Off the Canary island of Tenerife 26 migrants were rescued, some of them apparently after two weeks at sea, the Red Cross told AFP.

"Various circumstances, like the situation in the Sahel region and Arab countries as well as the fight against (clandestine) immigration to Spain across the Atlantic, have changed the flow of refugees these past months and years," the police chief of Spain's North African enclave Melilla, Abdelmalik El Barkani, said earlier this year.

On Saturday, 47 migrants travelling on three boats were also rescued from the Mediterranean and taken to the town of Almeria in southern Spain. Thirty-nine others were transferred to Ceuta, also on the north African coast.

In a week Spanish rescuers have assisted several hundred migrants, after 3,804 would-be immigrants reached the Spanish coast last year, according to interior ministry figures.

The Canary islands, off the northwest coast of Africa, counted 31,678 arrivals of clandestine migrants in 2006, the highest number ever.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Kansas and Arizona filed a lawsuit against the U.S. federal government on Wednesday, seeking court approval for states to require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.

The lawsuit brought by the two Republican-led states accuses a commission established by Congress of preventing them from enforcing state laws that require proof of citizenship as a way to prevent illegal immigrants from voting.

The commission was created by Congress to help reform the voting process after chronic problems in Florida during the 2000 election delayed the naming of a winner until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush should become president. Its commissioners are appointed by the president on the recommendation of both parties in Congress.

The suit, part of an on-going battle over voter registration laws being waged nationwide, demands that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission modify federal voter registration forms to allow states to require proof of citizenship.

The federal form now asks for a verbal pledge that the applicant is a U.S. citizen but does not require documentation as proof.

In June, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the controversial provision requiring proof of citizenship passed by Arizona voters in a 2004 referendum. The requirement was criticized by immigrant advocacy groups such as the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

The groups said it unfairly deterred legal voters from casting ballots because they might not have the required paperwork.

In a 7-2 vote, the nation's highest court said the 1993 National Voter Registration Act trumps the state law approved in the desert state that borders Mexico. The ruling affected Arizona, Kansas, Georgia and Alabama.

But the court left the door open for Arizona to assert its arguments through separate litigation, a possibility mentioned by justices during oral arguments in April.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that Arizona could still challenge the current form in court or ask the commission to include the citizenship requirement on the federal form in the future.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Topeka, Kansas, by Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Kobach has been active in opposing immigration even before he was elected to state office. As a private lawyer, he was involved in the drafting of the controversial Arizona anti-immigration law passed in 2010 that stirred protests and court challenges.

A number of states led by Republicans have tightened voter identification laws in recent years, prompting criticism from Democrats and some advocacy groups that they will discourage minorities, the elderly and the young from voting.

Republican supporters of the laws said they are aimed at preventing voter fraud.

(This story is corrected in paragraph 2 to show commission was established by Congress and is not agency of the Obama administration; adds third paragraph with background on commission)

(Reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix and David Bailey in Minneapolis; Writing by Greg McCune; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Ken Wills and Dan Grebler)

That's exactly what Palestinian security researcher and hacker Khalil Shreateh did. Shreateh figured out that by entering in some website URLs, grabbing one's Facebook ID and doing some other non-obvious copying and pasting, he could post something on a non-friend's Facebook Timeline.

Shreatehto Facebook's White Hat Security team, which responded to his initial report by saying, "this is not a bug." That's when Shreateh decided to try it out on Facebook CEO Zuckerberg's Timeline.

"First sorry for breaking your privacy and post to your wall," Shreateh wrote on Zuckerberg's Timeline. "I has no other choice to make after all the reports I sent to Facebook team."

The Timeline is a collection of users' personal photos, stories and experiences.

Facebook patched the security hole Thursday and clarified that the original tip was not ignored, but that there simply wasn't enough information provided.

"We should have asked for additional repro [reproduction] instructions after his initial report," Facebook software engineer , a forum for the security community. "Unfortunately, all he submitted was a link to the post he'd already made Had he included the video initially, we would have caught this much more quickly."

Shreateh has since posted a YouTube video showing exactly how he was able to post something on a non-friend's Timeline.

Jones also suggested that Shreateh's English was hard to understand, but clarified that Facebook gets hundreds of reports and that some of the "best reports come from people whose English isn't great."

With its White Hat program, Facebook allows security researchers to report security vulnerabilities and receive a monetary reward for reporting certain security bugs. Shreateh, however, was not paid for finding this vulnerability because he violated the White Hat Terms of Service by demonstrating the exploit by using the accounts of real people without their permission.

On the other hand, can you really put a price on hacking into Mark Zuckerberg's Timeline?

SeekingArrangement.com, the"the #1 online dating website for sugar babies and generous men," claims that 40,000 public school teachers have joined the site in order to find wealthy, older men for "mutually beneficial relationships," thereports.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou and Haiti's President Michel Martelly celebrated the official start of construction Tuesday on a new Supreme Court building to replace the one destroyed in the Haitian capital in a devastating January 2010 earthquake.

The two presidents laid the ceremonial first stone during Ma's one-day visit to Haiti, the first in a trip to the Caribbean and South America.

Martelly thanked Taiwan for its support for reconstruction, including nearly $16 million for the courthouse being built in a neo-colonial style near the grounds of the National Palace, which was also destroyed in the quake. The courthouse is expected to take about two years to complete and is being built by Taipei-based construction company OECC.

This was the first visit by a Taiwanese president to Haiti, and Martelly told reporters that he asked Ma to encourage Taiwanese companies to invest in Haiti. He also asked for support to help improve the impoverished country's agricultural sector.

Haiti is one of 23 countries to recognize the self-governing island of Taiwan. Mainland China considers Taiwan part of its territory and objects to diplomatic recognition of Taipei by other governments.

Ma will be visiting other countries that recognize Taiwan, including St. Kitts and Nevis; St. Lucia; St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Paraguay, where he will attend the new president's inauguration.

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For one thing, now the feuds are about even bigger issues. Back then, the GOP was fighting over the sequester, using social media in the 2012 election, Hurricane Sandy aide, and whether to let a gay conservative group and an anti-Islam blogger into the Conservative Political Action Conference. Now it's more serious: foreign policy, drones, the National Security Agency's surveillance, immigration, shutting down the government over Obamacare, plus some other fun things, like Benghazi and the farm bill. Here's what GOP infighting looks like right now:

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Last week, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christiethe "strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties," saying it was "dangerous." Then he recalled 9/11: "I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans and have that conversation." On Monday night, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul . "It’s really, I think, kind of sad and cheap that he would use the cloak of 9/11 victims and say, 'I’m the only one who cares about these victims.' Hogwash."

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Earlier this month, New York Rep. Peter King said hein 2016 as a response to less interventionist Republican senators. King said he wanted to counter "a lack of a real defense policy or defense debate among Republican candidates for president, focusing primarily on Rand Paul and Ted Cruz." King's fellow hawk, Arizona Sen. John McCain, has called Paul, Cruz, and Rep. Justin Amash "" for filibustering over drones. (McCain alsoin the Senate.)

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The wacko birds' most recent victory was Amash getting a vote on defunding the NSA's phone metadata surveillance  program. House GOP leadership didn't want the vote, and, according to , House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's aides "gave what Amash thought was a more threatening overture: There’s bound to be a procedural technicality we can use to kill the amendment, they said, and we’re going to find it."

There's a huge fight among Republicans in Congress over whether they should shutdown the government unless President Obama agrees to defund Obamacare. Utah Sen. Mike Lee has written a letter saying he won't vote to fund the government unless Obamacare is defunded, and 11 other senators signed it: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, James Inhofe, John Thune, Mike Enzi, Deb Fischer, Chuck Grassley,David Vitter, and James Risch. A similar letter has beenby Reps. Marlin Stutzman, Michele Bachmann, Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, and Amash.

But Obama won't sign a law killing his signature achievement, and a shutdown would risk making the House GOP very unpopular, according to Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole. "The only way Republicans will lose the House is to shut down the government or default on the debt," Cole told . "I'm not inclined to jeopardize the crown jewel... and the House of Representatives is the crown jewel in this election cycle." Sen. Tom Coburn agreed it'd help Democrats retake the House, and Sen. Richard Burr said it's "theI’ve ever heard of." On Tuesday, Sen. Bob Corker called it a "," adding, "I don't look at that as very courageous… Most of us see through it and realize that these people are really just taking themselves out of the debate." In an , Karl Rove said Republicans "must resist a game of chicken with the president."

Rush Limbaugh does not like the sound of that. "I don't think they were ever serious about repealing health care, the Republicans," he said on Monday. "[H]ave you noticed in the last, I guess week to 10 days, an increasing number of Republicans, House and Senate both, in leadership and high-ranking, are just totally caving on it?  And they want no part of Mike Lee's effort, and they're out laughing at it or making fun of it or saying it doesn't have a prayer or it's dumb or it's stupid or what have you," he said. He hinted there was something to be done: "The thing that's guiding the Republican Party today is just abject fear, and they're afraid of the wrong things. I mean, fear can be a good thing. It ." RedState editor Erick Erickson put it a little more plainly: "."

Likewise, the conservative group FreedomWorks is working to use fear to push the GOP. Several Republicans who initially signed Lee's letter removed their names — Kelly Ayotte, John Boozman, John Cornyn, Mark Kirk, Roger Wicker — and FreedomWorks hastheir names, urging supporters to "TAKE ACTION and tell your Senators to promise that they will commit to defunding ObamaCare by signing Mike Lee's letter." (Freedomworks alsoabout the midterms.) Heritage Action also wants senators to sign,they "ought to use the all the tools in their toolbox" to stop Obamacare.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell hasn't publicly said whether he'd endorse the tactic, but Club for Growth is . McConnell is up for reelection in 2014, and he's already got a , Matt Bevin, who's expected to attack him from the right. The Club for Growth hasn't said who it's endorsing in the Kentucky race, spurring former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tothis week: "I kind of have a standing philosophy: If the Club for Growth hates you, I like you."

Though the Republican establishment seemed to reach a consensus after the 2012 election that the party had to reach out to Latinos — Karl Rove, Fox News chief Roger Ailes, Sean Hannity, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the Republican National Committee all endorsed passing immigration reform. But while 14 Republicans voted for the Senate's immigration bill, things haven't been as easy in the House. The marquee member of the immigration Gang of Eight, Sen. Marco Rubio, says he won't even  House Republicans to pass the bill. Speaker John Boehner says the House won't vote on the Senate bill, instead passing an immigration overhaul in little pieces. On Friday, more than 100 Republican donors sent a letter to House Republicans pressing them to pass immigration reform,  reported.

But the House is struggling to clear an even lower bar when it comes to reaching out to Latinos: Not saying anything offensive. Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert suggested were trying to cross the border, having been trained to "act like Hispanic." Iowa Rep. Steve Kinglast week that for every one young undocumented immigrant who was a valedictorian, there were . House leadership condemned the comments, but King has , dragging out the controversy. Boehner said his comments were "," Eric Cantor said they were "inexcusable," Rep. Trey Gowdy said they were "reprehensible." When Gowdy was asked how theGOP could keep guys like King from saying things like that, Gowdy replied, "."

Conservative media is split on the issue. The Wall Street Journal, Ailes, and Hannity all support reform, while radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Limbaugh do not.

House leadership suffered an embarrassing defeat when the farm bill failed in June as 62 Republicans voted against it. Majority Leader Eric Cantorthe Republican committee chairs who voted against the bill, including former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

Texas Rep. Steve Stockman has filed ato get the full House to vote on convening a special committee to investigate Benghazi. Earlier this month, hea 60-foot-long scroll signed by 1,000 special forces veterans on the Capitol steps to petition for the select committee. But House leadership . Such a committee might create a spectacle. 

Speaking of primary battles, Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi — no conservative slouch, given he wants to defund Obamacare or shutdown the government and all — is being challenged from the right by Liz Cheney, former Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Candy Crowley's not ready to pull a Chuck Todd on her network - yet.

While Todd blasted NBC for its plans to air a mini-series about Hillary Clinton close to her possible 2016 presidential run, calling it a "total nightmare" on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Crowley couched her words.

She told Politico that while a branch of CNN producing a documentary made her "life more difficult," CNN and CNN Films are separate entities with no influence on each other's content.

"This is a commissioned documentary from people who are not in the employ of CNN," Crowley said. "It's not me. It's not Wolf Blitzer. It's not John King. It's an outside documentary group. But we're with CNN and so this is not a story where the nuances are well-received, particularly by Republicans."

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has threatened to pull GOP primary debates from both CNN and NBC should they proceed with their plans, something Media Matters and Chuck Todd agreed with.

But Crowley suggested that Priebus was using the documentary and miniseries to reduce the number of GOP primaries after the 2012 election left eventual Republican candidate Mitt Romney bruised and burnt out before his presidential campaign even started.

On the other hand, Crowley said, "airtime is airtime," so any Clinton publicity could be good publicity for her presidential campaign. "Politically, it makes it very difficult for me," she said. "But I also think it is being used by the chairman."

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - World number one Novak Djokovic and number two Andy Murray crashed out of the Western and Southern Open within an hour of each other on Friday, creating shockwaves that will carry through to the U.S. Open.

With the sprawling Lindner Family Tennis Center still buzzing over John Isner's 7-6 (5) 3-6 7-5 upset of Djokovic, another bombshell dropped on the nearby grandstand court as Tomas Berdych swept past U.S. Open champion Murray 6-3 6-4.

The upsets of two of the big favorites for the U.S. Open, which gets underway in Flushing Meadows on August 26, has thrown the year's final grand slam wide open, adding a few more contenders to the list of usual suspects.

American Isner and Czech Berdych can now be penciled in to join Djokovic, Murray, Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer, who between them have lifted 33 of the last 34 grand slam events.

In a heavyweight matchup featuring two of the game's big-hitters, it was Isner who came out on top after a slugfest lasting two hours and 23 minutes to set up a meeting in the last four with Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro.

Djokovic, a four-time runner-up on the Cincinnati hardcourts, had been eager to take the final step this year and become the first player to complete what the ATP Tour has dubbed the Career Golden Masters by winning all nine World Tour Masters titles.

But Isner, the top-ranked American at 22 who has been in good form on hardcourt surfaces with a win in Atlanta and a runner-up finish in Washington, signaled right from the start that Djokovic was in for a fight.

"I was putting the ball on the court and I was feeling good off the baseline, I felt like, when I had a chance. I played aggressively," said Isner, who also got the better of the Serb last year with a semi-final win at Indian Wells Masters.

"I think I was able to put a little bit of pressure on him. These hardcourts are surfaces that I enjoy playing on. Not only that, I'm playing in the States. My record in the U.S. compared to outside the U.S. is shockingly different."

The two men set a pounding tone for the match in a 47-minute opening set that went to a tiebreak with the American prevailing 7-5.

Facing a triple set point, Djokovic was able to fight off two but on the third he slammed a return into the net, giving Isner the early advantage to the delight of the partisan home crowd.

STEPPED UP PRESSURE

Djokovic stepped up the pressure in the second set, breaking Isner at the first opportunity on the way to a 3-0 lead before leveling the match.

But Isner was eager for the fight, coming back in the third and breaking Djokovic to cap the upset.

Murray said he struggled to come to grips with the fast surface but the sixth-seeded Berdych was always going to represent a tricky test for the Wimbledon champion with the Czech holding a slight 5-4 advantage in head-to-head meetings.

The Scot, a two-time winner in Cincinnati, had just four break chances against Berdych and failed to convert them all.

"You know, the things that I really need to do well - serving, returning, moving - that was good," said Murray. "But I'll need to work on my groundstrokes a bit, make sure I'm not making too many mistakes going into the U.S. Open.

"Today when I had my opportunities, you know, I didn't take them. That was the problem today."

Del Potro, the 2009 U.S. Open champion, continued to sharpen his hardcourt game before heading to Flushing Meadows, beating Russian Dmitry Tursunov, the first qualifier to reach the last eight in Cincinnati in 11 years, 6-4 3-6 6-1.

"Trying to play slices and different shots in this tournament before the U.S. Open to see how different I can play against the top guys or doing different things," said Del Potro.

"It's the last tournament for me before the U.S. Open, so it means a good thing to close my preparations to get there."

(By Mark Lamport-Stokes)

The project, a partnership with the EarthCam webcam network, went live Monday at midnight.

Museum director Eric Shiner said the project is titled "Figment" because of a Warhol quote in which the artist said: "I always thought I'd like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph and no name. Well, actually, I'd like it to say, 'Figment.'"

The gravestone in a Pittsburgh suburb has Warhol's name, the dates of his birth and death and a cross. Warhol's 85th birthday would have been Tuesday.

Shortly after dawn Tuesday, the live video showed a star-shaped silver balloon and two smaller black-and-white balloons swaying gently in the breeze, next to a headstone surrounded by flowers and some decorative grasses.

Shiner said the museum, which is based in Pittsburgh, Warhol's hometown, decided that the gravesite webcam "would be a really fantastic way to put Andy on the air 24/7 and plug in to our global audience."

"We believe that this will give Warhol the pleasure of knowing that he is still plugged in and turned on over 25 years after his death," Shiner said.

Warhol, who died in 1987, was a devout Catholic who went to church every day to pray, Shiner said. He's buried near his parents at the St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park.

The Warhol gravesite also is documented in artist Madelyn Roehrig's ongoing art project "Figments: Conversations with Andy." Roehrig videotapes people who visit the grave and photographs the many objects adoring fans leave there.

Hundreds of people visit Warhol's grave every year, often leaving pop culture items featured in his artworks, such as Campbell's Soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles.

EarthCam said it also will have a live webcam from the church where Warhol was baptized and people will be able to send flowers and watch as they are delivered to the grave.

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Online: http://www.warhol.org/figment

Dont Laugh. It hurt. I was walking down the street, focusing on an email that I absolutely needed to finish, at that very moment, or the world would come to a violent end, when I walked into a pole. Now I have a bump on my head.

In reality, the email could have totally waited. Not only wasnt it urgent, as I write, I cant even remember to whom, or about what, it was.

How many of us complain about someone walking into us, delaying us on the stairs or almost getting killed because they have their nose in their Galaxy or iPhone instead of where they are headed, ONLY to do the same fucking thing ourselves?  (Id mention Blackberry, but at this point, Darwinism will get those people one way or another anyway.) 

My own hypocrisy is clear, because, as I said above, I walked into a pole today.

However, pedestrian logjam is the least of the issues connected to our collective addiction to personal digital devices. Looking through the world only through the lenses of the cameras on our smartphones is taking a much larger toll than the back up at the crosswalk.

There is little pure enjoyment anymore. At concerts, museums, zoos, beaches, graduations, parties and almost every major life event one can imagine, a significant number of us see only what is on our screen. Either were busily checking texts (l8r) and twitter feeds (), or were chronicling every moment of the happening on Instagram.

Forget stopping to smell the roses; who could even smell a rose through a LED screen?

Who cares? you say. If people want to look at the world through their iPhone 5, its not like theyre hurting anyone.

Not true, generic person expressing opinions via the imaginary voice in my head.  According to a survey of more than seven thousand Millennials digital natives called "," the majority of this generation believe that social media and our collective dependence on technology is "weakening human-to-human bonds" (53%); creating a "society that lacks of community and connectedness" (63%) and that "today's youth have no sense of personal privacy" (70%). Even worse,that "42% of Millennials viewed online immersion negatively in that users are developing poor retention skills, lack social skills and are short of deep-thinking capabilities."

This would all make me sound like Clint Eastwood telling those "damn kids to get off my damn lawn," except that this is how you damn kids describe yourselves.

"Look, old man," say you, "there may be some downsides to technology, but think of the upsides! Digital technology makes us more aware, hell, it saves lives."  True dat, you whipersnapper, but increasingly, it's also endangering livesand not just your own.

Seventy-five percent of teens say texting and driving is "common" among their friends, according to a survey by AT&T and the National Safety Council that says that more than 100,000 crashes a year involve . To put this into context, texting while driving recently surpassed drinking while driving as a cause of .

All of this motivated Academy Award Winner and Official Scary Person Werner Herzog to create thisabout texting while driving...

Look, I love my iPhone as much as anyone (except when I have to use it to type anything, when I HATE that m*therf*cking iPhone). It is there with me when I go to sleep and when I wake up. My apps allow me to get news fast, avoid traffic, and even do my job. 

But the bump on my head and these startling facts have made me rethink my relationship with my digital appendage. It's not just the danger of texting while behind the wheelself-preservation has weaned me from that habit quickly.  It's the growing sense that I am missing out on stuff. That I can't simply enjoy the shit Im doing, without somehow also recording it or sharing it, that I can't just sit and read, or think, without constant also distracting myself with social media or email, or text, or Ruzzle.

Sound familiar?

"But what's a modern citizen of the digital world to do?" you ask. "Work, friends, family, they all depend on me to stay in touch, and if I unplug too much, I might get #FOMO!"

Ah, FOMO. I have that toobut what I fear I'm missing is life itself. I fear that my memories will all be shot glass and silicon chips, and that in my old age (I see that smirk) there'll be nothing analog for me to look back upon and that my dreams will be of mechanical sheep.

So, as you ask, what can we do?

First, put down your iPhone, laptop, iPad, Galaxy or HTC (after youre done with this article, obviously). Next time you have dinner, leave the smart phone in the car, in your purse, in your pocket or even (gasp) at home (believe it or not, mankind did once manage to forage for food without an App or Google Maps).

Second, the next time you find yourself at a concert, or a museum or some other cultural event, just look, simply listen... you don't HAVE to hit record to enjoy it.  Even if you don't Instagram it, it will still have happened.

Next, take this pledge to NOT TEXT WHILE DRIVING and to GET OTHERS TO DO THE SAME. If you do nothing else, do this. It's not just your life at stake, it's the lives of those around you.

Last, no matter where you live, when you next are walking down the street, just... walk. Maybe even smell some actual (not virtual) roses. There's a world around you worth looking at, and it's way more enjoyable without a bump on your noggin.

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from TakePart