Like thousands of others in the hardest-hit coastal stretches of New Jersey and New York, his life is in limbo as he waits to see if tough new coastal rebuilding rules make it just too expensive for him to stay.

That's because the federal government's newly released advisory flood maps have put his Toms River home in the most vulnerable area the "velocity zone." If that sticks, he'd have to jack his house up 14 feet on stilts at a cost of $150,000 or face up to $30,000 a year in flood insurance premiums.

"Everyone assumes when you say a 'home on the water,' people have tons and tons of money, but that's not the case," said Kasimos, whose Toms River home was filled with a foot and a half of water in the storm. "Most of these homeowners are middle class."

Even as those in the most vulnerable coastal areas have struggled to recover from the storm, federal authorities have been issuing them a sobering warning: Raise your homes above the flood plain or face soaring flood insurance costs.

For many, it's an impossible choice. They can't afford to do either. And many unanswered questions have left residents paralyzed with indecision.

Until the new flood maps are finalized in coming months by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, homeowners won't know for sure how high they'll have to raise their homes if they have to raise them at all.

Officials are urging people to elevate their houses now because they are eligible for federal financial aid. About $350 million of New York City's and $600 million of New Jersey's Sandy relief funding has been allocated for the repair of single- and two-family homes, which could help defray the cost.

But it's still unclear how that money will be distributed among individual homeowners, which means many of them could be on their own financially.

The process of house-raising is laborious and prohibitively expensive, especially for working-class people who are already saddled with storm repair costs. Even a small cottage can cost $60,000 to elevate, while a sprawling multilevel home could run upwards of $250,000.

"You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't," said Karly Carozza, who is living with her parents while she and her husband decide when to repair their small ranch house in Brick Township, N.J. "It seems like waiting makes the most sense, but when people have nowhere to go, how long do you want them to wait?"

Officials say now is the time to prepare for the future: Sandy will happen again. But many residents don't believe them.

They think Sandy was a fluke, a storm to end all storms, the kind they won't ever see again. And they're preparing to do battle with the government for the right to continue living just as they have for generations in low-lying abodes that were never built to endure storms, let alone the fierce hurricanes of the 21st century.

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In Broad Channel in the New York City borough of Queens, where the air smells like fish and ramshackle bungalows are built along the docks, few people are raising their homes. The firefighters, police officers and auto mechanics who live on this marshy island simply can't afford it.

Yet residents here are staring down a possible A or V flood zone designation, putting them squarely on target to incur astronomical insurance premiums. FEMA defines an A zone as an area that has a 26 percent chance of flooding over 30 years. A V zone is the same, but adds the potential hazard of storm waves, increasing insurance premiums.

"The thing that scares me is that we've invested and worked on our houses our whole life," said Frank Porcella, who took out a mortgage to pay for flooding damage to his bungalow. "And now they'll make this place and the area around it a ghost town."

Porcella, who is retired and lives on a fixed income, didn't even consider raising his home. If his flood insurance goes up, he'll simply walk away from his house and his mortgage. He's gambling that the proposed rules will be changed and that another Sandy won't happen again in his lifetime.

Several months before Sandy hit, Congress quietly passed the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, a bill that authorized skyrocketing premium increases for people in flood-prone communities.

It was a desperate attempt to keep the program financially solvent after it was nearly bankrupted by an onslaught of claims from Hurricane Katrina, which forced the federal government to borrow about $17 billion from the Treasury.

"When Biggert-Waters was passed in 2012, the big issue was this debt," said Larry Larson, a senior policy adviser for the Association of State Floodplain Managers. "And the reality that the program could probably never pay it back."

At the same time, FEMA was already preparing to update flood plain maps that hadn't been revised in more than three decades. The new maps account for sea level rise and other changes to the coastline, putting almost every town in a more stringent flood zone.

If a home lies 4 feet below the flood plain, for example, a homeowner could pay $9,000 a year in flood insurance once the new rates take effect, Larson said. And the cost could be much higher, depending on the designation and where the home sits.

That's why Kasimos founded "Stop FEMA Now!," a grassroots group that's fighting for changes to both Biggert-Waters and the new flood maps.

The group has nearly 4,000 Facebook members and counting. And it's gaining traction from concerned shore-dwellers across the nation, especially those on the Gulf Coast.

Stacey Mattison of Belle Chasse, La., started a Louisiana chapter after learning her annual flood insurance premium will skyrocket from $300 to nearly $10,000.

"Who's going to buy my house knowing they're going to have to fork over an extra 10 grand a year?" she asked.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who voted for Biggert-Waters, introduced legislation last month that would delay the premium increases and allow homes that had subsidized rates to keep them, even if they are sold.

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Can you live on the wild side and ignore the maps?

If you don't have a federally backed mortgage, sure. But if you don't, your home won't be worth much if you try to sell it down the road.

"If it was my house and that was my biggest investment in my life, I'd build it like a tank," said Rod Scott, a consultant for the structural elevation industry in New Orleans, who has been educating thousands of homeowners across New Jersey on house-raising. "I wouldn't squibble and squabble about this or that. I'd put the money in and I'd invest and I'd make it stronger so it can survive."

But many homes with brick or cement foundations simply cannot be raised. To meet the new flood zone requirements, residents could instead fill their basements or first floors and move all electrical equipment to higher floors. Or they could knock them down and rebuild altogether.

To make matters more complex: To elevate in a V zone, people must build breakway walls that allow water to pass through or put their homes on stilts.

Unlike most of her neighbors, Lynn O'Hanlon is set on raising her Broad Channel home where she lives with her husband and two small children. The entire first floor of the two-story house was destroyed, and the place was so badly damaged that engineers say it would collapse if they tried to raise it.

So they're planning to use insurance money to knock the whole thing down and rebuild, possibly as high as 14 feet, depending on the final instructions from FEMA. O'Hanlon hopes the new height will protect her children from future storms.

"We'll be pretty high in the air," she said. "We'll be climbing a lot of stairs."

But she's worried about the future of their cozy community where people have lived for generations in close proximity to the sea.

What will it look like 20 years from now?

"I hope that the money comes through and the houses go up, and we're all one community 14 feet in the air," she said. "Hopefully."

Organizers hope to complete the opening round on Friday and the second round on Saturday before playing both the third and fourth rounds on Sunday to get the second major of the season back on track.

"The (weather) system we're in now is 140 miles deep and it's going to take a good seven hours to get out of here," Sue Witters, the lead rules official at the LPGA Championship, told reporters.

"Then we should get a good break in the middle of the night, hopefully for the golf course to percolate the rain. Friday morning, the last I was told, is supposed to be scattered and spotty, and then we have a big window.

"Saturday is better and Sunday is no rain at all, so Sunday actually is our best day with the most golf that we'll have to play."

More than an inch of continual rain on Thursday morning left the course saturated, giving organizers no chance to get the layout ready for a possible delayed start in the late afternoon.

"Once the threat of lightning left the area about 8:30 am, we could have opened up the practice facilities, but the problem then became the golf course," said Witter. "We had numerous greens underwater, fairways puddling.

"If it could have stopped raining, we would have had a shot at getting the ground to absorb the rain and getting it playable, squeegeeing the water. There's no point in squeegeeing when it's still raining.

"We went as long as we could, and it never stopped, and now it's coming down even harder. The goal is to get 72 (holes in), and Monday (play) is still on the table."

PATIENCE TESTED

American world number two Stacy Lewis said she and her fellow players had been prepared for their patience to be tested to the full by the predicted bad weather.

"Coming into the day everybody knew what the weather was going to be," Lewis, winner of the 2011 Kraft Nabisco Championship and the last non-Asian to win a major, told reporters. "We knew it was going to be a long day, long week.

"It always is here. We're golfers. We deal with rain delays all the time, so you just have to stay patient with it and when you have an opportunity to play, just be ready to go and hopefully your golf swing can stay in a rhythm.

"When you have the opportunity, you just gotta be ready."

Shanshan Feng is defending her title this week at Locust Hill, having triumphed by two shots last year to become the first person from mainland China to win a major golf championship.

South Korean world number one Inbee Park, winner of this season's opening major, the Kraft Nabisco, and compatriot Choi Na-yeon, the reigning U.S. Women's Open champion, are among the other leading contenders assembled at Locust Hill.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)

PARIS (Reuters) - Serena Williams is already assured a place in tennis history but her coach believes the 16-time grand slam champion will soon embroider her status among the greats.

The American, who beat Maria Sharapova to win the French Open on Saturday, is now two grand slam titles shy of Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova's tally of 18, and Patrick Mouratoglou believes Williams has the motivation to equal the mark.

"She needs two more titles and, yes, I think she's going to get them," Frenchman Mouratoglou told reporters after his charge beat Sharapova 6-4 6-4 at Roland Garros.

The all-time record is held by Australian Margaret Court, who won 24 major titles, two more than German Steffi Graf, followed by Americans Helen Wills Moody (19), Evert and Navratilova (18).

"When she is in the right state of mind, she is unbeatable," added Mouratoglou, who celebrated his 43rd birthday on Saturday.

"She is a huge champion, what more can I say?"

The only thing that would prevent 31-year-old Williams from adding to her collection would be retirement.

"It will only happen if her level of motivation goes down, and that is not the case today," Mouratoglou said.

On Saturday, Williams had more than enough motivation, firing three aces in the final game as she ended Sharapova's resilience on Court Philippe Chatrier.

"Serena wanted it at all cost," Mouratoglou said.

"She was the best in the key moments. She found the resources, as she always does when she wants to win."

Graves says he was only in it to get rid of Bachmann, who is aof Democrats nationwide. Once she was out, there was no reason for him to stay in. Here's how he :

Basically, after all that's gone on, and with Michele Bachmann now stepping down, I've been talking to my friends and family and frankly, the feeling is, "Mission Accomplished." She wasn't representing the people of the 6th District appropriately, and now she won't be representing them. There's no way anyone could run and win who would be worse than Michele Bachmann. So we accomplished that task...

I'm not a politician; I'm a business guy. Now there are zero things on my agenda that I feel a need to do in public life. []

Absent Ms. Bachmann from the campaign environment the chances of Jim Graves of getting significant outside support for his doomed candidacy would have been somewhere between zip and nil... Brutal truth of it is, a R+8 district is not within reach of the average Democrat this cycle. []

One thing is clear: The seat will most likely not be switching hands. Graves was "arguably the strongest and most well-financed candidate Minnesota Democrats had," says , meaning Democrats' chances of winning just got a lot lower.

View this article onGetIssues of The Week

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Penn's J/P Haitian Relief Organization will accept the top three men and two women finishers in a rare half-marathon that will wind through the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince on Sunday.

Ron Baldwin, executive director of J/P HRO, said the decision to sponsor Haitian runners in the world's largest marathon was inspired in part by an Associated Press story. The January report featured a Haitian distance runner named Astrel Clovis who faces numerous obstacles as he runs through the hilly streets of Port-au-Prince three years after the Jan. 12 earthquake devastated the capital.

"It's an inspiring story," Baldwin said of Clovis. "After the earthquake, he's running. He's self-training, and has no support. We decided 'let's give that guy a chance.' And it grew from there to build a whole team."

Clovis has a good shot at making the cut for New York. He is a favorite among the more than 50 registered runners participating in Sunday's government-organized race. He finished second in a marathon in neighboring Dominican Republic in December with a time of 2 hours and 42 minutes.

"This is my dream to participate in a marathon, out in the world," Clovis said by phone. "I'm very excited to represent Haiti in the New York marathon, if I qualify."

J/P HRO has secured 10 spots for the marathon, five for the Haitian runners and another five for celebrities and philanthropists who will participate to raise funds for the group.

"What prompted this was just the impulse to give the runners an opportunity that they wouldn't have otherwise," Baldwin said.

Penn founded J/P HRO shortly after the 2010 earthquake, and has since become an ambassador-at-large for Haiti. His charity has relocated most of the displaced people from a camp on a golf course in Port-au-Prince one of many such camps in the capital and demolished the National Palace, which collapsed in the temblor.

J/P HRO will secure sponsors to cover airfare, visa fees and lodging for the runners. The group will also support the Haiti team as it trains with the Haitian Amateur Athletics Federation for the marathon.

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Trenton Daniel can be followed at http://twitter.com/trentondaniel

So my earliest impressions of Twitter were similar to what a lot of people thought, which was that it was a mass text message board that anytime someone you were friends with farted, you would find out about it.

And as much as I enjoy my friends farts, I want to savor them, I want them to be special, you know?

The most important three things about me are, Im a dad, a husband and a comedian. I think thats about it. Im mostly boring compared to all the garbage that you read about online. Ive always been a weirdo.

Why do you say that youve always been a weirdo?

Ive always enjoyed silly, funny, outrageous, insane things for their entertainment value. Im addicted to laughing and making other people laugh so I spend most of my waking moments either trying to make funny things or consume them -- for better or for worse. My life has a singular focus, certainly.

If I were a woman, when I encountered sexism Id be like BRB, Im gonna go *MAKE A HUMAN* IN MY BODY LIKE A MAGICAL GOD, YOU SAD OAF.

What were you doing before Twitter?

Im guessing Twitter has changed that.

Yeah, very, very dramatically. I am able to now sell places out on the road, which is the greatest thing that ever happened, as far Im concerned. Its afforded me insane opportunities. As I said, I was pursuing all the classic avenues that a comedian does to make a living beforehand, but Twitter pretty much pole-vaulted me into another universe. So Im very cognizant of that.

Youre sort of a poster boy for the success a comedian can have by making himself known through Twitter. Has anyone from Twitter reached out to you?

I was summoned to headquarters maybe a year-and-a-half ago and we just shot the breeze. They kinda wanted to know what I liked about it, what I didnt like. And we just sort of had a little brain-smush together, and that was fun. Any time Ive interacted with anyone who works at Twitter-- you know, theyre pretty youth-savvy and interesting and interested in what Im doing and what people are doing with Twitter.

Im curious to hear what you told them you didnt like.

I told them that for my purposes, I need no bells and whistles. I am after the pure experience of what can I get in 140 characters. Twitter for me could be a white box that I put jokes in. Im very interested, of course, in how many people share my jokes or are retweeting, but thats literally the only bell I need. I need no others.

But I dont have any real standing complaints about Twitter. If I graded it as a service I might give it an A, instead of an A+; but, you know, what is perfect in this world, other than Adeles porcelain complexion and melodious voice? Not much.

When are we going to see a Rob Delaney show?

I dont know! I just wrote a pilot for the BBC. And I just gave that to them. Maybe theyll like that, maybe they wont, but it was my latest effort to make a television show. Its a sitcom about a husband and a wife and their children.

Do you have a British accent?

When Harvard graduate and Heritage Foundation study co-author Jason Richwine asserted that Hispanic immigrants and their descendants have lower intelligence quotients (IQs) than whites do and that immigration policy should be based on IQ much of the ensuing furor focused on whether that was true. No one questioned whether IQ is a reliable, or even useful, measure of intelligence.

However, cognitive scientists now know that the brain is not a coffee mug that is either more- or less-full of intelligence. Instead, there are many different kinds of intelligence, and genius in one area does not necessarily predict genius in another. Helping to illustrate this concept is a highly sophisticated animal that is probably asleep on your sofa: the domestic dog.

Over a century ago, French psychologist Alfred Binet developed the first standardized intelligence test that eventually became . Even Binet stressed that his test did not encompass the full range and diversity of intelligence. American psychologist Henry H. Goddard translated Binets test, and it quickly became the most widely used standardized test in the United States. []

In an eerie precursor to Richwines thesis, back in 1912, Goddard stated in his book, The Kallikak Family: A study in the Heredity of Feeble Mindedness, that "feeble-mindedness is hereditary and transmitted as surely as any other character Segregation through colonization seems, in the present state of our knowledge, to be the ideal and perfectly satisfactory method. Sterilization may be accepted as a makeshift, as a help to solve this problem."

Members of the eugenics movement used that philosophy as justification for the forced sterilization of thousands of African-American women on the basis of their IQ.

Today, people are still and by their performance on other standardized tests. These tests are popular because they predict on average scholastic success. However, they do not even come close to measuring a person's full capabilities or entire skill set. For example, no standardized tests assess empathy, creativity or perseverance.

Since co-authoring "The Genius of Dogs," people often ask us whether a dog is smarter than a chimpanzee, or if a border collie is smarter than a poodle. We always say its like asking if a hammer is a better tool than a screwdriver each tool is designed to solve a certain type of problem. The same analogy applies to measuring the intelligence of different species, and even individuals within a species.

When we test for intelligence in animals, instead of pass or fail, we try to discover the strategies each animal uses that make them successful. Instead of the glass being full or empty, there are different kinds of intelligence that are often supported by different neurobiological systems. The question is not which animal is smartest, but which cognitive strategies they rely on, and why. []

The genius of dogs was not immediately obvious, which is why cognitive scientists ignored them for most of the 20th century. After all, how smart can an animal be if it chases its own tail and drinks out of a toilet?

Dogs have evolved a specific kind of intelligence: the ability to flexibly . Human infants begin to do this when they are 9 months old they start paying attention to what adults are trying to communicate when they point. This early communication skill is the building block for all forms of culture, including language. That dogs exhibit a skill thought to be a building block of human culture is remarkable. Even our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, cant read our gestures as well as dogs can.

This extraordinary ability was probably an important catalyst for a . Dogs are now the most successful large mammal on the planet besides humans. And yet when you compare dogs to wolves in several problem-solving tasks, dogs look downright vapid. But if dogs see humans solve these same problems, dogs get it right away. Its when dogs partner with humans that they become extraordinary.

Temple Grandin, professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University, is the author of several bestselling books, including the recent , and has done more for animal welfare and autism awareness than almost anyone. Grandin is autistic and struggles to read peoples emotions and social cues. Our society would be at a loss without Grandin, and all the other people who do not conform to a single-dimensional idea of intelligence that is now over a century old.

Decades of the best cognitive and neurobiological research do not support the dangerously simplistic view being politicized by the Heritage Foundation. Our brains are not coffee mugs. Instead, there are many different types of intelligence.

Not all types of intelligence correlate, and individuals use a variety of strategies to navigate the world. With this scientifically correct characterization of intelligence, diversity is strength, and welcoming different perspectives should be the priority.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This article was originally published on .

"He was definitely following a detailed checklist," said Captain Eric Carter of the Albany police department about the 17-year-old, Grant Acord. "It appears he had a systematic, well-documented plan, this was not just an errant note."

Acord, a West Albany High School student, was arrested on Thursday night after police received a tip that he had produced a bomb and planned to detonate it at school. Carter said Acord was arrested at his mother's home in north Albany on Thursday evening without incident.

During a search of the residence, police officers found six home-made bombs, including pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and napalm bombs under the floorboards in the suspect's bedroom.

Carter also said the police discovered diagrams of Acord's school, which "led us toward the conclusion that he was planning a Columbine-style attack" a reference to the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado where two teenagers shot a teacher and 12 other students to death before committing suicide.

"That claim will be demonstrated in the evidence we will provide," said Benton County district attorney John Haroldson, whose office has jurisdiction over Acord's case. "The suspect was working based on a very methodical process."

"This was not driven by emotion, this was driven by a mission."

Police conducted two searches of West Albany High School on Thursday evening and on Friday, the latter a more extensive inspection using a canine bomb detection unit from the Oregon State.

Authorities said a detailed affidavit listing the evidence against Acord would be released on Tuesday. Under Oregon law, as Acord likely faces charges of attempted murder, if the case goes to court he would be tried as an adult.

Acord could not be reached for an immediate comment on Sunday.

Albany, Oregon, is about 70 miles southwest of Portland.

(Reporting By Nick Carey; Editing by Scott Malone, Maureen Bavdek and Nick Zieminski)

The defending Stanley Cup champions maintained the series theme of home-ice domination to seize a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven set before the teams return to San Jose for Game Six on Sunday.

After a goalless first period, Anze Kopitar opened the scoring for the Kings in the final few minutes of the second as he pounced on the rebound of a Kyle Clifford long-range shot to notch his second tally of the playoffs, first in this series.

Stirred by a fanatical home support, the Kings refused to relinquish the advantage and doubled their lead early in the third when Slava Voynov connected from distance just 53 seconds into the final period.

Jeff Carter capped a comprehensive performance for the hosts when he steered the puck into an empty net to complete the scoring.

"I think a good start (was the key to the win)," Kopitar told reporters.

"We can all agree that it was probably our best effort in the playoffs so far. We needed it and we came up big in this one."

(Reporting by Ben Everill in Los Angeles; Editing by John O'Brien)

But, former Commissioner Douglas Shulman said Tuesday, he didn't tell higher ups in the Treasury Department and he didn't tell members of Congress.

And he wouldn't apologize for it.

"I had a partial set of facts, and I knew that the inspector general was going to be looking into it, and I knew that it was being stopped," Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee in his first public comments on the matter. "Sitting there then and sitting here today, I think I made the right decision, which is to let the inspector general get to the bottom of it, chase down all the facts and then make his findings public."

Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, left the IRS in November when his five-year term ended. His testimony makes him the top official to publicly acknowledge knowing before the presidential election that tea party groups had been targeted.

Even so, senators from both political parties said they were skeptical of the version of events portrayed by Shulman and Steven Miller, the man who later took his place as acting commissioner and was forced last week to resign.

For more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns, IRS agents in a Cincinnati office singled out tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. They asked who the groups' donors were and the political affiliations of officers.

The additional scrutiny delayed applications for an average of nearly two years, making it difficult for many of the groups to raise money, according to a report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration.

George's report blamed ineffective management in Washington for allowing the practice to continue for so long. But George said he found no evidence that Washington directed the targeting.

George also testified before Senate Finance Committee Tuesday. So did acting IRS Commissioner Miller.

Several senators were less than pleased with the testimony of both Shulman and Miller.

"I found it unsatisfying," Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said after the hearing. "I think a lot of information's not getting out, a lot of questions not answered."

Shulman said he was briefed by Miller "sometime in the spring of 2012" that tea party groups were being singled out for additional scrutiny. But Shulman said he didn't realize the scope of the issue until the inspector general issued his report last week.

"What I knew was not the full set of facts in this report," Shulman said. "What I knew sometime in the spring of 2012 was that there was a list that was being used, knew that the word "tea party" was on the list, didn't know what other words were on the list, didn't know the scope and severity of this, didn't know if groups that were pulled in were groups that would have been pulled in anyway."

Shulman is now a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Several Republican senators said it was hard to believe that Shulman could learn such a sensitive piece of information in the middle of a presidential election and not share it with Treasury officials. The IRS is an independent agency within the Treasury Department.

"It's just implausible to me," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in an interview after the hearing. "Bureaucrats don't take risks by doing things that they know will get them fired, or get them disciplined by their superiors."

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said, "It's just hard to figure that there isn't more to this than they are letting on."

"How much did the political calendar influence when they disclosed this?" Thune said. "Obviously it was a presidential election year. Disclosure of something like this would have been explosive."

About the same time Shulman was briefed in 2012, George told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin that his office was investigating complaints from conservative groups. But, George said, he did not reveal the results of the investigation.

Last week, Obama appointed White House budget official Daniel Werfel as the acting IRS commissioner. Werfel takes over Wednesday.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said he has directed Werfel to make sure "that those who acted inappropriately are held accountable for their actions."

On Tuesday, a conservative group that says its application for tax-exempt status is being unfairly held up by the IRS, filed a federal lawsuit in Washington against the agency. True the Vote, a Houston-based group that says it focuses on restoring "integrity to the American system" of voting, is seeking damages and asking to immediately be granted the tax exemption for donors.

Tuesday's hearing was the second in a series by congressional committees looking into the IRS. The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing last week and the House oversight committee has one scheduled for Wednesday.

Miller apologized on behalf of the IRS to the committee "for the mistakes that we made and the poor service we provided. The affected organizations and the American public deserve better."

It was the second time in a week that Miller apologized to Congress. But Shulman, who ran the agency when the problems occurred, declined several invitations to apologize.

"You know, I'm deeply, deeply saddened by this whole set of events," Shulman said in response to a question by Cornyn.

"Is that an apology?" Cornyn asked.

"I certainly am not personally responsible for creating a list that had inappropriate criteria on it," Shulman said. "With that said, this happened on my watch. And I very much regret that it happened on my watch."

"Well, I don't think that qualifies an apology," Cornyn said. "It qualifies as an expression of regret, which I think is well-deserved."

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Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.

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Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap