WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three congressional hearings during the past week have allowed lawmakers to vent their anger at the U.S. tax agency for its targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny, but the sessions have yielded few answers about who was responsible.

The frustration on Capitol Hill seemed to reach a crescendo on Wednesday when Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official who first acknowledged the targeting - and the day's star witness before a House panel - refused to testify.

Lerner, whom lawmakers have accused of providing false information to Congress because she did not tell them about the problems in the office she leads before revealing them at a lawyers' conference on May 10, told lawmakers that she had done nothing wrong.

She then invoked her constitutional right not to incriminate herself, and declined to answer questions.

"I have not broken any laws. I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any congressional committee," Lerner told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

"Because I am asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I have done something wrong. I have not," she said.

The scene marked the latest in a series of failed attempts by lawmakers to pry details from high-level IRS officials about who precisely was responsible for targeting conservative groups that have sought tax-exempt status since 2010.

The scandal over what a Treasury inspector general called "inappropriate" targeting of groups with names that included terms like "Tea Party" and "Patriot" by the IRS has become a distraction for Democratic President Barack Obama as he pursues an ambitious second-term agenda.

And as Republicans in Congress seek to determine whether the White House might have had a hand in encouraging the extra scrutiny of populist groups that seek lower taxation and less government, the scandal has fueled Republicans' portrayals of an indifferent, overreaching federal bureaucracy.

The Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into the targeting scandal.

On Wednesday, former IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, who unlike Lerner had appeared at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, again was asked who was behind the targeting done in the IRS office in Cincinnati, Ohio.

And again, Shulman said that he had no names to provide. Like outgoing acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller, whom Obama has fired, Shulman also rejected accusations that he had misled or lied to lawmakers about the matter.

"I answered truthfully based on the information that I had at the time," Shulman said.

Shulman's answers did not satisfy many lawmakers. "Either there was a cover-up or an extreme lack of curiosity on your part," said Republican Representative Mark Meadows from North Carolina.

House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa released documents including internal emails between Cincinnati workers and Holly Paz, an IRS director in Washington who led an internal review of the matter in 2012. They seem to confirm the Treasury inspector general's conclusion that low-level employees came up with the controversial criteria.

"This is criteria the screening group came up with," Cindy Thomas, a Cincinnati-based IRS employee wrote to Paz in a June 2, 2011 email.

'THAT'S NOT THE WAY IT WORKS'

Issa and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle became exasperated that the officials on Wednesday provided so few answers about the scandal and whether there was a cover-up.

Lerner is seen as central to the scandal because she was alerted in June 2011 that the partisan criteria were being used, and she ordered them changed. They were then changed back in January 2012 to focus on the policy positions of organizations, but is it not clear who changed them.

Issa and other Republicans also questioned whether Lerner technically waived her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by reading an opening statement declaring her innocence.

Republican Trey Gowdy of South Carolina demanded that she stay to answer questions, drawing applause from the crowd in the hearing room. "You don't get to tell your side of the story and then not be subject to cross-examination. That's not the way it works," Gowdy said.

Lerner has hired high-powered Washington attorney William Taylor to help defend her against accusations from Issa that she provided "false or misleading" information to Congress last year about the IRS' treatment of conservative groups.

Taylor, of the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder, told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday that there was no point in Lerner agreeing to answer lawmakers' questions at the hearing.

"Why should she go up there and confront people who have already decided she has done something wrong?" Taylor said.

After conferring with aides, Issa dismissed Lerner from the hearing but said he might call her to testify in the future.

CONGRESS IN THE DARK

At Wednesday's hearing, frustrated lawmakers repeatedly criticized former IRS chief Shulman and J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general who published a watchdog report on the practice last week, for not alerting Congress to the practice earlier.

Democratic Representative Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts warned their failure to be more forthcoming could force the appointment of a special prosecutor to look into the scandal.

Issa noted that the IRS internal review uncovered the policy of scrutinizing conservative groups in May 2012 and that top officials, including Miller, were made aware of the findings but did not alert Congress for nearly a year.

He also questioned why George's investigators looking into the targeting allowed IRS officials to be present during interviews with subordinates, and he criticized the inspector general for waiting 10 months to give the committee information on the targeting.

George said it would have been "impractical for us to give you partial information that may not be accurate."

Shulman repeated testimony he gave at the Senate hearing on Tuesday that he did not know the full details of the targeting for two years after it started in 2010. Issa told Shulman, "If you didn't know, you were derelict in your duty."

Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the panel, criticized Shulman for not correcting congressional testimony he gave in March 2012 denying that targeting was occurring, after learning the results of the IRS internal review in May 2012.

"Why didn't you ever come back to the Congress to explain that you were mistaken?" Cummings asked.

"I didn't have all the facts, I didn't know what was on the list, exactly how it was used," Shulman said. He later acknowledged he "would have answered differently" in March 2012 if he had known what he did in May 2012.

Cummings also said the panel would like to hear from Daniel Werfel, the White House budget official who started on Wednesday as the new IRS head after Obama fired Miller last week.

Werfel is conducting a 30-day review of the IRS and is due to report back to Obama about how to correct failures that led to the targeting and how to hold IRS staff accountable for inappropriate actions.

(Additional reporting by Casey Sullivan; Writing by John Whitesides; Editing by Karey Van Hall and Tim Dobbyn)

The result is an uneven medley of state laws, which means that just how you can exercise those constitutional rights depends on where you live, and the differences often turn on whether a state is run by Democrats or Republicans.

Governors and state lawmakers continue sharpening the disparities with new abortion statutes and a range of gun laws, several of which followed the mass killing last year at a Connecticut elementary school.

Republican-controlled states typically make it harder to procure an abortion but easier to buy weapons and carry them where you please. Live in a state where Democrats run things? You're less likely to have a waiting period before ending a pregnancy but more likely to have one before buying a gun, and you may not to be able to buy certain semi-automatic weapons at all.

Many Democratic lawmakers reacted to the December massacre at the Sandy Hook elementary school with calls for tighter gun restrictions. Many Republican legislators worked to relax gun-carrying laws and put more weapons into schools, from hiring guards to arming teachers and principals.

Constitutional law expert Randy Barnett, at Georgetown University Law Center, said the landscape demonstrates that politics is at play before and after the Supreme Court weighs in. "It's not a matter of sophisticated constitutional law," Barnett said, but of "hot-button wedge issues for one side of the spectrum or the other.'"

The lesson also extends to President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and wrangling over same-sex marriage laws.

The Supreme Court ratified the main parts of the health care law, but Republicans at the state level have frustrated its implementation. On marriage, the court as early as Monday could release decisions in two cases. Most legal analysts expect declarations that allow state-by-state debates to continue, rather than an absolute ruling that mandates same-sex marriage equality everywhere.

Different practical outcomes around the country result from justices recognizing citizens' constitutional rights to abortion and gun ownership, while also seeing room for "reasonable regulation," Barnett said. "That gives a huge opening to political movements attempting to push the boundaries of what can be called 'reasonable.'"

Out of 27 legislatures that Republicans control outright, at least 23 have passed measures in the past two years that NARAL Pro-Choice America, a leading abortion-rights group, calls "anti-choice." Assigning each state an overall letter grade for their access laws, NARAL rated 22 of the GOP-run states as failing. Only Montana rated an A. Among the 18 states controlled by Democrats, 11 scored an A, and the only one to rate lower than a C was Rhode Island, which received a D plus.

On firearms, Democratic statehouses haven't gone as far with restrictive legislation as Republicans have on abortion. But the tightest limits and the newest still come almost entirely in more liberal states.

Fewer than a dozen states limit the sale of semi-automatic weapons; 17 states and Washington, D.C., require background checks or records for gun sales beyond federal requirements; and 11 states have waiting periods for certain purchases. In those groups, the GOP runs just Florida and Pennsylvania, though Democrats controlled both when most of the relevant laws passed.

In Alabama this year, Republican supermajorities addressed both guns and abortion.

Gov. Robert Bentley signed a law in April mandating that the four abortion clinics in his state meet all regulations applied to ambulatory care facilities and requiring clinic physicians to secure staff privileges at local hospitals. Alabama patterned parts of the law after a 2012 Mississippi act that a federal judge has put on hold pending a constitutional challenge from Planned Parenthood, a leading provider of women's health services, including abortion.

Alabama Republicans emphasized the abortion law's title: "The Women's Health and Safety Act." But they also didn't hide their opposition to abortion rights and eagerness to take whatever Supreme Court precedent allows. "I am strongly pro-life," said Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey. "We can't ban abortion that's a federal issue that's been confirmed by the Supreme Court but at the state level, we can regulate and control unsafe health practices."

Nikema Williams, a Planned Parenthood lobbyist who doubles as an officer in the Georgia Democratic Party, counters: "This is absolutely meant to restrict women's constitutional rights."

Planned Parenthood makes the same argument in its Mississippi court challenge. Hospitals in Jackson denied Planned Parenthood physicians admitting privileges. That, the suit argues, would effectively close the clinic, leaving Mississippi residents without an in-state option for a procedure the Supreme Court declared legal.

Alabama also has joined about a dozen other GOP states since 2010 in shortening the window during which a woman can terminate her pregnancy. Most of the new bans take effect at 20 weeks. Arkansas opted for 12 weeks, while North Dakota Republicans said six. Federal judges have blocked both of those laws pending constitutional challenges. Court precedent generally holds that states can outlaw abortion of a fetus with a reasonable chance to survive outside the womb, now a standard of about 24 weeks.

Many Republican states since 2010 have barred either their state employee insurance plans, private insurers within their borders, or both, from covering elective abortions. Of that group, 17 GOP-run states will prohibit abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges that will open as part of President Barack Obama's 2010 health care overhaul.

A few weeks after enacting new abortion rules, Alabama's Bentley signed sweeping changes that loosen gun rules: Sheriffs lose most of their discretion over granting concealed weapons permits; drivers can carry loaded pistols in their cars; businesses can no longer ban employees from keeping guns in their cars on work property.

In California, meanwhile, Democrats did the reverse. They've expanded a pilot program that allows nurse practitioners and other non-physician medical professionals to administer certain abortions, while Gov. Jerry Brown signed more than a half-dozen new laws restricting gun use.

The gun laws expand California's list of banned semi-automatic weapons, require background checks before ammunition purchases, limit the number of rounds in a single magazine, and boost a program to seize guns from felons and citizens whom authorities declare mentally ill.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a potential national candidate for the Democrats in 2016 and beyond, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed laws this spring to widen existing semi-automatic weapons bans.

Those actions follow several years of states, particularly in GOP territory, removing hurdles to obtaining concealed-weapons permits and scrapping prohibitions on carrying in public places.

As with abortion, proponents of the limitations insist their position conforms to Supreme Court guidelines.

"The Second Amendment gets thrown around by people who are pushing for weaker gun laws," said San Francisco attorney Ben Van Houten of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "Common-sense regulation," he said, "is compatible with what the court said."

Alabama state Sen. Scott Beason in Alabama answered, "We have to take action to ensure our rights."

Barnett, the law professor, argued that the proliferation of limits to say nothing of the stark divisions across the country eventually demands that the Supreme Court step in again. Yet, addressing a group of Chiacgo law students this spring, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg suggested jurists should leave some questions unsettled.

"The court can put its stamp of approval on the side of change," she said, "and let change develop through the political process."

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Follow Barrow on Twitter (at)BillBarrowAP

A ministry statement on Saturday says the warning is "baseless."

An embassy message earlier this week urged Americans to "elevate their situational awareness" when visiting the pyramids because of a "lack of visible security or police" presence there.

It noted incidents of "angry groups of individuals surrounding and pounding" on cars with visitors, sometimes trying to open car doors.

The ministry insists the pyramids' area in Giza, Cairo's twin city, is "totally secure" and that the overall situation for tourists has improved.

Security deteriorated following the 2011 uprising that ousted longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak and tourism took a sharp hit.

That dose would, in some cases, exceed NASA's standards and is enough to raise an astronaut's cancer risk by 3 percent.

As plans for deep space exploration ramp up, radiation is a big concern from high-energy galactic cosmic rays spewed by distant supernova explosions to sporadic bursts of charged particles hurled by the sun. Earth's magnetic field helps to deflect much of that harmful radiation.

NASA aims to send a crew to orbit the red planet by the mid-2030s. Private outfits like Inspiration Mars backed by NASA engineer-turned-space tourist Dennis Tito are seeking volunteers for a Mars flight.

There have been previous efforts to gauge the radiation risk for future Mars travelers, but the best estimate is coming from NASA's Curiosity mission. Tucked inside the rover when it launched in 2011 was a radiation sensor that took readings during the 8 1/2-month cruise to Mars.

From those figures, scientists calculated a spacefarer's radiation exposure for a quicker six-month voyage in a similarly shielded spacecraft. Roundtrip: about 662 millisieverts. That's a sizable chunk of an astronaut's career cap of 1,000 millisieverts which many international space agencies use to limit the accumulated radiation dosage in space.

NASA's threshold depends on age and gender. The career dose limit for 30-to-60-year-old male astronauts who never smoked ranges from 800 to 1,200 millisieverts. For female astronauts, the limit ranges from 600 to 1,000 millisieverts.

The radiation exposure from a Mars journey is similar to getting a full-body CT scan every five or six days, said lead researcher Cary Zeitlin of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo.

The estimate is just for zipping there and back; it doesn't include time spent on the Martian surface, which would add to an astronaut's exposure. How much more would depend on length of stay and available shelter.

"You'd like the radiation exposure to be lower, but it is what it is," said Dr. Norm Thagard, the first American to fly on the Russian space station Mir, who had no role in the research. "Given the importance of such a mission, the mission should be done."

The analysis appears in Friday's issue of the journal Science. The amount of radiation likely won't change unless there's a rocket engine developed that can speed up the interplanetary ride, researchers said.

"You want to get there as quickly as possible" to reduce radiation exposure, said Don Hassler, scientist in charge of the radiation instrument aboard Curiosity.

Radiation on a Mars trek would be higher than what crew members cocooned inside the International Space Station typically face about 200 millisieverts per year. By contrast, people on Earth are typically exposed to about 3 millisieverts a year.

Curiosity flew to Mars during a period of low to moderate solar activity. A manned mission that launches during a solar flare or storm would encounter more radiation.

NASA engineers are testing propulsion systems and researching ways to reduce radiation exposure on a Mars flight. Among the possibilities: Have astronauts wear a deployable shield resembling a heavy winter coat or have them hunker down in a storm shelter aboard the spacecraft during periods of high solar activity.

"Before we can send astronauts there, we need to understand the environments and hazards that they would face" said Chris Moore, deputy director of advanced exploration systems at NASA headquarters.

Now, cancer-related risk estimates are "no more than a rough guesstimate," David Brenner, an expert on radiation-induced cancer at Columbia University, said in an email.

Thagard, the former NASA astronaut, said he was exposed to 120 millisieverts during his 115 days in low-Earth orbit aboard Mir. Despite the potential health risks, Thagard said there likely won't be a shortage of astronauts willing to hop on a Mars flight.

Since landing near the Martian equator last summer, Curiosity has continued to track radiation as it rolls across the dusty surface toward its eventual mountain destination. The rover has turned up the best evidence yet of an ancient watery Mars. A separate study published in Science detailed the existence of more than 500 rounded pebbles near its crater landing site the result of being shaped by long-ago flowing water.

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Online:

Science: http://www.sciencemag.org

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Follow Alicia Chang at http://twitter.com/SciWriAlicia

The attacks have made it harder for Pakistan to join the vast majority of nations declared polio-free, and late Tuesday, government officials were debating whether to suspend the U.N.-backed vaccination campaign in the northwest.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest killings, but some Pakistani militants have alleged in the past that the polio workers are U.S. spies and that the vaccine makes people sterile.

Reinforcing those suspicions was the disclosure that the CIA used a Pakistani doctor to run a hepatitis vaccination campaign to try to get blood samples from al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden's family before U.S. commandos killed him there in May 2011.

The two women were attacked Tuesday in Kaggawala village on the outskirts of the main northwest city of Peshawar, police officer Mushtaq Khan said.

Senior police official Shafiullah Khan said two attackers on foot fired a pistol at the women. He said police have started a search operation.

Health, municipal and other officials in the northwest Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province were meeting Tuesday evening to discuss whether to suspend the vaccinations, according to a provincial government official who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with reporters.

The World Health Organization, the U.N. agency that oversees much of the polio vaccination work in Pakistan, condemned the attack. It said it was in touch with Pakistani officials in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa as they discussed what to do next.

Dr. Nima Saeed Abid, acting WHO country head for Pakistan, said the safety of his polio workers, many of whom are women, was paramount.

"I hope the government will provide them with the requested security for the health workers," he said. "And after careful assessment, they should resume their activities."

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari blasted what he called a "cowardly" attack, and resolved that "the government will not permit militants to deprive our children of basic health care."

Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, where polio is still endemic. Health workers have made strides against the disease in recent years, but the violence threatens to reverse that progress.

In December, gunmen killed nine polio workers in different parts of Pakistan. Several more workers have been killed since then, as well as police who were protecting them.

The U.N. said in March that some 240,000 children had missed vaccinations since July in parts of Pakistan's tribal belt, the main sanctuary for Islamic militants, because of security concerns.

Elsewhere in Pakistan's northwest on Tuesday, a roadside bomb killed the son of a member of an anti-Taliban militia and wounded the militia member and five others, police official Gul Afzal Afridi said.

The bomb exploded on the outskirts of Mingora, a main town in the Swat Valley, which was once largely under the control of the Taliban until an army operation in 2009.

The militants have since staged occasional bombings and other attacks in Swat. Anti-Taliban militias often referred to as peace committees have helped hold the militants back.

Afridi said the apparent target Tuesday was militia member Sher Ali. His son Barkat Ali died.

A bomb planted on a motorcycle went off near a place of worship of Shiite Muslims in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing two and wounding 10 others, police official Zahid Khan said.

Imran Hassan, a resident, said most of the dead and wounded were Shiites.

No one claimed responsibility, but authorities have blamed Sunni militant groups for previous attacks against minority Shiites.

Also Tuesday, gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying a Shiite Muslim lawyer and two of his sons, killing them, in an apparent sectarian attack in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, police officer Najam Tareen said.

Karachi, a port city of 18 million, is a hotbed of ethnic, political and sectarian violence, and Shiite professionals are often targeted.

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Toosi reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Sherin Zada in Mingora, Pakistan, and Atif Raza in Karachi, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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Follow Nahal Toosi on Twitter at www.twitter.com/nahaltoosi

Some disaster relief experts say that's smart planning. But others question whether the Red Cross, an organization best known for rushing into disasters to distribute food and get people into shelter, should have acted with more urgency in the weeks after the storm and left long-haul recovery tasks to someone else.

"The Red Cross has never been a recovery operation. Their responsibility has always been mass care," said Ben Smilowitz, executive director of the Disaster Accountability Project, a nonprofit group that monitors aid groups. "Stick with what you're good at."

Storm victims could have used more help this past winter, said Kathleen McCarthy, director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Civil Society at the City University of New York.

"People were cold. Homes mildewed. There wasn't enough decent housing," she said. "Given the lingering despair, it's hard to understand the argument that 'We are setting that money aside.'"

As Americans open their wallets to assist tornado victims in Oklahoma, the Red Cross is again emerging as one of the most important relief organizations on the ground and also one of the most prodigious fundraisers for victims. As of Thursday, it had raised approximately $15 million in donations and pledges for the tornado response, including a $1 million gift from NBA star Kevin Durant and numerous $10 donations, pledged via text.

The Red Cross was also the No. 1 recipient of donations after Sandy. The organization said it still had $110 million remaining from its pool of storm donations as of mid-April, which were the most recent figures available.

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So, when-ish will the War on Terror end? It's going to be a while — maybe long after Obama has left office. "A Pentagon official suggested last week that the current conflict could continue for 10 to 20 years," the Times reports. Last year, facing the possibility that Obama could lose the 2012 election, the administration began working onfor the drone program. So while Obama is justifying the use of drone strikes at a time when they've come under , he might also be establishing new norms ahead of a possible President Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio or whoever.

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Obviously Obama trusted his own administration to control the drone program without these rules. In his new book, , the Times's Mark Mazzetti reports that Obama's "kill list" was the product of an early effort to "an early attempt... to establish procedures for the conduct of a secret war that most believed would last years beyond" Obama's administration. But the rules weren't totally binding. Mazzetti writes that "as much assome officials tried to keep strict criteria about who could be added to the kill list, those criteria were sometimes eased." According to Mazzetti and Daniel Klaidman's book , when General James Cartwright asked Obama why the CIA was "building a second Air Force" with its drone fleet, Obama replied ""

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In his speech, Obama will also address what to do with some terrorist suspects caught overseas instead of killed by drones: the people in Guantanamo Bay. He'll pledge to renew efforts to close the detention facility, and appoint a State Department official to oversee shrinking the population there. Guantanamo — where 170 people are held without trial in perpetuity — is a relic of a previous administration that is disturbing on the grand civil liberties scale and at the tiny human scale. Just like drones. Obama is paying Bush's favor forward with a theoretical end to perpetual war without borders.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home prices accelerated by the most in nearly seven years in March while consumer confidence surged in May, suggesting there were areas of resilience for an economy that is facing the pinch of belt-tightening in Washington.

The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas climbed 10.9 percent year over year, beating expectations for 10.2 percent, the survey released on Tuesday showed. This was the biggest increase since April 2006, just before prices peaked in the summer of that year.

Prices in the 20 cities gained 1.1 percent in March compared to the month before on a seasonally adjusted basis, topping economists' forecasts for a 1 percent rise.

The housing market turned a corner in 2012, several years after its far-reaching collapse. The recovery has picked up since as inventory has tightened, foreclosures eased and historically low mortgage rates have attracted buyers.

Separate data showed consumer confidence picked up in May to its highest in more than five years.

Housing and the consumer have shown strength even as there have been hints that tighter fiscal policy is starting to bite in the broader economy. Across-the-board U.S. government spending cuts of $85 billion went into effect in March, while the payroll tax holiday expired at the beginning of the year, raising taxes for many Americans.

The data suggested both segments were performing better than the overall economy, said Sam Bullard, senior economist at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, North Carolina.

"There are some individual circumstances that are helping to propel both of these a little bit stronger than what the actual underlying strength would suggest," said Bullard, pointing to the effect of higher stock prices on consumers, and investor demand for homes in beaten-down regions lifting prices.

Economists expect the pace of growth likely cooled in the second quarter, partly due to tighter fiscal policy, but the second half of the year is seen regaining momentum. Investor attention has turned to when the Federal Reserve might start to slow its economic stimulus efforts.

The data lent support to equities where Wall Street rallied more than 1 percent after comments from central banks around the world reassured investors supportive monetary policies would remain in place. U.S. 10-year Treasury yields were at their highest in over a year.

Housing-related shares gained following the Case-Shiller report, with the S&P homebuilders ETF up 1.3 percent. The ETF is up more than 20 percent for the year, outpacing the 17 percent surge seen in the benchmark S&P 500.

Home prices in Phoenix continued their sharp ascent, rising 22.5 percent from a year earlier. Other standouts included San Francisco, up 22.2 percent, and hard-hit Las Vegas, up 20.6 percent.

For the first quarter of this year, the seasonally adjusted national index rose 3.9 percent, stronger than the 2.4 percent gain seen in the final quarter of last year.

"Low inventories and gradually improving housing demand have combined to push housing starts higher and support home price appreciation," said Michael Gapen, an economist at Barclays in New York.

"We see these factors as remaining in place and expect residential investment to add to GDP growth in the coming quarters. We also expect rising real estate wealth to support household balance sheets and underpin consumption, helping the broader economy to offset a substantial fiscal drag in 2013."

The Conference Board, an industry group, said its index of consumer attitudes jumped to 76.2 from an upwardly revised 69 in April, topping economists' expectations for 71. It was the best level since February 2008.

April was originally reported as 68.1. After dropping in March, it was the second month in a row confidence has improved.

The expectations index rose to 82.4 from 74.3, while the present situation index climbed to 66.7 from 61.

Consumers' assessment of the labor market improved. The "jobs hard to get" index slipped to 36.1 percent from 36.9 percent the month before, while the "jobs plentiful" index gained to 10.8 percent from 9.7 percent.

In a sign of confidence among high-end consumers, jeweler Tiffany & Co reported better-than-expected sales for the first quarter.

(Editing by James Dalgleish)

The late-stage trial will compare a combination of chemotherapy and the drug, bavituximab, with chemotherapy alone.

The main goal of the trial would be to show an improvement in overall survival of patients.

Peregrine shares were up 19 percent at $1.83 in early trade on Monday on the Nasdaq.

Bavituximab is being developed to treat second-line non-small-cell lung cancer and multiple other cancers.

"We look forward to finalizing the clinical protocol and initiating the global Phase III trial by year-end," Joseph Shan, vice president of clinical and regulatory affairs, said in a statement.

Peregrine went through tough times last year after it found discrepancies in the results of a mid-stage trial testing bavituximab in non-small-cell lung cancer.

Following the discovery of errors in clinical data, the company was forced to pay off a loan, leaving the company with enough capital to fund operations only till April.

The company, however, managed to raise capital in October to fund clinical and development goals for the next 12 months. It also reported revised data from the lung cancer trial in February.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

Syria's Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui said the request violates principles of impartiality because it comes from nations that support the rebels battling the government troops.

U.N. Human Rights Council President Remigiusz Henczel says the council will decide Tuesday whether to hold the debate Wednesday.

Diplomats exchanged sharp words moments after the opening of the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council's latest three-week session, which immediately focused on the more than 70,000 killed and millions more displaced since the uprising against Syria's President Bashar Assad began in March 2011 and evolved into civil war.

Turkey's Ambassador Oguz Demiralp said the Assad regime is "attacking its own citizens with heavy weapons" in the town of Qusair, near Lebanon, which has been under attack by government forces and members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group since last week.

"This time, the Syrian regime is blatantly hand-in-hand with foreign culprits," he said. "Those who cling to power in Syria seem to have lost sense of reality and humanity."

The U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, said that both sides in Syria's conflict are disregarding international law. "Civilians bear the brunt of this crisis in which human rights violations have reached horrific dimensions," said Pillay, the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights.

Pillay said she is concerned at reports suggesting hundreds of civilians have been killed or injured, and thousands remain trapped, by indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks by government forces in Qusair.

She said that refugees streaming into neighboring countries are suggesting that "the Syrian government continues to use indiscriminate and disproportionate force in residential areas, and that the Syrian armed forces have directly targeted schools and hospitals."

"Wanton human rights violations are also being committed by anti-government groups," Pillay said.

She also called on the Security Council, the U.N.'s most powerful arm, to refer the Syrian crisis for prosecution before the International Criminal Court, based in the Netherlands.

Though it cannot make such a referral itself, the Geneva-based Human Rights Council's has what officials describe as an ever-growing body of evidence of appalling violations of basic human rights that should lead to mounting calls for action to end the civil war that is also threatening the region.

Next week, officials say, a U.N. panel investigating war crimes in Syria is due to deliver its latest report including an update on the suspected use of chemical weapons to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

The U.N. General Assembly approved an Arab-backed resolution two weeks ago calling for a political transition in Syria. But many nations refused to vote "yes" to the non-legally binding, U.S.-backed resolution because of its support for the main opposition group. Key Syrian ally Russia urged a "no" vote, saying it would promote a one-sided resolution that could sink a new U.S.-Russia effort to end the escalating conflict.

The Assad regime has agreed in principle to participate in peace talks in Geneva next month. The United States and Russia hope to bring together the government and opposition for direct talks, but the exact date, agenda and list of participants for the conference remains unclear.

The new resolution demands that all parties work with U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to rapidly implement a roadmap for a Syrian political transition adopted on June 30, 2012, in Geneva by key nations including the five Security Council powers the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France.