Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was arrested Wednesday in Massachusetts, accused of murdering his friend Odin Lloyd. Also Wednesday, Browns rookie linebacker Ausar Walcott was charged with attempted murder in New Jersey.

Both players were cut later in the day by their teams. On Thursday, the league said any club that now wants to sign Hernandez will face a hearing with Commissioner Roger Goodell first.

The question now is whether the veteran tight end and the rookie should have been in the league at all.

"It is difficult, it's always a balancing act," says Tony Dungy, who won a Super Bowl as Colts coach and has served as a mentor to players since leaving the NFL, including Michael Vick after the quarterback served federal prison time for dogfighting. "The league has a security department that sends out information, and every team is different in terms of how much its scouting department does and what areas are concentrated on most.

"It's really a matter of what you do with the information and what your organization feels is important. One thing you have to keep in mind is a lot of the (negative) things that happen come when they are 15 or 17 or 19 years old."

According to FBI statistics cited by the league, the incidence of NFL players getting arrested is much lower than in the general public. The average annual arrest rate of NFL players is roughly 2 percent of about 3,000 players who go through the league each year, including tryouts and minicamps. That's about half the arrest rate of the general U.S. population, the league says. The NFL notes the disparity becomes even more dramatic when the group is narrowed to American men ages 20-34.

But Jeff Benedict, author of several books on athletes and crimes, including "Pros and Cons, The Criminals Who Play In The NFL," believes the FBI statistics are a bad gauge.

"The danger of doing comparisons with the general public is, if you look at these people and their backgrounds, how many of those guys who have been arrested in the FBI numbers have been to college, make a lot of money like NFL players do, and live in safe, good neighborhoods?" Benedict says. "The issue is why any of these guys are doing this when they have all these good things going on in their lives."

The San Diego Union-Tribune, which has tracked NFL arrests "more serious than speeding tickets" dating back to 2000, has listed 36 this year, including Hernandez and Walcott and three players who were charged twice.

By comparison, the NBA says six players of its players have been arrested since last July 1, and Major League Baseball says it's aware of three cases this year worse than a speeding ticket: two DUIs and a misdemeanor drug charge.

While granting that NFL rosters are far bigger than those in the NBA or MLB, Benedict says, "You can't take these tiny snap shots and say the NFL is low."

Of course, even a few cases such as Hernandez's or that of Jovan Belcher the Kansas City player who shot his girlfriend to death last December, then committed suicide in front of his coach and general manager can create a widespread negative image.

And anyone who has suited up for an NFL team will face extra public scrutiny for even minor transgressions.

That, in turn, puts more pressure on the league's vetting process.

Dungy stresses that the amount of homework teams do is critical because they don't get all that much one-on-one time with prospective players. Some clubs do psychological analyses, even hiring outside agencies to handle them. Though others like the approach, Dungy is not a fan of it and always believed in his gut feeling about a player.

"You have to find out if they have grown from the issues, or there seems to be a pattern, or will these issues always be there," he says.

Bill Polian, who built the Bills, Panthers and Colts into Super Bowl teams as one of the NFL's most successful general managers and team presidents, strongly maintains that the league's vetting process is solid. It delves into players' histories from high school and college before they enter the league. Those investigations have become more sophisticated through the years; background checks include not only public records such as court documents and arrest data, but talking to teammates and coaches, high school principals and other people who have been a part of a player's life and development.

"It uncovers a fair amount of information," Polian says. "It is not designed to uncover information that is usable in court, but it is a process by which the clubs try to ascertain a clear picture of the individual that they are thinking about taking."

But there's no way of knowing how playing football for a living will change a young man.

"First of all, it is important to remember that no team is immune from having a player run afoul of the law, whether it's a speeding ticket up to what we have seen in the Hernandez and Belcher cases, which are as serious as is possible to be," Polian says.

"There's no magic wand a team can wave and change that player who has had serious problems. It's no different than any other workplace in America, just more publicized."

Benedict agrees that teams perform due diligence on draft prospects and they know what they are getting or avoiding in their draft rooms when it comes to skills or 40-meter dash times or health issues.

"The hardest thing they deal with on draft day is the character question," he says. "That is what keeps them up at night."

Former Broncos general manager Ted Sundquist says the vetting process wasn't particularly thorough for many of his years in the NFL he left after the 2007 season but he's certain it is more efficient now.

"I think Michael Vick was the turning point on the timeline," Sundquist says. "He was right in their backyard and they didn't know it was going on, an example of a team that had not had a handle on what players were doing."

Sundquist believes teams could get a better handle on developing problems by hiring security firms that are available around the clock to keep watch on players already in the league, even though the NFL's personal conduct policy is very direct in saying it expects "lawful, ethical and responsible" behavior.

"It's better to have a system in place that can monitor or check that guy, a security firm that is part of these guys' lives, not just vetting them," he says. "They are tied to the hip with these guys. I think that investment is well worth it."

Ultimately, if the public grows tired of player misconduct, regardless of the low percentages, it could become a huge problem for the NFL. And it could change how the teams approach player procurement.

"As these issues become a much more public situation in a business that relies upon the public for its goodwill," Polian says, "you are more and more concerned about taking chances on individuals no matter what the talent if they have problems in their background."

___

AP Sports Writers Dennis Waszak Jr., Brian Mahoney and Ronald Blum contributed to this story.

Unlike his predecessors, Francis isn't spending the summer at the Vatican residence in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town about a 30-minute drive to the Alban Hills southeast of Rome. Instead, he came for the day, escaping the stifling humid weather in the Italian capital for a few hours.

Usually when in Castel Gandolfo on Sundays, pontiffs appear at a window overlooking an inner courtyard or on a balcony facing the town's main square. This time, Francis spoke to people at their level, standing at the main entrance, chatting and bending down to kiss babies in strollers.

The atmosphere was almost neighborly, with one young man in the crowd reaching and patting Francis on the shoulder and another person telling Francis it was his birthday.

Francis said he would like to send a cake to help residents celebrate the feast day Monday of the area's patron saint, but, he joked, drawing laughter, "I don't know if they can make such a huge cake." He was also lunching in the afternoon with fellow Jesuits, who run the Vatican's astronomical observatory in Castel Gandolfo, before the drive back to Rome.

The Argentine-born pontiff mentioned that he would soon go to Brazil to join young people for the Church's World Youth Day jamboree.

"I'll leave in eight days, but many young people will head to Brazil even before," Francis said of his July 22-29 pilgrimage to Rio de Janeiro. He asked for prayers so that participants will be "guided in their steps," and that they would "open their hearts to the mission that Christ will give them."

The gathering, which often draws hundreds of thousands of participants, is held every other year in a different part of the world and serves as a kind of pep rally to energize the youngest members of the Catholic church. The Vatican is concerned that many people in South America, where Catholicism is the predominant religion, are joining evangelical Protestant churches seen as more dynamic and attentive to the needs of people in the developing world.

Francis last came to Castel Gandolfo in March, shortly after being elected pope, to pay a call on his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who, in the weeks following his historic retirement, was staying at the summer residence. Benedict has since moved back to Rome, settling into a monastery on Vatican City's grounds, where he plans to spend his days in prayer and meditation.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Friday, supported by banks' strong earnings, but Boeing limited the Dow's gain after an airplane fire in London.

Both the Dow Jones industrial averageand the S&P 500 indexended Friday's session at record closing highs, even though the point and percentage gains for the day were slim. The Nasdaq closed at a 52-week high.

The S&P 500 scored its best weekly performance since January and a third consecutive week of gains.

Financial stocks were the day's biggest gainers, with the S&P 500 financial sector indexup 0.8 percent.

"The momentum has been incredibly strong ... At some point, a breather or some sort of consolidation makes sense," said Joe Bell, senior equity strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.

Over the past three weeks, the benchmark S&P 500 has erased the losses of nearly 6 percent from the selloff triggered by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in late May, when he first raised the prospect of trimming the central bank's $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. Since then, the market has been getting reassurance from Bernanke and other Fed officials that the U.S. central bank will keep monetary policy loose for some time.

"For now, it seems like some of the comments made this past week have settled the market back into place," Bell said. "Hopefully we'll be back to paying more attention to the earnings reports," which will probably take the spotlight in the next few weeks, he added.

Shares of Wells Fargo & Co , the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, jumped 1.8 percent to $42.63 after the company posted quarterly results that topped expectations. [ID:nL4N0FI2UA] [ID:nL4N0FI31A] Citigrouprose 1.5 percent to $50.81. Bank of Americaclimbed 2 percent to $13.78 and ranked among the most actively traded stocks in both the Dow and the S&P 500.

JPMorgan Chase & Co , the largest U.S. bank by assets, reported a 31 percent jump in quarterly profits. The stock, however, slipped 0.3 percent to close at $54.97, giving up an earlier gain of more than 1 percent. The stock had traded higher for most of the day.

The Dow Jones industrial averageedged up 3.38 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 15,464.30, a record closing high. The Standard & Poor's 500 Indexrose 5.17 points, or 0.31 percent, to finish at 1,680.19, also a closing high. The Nasdaq Composite Indexgained 21.78 points, or 0.61 percent, to close at 3,600.08, a 52-week high.

For the week, the Dow rose 2.2 percent, while the S&P 500 gained 3 percent and the Nasdaq climbed 3.5 percent.

In Friday's session, Boeingwas the Dow's biggest decliner. Boeingshares fell 4.7 percent to $101.87 after a Dreamliner operated by Ethiopian Airlines caught fire at Britain's Heathrow airport on Friday.

Shares of Dreamliner component manufacturers also slipped, including Honeywell International , off 0.2 percent at $82.37, and Spirit Aerosystems , down 2.3 percent at $22.61.

United Parcel Servicewas among the biggest losers in the S&P 500, sliding 5.8 percent to $86.12, after the world's No.1 package delivery company said second-quarter profit would fall short of expectations. Shares of rival FedEx Corpfell 2 percent to $102.29.

UPS weighed on the S&P industrial sector index , which fell 0.6 percent.

Analysts expect S&P 500 companies' second-quarter earnings to have grown 2.8 percent from a year earlier, with revenue up 1.5 percent, data from Thomson Reuters showed.

U.S.-listed shares of Infosysjumped 4.8 percent to $46.17 after the company reported quarterly results and maintained its revenue growth forecast.

On the economic front, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan's preliminary reading for July on the consumer sentiment index was 83.9, down from 84.1 in June and shy of forecasts for 85.

About 5.4 billion shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and NYSE MKT, below the 6.4 billion daily average so far this year.

On the NYSE, advancers narrowly beat decliners with 1,488 stocks rising and 1,478 shares falling. On the Nasdaq, nearly 14 stocks rose for every 11 that fell.

(Editing by Jan Paschal)

During almost three weeks of testimony, they listened to 56 witnesses 38 for the prosecution and 18 for the defense. A number of items have been the source of conflicting testimony, and jurors will have to sort out those contradictions in the deliberation room.

Zimmerman is pleading not guilty to second-degree murder. He says he fatally shot Martin in a scuffle at the townhome complex where Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer and where Martin was visiting his father's fiancee. Martin was black and Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic. Some civil rights activists argued that the delay in charging Zimmerman was influenced by Martin's race, and protests were held around the nation in the 44 days before Zimmerman was arrested.

Here are five questions jurors have to sort out.

___

WHOSE SCREAMS ARE ON 911 CALLS?

Convincing jurors about whose voice is screaming for help on 911 calls that captured audio of the fight was the primary goal of prosecutors and defense attorneys. Martin's mother, father and brother testified it's the Miami teen screaming for help on recordings of the 911 calls made by Zimmerman's neighbors. Zimmerman's mother, uncle, father and five friends told jurors it was the neighborhood watch volunteer's voice. One of Zimmerman's neighbors, Jayne Surdyka, says the screams were those of a boy.

___

WHO WAS ON TOP?

Zimmerman was wearing a red jacket, and Martin had on a dark hoodie. Zimmerman's former neighbor Jonathan Good, perhaps the witness with the best view of what happened, says he saw a person in dark clothing straddling someone in red or white clothing and making downward movements with his fists in a mixed-martial arts maneuver known as "ground and pound." Neighbors Selma Mora and Surdyka say the person on top got up after the shooting. Zimmerman's attorneys say Zimmerman had been on the bottom but got on top of Martin after he fired his gun.

___

HOW DID POSITION OF MARTIN'S ARMS CHANGE?

Zimmerman told investigators that Martin was on top of him, pounding his head into the pavement. After he fired his gun, he says, he got on top of Martin and spread his arms. However, a photo taken moments later by Zimmerman's neighbor shows Martin's arms under his body. Defense expert Vincent DiMaio testified Martin could have moved his arms in the 10 to 15 seconds he would have been conscious after being shot in the heart.

___

DID ZIMMERMAN ACT IN SELF-DEFENSE?

Zimmerman has argued all along he acted in self-defense, although he passed up chance for a self-defense "stand your ground" hearing in which a judge could have thrown out the case without it going to a jury if the judge was convinced there was enough evidence to support it. Zimmerman's community college instructor, Alexis Francisco Carter, told jurors that a person can claim self-defense if they have a reasonable fear of death or great bodily harm. In their jury instructions, jurors were told self-defense is justified in using deadly force if Zimmerman reasonably believed that such force was necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself.

___

DID ZIMMERMAN ACT WITH ILL WILL, HATRED, SPITE OR EVIL INTENT?

To get a second-degree murder conviction, prosecutors must show that Zimmerman acted with ill will, hatred, spite or evil intent. Prosecutors argued that profanities Zimmerman uttered under his breath while he watched Martin walk through his neighborhood were evidence of ill will and hatred. But when asked by prosecutors and defense attorneys, no witness said Zimmerman acted with these traits. The judge presiding over the case also is letting jurors consider the lesser charge of manslaughter. To get a manslaughter conviction, prosecutors must show only that Zimmerman killed without lawful justification.

___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP .

(Reuters) - Canada is famed as a hotbed of hockey, but basketball dominated headlines in the Great White North after Anthony Bennett became the first Canadian to be taken first overall in the NBA Draft.

With more Canadian talent on the way, Bennett's selection by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday could serve as a red-letter moment in a golden era for Canadian basketball.

Even Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, an avid hockey fan, took to Twitter, writing "Congrats to @AnthonyBennett for being the first Cdn ever drafted #1 overall in the NBA draft. Good luck in Cleveland, we're all behind you."

Bennett will have Canadian company on the Cavs, joining compatriot Tristan Thompson, who had held the distinction of being the highest-drafted player from Canada when he was taken fourth overall last year by Cleveland.

The team's newest forward, who entered the draft out of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, following his freshman year, left New York after the draft to meet reporters in Cleveland.

Bennett thought a moment when asked if there was anything special about his day of non-stop activities. "Yeah, the private jet that I flew in on this morning," he told Reuters with a chuckle in a telephone interview on Friday.

"It's not really something I do, but I can get used to it."

As for reaction from back home, the versatile forward said: "Just been getting a lot of love."

Joining the prime minister with a Twitter reaction was Steve Nash, the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player now of the Los Angeles Lakers, who went 15th overall to the Phoenix Suns in 1996 as the previous top Canadian pick before Thompson.

Wrote Nash, "Proud on Proud!"

INTEREST SKYROCKETED

Bennett was also proud of some other history made Thursday as the selection of British Columbia's Kelly Olynyk, headed to the Boston Celtics as the 13th pick, marked the first time two Canadians were among the top 14 so-called lottery picks awarded to the non-playoff teams.

Canadian basketball is on the rise, according to Bennett.

"For sure. We have a couple of players now in the league, a couple just got drafted and more on the college level and others in high school. I feel like on every level in basketball, there is a strong Canadian group of guys.

"Later on, it's going to be pretty crazy," he said, admitting to dreams of Olympic glory. "Everyone is going to want to bring back a medal."

Popularity of basketball in Canada should not be that surprising.

Canada, after all, can lay claim to its invention as Canadian sports coach James Naismith is credited with devising the game in Springfield, Massachusetts, first played with soccer balls shot into peach baskets hung above a gym floor in 1891.

NBA Canada General Manager Dan Mackenzie said the launch of National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises in Toronto and Vancouver in 1995 had a great impact.

"In '95 the Raptors and Grizzlies hit the floor and this is really the first generation of kids that have grown up having the NBA in their backyard," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The Grizzlies lasted only six seasons in Vancouver before they moved to Memphis in 2001, but general interest across Canada in basketball has skyrocketed in recent years.

"Having the league more present both on television and on media platforms and in live events has really had a great impact on kids' desire to pick up a basketball versus a hockey stick," he said.

'MAPLE JORDAN'

Mackenzie pointed to statistics showing that over the last four years basketball was growing faster than soccer and hockey in terms of participation and said Canadians have embraced digital platforms providing nearly non-stop NBA action.

"When you layer on top of that the macro factors of immigration, we think immigration has been a big part of the growth of the sport here," the NBA executive said.

"We think a lot of that is due to people coming to Canada from countries where basketball is very popular. For our country, the two largest sub-groups of newcomers to Canada are folks from the Philippines and from China. Those are two countries where basketball is very popular."

He said the general hoops interest in Canada combined with "the individual passion, talent and desire of these kids that are starting to excel, it really makes for a great movement."

"When you look at the pipeline of talent coming through, if you look at the NCAA pipeline, high schools in Canada and/or in prep schools in the U.S., the Canadians are coming."

One of the most eagerly anticipated Canadian players, Andrew Wiggins, will be hitting the major U.S. college basketball scene next season as a freshman at Kansas, where Naismith went on to coach basketball at the turn of the 20th Century.

Even Bennett is excited by what Wiggins, who has been dubbed the "Maple Jordan," could accomplish.

"He's just real dominant, can take over games any time he wants," Bennett said. "He's athletic, he can shoot.

"I feel like in the next draft coming up, he can go number one, too, and make history again. Two Canadian players going number one, back-to-back. That would be something else."

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

According to news reports, police were called to a residence in Lilesville at 4:30 a.m., where officers found a cross burning in an African American family's yard. Four Caucasian individuals have been arrested and charged in connection with what police have deemed as a hate crime due to the crime's racially motivated nature.

"We are appalled to learn of this incident," said Melissa Gluck, ADL Assistant Regional Director. "No one should be targeted by hate due to their race, national origin, or any other identifying characteristic."

"Hate crimes deserve priority attention because the impact resonates throughout the entire community and threatens the safety and well-being of every member of that group," Ms. Gluck continued. "Perpetrators of hate crimes send a message to their victims, and everyone else who shares the victim's characteristics, that they are not welcome or safe. The Anti-Defamation League wants those in the African American and Lilesville community to know that we stand with them in the fight against these crimes."

The League commended the Lilesville Police Department and the Anson County Sheriff's Office for their swift and diligent investigation into the bias motivation of this crime. "If officials find that this was indeed a bias-motivated attack, we call upon the Lilesville Police Department and Anson County Sheriff's Office to prosecute this crime to the full extent permitted under North Carolina's Hate Crime Statute," said Ms. Gluck.

Hate crime statutes have been adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia. Many of those laws are based on a model statue crafted by the ADL, which has long been in the forefront of national and state efforts to deter and counteract hate-motivated criminal activity.

SOURCE Anti-Defamation League

In a bit of a mixed message, the court unanimously decided that certain types of gene tests may still be protected by patents, yet it struck down patents that a company has long held for BRCA genes. The company makes the only test for two of those breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2.

"It appears that it will allow the market to open up so that other laboratories can offer the test," said Rebecca Nagy, a genetics counselor at Ohio State University and president of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. And that should make the tests cheaper and available to more women, she said.

Hours after the ruling, one company DNATraits, part of Houston-based Gene By Gene, Ltd. said it would offer BRCA gene testing in the United States for $995 less than a third of the current price.

A primer on the case:

Q: What did the court say?

A: Patents held by Myriad Genetics Inc. on BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are not valid, because isolating a naturally occurring segment of DNA cannot be patented. We all have two copies of these genes; mutations in one of them can give a woman up to an 87 percent risk of developing breast cancer and up to a 54 percent risk for ovarian cancer.

Q: How many people have them?

A: In the U.S., about 5 to 10 percent of breast cancers are thought to be due to bad BRCA genes. Among breast cancer patients, BRCA mutations are carried by 5 percent of whites and 12 percent of Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jews. Rates in other groups aren't as well known, but a recent study suggests they are more common than has been believed in blacks.

Q: How expensive are the Myriad tests?

A: They cost $3,000 to $4,000 and insurers only cover them for women thought to be at high risk because of family history of breast or ovarian cancer or other risk factors. The tests are not recommended for women at average risk.

Q: What about other tests for breast cancer genes?

A: Some other tests look for mutations in 16 other genes less commonly involved in breast cancer but those have not been able to include BRCA1 and BRCA2 because of Myriad's patents. Those other tests cost around $2,600. The court's ruling means these tests likely will be able to include BRCA1 and BRCA2 for no or little additional cost in the future, giving a more complete picture of a woman's risk, Nagy said.

Q: What about other gene tests that can still be patented?

A: The court said tests that involve makingcDNA, or complementary DNA, can still be patented. They take an extra step to isolate only the "working parts" or coding regions of a gene.

___

Online:

Court decision: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_8njq.pdf.

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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First, the ads we usually see in an election year: The Koch brothers-funded group Americans for Prosperity is spending $1 million on TV ads  in states like Ohio and Virginia saying Obamacare will mean people will have fewer choices in their own health care,reports. Organizing for Action — the advocacy group Obama's 2012 campaign was converted into — willsaying Obamacare is great. (Both ad campaigns feature moms.) Oregon will air ads for its state health exchanges featuring twee guitar-playing youth and stay-at-home dads in scenes that "could have been pulled straight out of Portlandia,"reports. (Healthy young people are the group the government most needs to convince to sign up for insurance, which might explain the tone of the ads.) Oregon is spending $2.9 million on Obamacare outreach. 

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Then, the typical election-year testimonials from various groups: The American Medical Association will do "whatever we can in our power" to promote the law, president Ardis Hoven said . Republican senatorsnot to do that, after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was talking to the sports organizations to publicize the law. The NFLthe senators it had no plans to market Obamacare.

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The decision caught Republicans between newfound state autonomy that conservatives covet and the law's popularity among minority, young and poor voters who tend to align with Democrats. It's those voters that Republicans are eyeing to expand and invigorate the GOP's core of older, white Americans.

National GOP Chairman Reince Priebus began that effort well before the court's decision by promising, among other initiatives, to hire non-white party activists to engage directly with black and Latino voters. Yet state and national Republicans reacted to the Voting Rights Act decision with a flurry of activity and comments that may not fit neatly into the national party's vision.

Congressional leaders must decide whether to try to rewrite the provision the court struck, but it's not clear how such an effort would fare in the Democratic-led Senate and the GOP-controlled House. And at the state level, elected Republicans are enacting tighter voting restrictions that Democrats blast as harmful to their traditional base of supporters and groups the Republicans say they want to attract.

States like North Carolina and Virginia provide apt examples of the potential fallout. An influx of non-whites have turned those Republican strongholds into battlegrounds in the last two presidential elections, and minority voters helped President Barack Obama win both states in 2008 and Virginia again in 2012. Nationally, Republican Mitt Romney lost among African-Americans by about 85 percentage points and Latinos by about 44 percentage points, margins that virtually ensure a Democratic victory.

Yet presidential math doesn't necessarily motivate Republicans who control statehouses and congressional districts in states most affected by the Voting Rights Act. Core GOP supporters in the region react favorably to voter identification laws and broad-based critiques of federal authority.

Against that backdrop, Southern Republicans celebrated Chief Justice John Roberts' opinion that effectively frees all or parts of 15 states with a history of racial discrimination from having to get advanced federal approval for any election procedure.

The so-called "preclearance" provision anchored the law that Congress renewed four times since its 1965 passage as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement for black Americans. The law contains an "opt-out" provision that allowed a jurisdiction to ask a federal court for release from preclearance if it has established a record of non-discrimination. Roberts said that process never used successfully by an entire state wasn't enough.

"The court recognized that states can fairly design our own (district) maps and run our own elections without the federal government," Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said in a statement.

Citizens can still sue to overturn state laws, but they'll likely have to prove discrimination after the fact, rather than local authorities having to convince federal officials in advance that a law wouldn't discriminate.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican running for governor, said: "I do not believe we have the institutional bigotry like we had before."

GOP officials in Texas and Mississippi promised within hours of the decision to enforce new laws requiring voters to show identification at polls. The U.S. Justice Department's civil rights lawyers had frozen the Mississippi law while they considered effects on minority voters, while a panel of federal judges in Washington blocked the Texas law because of its potential to harm low-income and minority voters. North Carolina Republicans said they'd enact their own voter identification law. Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed new congressional district maps tilted to Republican advantage that federal authorities would have had to review.

But in Washington, Republicans like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia embraced the nuances of Roberts' ruling. The court didn't actually strike down preclearance, instead tossing rules that determined which jurisdictions got oversight. Congress is free to rewrite those parameters and revive advance review, Roberts wrote.

"I'm hopeful Congress will put politics aside," Cantor said, "and find a responsible path forward that ensures that the sacred obligation of voting in this country remains protected."

The white Republican recalled his recent trip to Alabama with black Democratic Rep. John Lewis on the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march. Lewis, an Atlanta Democrat, was beaten repeatedly as a young civil rights advocate during the 1960s. The commemoration, Cantor said, was "a profound experience."

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who helped lead the law's latest reauthorization when the GOP ran Congress in 2006, said the court "disappointed" him. Lingering discrimination, he said, compels Congress to update the act, "especially for minorities."

"There's no easy answer" for the GOP, said Henry Barbour, a high-profile member of the Republican National Committee. The Mississippi native conceded his personal views demonstrate the complications.

Barbour helped write the national party's post-election analysis calling for better outreach to minorities and urged fellow Republicans that "our tone is important, on this and any other issue." But he's clear in his support for the decision and what it means in Mississippi.

Blatantly racist laws like poll taxes and literacy tests once made preclearance necessary, Barbour said. "But when you have to go hat-in-hand to Washington every time you want to move a polling place," then it's evolved into "federal harassment that's gone on way too long," he added.

Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia said Congress is capable of writing a new national formula based on the latest voter registration and turnout data "if everyone will sit back and take a deep breath."

Barbour disputed that forecast, but not because of opposition from Southerners. Rather, he said, "People in these other states don't want this scrutiny coming to them."

That frustration reflects part of the 2006 renewal debate in Congress. Despite fewer than three dozen dissenting votes, some Southern members said the extra scrutiny should apply nationwide or not at all.

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who supported ending preclearance, said Republicans should emphasize parts of the act still in use. Besides a general discrimination ban, the feds can invoke preclearance for jurisdictions with new patterns of mistreating minorities. That "opt-in" rule has affected Arkansas, New Mexico and some cities and counties.

Others in the GOP say election results form a defense. Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina party chairman, noted that Gov. Nikki Haley, of Indian descent, appointed then-Rep. Tim Scott as the modern South's first black U.S. senator. He'll seek a full term next year.

"We're walking the walk," Dawson said.

Of course, Southern states also produced the widest margins among white voters in favor of Mitt Romney and John McCain in their losses to Obama.

Chris LaCivita, a Republican consultant in Virginia, offered one more potential comfort for Republicans: The relationship between Democrats and whites. Republicans need more minority votes in presidential years, but Democrats need more white Southerners if they want to regain control of Congress or many statehouses.

"Democrats might want to think long and hard about making a racially based argument," LaCivita said, "considering voters they need don't like having to pay for the sins of their fathers."

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Follow Barrow on Twitter @BillBarrowAP.

Obama will meet privately with his cabinet on Monday morning about the plan and then make public remarks at 11:50 a.m. (1550 GMT).

The White House said the plan would build on progress made so far in opening up government data to entrepreneurs and in modernizing government services.

In Obama's first term, the effort helped the administration reduce technology costs by more than $2.5 billion, the White House said.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by David Brunnstrom)