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President Obama will ask Congress for about $2 billion in emergency funds and for a change in the law in an effort to stem the tide of Central American immigrants flooding the Southern border, according to a White House official.

The New York Times, which first reported the story, adds:

"Mr. Obama will send a letter on Monday to alert Congress that he will seek an emergency appropriation for rapidly expanding border enforcement actions and humanitarian assistance programs to cope with the influx, which includes record numbers of unaccompanied minors and adults bringing children. The officials gave only a general estimate of the amount, saying the White House would send a detailed request for the funds when Congress returned after the Fourth of July recess that began Friday and ends July 7.

"The president will also ask Congress to revise existing statutes to give the Homeland Security secretary, Jeh Johnson, new authorities to accelerate the screening and deportation of young unaccompanied migrants who are not from Mexico. Fast-track procedures are already in place to deport young migrants from Mexico because it shares a border with the United States."

Many home-buyers have been throwing down cold hard cash for their entire house purchase in recent years. Some are baby-boomers who sold a bigger house and are downsizing. Some are investors. Others are from outside the U.S.

"Top of the list in terms of cash sales in the first quarter was Florida, with 64 percent of all sales going to cash buyers, followed by New York, 59 percent; Alabama, 56 percent," says Daren Blomquist, vice president of RealtyTrac, which did study on cash purchases.

Many housing economists, however, think the numbers in that study are overstated — which suggests that even some experts aren't certain about exactly what's happening.

More than six years after the housing crash, economists are still trying to figure out what exactly is going on with the housing market.

Many feel it's too hard for people to get mortgages, and say that's partly why sales are sluggish. Homebuilding remains slumped at levels not seen since World War II.

"Where are we in this recovery is a key question," says Chris Herbert, research director at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. The center just released a major report on the state of the market.

"Housing traditionally plays a very strong role in driving the economy out of recession," Herbert says. "Here we are six years later and it's still yet to do that, and the economy as a result is still not really on very strong footing."

"Over the past year," he says, "the housing market threw us a double head-fake."

The first was last spring and summer. Interest rates had fallen to very low levels, and that helped to juice up the market. Sales picked up, home prices rose, and it finally looked like the housing recovery that the economy had been waiting for.

"That led to expectations that housing really was starting to find another gear and play that role," Herbert says.

But interest rates rose and home sales cooled. Then, the second head-fake: The long, cold winter put a damper on housing and made the market look even more dismal than it actually was, Herbert says.

Now, he says, the markets may be settling back into a better-than-dismal but still disappointingly long and slow slog back to normal.

Another factor slowing the recovery is tight credit, says Mike Calhoun, president of the Center for Responsible Lending. He says lenders are being too cautious, keeping many first-time homebuyers out of the market — even though interest rates are low, which would make housing in most places affordable.

"One of the ironies is it's a good time for people to buy houses, but they can't get the credit," Calhoun says.

Another problem: Some would-be buyers are beat out on houses by cash purchasers while they wait for mortgage approval. That's doubly frustrating to people who want to buy but are forced to rent, because rental costs have risen in recent years.

"So while we used to think about affordability as something that affected low-income families, it's really moving up the economic ladder," says Lisa Sturtevant, director of the D.C.-based Center for Housing Policy. "Middle-class families are having a hard time finding housing they can afford."

The report found that half of all renters in this country now pay what the federal government considers unaffordable rents — more than 30 percent of gross income. More than a quarter of all renters are paying more than half their income on rent.

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt will restrict sermons during the holy month of Ramadan to topics of faith and morality, the state's top official in charge of religious affairs said Sunday, in the latest measure by the government to control mosques and limit access of opponents to them.

The announcement is yet another move by authorities to crackdown on supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and limiting in the process free speech in the deeply polarized country.

Mohammed Mokhtar Gomaa said the decision should ensure that sermons during Islam's holy month of fasting "unite people, not divide them." He said the religious speech had been "hijacked" for political purposes, in reference to the previous government, led by Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

"The religious speech was politically driven, which affected the moral side," he told reporters at a news conference on the first day of the observance. "Now we're in a race against time trying to restore morals."

Morsi was ousted last year following mass protests against him denouncing his group's attempt to monopolize power. The military removed Morsi, and its chief, Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, was elected president earlier this month.

In his campaign, el-Sissi stressed that religious discourse needs to be restructured, saying a free for all interpretation of religion has helped spread extremism. Islamist groups rely on mosques to recruit new members and also rally for political positions ahead of votes.

Since Morsi's ouster, religious authorities moved to purge mosques from preachers deemed supportive of Islamists and have set guidelines for Friday sermons.

Gomaa said new regulations will also specify what the sermons will address in Ramadan, when more worshippers than usual spend time in mosques, praying and listening to religious lessons. Ramadan is the time Muslims believe God started to reveal the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, and for believers, it is a time of reflection and worship, remembering the hardships of others and being charitable.

The ministry has also set new rules to regulate a Ramadan tradition — one where many people spend the last ten days of the month inside mosques, praying, fasting and reading the Quran. The Brotherhood and other Islamist groups often used the retreat for recruitment.

The ministry's website said that this year, the stay would be allowed only in central mosques under the supervision of a state-authorized cleric. The buildings will only host people who live in the immediate neighborhood.

It was not clear how the government plans to implement the regulations.

Some 12,000 independent preachers have been barred from delivering sermons. In recent months, the ministry's website had been posting outlines for the weekly sermons delivered each Friday. Anyone who strays from them in Egypt's more than 100,000 mosques risks removal.

Last Friday's sermon spoke about "rationalizing consumption," just after the president mentioned the country needed belt-tightening efforts from all Egyptians.

Gomaa said Sunday 50,000 licensed preachers will be deployed to lead late night Ramadan prayers. The ministry had already restricted preaching in mosques to state-authorized clerics.

He reiterated a ban on holding Friday prayers at thousands of small, unregulated mosques known as "zawaya."

A number of measures have been used to crack down on the Brotherhood. It has been declared a terrorist organization and some of its members have had their assets frozen. The government has also passed a new law restricting protests.

In a separate development, a Cairo appeal court has set July 22 as the date of a retrial for a prominent Egyptian activist sentenced to 15 years in prison in absentia for organizing an unauthorized protest and assaulting a policeman.

The sentencing of Alaa Abdel-Fattah and 24 others was the latest blow to liberal activists at a time of rapidly eroding freedoms.

The sentence was the toughest against any of the secular activists behind the 18-day uprising that ended the reign of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011. It is also the first conviction of a prominent activist since el-Sissi took office.

Meshach Taylor, who played a lovable ex-convict surrounded by boisterous Southern belles on the sitcom "Designing Women" and appeared in numerous other TV and film roles, died of cancer at age 67, his agent said Sunday.

Taylor died Saturday at his home near Los Angeles, according to agent Dede Binder.

Taylor got an Emmy nod for his portrayal of Anthony Bouvier on "Designing Women" from 1986 to 1993. Then he costarred for four seasons on another successful comedy, "Dave's World," as the best friend of a newspaper humor columnist played by the series' star, Harry Anderson.

Other series included the cult favorite "Buffalo Bill" and the popular Nickelodeon comedy "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide."

Taylor's movie roles included a flamboyant window dresser in the 1987 comedy-romance "Mannequin" as well as "Damien: Omen II."

He guested on many series including "Hannah Montana," "The Unit," "Hill Street Blues," "Barney Miller," "Lou Grant," "The Drew Carey Show," and, in an episode that aired in January, "Criminal Minds," which stars Joe Montegna, with whom Taylor performed early in his career as a fellow member of Chicago's Organic Theater Company. Taylor also had been a member of that city's Goodman Theatre.

The Boston-born Taylor started acting in community shows in New Orleans, where his father was dean of students at Dillard University. He continued doing roles in Indianapolis after his father moved to Indiana University as dean of the college of arts and sciences.

After college, Taylor got a job at an Indianapolis radio station, where he rose from a "flunky job" to Statehouse reporter, he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 1989.

"It was interesting for a while," he said. "But once you get involved in Indiana politics you see what a yawn it is."

Resuming his acting pursuit, he set up a black arts theater to keep kids off the street, then joined the national touring company of "Hair." His acting career was launched.

After "Hair," he became a part of the burgeoning theater world in Chicago, where he stayed until 1979 before heading for Los Angeles.

Taylor played the assistant director in "Buffalo Bill," the short-lived NBC sitcom about an arrogant and self-centered talk show host played by Dabney Coleman. It lasted just one season, 1983-84, disappointing its small but fervent following.

Seemingly his gig on "Designing Women" could have been even more short-lived. It was initially a one-shot.

"It was for the Thanksgiving show, about halfway through the first season," Taylor said. But producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason told him if the character clicked with audiences he could stay.

It did. He spun comic gold with co-stars Jean Smart, Dixie Carter, Annie Potts and Delta Burke, and never left.

Meanwhile, his real life worked its way into one episode.

"We were doing some promotional work in Lubbock, Texas, and somehow Delta Burke and I got booked into the same hotel suite," he said. They alerted their respective significant others to the mix-up, then muddled through with the shared accommodations.

"When we got back I told Linda, and she put it into a show: We got stranded at a motel during a blizzard and ended up in the same bed!"

Taylor is survived by his four children and his wife, Bianca Ferguson.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore@ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier