The British soldier-prince had one of America's most storied wounded warriors, the wisecracking Sen. John McCain, at his side as he viewed a display of land-mine photos, maps and mine-detection equipment, staged by a charity held dear by his late mother, Princess Diana.

As the prince entered the rotunda of the Russell Senate Office Building near the Capitol, he was greeted by a roar and shouts of "Harry!" from a crowd of about 500 people, nearly all of them women. They crowded a roped-off hallway and stairway with a view of the exhibit, hoisting their cellphones and tablets to get a picture. Harry didn't visibly react except to give a polite wave.

McCain, with a laugh, said he told Harry "I've never seen, in all the years I've been here, such an unbalanced gender crowd."

From there it was on to the White House for a previously unannounced visit with the first lady, Vice President Joe Biden's wife, Jill, and military mothers and children at an afternoon tea. Harry joined with the children in helping the kids make Mother's Day gifts from tulip and rose bouquets, vegetable chips and edible dough jewelry gathered in the State Dining Room.

For the prince, the Washington settings were a world away from the Afghanistan war zone where he recently served for 20 weeks as a co-pilot gunner in an Apache attack helicopter. It was just as far removed from his hijinks in a Las Vegas hotel room last summer, when fuzzy photos got out of a naked Harry playing strip billiards.

McCain, R-Ariz., who was shot down over North Vietnam and tortured as a captive, said he told the prince that "he was probably a much better pilot than I was."

As for the prince's reputation for cutting loose on occasion, McCain joked that the British diplomatic reception and dinner later in the evening was sure to be a "wild and raucous affair."

It was a glittering one, at least, hosted by British Ambassador Peter Westmacott for about 30 guests after a reception for 170, many connected with the mine-clearing HALO Trust charity. Harry sat between Teresa Heinz, wife of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the ambassador's wife, Susie, for the dinner.

The prince invoked his mother's memory in remarks supporting the trust.

"My mother, who believed passionately in this cause, would be proud of my association with HALO," he told the attendees. "In her special way, she adopted it as her own. She would join me along with all of you, I'm sure in praising HALO for the amazing work that it has done over the past quarter century, and in hoping that one day soon its humanitarian work will be done."

Diana highlighted the trust's work when she was pictured wearing a face mask and protective clothing during a visit to a minefield being cleared by the organization in Angola in 1997. Her son said that at any one time, the group has 7,000 people deployed in the field, "striving to protect people, and banish the fear that pervades the lives of millions around the world."

Fiona Willoughby, marketing manager of the trust, said the prince's tour of the trust's exhibit brings attention back to the issue.

"People have forgotten about it, and we think Prince Harry, following in his mother's footsteps, is a worthy cause and will raise the profile of what we are doing," she said.

On Friday, the prince visits Arlington National Cemetery and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center before flying to Colorado for the 2013 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs. More than 200 wounded servicemen and women from the U.S. and Britain will participate.

Harry will also visit parts of New Jersey afflicted by Superstorm Sandy and stop for events in New York City before capping his visit by playing in the Sentebale Polo Cup match in Greenwich, Conn., on Wednesday.

___

Associated Press writer Stacy A. Anderson contributed to this report.

The Rio de Janeiro State Health Department said in a statement that the woman's husband was cleaning his spear gun when it went off, firing a harpoon that hit her cervical spine.

Elisangela Borborema Rosa was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery after Monday's incident in the coastal city of Arraial do Cabo.

The statement quotes neurosurgeon Allan da Costa as saying that the harpoon came within 1 centimeter (less than half an inch) of killing the woman. He said he expects a full recovery.

A police officer in Arrial do Cabo said by telephone that officials are looking into the case.

"Everything indicates it was an accident, but we are investigating. We don't think the husband tried to kill her," said the officer, who cited department policy in declining to let her name be used.

"But once she fully recovers we will be able to question her and get a clearer picture of what happened."

A judge ordered the destruction of more than 200 bags of blood and other evidence gathered in police raids involving Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes in 2006. He testified he had clients from other sports, including soccer, tennis, boxing and track, but they were not identified.

In a series of interviews with The Associated Press, most riders and team directors expressed disappointment with the ruling, saying it undermines efforts to catch the cheats and uncover the extent of one of the biggest drug scandals in European sports.

''I don't agree with the decision to destroy all the evidence. It doesn't quite make sense to me,'' said Taylor Phinney, an American rider with the BMC squad who won the time trial that opened last year's Giro.

David Millar, a British rider who returned from a doping ban to become an outspoken critic of banned drugs, is hoping the ruling gets overturned on appeal. Anti-doping organizations have until May 17 to appeal.

''I know the Spanish anti-doping agency are firmly against (destroying the evidence) and I know WADA (the World Anti-Doping Agency) are firmly against that,'' Millar told the AP before the opening stage of the Giro on Saturday.

The Madrid court found Fuentes guilty of endangering public health and handed him a one-year suspended jail sentence. He was barred from medical practice in sports for four years and ordered to pay a $6,0 00 fine.

Judge Julia Santamaria cited Spanish privacy laws Tuesday in her decision not to turn over the evidence to anti-doping authorities.

The ruling, unless overturned on appeal, would prevent officials from identifying the doctor's blood-doping clients and pursuing disciplinary cases against them.

''Unfortunately institutions often don't handle things the same way in every country,'' said Stefano Zanatta, the team director for Ivan Basso's Cannondale squad.

Basso, a two-time Giro winner, served a two-year ban after the Italian Olympic Committee connected him to the Puerto case in 2007.

''Basso is really the only one who paid for it,'' Zanatta said. ''He's a bit bitter about it but he was already resigned to the fact that it would end up like that. Unfortunately, he paid a much higher price than anyone else.''

Basso withdrew his name from the Giro entry list Thursday because of a groin cyst.

Michele Scarponi, who was awarded the 2011 Giro title after Alberto Contador was stripped of the honor in another doping case, was banned for 18 months in the Puerto case in 2007.

''We're disappointed, but this story is 10 years old and I don't think we need to discuss it anymore - it's useless and it hurts cycling, which is the only sport involved so far,'' Zanatta added.

More than 50 cyclists were implicated in the Puerto case and several were identified by name as having worked with Fuentes.

WADA is reviewing the court decision and is in contact with the Spanish anti-doping agency about whether to appeal.

Samuel Sanchez, the 2008 Olympic road race champion from Spain, just wants to move on.

''A lot of time has passed. It was up to the authorities to make decisions, and you have to respect that,'' he said. ''We cannot do anything about it, it is something that happened in the past, some may back the verdict, others may not, but I think we have to look ahead. The past is the past and cycling carries on.''

Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and four other defendants gave evidence in Madrid earlier this year, after a police operation which came to light in 2006 when anabolic steroids, transfusion equipment and blood bags were seized in raids.

The proceedings have attracted international attention because some of Fuentes's clients were successful professional riders, including American Tyler Hamilton who gave evidence in February.

Anti-doping authorities, who were represented in court, hope the trial will lead to evidence being made available of wrongdoing by athletes in sports other than cycling.

Fuentes, who denies doping, said in his opening testimony he also had clients in sports including soccer, tennis, athletics and boxing.

The judge is also expected to announce whether she will grant a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) request for access to the blood bags.

Spain is hopeful the trial will help to dispel the impression that the nation is soft on doping and boost Madrid's bid to win the right to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

The country is pushing through parliament anti-doping legislation which the government says will bring Spain into line with international norms.

(Reporting by Mark Elkington, editing by Ken Ferris)

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"We applaud and thank the Senators who voted today in favor of the Marketplace Fairness Act. And while today's Senate victory is momentous, the fight is not over and our advocacy efforts to see this bill signed in law will continue. As we turn our sights to passage in the House of Representatives, we urge the House to bring this legislation to a quick vote.

"The widespread, bipartisan support in the Senate underscores the value and consequence of this piece of legislation. This bill is about fairness and equity; Marketplace Fairness will finally level the playing field between online and brick and mortar retailers.

"Marketplace Fairness is commonsense legislation that is neither a new tax nor a tax increase. Until it becomes law, we will continue to fight against efforts to frame it as such."

The National League of Cities is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans.

SOURCE National League of Cities

A House vote on the measure was expected as early as Friday, with lawmakers eager to embark on a weeklong vacation.

Under the legislation, which the Senate passed without even a roll call vote, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA has said it will shut the facilities as it makes its share of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester that took effect last month at numerous government agencies.

The Senate acted as the FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

Administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.

After the vote, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, "It will be good news for America's traveling public if Congress spares them these unnecessary delays. But ultimately, this is no more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester's mindless, across-the-board cuts."

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."

Senate approval followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.

Officials said a small group of senators insisted on a last-ditch effort at an agreement before Congress adjourned for a vacation that could have become politically problematic if the flight delays continued.

"I want to do it right now. There are other senators you'd have to ask what the hang-up is," Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said at a point when it appeared no compromise would emerge.

For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.

In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed."While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.

It added it was "learning of additional impacts nationwide, including open watches, increased restoration times, delays resulting from insufficient funding for parts and equipment, modernization delays, missed or deferred preventative maintenance, and reduced redundancy."

The airlines, too, were pressing Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.

In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, likened the furloughs to a "wildcat regulatory action."

He added, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."

In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.

Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.

One Senate Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, noted that without the type of comprehensive deficit deal that Obama favors, a bill that eases the spending crunch at the FAA would inevitably be followed by other single-issue measures. She listed funding at the National Institutes of Health as one example, and cuts that cause furloughs of civilians who work at military hospitals as a second.

At the same time, Democratic aides said resolve had crumbled under the weight of widespread delays for the traveling public and pressure from the airlines.

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., involved in the discussions, said the issue was big enough so "most people want to find a solution as long as it doesn't spend any more money."

Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and another $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.

Across the Capitol, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said, "We're willing to look at what the Senate's going to propose."

He said he believes the FAA has the authority it needs under existing law to shift funds and end the furloughs of air traffic controllers, and any legislation should be "very, very limited" and direct the agency to use the flexibility it already has.

In a reflection of the political undercurrents, another House Republican, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said FAA employees "are being used as pawns by this (Obama) administration to be able to implement the maximum amount of pain on the American people when it does not have to be this way."

The White House and congressional Democrats vociferously dispute such claims.

___

Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

(Reuters) - Netflix Increported on Monday a first-quarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations as the dominant video rental service added 2 million new U.S. streaming subscribers, and its shares soared 24 percent.

Netflix shares rose to $216.62 in after-hours trading, after closing at $174.37 on Nasdaq.

For January through March, Netflix recorded $19 million in net income, excluding a loss for retiring debt, and adjusted earnings per share of 31 cents. The results topped Wall Street analysts' average forecast of 19 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company said it signed up 2 million new customers for its $8-a-month U.S. streaming service, the largest part of its business, with a total of 29.2 million members. In February, Netflix generated buzz with the release of the series "House of Cards," a political drama starring Kevin Spacey that marked a big push into original content.

"The launch of 'House of Cards' provided a halo effect on our entire service," Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings and Chief Financial Officer David Wells said in a letter to shareholders.

Investors pushed shares higher in response to the subscriber numbers as well as higher profit margins from the U.S. streaming business, said BMO Capital Markets analyst Edward Williams. The domestic streaming contribution margin increased to 20.6 percent. "You had solid subscriber growth," Williams said.

Netflix said it added 1 million streaming subscribers in its markets outside the United States, which include Canada and parts of Europe and Latin America, bringing the global total to 36 million. It said it would launch the service in a new European market in the second half of 2013.

The company also said it would offer a new plan for $11.99 a month to allow four simultaneous streams from the same account, instead of the current limit of two. It expects less than 1 percent of members to sign up for it.

Revenue for the quarter was $1.0 billion, up 17 percent from a year earlier.

Netflix projected it would add up to 880,000 U.S. streaming subscribers in the current quarter, slightly more than the same period a year ago, helped by the May 26 release of one-time Fox TV comedy "Arrested Development."

Before its financial results were announced on Monday, Netflix shares had climbed 80 percent this year. Most of the gains came in January after Netflix reported better-than-expected growth over the 2012 holiday season.

Many Wall Street analysts are still on the fence about Netflix. Nineteen of 35 analysts rate Netflix "hold," nine rate it a "buy," and six recommend "sell."

Some analysts have said they wonder if Netflix will grow fast enough to pay the costs of its international expansion and its bills from Walt Disney Co , Time Warner Inc'sWarner Bros, CBS Corpand other Hollywood studios that provide it with movies and TV shows to stream to subscribers over the Internet.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Britain's most successful Olympian, who won two golds at the 2012 London Games to add to three from Beijing four years earlier and his first in Athens in 2004, said the time was right to quit the saddle having exhausted "every last ounce of effort and energy".

"I am officially announcing my retirement. It was not a decision I took easily or lightly, but I know it's the right decision," Hoy told a news conference in Edinburgh.

The 37-year-old had been deliberating for months whether to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in his native Scotland, and in the velodrome named after him, but said it would be one championship too far.

"Nothing would give me more pleasure than going to Glasgow, but I don't want to be there for the numbers.

"I feel I have got every last ounce of effort and energy out of myself. I made it to London and I was successful but maybe people don't realize just how much that took out of me.

"Trying to go on for another year would have been too much and I didn't want to just turn up and wave to the crowd and get the tracksuit."

Hoy won his first Olympic gold in the 1km time trial at the Athens Games and followed up by winning the team sprint, keirin and sprint in Beijing, the first Briton since 1908 to win three gold at one Games.

DEFINING MOMENT

Last year in London he secured two more golds in the team sprint, helping clock a world record time, and keirin to overtake rower Steve Redgrave as the Briton with the most gold medals.

Fellow British cyclist Bradley Wiggins has also won seven Olympic medals with Hoy ahead of the Tour de France winner on 'gold difference'.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Hoy's tears of joy after clinching his sixth Games gold was the defining moment of London 2012.

Hoy, who also won a silver medal in the team sprint at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and 11 world titles, has been at the forefront of British cycling success in recent years.

Britain won seven of the 10 track cycling gold medals up for grabs in London, equaling their 2008 tally.

"I have been in the sport for 19 years and witnessed how the sport has changed out of all recognition. It has gone from a minority sport to a major sport and to have been part of the journey is a massive honour," he said.

"I don't want it to be a sad moment, I want to celebrate it and to be happy because I know it is the right decision.

"There is always a temptation to go on perhaps too long, it's not that I'm frightened of losing it's just I feel I can't ask for anymore."

Britain's multiple Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish led the tributes to Hoy, saying: "I could not have hoped for a better face to represent my sport through these growing years."

British Cycling team performance director Dave Brailsford added: "Chris's application, athleticism and dedication are second to none and I've said it many times but he is a true Olympic champion who embodies all of the Olympic values."

(Writing by Justin Palmer, editing by Mark Meadows)

It said over 100,000 people working for British firms were employed through payroll agents based in offshore tax havens such as Jersey, costing the government almost 100 million pounds ($150 million) a year in lost revenue.

In many cases the workers - mainly temporary agency staff such as teachers, nurses, and oil and gas crews - were unaware the taxes were not being paid or that as a result they could lose their entitlement to state sickness or maternity benefits.

Treasury minister Danny Alexander said measures to end the practice would be introduced in the government's budget statement on March 20.

"British firms employing British workers must pay British taxes. This is just one part of a bigger package we will introduce at the budget next week," he said.

The new measures would come into force from April 2014, the Treasury said.

Payment of taxes has become a hot political issue in Britain as the government squeezes spending to reduce its budget deficit.

Multinationals such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google have come under fire for using legal maneuvers to cut their tax bills, although there was no suggestion they were using the payroll loophole.

(Reporting by Tim Castle; Editing by John Stonestreet)

This was not exactly on the agenda when and Phone Arts co-founderstarted messing around with various visual-creation iPhone apps a couple of years ago. He was simply interested in exploiting his phone to creative ends instead of merely using it to check status updates or play games.

Its a tool that can be used in many different ways, Littlewood told me, and he wanted to explore what he could make with his iPhone, as opposed to what he could take in through it.

Heand as a result heard from the creator of one of the apps hed been playing with:inventor . They decided to launch Phone Arts, in November 2011, essentially to ask the question: What can we do with our phones? How far can we take it?

Hugon is in France, Littlewood in New York. Both reached out to fellow artists and designers, and rounded up about a dozen regular contributors to their Tumblr. Among the New York contacts Littlewood approached as a guest contributor is the guy whoselargely hooked me on Phone Arts: .