The Post reported on Thursday that the U.S. National Security Agency and the FBI are "tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies" through a highly classified program known as PRISM, extracting audio, video, photographs, emails, documents and connection logs.

"We do not provide any government organization with direct access to Facebook servers," Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan said in a statement. "When Facebook is asked for data or information about specific individuals, we carefully scrutinize any such request for compliance with all applicable laws, and provide information only to the extent required by law."

(Reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Gary Hill)

RELATED:

NWS officialsthat the tornado's diameter was measured with a "mobile radar unit" stationed on a stretch of U.S. Route 81 just south of El Reno, near where the twister passed through the town of 16,729 residents. The radar unit was, presumably, luckier than the  that was upended by the very tornado it was designed to chase — and the storm chasers who, miraculously, made it out of the car alive. .

"We may have to cancel the proposed grand prix," the Bangkok Post quoted Somsak Phurisisak as saying after protests by locals and environmentalists and legislation against racing in the historic area of the city.

He said the island resort of Phuket could be an alternative, along with the cities of Khon Kaen and Nakhon Ratchasima in northeast Thailand.

However, any plans for races there would depend on the approval of the sport's commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone, who draws up the calendar.

The Thai authorities have been talking about hosting a floodlit night race around the streets of Bangkok with an agreement in principle for the country's F1 debut reached with Ecclestone last year.

Critics have said the noise and vibrations of a race in Bangkok could damage the city's historic landmarks and Buddhist temples.

Formula One already has grand prix in nearby Malaysia, on a circuit, and a night-time street race in Singapore.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin in London, editing by Mark Meadows)

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Nevada Supreme Court justices sought common ground Tuesday but found sharp differences remaining between lawyers arguing the fate of a flawed hotel at the CityCenter development on the Las Vegas Strip.

An attorney for property owner MGM Resorts International used his last moments arguing before the justices to point to an April 25 letter in which a consultant for general contractor Tutor Perini Corp. told Clark County building code enforcers that recent testing on structural elements has made the Harmon Hotel tower unsafe to repair.

"Now there is no dispute between experts," Mark Ferrario, the lawyer representing MGM Resorts, said as time expired.

Attorney George Ogilvie, representing Tutor Perini, didn't have a chance to answer Ferrario before the five justices who heard the case adjourned the hearing with a promise to rule in the weeks ahead.

But Ogilvie later told The Associated Press that he didn't agree with what Ferrario said. He declined additional comment.

MGM Resorts and subsidiary CitiCenter Land LLC want the structure torn down even before a jury hears a nearly $500 million construction defect lawsuit next January. The company points to a consultant's April 2011 report that the building could collapse in a strong earthquake.

Tutor Perini argues that demolition would destroy evidence of good work and leave the impression in jurors' minds that the builder was at fault.

The ending punctuated oral arguments that began with Perini lawyers arguing that MGM Resorts has improperly shielded from public disclosure documents showing the use of public relations firms to shape discussion about the fate of the 26-story curved blue glass Harmon tower.

"They're massaging the media to get the public opinion against Perini," attorney Jeffrey Silvestri said. "CityCenter is trying to taint the jury pool."

Attorney Alexander Robertson IV, representing MGM Mirage Design Group and CityCenter Land LLC, said competent attorneys sometimes rely on advice, impressions and strategies offered by non-lawyer media relations experts. He said the result can properly remain confidential.

The Harmon was to have been the 48-story centerpiece of the glittery $8.5 billion CityCenter project that opened in December 2009. The complex features several hotels, condominiums, a casino and an upscale shopping and restaurant complex. It is owned by MGM Resorts and Dubai World.

The Harmon stands instead empty at the entrance of the 67-acre master-planned development. It has found use as a giant building-wrap advertisement.

The justices who heard the Harmon demolition case in Las Vegas are being asked to decide a narrow legal question: Whether Clark County District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez properly determined that tests that tore into parts of the 26-story Harmon Hotel tower to gauge structural integrity met the state's legal standards to let experts extrapolate conclusions about the rest of the building.

The high court is also being asked whether Gonzalez improperly sanctioned MGM Resorts for failing to randomly choose test sites.

Gonzalez last summer approved demolition, then withdrew permission in December pending another round of destructive testing.

Justice James Hardesty took the unusual step of trying several times to elicit agreements from Ferrario and Ogilvie to narrow the scope of the dispute to issues best handled with routine disclosures before trial.

At one point, it appeared that the two sides agreed on most points, with fees and costs yet to be determined.

But Ferrario stepped back to the podium at the end to say MGM Resorts still seeks a ruling on whether Gonzalez abused judicial authority by rejecting testimony from a CityCenter structural engineering consultant and refusing to allow the extrapolation question to be raised at trial.

"This is a classic battle of experts that should have been heard in front of a jury," Ferrario said.

Gonzalez has a status conference in the case scheduled for Friday in Las Vegas.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. transportation security official said on Wednesday that he had decided not to permit passengers to carry small knives on airplanes, after receiving a drumbeat of criticism from flight attendants and the public that easing restrictions would increase flight dangers.

Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole, who had proposed to loosen rules put in place in the wake of the September 11 hijackings, told Reuters he had decided to scrap the changes.

"After extensive engagement with the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, law enforcement officials, passenger advocates, and other important stakeholders, TSA will continue to enforce the current prohibited items list," Pistole said.

Hijackers in the September 11 attacks used small knives to attack crew members and gain control of aircraft. Cockpits on commercial planes have since been required to have locked doors during flights.

In March, the TSA said that effective April 25, it would allow knives with blades that are 2.36 inches or less to be carried onto airplanes. The proposed rules would also have allowed passengers to carry on hockey sticks, golf clubs or billiard cues.

Just days before the rules were due to go into effect, the TSA delayed the change. Now, six weeks later, Pistole announced he would scrap the proposed rules altogether.

Flight attendants, who had mobilized a massive campaign and started a legal battle to keep the knives off airplanes, applauded Pistole for reversing course and for taking time to hear their concerns.

"Terrorists armed only with knives killed thousands of Americans on 9/11/2001. As the women and men on the front lines in the air, we vowed to do everything in our power to protect passengers and flight crews from harm and prevent that type of atrocity from happening ever again," the 90,000-member Flight Attendants Union Coalition said in a statement.

"The TSA was created because of small blades and blades have no place on the airplane. Now we'll make sure that those weapons are never allowed on our airplanes," said Sara Nelson, international vice president of the Association of Flight Attendants.

During a congressional hearing in March, Pistole had defended the rule changes, saying the TSA was facing budget cuts and needed to prioritize threats. He said the agency finds about 2,000 small pocket knives at checkpoints each day and each one takes about two to three minutes to find and confiscate - time that could be used looking for more lethal weapons like non-metallic explosives devices.

But lawmakers expressed outrage at the plan to ease up on the rules, saying small knives and items like hockey sticks and golf clubs could cause serious harm in confined areas like airplane cabins.

The House of Representatives will vote as soon as late Wednesday on an amendment to the 2014 Homeland Security spending bill that would prohibit the TSA from using its funds to implement the proposed knives rule.

The amendment, which will still be voted on in spite of the TSA's decision to scrap the rule, had strong bipartisan support and was not to pass, a congressional aide said.

One of the lawmakers who sponsored the amendment, Democratic Representative Ed Markey of Massachusetts, praised Pistole for listening to the dissent and "for having the courage to change course."

(Reporting by Deborah Charles; Editing by Philip Barbara)

Knox, 25, spent four years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher while they were exchange students in Perugia, a hilltop Italian university town popular with foreigners. Knox, who became a tabloid sensation in Britain and Italy, was acquitted on appeal in 2011. She returned to her Seattle-area home, but Italy's high court last month ordered a retrial.

In the hotly anticipated memoir, published by HarperCollins and in bookstores on Tuesday, Knox maintained her innocence and wrote that she regretted that in prison she had never reached out to Kercher's family to say that the girl's death had been a "heartbreak to so many."

The memoir was released in conjunction with an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that is due to air on Tuesday evening.

Knox wrote that she wished she had reached out to Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner whom Knox falsely accused of the murder. Lumumba, who was briefly jailed and then cleared, said in 2011 that Knox's accusation destroyed his life.

"Naming him was unforgivable, and he didn't deserve it, but I wanted to say that it wasn't about him," Knox wrote. "I was pushed so hard that I'd have named anyone."

Knox penned letters to both, but her lawyers advised against sending them because it would hurt her legal case.

In the 457-page memoir, Knox writes of arriving in Italy at age 20 with "rookie Italian" and a penchant for "immature antics," eager to develop independence and come into her own.

Knox writes that she and Kercher bonded right away: "We did what all girls do: we talked about the guys we liked in Perugia and the ones we'd left behind."

She denies that the relationship soured and describes a friendly final encounter as Knox and her new boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, left the shared apartment hours before the murder.

Knox writes that she did not understand that she was a suspect in Kercher's murder, and believed that she could help investigators find the killer.

"I was too confused to know what the truth was," she writes at one point, after implicating Lumumba and saying she witnessed the murder.

Her "bafflement" at the situation eventually gave way to "quiet indignation and defiance," Knox writes.

"I followed their directions like a lost, pathetic child," she writes of the investigation leading up to her arrest. "I didn't question, I didn't object, I just put my head down when they told me to and trusted that this would all make sense soon."

Knox, dubbed "Foxy Knoxy" in many early media reports, was initially portrayed as promiscuous and dishonest but a lobbying campaign by her family helped change perceptions.

Kercher's half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in the throat, was found in the apartment she shared with Knox in the town in central Italy. A student at Leeds University, she was 21 when she died.

The Italian high court in March also overturned the acquittal of Sollecito, Knox's former boyfriend, and ordered a new trial on a date still to be set.

The acquittal came after independent forensic experts said the police scientific evidence was deeply flawed and the investigation had been bungled.

An Ivorian drifter named Rudy Guede, was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in a separate trial. He is now the only person serving time for the murder, although prosecutors say he could not have killed Kercher by himself.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Lisa Shumaker)

The ITC had said it would make a decision on Friday but delayed it until Tuesday, June 4. It gave no reason for the extension.

An administrative law judge at the ITC had said in a preliminary ruling in September that Apple was innocent of violating the patents. The next step is for the full commission to weigh in.

Apple has waged an international patent war since 2010 as it battles Google Inc's Android mobile-device operating system. The fight has embroiled Samsung, HTC Corp and others that use Android.

Samsung is the world's largest smartphone maker, while Apple is in third place, according to the research company Gartner. Many experts consider Samsung's Galaxy touchscreen tablets the main rival to the iPad, although they are currently a distant second to Apple's devices.

The case at the International Trade Commission is No. 337-794.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; editing by Matthew Lewis)

LONDON (Reuters) - British travel firm TUI Travel agreed to buy 60 mid-range Boeing jets with an option for 90 more, moving to make its fleet more fuel-efficient and delivering the U.S. planemaker a big contract win over European rival Airbus.

The world's largest tour operator, which owns six European airlines including Britain's Thomson Airways, said on Friday the initial order of Boeing737 MAX planes was secured at a "significant discount" to the list price of $6.09 billion.

The planes, to be powered by CFM LEAP-1B engines, are scheduled for delivery between January 2018 and March 2023, TUI Travelsaid

It said such a large deal would represent a class 1 transaction, meaning it would require shareholder approval.

"TUI Travel have 59 leases on planes expiring over the next three years so the fact they are looking to buy these planes shows the strength of the company," said Oriel Securities analyst Jeffrey Harwood, who added that cutting its fuel bill was a big motivation for the group.

Several European carriers have seen profits battered by high fuel costs - which now account for around half of airlines' operating expenditure - in recent years.

Boeing has said the 737 MAX, which competes with Airbus'A320neo, will burn 13 percent less fuel than current 737 models.

Reuters reported earlier this year that TUI Travel was close to sealing a deal for 60 narrow-body airliners.

EASYJET NEXT?

Boeing is also competing with Airbus to supply British low-cost airline easyJetwith new planes.

EasyJet is edging towards a firm order for at least 100 A320neo or 737 MAX planes jets worth around $10 billion, with as many again in options, sources close to the deal said, adding that the European planemaker was the favorite.

EasyJet, which operates an all-Airbus fleet of 213 aircraft, ideally wants to remain a single-manufacturer fleet, but is considering moving entirely to Boeing planes.

TUI Travel, whose airlines use 141 aircraft, received the first of 13 long-haul Boeing 787 Dreamliners planes on Friday.

"Being able to offer our customers the most advanced, comfortable aircraft, whether they are travelling with us to short or long-haul destinations, while reducing our environmental impact, will only strengthen our position," said TUI Travel Chief Executive Peter Long.

Shares in TUI Travel, which is 56 percent owned by Germany's TUI AG , were 1.4 percent down at 357.9 pence by 0910 GMT, valuing the company at around 4 billion pounds.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher and Sarah Young; editing by Kate Holton, John Stonestreet)

Knox, 25, spent four years in prison for the murder of Meredith Kercher while they were exchange students in Perugia, a hilltop Italian university town popular with foreigners. Knox, who became a tabloid sensation in Britain and Italy, was acquitted on appeal in 2011. She returned to her Seattle-area home, but Italy's high court last month ordered a retrial.

In the hotly anticipated memoir, published by HarperCollins and in bookstores on Tuesday, Knox maintained her innocence and wrote that she regretted that in prison she had never reached out to Kercher's family to say that the girl's death had been a "heartbreak to so many."

The memoir was released in conjunction with an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer that is due to air on Tuesday evening.

Knox wrote that she wished she had reached out to Patrick Lumumba, a Congolese bar owner whom Knox falsely accused of the murder. Lumumba, who was briefly jailed and then cleared, said in 2011 that Knox's accusation destroyed his life.

"Naming him was unforgivable, and he didn't deserve it, but I wanted to say that it wasn't about him," Knox wrote. "I was pushed so hard that I'd have named anyone."

Knox penned letters to both, but her lawyers advised against sending them because it would hurt her legal case.

In the 457-page memoir, Knox writes of arriving in Italy at age 20 with "rookie Italian" and a penchant for "immature antics," eager to develop independence and come into her own.

Knox writes that she and Kercher bonded right away: "We did what all girls do: we talked about the guys we liked in Perugia and the ones we'd left behind."

She denies that the relationship soured and describes a friendly final encounter as Knox and her new boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, left the shared apartment hours before the murder.

Knox writes that she did not understand that she was a suspect in Kercher's murder, and believed that she could help investigators find the killer.

"I was too confused to know what the truth was," she writes at one point, after implicating Lumumba and saying she witnessed the murder.

Her "bafflement" at the situation eventually gave way to "quiet indignation and defiance," Knox writes.

"I followed their directions like a lost, pathetic child," she writes of the investigation leading up to her arrest. "I didn't question, I didn't object, I just put my head down when they told me to and trusted that this would all make sense soon."

Knox, dubbed "Foxy Knoxy" in many early media reports, was initially portrayed as promiscuous and dishonest but a lobbying campaign by her family helped change perceptions.

Kercher's half-naked body, with more than 40 wounds and a deep gash in the throat, was found in the apartment she shared with Knox in the town in central Italy. A student at Leeds University, she was 21 when she died.

The Italian high court in March also overturned the acquittal of Sollecito, Knox's former boyfriend, and ordered a new trial on a date still to be set.

The acquittal came after independent forensic experts said the police scientific evidence was deeply flawed and the investigation had been bungled.

An Ivorian drifter named Rudy Guede, was found guilty and sentenced to 16 years in a separate trial. He is now the only person serving time for the murder, although prosecutors say he could not have killed Kercher by himself.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Paul Thomasch and Lisa Shumaker)

But before all of the youngsters could get there, the tornado alarm sounded.

The plan changed quickly.

"All the teachers started screaming into the room and saying, 'Get into the hallway! We don't want you to die!' and stuff like that," said sixth-grader Phaedra Dunn. "We just took off running."

In the moments that followed, some of the children at Plaza Towers Elementary would, in fact, die. At least seven were killed by the twister Monday afternoon. Others would crawl out of the rubble, bloodied and bruised, utterly terrified.

The tornado that devastated this Oklahoma City suburb of 56,000 people destroyed Plaza Towers and also slammed Briarwood Elementary, where all the children appear to have survived. Students and parents recounted stories Tuesday of brave teachers who sheltered their pupils, in some cases by herding them into a closet and a restroom amid the fear and panic.

After the tornado alarm went off, students at Plaza Towers scrambled into the halls. But the halls some of which were within the view of windows did not appear safe enough.

Sixth-grader Antonio Clark said a teacher took him and as many other youngsters as possible and shoved them into the three-stall boys' bathroom.

"We were all piled in on each other," the 12-year-old said. Another teacher wrapped her arms around two students and held Antonio's hand.

Twenty seconds later he heard a roar that sounded like a stampede of elephants. His ears popped.

Then it all stopped almost as suddenly as it started. Crouched down, his backpack over his head, Antonio looked up. The skylight and the ceiling were gone, and he was staring up into a cloud filled with debris.

Antonio and a friend were among the first to stand up. They climbed over debris where their classroom had been just moments earlier. Students and teachers were struggling to free themselves from under the bricks, wooden beams and insulation. Some people had bleeding head wounds; blood covered one side of someone's eyeglasses, Antonio said.

"Everybody was crying," Antonio said. "I was crying because I didn't know if my family was OK."

Then Antonio saw his father ride up on a mountain bike, yelling his son's name.

Phaedra survived, too. Her mother rushed to the school just moments before the tornado hit, covered Phaedra's head with a blanket to protect her from hail and ushered her out the door. Phaedra's 10-year-old sister, Jenna, didn't want to budge from the school.

The principal "grabbed her backpack, put it over her head and literally said, 'You're mom's going to open the door. Get out. You're safer with your mom,' and pushed her out the door," said Amy Sharp, the girls' mother.

At Briarwood Elementary, the students also went into the halls. But a third-grade teacher didn't think it looked safe, so she herded some of the children into a closet, said David Wheeler, one of the fathers who tried to rush to the school after the tornado hit.

The teacher shielded Wheeler's 8-year-old son, Gabriel, with her arms and held him down as the tornado collapsed the school roof and starting lifting students upward with a pull so strong that it literally sucked glasses off kids' faces, Wheeler said.

"She saved their lives by putting them in a closet and holding their heads down," Wheeler said.

Gabriel and the teacher whom Wheeler identified as Julie Simon had to dig their way out of the rubble. The boy's back was cut and bruised and gravel was embedded in his head, Wheeler said. It took nearly three hours for father and son to be reunited.

Other parents waited even longer, as they drove from one emergency shelter to another in search of their children.

At St. Andrews United Methodist Church, 15-year-old Caitlin Ulrey waited about seven hours before her parents found her. Her high school had not been hit by the tornado. But her nerves were frayed.

"I was starting to panic and shake and have an anxiety attack," Caitlin said.

At Plaza Towers, several students were pulled alive from under a collapsed wall and other heaps of mangled debris. Rescue workers passed the survivors down a human chain of parents and neighborhood volunteers. Parents carried dazed and terrified children in their arms to a triage center in the parking lot.

Hundreds of Oklahoma schools have reinforced tornado shelters, but not the two that were hit on Monday.

Albert Ashwood, director of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management, said it is up to each jurisdiction to set priorities for which schools get funding for safe rooms. But he said a shelter would not necessarily have saved more lives at Plaza Towers. The tornado was an EF5 twister, the most powerful type, with winds of at least 200 mph.

"When you talk about any kind of safety measures ... it's a mitigating measure, it's not an absolute," Ashwood said. "There's not a guarantee that everyone will be totally safe."

Moore School Superintendent Susan Pierce said teachers and administrators put their well-rehearsed crisis plan into action as the tornado approached. But she suggested there are limits to what people can do in the face of such a powerful storm.

"Safety is our main priority," Pierce said. "We monitored the weather throughout the day and when it was time to shelter, we did just that."

___

Associated Press writers Ramit Plushnick-Masti and Sean Murphy contributed to this report.