for $20 million to a California firm fell through.

It won less than $73 million from gamblers in all of last year, ranking last out of the 12 casinos that operated then. So far this year it has taken in nearly $21 million, down almost 27 percent from the same period last year.

___

Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC

SOUTHPORT, England (AP) — Inbee Park shot a 4-under 68 and took the lead Saturday in the Women's British Open after a late penalty against Ahn Sun-Ju.

Park was at 4-under 212 at Royal Birkdale, one shot clear of Ahn, Shanshan Feng of China and Suzann Pettersen going into the final round. The South Korean will be trying to become only the seventh player to win four of the LPGA Tour's majors.

Ahn is still in the hunt, just not in the lead.

After what she thought was a 69, Ahn was penalized for building a stance in a pot bunker left of the 18th green. She was assessed a two-shot penalty, turning her par into a double bogey and her score into a 71.

It also made the final round wide open.

i i

CAIRO (AP) — An Egyptian health official says two people have been killed in clashes during a demonstration by supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Emergency services chief Mohammed Sultan said three people were also wounded in the fighting Friday between Morsi supporters and local residents hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood group, from which he hails.

It was not clear whether the killed were Morsi supporters or residents of Cairo's Matariya district, where the clashes took place.

Weekly demonstrations by pro-Morsi protesters have been a frequent scene, often ending violently in clashes with the security or with locals. Their numbers on the street have sharply decreased amid a security crackdown that left hundreds killed and put at least 22,000 in jail.

VIENNA (AP) — Decisions by the foreign ministers of Russia and China to skip talks on Iran's nuclear program this weekend are further denting expectations that the stalled negotiations will produce a deal by July 20.

The U.S. — which is sending Secretary of State John Kerry to join three other ministers— is putting on a good face. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf says the six powers talking with Iran remain "united in the negotiating room, as we always have."

But the absence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is noteworthy, in light of suggestions by France that Moscow is deviating from joint negotiating stances with Iran. It may also reflect recognition that the two sides are too far apart, and the talks will have to be extended.

The most important disputes over how deeply Iran must cut its nuclear program to gain sanctions relief are between Washington and Tehran, so Kerry's presence is important. He will be able to talk directly to Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is already at the Vienna negotiations.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier are also attending. But the absence of Lavrov and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi could be detrimental — it took foreign ministers or their deputies of all six nations to negotiate a preliminary deal with Tehran in November.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi spoke Saturday of "huge and deep" differences. But he told Iranian TV that "if no breakthrough is achieved, it doesn't mean that (the) talks have failed."

Lavrov is on a Latin American tour culminating with a July 15 Brazil summit of emerging major economic nations, including China. Still, his no-show comes at a troubling moment — just days after Fabius criticized Moscow for having "differences of approach" with the mainstream at the negotiations.

Fabius didn't elaborate. But Kremlin-backed analysts blame the U.S. for stalling the talks by pushing unrealistic demands.

Vladimir Evseyev of the Russian state-run CIS institute says Washington's insistence that Iran shut down uranium enrichment facilities and negotiate on its missile program violates the accords outlining the scope of the talks. The U.S., he said, wants negotiations to "to be lengthy and painful," to keep sanctions in place for its own political agenda.

Diplomats familiar with the talks say Moscow shares Washington's desire for a deal. But while the U.S. wants deep cuts in Iranian programs that could be used to make nuclear arms, Russia would settle for pervasive monitoring, they say.

Former U.S. State Department official Mark Fitzpatrick says the Russian absence might simply indicate that Moscow doesn't anticipate agreement by July 20.

But "if a deal does appear to emerge, I wouldn't be surprised to see Lavrov on the next plane to Vienna," says Fitzpatrick, now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

___

Vienna Bureau Chief George Jahn has covered Iran's nuclear program for 11 years.

___

Associated Press writer Natalyia Vasilyeva in Moscow and AP video journalist Omid Khazani in Tehran contributed.

NPR's Tamara Keith talks to Breena Clark about her new novel, Angels Make Their Hope Here. It follows Dossie Bird, a girl who escapes slavery in 1849 and flees to an interracial enclave in New Jersey.

Film director Richard Linklater's latest movie, Boyhood, was shot over 12 years. NPR's Tamara Keith speaks with the star of the film, Ellar Coltrane, who's spent over a decade shooting the movie.

i i

EPERNAY, France (AP) — Matteo Trentin has won the seventh stage of the Tour de France in a photo finish, after a group crash and hilly final section split the pack — notably ensnaring U.S. rider Tejay van Garderen.

Italy's Vincenzo Nibali retained the overall lead. Van Garderen, who crashed within the last 17 kilometers on the stage, lost time in the title chase.

The sun finally broke through clouds that had dumped rain over riders in recent days for the 234.5 kilometer (146 mile) ride from Epernay, the capital of Champagne country, to the eastern city of Nancy.

Overall, Nibali has a two-second lead over Astana teammate Jakob Fuglsang and is two minutes, 37 seconds clear of Alberto Contador, his main rival.

GRIGNY, France (AP) — It looked like any shantytown the world over — tarps to keep out the weather, scattered bits of trash that no truck would ever collect, plastic buckets to lug water. Then one of the inhabitants of this Roma camp on the northwest edge of Paris, a teenage boy named Darius, was beaten into a coma, apparently by residents of a neighboring housing project.

Within hours, the Roma vanished, seeking sanctuary in a new location on the fringes of one of the world's wealthiest cities. Three weeks later, 16-year-old Darius remains unconscious. His family is in hiding. Police have made no arrests.

France is coming under increasing pressure to answer allegations that it is encouraging harassment of Europe's poorest minority group in hopes that the Roma, also known as Gypsies, will leave the country.

About 20,000 are living in France, a number that appears to have changed little despite a decade spent bulldozing the squats that spring up, season after season, on unclaimed land. In 2013, the number of people evicted equaled the number still here, according to government figures. With job prospects and discrimination even worse back in their homelands in Eastern Europe, Roma migrants keep coming back.

French government policy on the Roma seems to be in crisis. The official in charge of Roma resettlement lost his job last week. The government will not say why, nor whether he will be replaced.

Police say the Roma give contradictory accounts of attacks against them. Roma say they are scared of retribution and distrustful of authorities in a country whose image as a beacon for the downtrodden is sullied by its long record of abuse of the minority. France's Roma policies are under criticism by Europe's top human rights court as well as Amnesty International and other organizations.

Despite European Union borders that opened to the Roma this year, life is about to get even more difficult for them in France: The government is launching its annual operation to destroy Roma shantytowns, scheduled with the argument that homeless children suffer less during summer vacation.

The camp at the Paris suburb of Grigny is among those coming down any day. Of the 300 Roma squatting there, 10 families will be resettled. The town of 30,000, the poorest in its region and boasting the largest public housing project in Europe, has chosen the 46 people who will be offered housing based on their perceived ability to integrate. The families themselves will not know who among them has been selected until the camp comes down in what is euphemistically called a "liberation of the land."

"We did what we could, but we cannot welcome 300 people," said Frederic Rey, the town's spokesman. "We're building what we can with the means we have."

Nearly all of the children are in local schools, and more than two dozen adults have regular jobs. Schooling and jobs are likely to come to an abrupt end when the camp comes down. Officials are in theory supposed to offer alternative housing under a 2012 government order, but in practice rarely do. Uprooted families spend days looking for a new pocket of unused land and piecing their lives back together.

"Out of a country of 67 million, we're talking about 15-20,000 people. It's not an invasion," said Loic Gandais, president of an association in an outlying area of the Paris region called Essonne, the home territory of France's combative prime minister, Manuel Valls. Valls, as France's top security official last year, publicly linked the Roma with crime and disorder, feeding on stereotypes widespread throughout Europe.

With high rates of illiteracy and unemployment, and little access to the European Union's promised labor market, the Roma catch blame for the kind of petty crimes — pickpocketing, scrap metal theft, burglary — that are highly visible in the daily life of the better-heeled. Last week, a group of Romanian Roma was convicted of forcing children as young as 9 to steal cell phones and wallets. It was the sort of trial that for some confirms deeply held prejudices against a group that — as Valls once put it — "does not wish to integrate."

The Roma who come to France from Eastern Europe say any thieves among them are a minority and complain bitterly that the path to gainful employment remains closed to them despite European Union rules opening up the frontiers to workers. Each time they are evicted, according to the Roma and French charities that work with them, they become more vulnerable — to disease, hunger and crime.

Police allegedly told one man to conduct his own investigation to locate the attackers who beat him and smashed in his wife's face in August 2013 in Paris' northern suburbs. In the southern city of Marseille in March 2013, a Roma woman was hospitalized after a crowd attacked their camp with tear gas, according to Amnesty International. In January, a resident tossed a bleach mixture at a Roma couple, only to be released when a judge said it was unclear whether the concoction was intended to be harmful.

"There is a tolerance of violence against Roma communities and authorities don't want to intervene," said Michelle Kelso, a professor at George Washington University in Washington, D.C, who works with Roma communities. "The only thing that will work is systematically looking at how to resolve the issues of Romani poverty."

The attack on teenage Darius on June 13 was unusual only in its brutality.

He was beaten into a coma in the town of Pierrefitte, at the other end of the rickety suburban train line that cuts through Paris. His family visits him in the hospital from time to time. Police have made no arrests in the case, despite dozens of witnesses who saw a group of young men from the projects take him away, then return his limp body to the side of a road in a shopping cart hours later. From cell phone to cell phone, Roma have passed along horrific photos of his broken face and body.

Claudia, a 32-year-old Roma woman who was in the Pierrefitte camp during the attack, fled in fear after seeing what happened to Darius, and is now back in Romania. She could barely bring herself to speak about the day and refused to allow her surname to be published, fearing repercussions. The youngest of her four children was born in May at a French hospital.

Claudia said Darius was sought out specifically by a gang of locals from the projects for reasons that vary with each narrator, but seem to involve a double-cross, a burglary gone wrong or simply an attempt to send a message to unwanted neighbors in one of the Paris region's most troubled towns.

Despite her terror, she expects to return to France. "We are illiterate and can't find work here."

Their welcome in France will be hardly warmer.

"We cannot do any more," said Rey, the Grigny spokesman. "It's not tenable."

___

Mutler contributed from Bucharest, Romania. Associated Press writer Sylvie Corbet contributed.

Restoration work on Rio's famed "Christ the Redeemer" statue is now complete. But can Brazil get redemption from not making it to the World Cup finals?

DENVER (AP) — A judge in Colorado has struck down the state's gay marriage ban.

District Court Judge C. Scott Crabtree on Wednesday ruled the 2006 voter-approved ban violates the state and federal constitutions. He immediately put his ruling on hold pending an appeal.

Crabtree is the 16th judge to void a state's gay marriage ban since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the federal government has to recognize gay marriages in the states.

i i

The National Governors Association held its annual summer meeting in Nashville, Tenn. this week, and the collapsing highway trust fund was the centerpiece issue.

For the amount of money that's expected to be spent in the Kentucky race for U.S. Senate this year, you could buy a bottle of the state's own Maker's Mark whiskey for nearly every man, woman and child in the state.

Some observers say the election could end up as the most expensive Senate race in history, with spending topping $100 million. And why wouldn't it be? It's at the heart of the battle for control of the U.S. Senate.

The incumbent, Mitch McConnell, is the top Republican in the Senate and could become majority leader. It turns out he's not so popular in his home state, which has created an opening for Kentucky's Democratic secretary of state, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

Not only are the candidates and political parties spending big, but so are outside groups. Which got us wondering: if that $100 million weren't going to political consultants, mailers and TV ads, what could it buy?

Somali-Americans may soon find it harder to provide economic support to their homeland: One of the last banks to facilitate cash transfers to Somalia is getting out of the business.

As the East African country faces a potential drought and famine this summer, those cash transfers might grow even more important. That's why the Somali-American community in Minnesota — the largest in the U.S. — is lobbying Washington to find a way to keep the cash lifeline intact.

i i

We tend to think of income groups such as the "top 1 percent" as being relatively stable collectives, particularly in nations like the U.S. that, despite popular rhetoric, enjoy rather low levels of social mobility.

But the truth is more complicated, and more volatile. The average American's chances of attaining the American dream, at least in terms of a high income, are greater than you might think, but so are the odds of waking up from that dream.

By the time they turn 60 years old, 21 percent of U.S. adults have enjoyed an annual household income of above $250,000 for at least one year of their working lives, according to an analysis reported in the new book Chasing the American Dream. And the number of people who temporarily join the ranks of what amounts to the top 2 percent of earners has more than doubled since 1979.

The authors of the study, Mark Robert Rank, Thomas A. Hirschl and Kirk A. Foster, used longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a representative sample of U.S. families and individuals dating back to 1968, to examine social mobility trends in America. The researchers argue that "even when looking at shorter periods of time, affluence is a relatively common event" in America, but one that is also typically short-lived given the "sizable amount of turnover and movement within the top levels of the income distribution."

The phenomenon also extends further down the income spectrum to a group that marketers and money managers refer to as the "mass affluent" — the roughly 25 million households with an annual income of at least $75,000 who are responsible for about 40 percent of U.S. consumer spending. Incredibly, more than three-quarters (77 percent) of working Americans, primarily older professionals, educated singles and working married couples, have for at least one year enjoyed an annual household income greater than $100,000.

For many, however, the experience is fleeting. Even if more than one-fifth of working Americans will ascend to the top 2 percent for at least a year, only 4.6 percent will do so for five or more years.

The short-lived affluence of the impermanent rich is often driven by a specific event — a new job or promotion, a yearly bonus, a spouse entering the labor market — that is either temporary by nature or subsequently undermined by a job loss, medical problem or family break-up.

Still, those who briefly enter America's top income brackets often settle into the tier of the mass-affluent over time and their somewhat illusory gains appear to have a very real impact on everything from their consumption patterns to their politics.

"For many in this group, the American dream is not dead," says Mark Rank, the lead researcher and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "They have reached affluence for parts of their lives and see it as very attainable, even if the dream has become more elusive for everyone else."

According to a recent analysis by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, this group of "new rich" Americans tend to rely on income and not wealth to preserve their social status and tend to be more socially liberal but fiscally conservative than lower income groups. They're generally in favor of gay marriage and abortion, for example, but largely opposed to programs like food stamps that target the disadvantaged and to government attempts to combat inequality.

Can either major U.S. political party tap into this emerging group of fiscally conservative social liberals? If the group's view on opportunity in America is any indication, then the GOP may have the inside track. The AP also cites a Gallup poll from last October finding that 60 percent of those Americans who bring home more than $90,000 per year feel that the average American has "plenty of opportunity" to succeed — a sentiment shared by 67 percent of Republicans, but only 38 percent of Democrats.

Of course there's much more to the American dream than a six-figure income, but it certainly doesn't hurt when it comes to the rising cost of everything from health care to food to a college education. And even if you agree with the late comedian George Carlin that "it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it," it's clear that for the growing number of temporarily affluent among us, the American dream has evolved into a very convincing power nap.

SINGAPORE (AP) — A children's book inspired by a real-life story of two male penguins raising a baby chick in New York's zoo has been deemed inappropriate by state-run Singapore libraries, and the conservative city-state's information minister said he supports the decision to destroy all copies alongside two other titles.

The National Library Board, which runs 26 public libraries in Singapore, pulled from the shelves and said it would "pulp" the copies of three titles, citing complaints their content goes against Singapore's family values.

The books are "And Tango Makes Three," about a male-male penguin couple in the Central Park Zoo; "The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption," which involves a lesbian couple; and "Who's In My Family: All About Our Families."

"The prevailing norms, which the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans accept, support teaching children about conventional families, but not about alternative, non-traditional families, which is what the books in question are about," Minister of Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim said Friday.

He added: "Societies are never static, and will change over time. But NLB's approach is to reflect existing social norms, and not to challenge or seek to change them."

It was not clear how and when the books will be destroyed.

The decision triggered an online petition and an open letter to spare the books with thousands of signatures collected. Some are calling for a boycott of the libraries and their events.

Donald Low, author of "Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus," a book recommending policy reforms in the tightly-controlled Southeast Asian state, said he had pulled out of the Singapore Writers' Festival in November to protest the decision.

"I see no evidence of a significant segment of Singapore society objecting to these books being in our public libraries, even if the majority of Singaporeans are conservative," Low said.

He objected to Yaacob's comments, saying that "attitudes are more complex and nuanced than the reductionist view the minister has taken."

"I've always believed that Singapore society is generally tolerant, open and relaxed about people whose sexual orientations are different from ours — even if we don't agree with them," Low said.

In recent months, religious conservatives in the wealthy, multi-cultural city-state of 5.4 million people have become more vocal in opposing gay rights. On paper, gay sex remains a criminal offense in Singapore, although authorities rarely enforce the British colonial-era legislation.

Last month, Singapore witnessed its largest gay-rights rally with 26,000 in attendance.

In Colorado, where President Obama's approval rating is low and the Senate race is tight, Democratic incumbent Mark Udall largely bowed out of the spotlight of the president's visit Wednesday.

But as Obama made the rounds speaking about the economy and raising money for Democratic congressional candidates, he also spoke about the women's issues that could be key to Udall's electoral success.

At a morning outdoor rally in Denver's Cheesman Park, Obama emphasized just how much is on the line in the midterms.

"So far this year, Republicans have blocked or voted down every serious idea to strengthen the middle class," he said. "They said no to raising the minimum wage. They said no to fair pay legislation so women are getting the same pay as men for doing the same work."

President Obama was introduced at the rally by Alex Dooley, who works at an upholstery company in Colorado. She'd written to Obama to thank him for urging employers to boost their workers' pay in his State of the Union address.

"After his speech, my pay was increased to $10.10 an hour," she said, eliciting the audience's applause. "Right. I thought that was pretty cool, too."

Obama frequently notes that women make up a disproportionate share of low-wage workers in this country, and political consultant Craig Hughes said women also carry extra weight at the state's ballot box.

"Winning that women's vote and winning it decisively is without question the key to winning here in Colorado," he said.

Four years ago, when Hughes managed Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet's re-election campaign, a double-digit advantage with women helped Bennet win a squeaker during a tough year for Democrats.

This year, Udall is hoping to repeat that play, and Hughes noted he may have gotten a boost from last week's Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case.

"The issue of choice and a woman's ability to make her own medical decisions is not new to Colorado and it is something that has been without question a very important voting issue," he said.

Udall argues the Supreme Court got it wrong when it ruled that Hobby Lobby and other companies with religious objections don't have to include contraceptive coverage in their workplace health policies.

He wrote an op-ed for the Denver Post saying birth control should not be your boss's business — and he underscored that point in an interview with Denver's Fox 31 TV station.

"Women ought to make decisions based on their beliefs, not the beliefs of their employers. It's that simple," he said.

Two years ago, Obama's re-election campaign also highlighted birth control in Colorado, and the president carried the state with 60 percent of the unmarried women's vote.

In 2014, though, polls show most Coloradans disapprove of the president's job performance, and Republicans see an opening to pick up a Senate seat here if Udall's challenger, GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, can avoid alienating women voters.

Gardner has backed away from his earlier endorsement of "personhood" proposals here in Colorado, which could restrict some forms of birth control. And when Fox 31 asked Gardner about the Hobby Lobby decision, he qualified his support.

"I think for people who want to stand up for religious freedom and want to stand up for First Amendment rights, I think it's a step in the right direction," he said. "But I also think that's why we've come forward with solutions on the issue of birth control."

Gardner wrote his own op-ed for the Denver Post, arguing birth control pills should be available without a prescription. He noted that over-the-counter drugs are often cheaper than insurance company co-pays, though under Obamacare, most insurance policies are required to cover birth control with no co-pay.

For now at least, Obamacare's birth control provisions seem to be a bigger political asset than the president who pushed for them. Even as he champions the health care law's protections, Udall opted not to appear alongside Obama at his public speech today in Colorado.

House Republicans are pushing ahead with a plan to sue President Obama, accusing him of trying to sidestep Congress and make his own laws.

But the president is also using the suit, which is considered a long shot in legal terms, to score political points.

House Speaker John Boehner says the lawsuit will focus on the administration's decision to postpone the requirement in the Affordable Care Act that large employers provide health insurance for their workers.

But the White House describes the suit as a "taxpayer-funded political stunt," and the president used it as a convenient punch line this week during a boisterous campaign-style rally in Austin, Texas.

There he told a friendly crowd that Republicans are upset with him just for doing his job.

"I've got a better idea: Do something," Obama said. "If you're mad at me for helping people on my own, let's team up. Let's pass some bills."

Obama complains that Republican lawmakers, especially in the House, have blocked action that many Americans support, such as immigration reform and a higher minimum wage.

"They are common-sense things. They are not that radical," he said. "We know it's what we should be doing. And what drives me nuts — and I know drives you nuts — is Washington isn't doing it."

In the face of congressional stalemates, Obama says he'll continue to exercise his executive powers whenever possible. He's already ordered federal contractors to pay their workers a higher minimum wage. And two years ago, his administration granted temporary legal status to young people who had been brought to the country illegally as children.

But Boehner says that in doing so, the president has overstepped his authority, which is why the Republican-led Rules Committee will meet next week to consider greenlighting the lawsuit.

"This isn't about me suing the president. It's not about Republicans versus Democrats," Boehner said. "This is about the legislative branch being disadvantaged by the executive branch."

Obama suggests the complaints are driven by party politics, and that while he'll often highlight executive orders to show he's not hamstrung by Congress, he's actually issued fewer than any president since Grover Cleveland.

"Republicans didn't seem to mind when President Bush took more executive actions than I did," he told supporters at the rally. "Maybe it's just me they don't like. I don't know."

But Boehner counters it's not the number of executive orders that matters.

"Every president does executive orders; most of them, though, do them within the law," he said. "What we're talking about here are places where the president is basically rewriting law to make it fit his own needs."

The Supreme Court has already found that Obama went too far in some cases this year, striking down some of his recess appointments and a provision of the Affordable Care Act that requires most employers to provide insurance coverage for birth control.

In their lawsuit, however, Republicans have chosen to focus on a part of the health care law that's not being enforced: The administration decided last year to put off the requirement that large employers provide health insurance.

Republicans are thus fighting the decision to suspend a requirement that they didn't like in the first place.

In Texas this week, Obama said he's interested in solving problems, not staging photo-ops. But the picture developing in Washington remains one of a deeply divided government.

Tommy Ramone, a co-founder of the seminal punk band the Ramones and the last surviving member of the original group, has died, a business associate said Saturday.

Dave Frey, who works for Ramones Productions and Silent Partner Management, confirmed that he died on Friday. Frey didn't have additional details. Ramone was 65.

Tommy Ramone, a drummer, co-founded the Ramones in 1974 in New York along with singer Joey Ramone, bassist DeeDee Ramone and guitarist Johnny Ramone. All four band members had different last names, but took the common name Ramone.

The band influenced a generation of rockers, and their hit songs "I Wanna Be Sedated," and "Blitzkrieg Bop," among others, earned them an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Clad in leather jackets and long black mops of hair, the group of motley misfits started out in legendary New York clubs like CBGB and Max's Kansas City, where they blasted their rapid-fire songs.

Since its debut album in 1976, the band struggled for commercial success, but they left a formidable imprint on the rock genre. Though they never had a Top 40 song, the Ramones influenced scores of followers, including bands such as Green Day and Nirvana.

Even Bruce Springsteen was moved. After seeing the Ramones in Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen wrote "Hungry Heart" for the band. His manager, however, swayed him to keep the song for himself and it became a hit single.

The Ramones' best-known songs reflected their twisted teen years in Queens: "Beat on the Brat," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "Teenage Lobotomy," "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker."

The Ramones disbanded in 1996 after a tour that followed their final studio album, "Adios Amigos." A live farewell tour album, "We're Outta Here!", was released in 1997.

Johnny Ramone, whose birth name was John Cummings, died in 2004 of prostate cancer. Joey Ramone, whose real name is Jeff Hyman, died in 2001 of lymphatic cancer. Dee Dee Ramone, whose real name is Douglas Colvin, died from a drug overdose in 2002. Tommy Ramone was born Erdelyi Tamas in Budapest, Hungary.

___

de Groot reported from Philadelphia.

i i

MOSCOW (AP) — Family members of a Russian man charged with hacking in the United States insist he is innocent and fear he will die in custody if he doesn't have his medication.

Roman Seleznev, son of a prominent Russian lawmaker, was arrested on bank fraud and other charges this week. U.S. authorities allege he hacked into computers at hundreds of businesses including the Phoenix Zoo.

Seleznev's father, Valery, told reporters at a televised news conference Friday that his son, who was left brain-damaged after a 2011 bombing in Marrakech, will die without his medicine.

The son appeared in court Monday on the Pacific island of Guam and was ordered detained until a hearing July 22. He was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service over the weekend, according to documents in federal court in Seattle.

"There are no medical services there at all, treatment is not available," Seleznev said. "He will die."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Greenberg in Seattle said he didn't know anything about medications or conditions, those are up to authorities in Guam. Greenberg said Seleznev would not be brought to Seattle until after the July 22 hearing.

Roman Seleznev, known by his nickname of "Track2," is accused of carrying out a scheme to hack into retailers' computers, install malicious software and steal credit card numbers from 2009 to 2011.

He is accused of marketing and selling those credit card numbers on "criminally inspired websites" and using servers in Virginia, Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Washington of kidnapping Seleznev. U.S. officials have declined to say how or where he was apprehended.

Seleznev's girlfriend, Anna Otisko, said she was with him when he was grabbed by unknown men at Maldives Airport and put on the plane. Otisko said he was never wealthy and the vacation in the Maldives was a luxury for them.

___

Doug Esser in Seattle contributed reporting.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting with rival Afghan presidential candidates for a second day as the United States struggles to find a path out of the crisis enveloping the nation's elections.

The prolonged uncertainty about the outcome of a runoff has jeopardized a central plank of President Barack Obama's strategy to leave behind a stable state after the withdrawal of most U.S. troops at year's end.

Kerry met Saturday with the candidates, former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, after discussions Friday proved inconclusive. The top American diplomat is grappling for a plan acceptable to all that would allow the United Nations to audit extensive fraud allegations in last month's vote.

The bitter dispute over who is President Hamid Karzai's rightful successor has alarmed Afghanistan's U.S. and Western benefactors, creating a political crisis that risks undermining more than a decade of efforts to build an Afghan government capable of fighting the Taliban on its own and snuffing out terrorist groups like al-Qaida.

Extended instability would have more immediate consequences for Afghanistan. If no process is established and both Ghani and Abdullah attempt to seize power, the government and security forces could split along ethnic and regional lines.

And the winner amid all the chaos could be the Taliban, whose battle against the government persists despite the United States spending hundreds of billions of dollars and losing more than 2,000 lives since invading the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Preliminary runoff results, released earlier this week against U.S. wishes, suggested a massive turnaround in favor of the onetime World Bank economist Ghani, who lagged significantly behind Abdullah in first-round voting.

Abdullah, a top leader of the Northern Alliance that battled the Taliban before the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, claims massive ballot-stuffing. He was runner-up to Karzai in a fraud-riddled 2009 presidential vote before he pulled out of that runoff, and many of his supporters see him being cheated for a second time.

Kerry's hastily arranged visit appears to have succeeded in its most pressing objective: getting both candidates to pull back from declarations of victory and quieting calls among Abdullah's supporters, powerful warlords included, for setting up a "parallel government."

In a series of back-to-back meetings Friday that went into the night, Kerry stressed that Washington isn't taking sides. Instead, it is focused on creating a process that ensures Afghanistan's next leader is viewed as legitimate. "But I can't tell you that's an automatic at this point," he told reporters at one point.

Kerry is expected to travel to Vienna later Saturday to join foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany for nuclear negotiations with Iran.

Senior U.S. officials said the talks in Kabul focused on the technical particulars of a U.N. audit and hammering home the point that whoever proves the winner, the new government must bridge Afghanistan's many ethnic and regional divides.

However, one of the officials said only the "beginnings of conversations" had occurred and offered no prediction of any breakthrough. The officials briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to be quoted while the talks were ongoing.

Behind closed doors, Ghani and Abdullah differed on the fine points of the U.N.'s audit plan. Abdullah, for example, wants more voting districts examined. Other questions center on who would be included among the investigators, where they'd travel and how they'd assess the level of fraud.

With Iraq wracked by insurgency, Afghanistan's post-election chaos is posing a new challenge to Obama's effort to leave behind two secure governments while ending America's long wars.

Both Ghani and Abdullah have vowed to sign a bilateral security pact with Washington, which says it needs the legal guarantees in order to leave behind some 10,000 troops in Afghanistan after most of the American military pulls out over the next five months.

If no clear leader emerges, the U.S. may have to bring home all its forces, an unwanted scenario that played out in Iraq just three years ago. In recent months, a Sunni Islamist insurgency has conquered a series of Iraqi cities and the country has shown signs of fracturing.

Karzai has refused to sign a U.S.-Afghan agreement, leaving it in the hands of his successor.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans took the initial step on Thursday to sue President Barack Obama over the administration's decision to delay the employer mandate of the health care law.

Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced that Republicans had released a draft resolution that would authorize the House to file suit amid GOP criticism that the president has declined to faithfully execute the laws of the country.

"In 2013, the president changed the health care law without a vote of Congress, effectively creating his own law by literally waiving the employer mandate and the penalties for failing to comply with it," Boehner said in a statement. "That's not the way our system of government was designed to work. No president should have the power to make laws on his or her own."

The House Rules Committee has scheduled a hearing on the resolution next week, with a House vote later this month.

Obama has called the GOP effort a "stunt" and criticized lawmakers for inaction on legislation such as a stalled bill to overhaul the nation's immigration system.

Boehner's actions on the lawsuit come as some Republicans are demanding a far more formidable step — impeachment.

Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and others have called for Obama's impeachment. Boehner said Thursday that he disagrees with those calls, but asserts that others can make a determination on their own whether the chief executive deserves it.

CLEVELAND (AP) — LeBron James is coming back to Cleveland. Forget about all those fans who burned jerseys when he left — the city is ready to welcome its NBA superstar home.

Within hours of his announcement Friday that he was leaving Miami to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers, fans celebrated in the streets and an electronic billboard with James' image lit up the side of a building.

James explained in a Sports Illustrated essay that being near his hometown in northeast Ohio was a big factor in his decision. "I always believed that I'd return to Cleveland and finish my career there. I just didn't know when. After the season, free agency wasn't even a thought. But I have two boys and my wife, Savannah, is pregnant with a girl. I started thinking about what it would be like to raise my family in my hometown."

Take a look at how Cleveland is celebrating.

NEW YORK (AP) — Next stop: New York.

The NBA unveiled the logo for the 2015 All-Star weekend on Thursday, a subway-inspired theme that's fitting for an event that will have fans on the move when it comes to the Big Apple.

The Friday and Saturday events will be held at Brooklyn's Barclays Center, before the All-Star game is staged at Madison Square Garden, home of the Knicks, on Sunday, Feb. 15.

The logo features the teams' abbreviations, BKN and NYK, next to a picture inspired by the colorful subway and bus line maps that are featured throughout the city's transportation system. The numbers in 2015 are written to appear like they are subway lines.