He is right. The measure would offer probationary legal status to some 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States almost immediately. The Homeland Security Department would be required to put together a plan for maintaining control of the U.S.-Mexico border within six months after the bill passes, but in the interim, deportations of noncriminal immigrants without papers would stop.

Thats also the point. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., the sole conservative voice who has allowed the immigration legislation to go forward, argues that effective border enforcement cannot be achieved without taking the pressure off the authorities to deport all the unauthorized immigrants already here. He also says it makes no sense to continue deportations while waiting for DHS benchmarks to be achieved, when those same people might be given a break later.

The catch is that border enforcement wont happen without legalizing the undocumented population. Democrats and President Obama won't stand for an enforcement-only bill. That dynamic was on display with one of the first votes taken in the committee. With the help of two Republicans from the "Gang of Eight" senators who drafted the bill, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., the panel rejected an amendment from Grassley that would have prohibited any legalization of people without papers until the border had been certified as secure for six months.

If the public and congressional conservatives can accept that some legalization will happen soon after passage, the Senate bill actually offers some of the toughest immigration-enforcement provisions ever seriously considered in Congress. It would require all employers to electronically verify the legal status of their new hires, which would make it extremely hard for unauthorized immigrants to find work. That provision is so harsh that lobbyists for immigrant-heavy industries like agriculture and food services are parsing every word of it to ensure that they can actually stay in business if it becomes law.

The bill also calls for the border patrol to stop 90 percent of the people who try to cross into the country illegally in the six heaviest trafficked sectors of the Southern border. Thats a high bar, and one that almost every border hawk would welcome. Some conservatives are dubious that it will actually happen. If we pass the bill as is, there will be no pressure on this administration or a future administration or those in Congress to secure the border. There will be no push by the legalization advocates to get that job done, Grassley said.

Rubio, who is not on the committee, has deftly noted that Grassleys concern is the biggest challenge in winning over rule-of-law conservatives. We cannot have a second wave of illegal immigration, he told reporters Tuesday. The American people have no confidence in the federal government to do that.

Exhibit A of Rubios point: three other Judiciary Committee conservatives who are not likely to be convinced.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the border-security benchmarks in the bill toothless.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah said, We wont understand how best to address the problem of our shifting illegal population until our border is secure.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., protested that border-security metrics in the bill allow the three least trafficked sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border to be under mere effective control rather than operational control.

Sessions' use of DHSs technical terms about the border, for which there are competing definitions, illustrates the doubt in the minds of skeptical legislators who arent happy with the manner in which the administration has conducted itself thus farnot only on immigration but on other law-and-order issues such as tracking illegal firearms. What is "operational"? What is "effective"? It can be whatever the Homeland Security secretary says it is.

For what it's worth, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office had this to say in December 2012 about DHS's measurement of its progress. "The extent of operational controlalso referred to as effective controlwas defined as the number of border miles where Border Patrol had the capability to detect, respond to, and interdict cross-border illegal activity." DHS has since reworked its border-measurement guidelines and now defines its effectiveness rate in terms of the number of people the border patrol catches crossing illegally plus those who "turn back" divided by the total estimated crossers in any given sector.

Just how much conservatives distrust of the administration impacts the immigration legislation will be on display over the next several weeks as the committee debates the bill. Passage of the legislation in committee is hardly in doubt, as Cruz noted that its supporters have the votes to keep it intact before it hits the Senate floor. A more important question is whether the supporters can convince enough enforcement enthusiasts that they mean business.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is doing his best to show good faith. He applauded an amendment from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to bolster the border title by adding more customs and border agents. "It must mean we're going in the right direction," he said.

Schumer also thanked Grassley for another amendment, which the committee passed unanimously, to apply the 90 percent apprehension benchmark to all nine sectors of the U.S.-Mexico border. The baseline bill applied that criteria only to the six most active sectors, on the theory that those required the most attention.

RELATED:

Thea federal watchdog report coming out this week will show senior IRS officials knew about the unfair scrutiny as far back as 2011. The report from the Treasury Department's inspector general shows Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, was informed that groups with "Tea Party," ''Patriot" or "9/12 Project" in their names were being targeted for extra questioning at a meeting on June 29, 2011. During , he blamed the targeting on lower-level tax agents. The report seems to show Lerner was telling the truth on Friday. The report shows he told the agents to change the criteria for flagging groups "immediately."

RELATED:

The focus will now become  knew about the questions when he testified that no Tea Party groups were being targeted for unfair scrutiny in front of Congress in 2012. The report doesn't shay whether or not Shulman was informed about the Tea Party questioning, but it does show the IRS's chief counsel was. It's standard procedure for the counsel and commissioner to discuss this sort of thing before a Congressional hearing. Shulman's term as head of the IRS ended at the end of last year and he was appointed by President Bush. But Obama has yet to announce a replacement. 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Every dog has its day, and for Afghan pooch Aiden, today is for dancing lessons while cats Lucky and Missy are legally guaranteed their nightly shrimp dinners according to their owner's last testament.

These are just a few of the "Spoiled Rotten Pets," a new television series that dives into the world of fawning pet owners who outfit rats in formal wear and pamper Burmese pythons like princes.

The series, which will debut on U.S. cable network Nat Geo Wild on Saturday, follows host Beth Stern as she meets devoted pet owners who go above and beyond spoiling their pets - a venture the network's chief, Geoff Daniels, said was not so hard to find.

"This is about saying that this is more pervasive that anybody thinks," Daniels, executive vice president for Nat Geo Wild, a sister network of the Natural Geographic Channel, told Reuters.

"The show is about colorful and relatable people," he added. "Everybody knows someone like this or does something for their pets to this degree."

Indeed, as the series seeks out the over-the-top pet owner, it also shows they are not alone. After all, there is a thriving market for their spoils of clothing and comfort.

New York resident Cynthia takes time to iron the countless dresses and sweaters that her Yorkie, Toto, wears every day.

"Toto is spoiled," Cynthia says. "I want to do everything possible that I can to make sure that Toto is happy and healthy."

But Toto also has her own psychic, who cautions that the toy-sized dog feels trapped in her fashionable threads.

"She wants to run naked on the beach," pyschic Madrette says while reading Toto's paw print.

"Just once in a while, make sure that she feels that she's being put first ... I think she would really like a mommy-and-me day," Madrette says in her final analysis.

'PIG-TICIANS' AND 'BARK MITZVAHS'

"It's really interesting to see how these people put their pet care above their own," Daniels said. "You consistently get the sense that there's nothing too great for these animals if you see them as family and friends."

Enter Dave and Jennifer, who drop off pet pigs Wilma and Pebbles at a nearby "pig spa" for the night, which will be the couple's first night without them in eight years.

Wilma and Pebbles get the five-star treatment, like Chinese massage from a "pig-tician," while Dave and Jennifer have a quiet but uneasy night as empty-nesters.

Not to be outdone, Diane from upstate New York keeps her 10 rats on a strict vegan diet while spoiling newcomer Vinnie with a special first birthday party where he gets his own tuxedo.

"It's one thing about spoiling dogs and cats, but we're talking pigs and donkeys and rats and tortoises," Daniels said.

Religion also gets its due when New Jersey couple David and Donna give their Pomeranian dog, Sophia, a "bark mitzvah," a canine take on the Jewish coming-of-age bar mitzvah ceremony.

"She's my daughter so I feel like I'm going to do whatever it takes to make her happy," says Donna.

More than 70 guests, including dogs, attend the ceremony under a tent in the couple's yard. But it is not the first bark mitzvah for the rabbi, who says she has done the same for the dogs of comedians Joan Rivers and Roseanne Barr.

Daniels said Nat Geo Wild sees "Spoiled Rotten Pets" as adding a lighter touch to its wildlife-heavy programming, which attracts many more male viewers.

"We are really trying to transform our offerings and bring in more women, especially," Daniels said. "We're looking for differentiation in the marketplace and a more balanced demographic."

Nat Geo Wild is owned by the National Geographic Society and News Corp.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Sandra Maler)

New York media reports said the brief rebuke occurred before the Yankees beat Kansas City 3-2.

Rivera was talking to reporters in the dugout about his "emotional" meeting with local fans earlier in the day, while Chamberlain was standing just outside the bench chatting with his family.

At one point, Rivera told Chamberlain to lower his voice. Once Rivera's interview was done, Chamberlain told Rivera in front of reporters: "Don't ever shush me."

Chamberlain then reiterated his message, saying he was serious about it. After the game, the players said the issue was between them to handle.

The FDA said the results of a recent study showed that children exposed to valproate products in the womb had lower IQ at the age of six than children who were exposed to other antiepileptics.

Drugs containing valproate are used to prevent migraine headaches, treat epileptic seizures and manic episodes associated with bipolar disorder.

Abbott Laboratories' Depacon, Depakote, Depakote CP, Depakote ER and Depakene, and Noven Therapeutics LLC's Stavzor and their generics contain valproate. (http://r.reuters.com/nej87t)

Drugs containing valproate already carry a boxed warning for birth defects.

"Valproate medications should never be used in pregnant women for the prevention of migraine headaches because we have even more data now that shows the risks to the children outweigh any treatment benefits for this use," FDA's Director of the Division of Neurology Products, Russell Katz said.

This is the second time the FDA has warned on drugs containing valproate. In a June 2011 press release, the regulator had issued interim results of a study showing reduced cognitive functions in three-year-old children exposed to valproate.

(Reporting By Pallavi Ail in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon)

Now if he can just break par on the TPC at Sawgrass. Or at least make it to the weekend.

McIlroy keeps showing signs that his game his emerging from an early season slump. His next stop is Thursday in The Players Championship, a tournament that hasn't been kind to him in his three previous trips.

He has missed the cut every time, never posting a score better than 72.

So what's the problem?

"The first year I came here, I was in Vegas the week before. That didn't help," McIlroy said with a boyish smile. "The second year was my 21st birthday. That didn't help."

And last year?

"I don't have an excuse," he said.

Upon leaving last year, he said his career was young and he would have another 20 years, hopefully, playing this tournament. And if didn't get the hang of it by then, something would be wrong.

He's still learning, though a few holes in his practice round Wednesday also showed he was picking up some of the nuances.

McIlroy was perplexed while playing the sixth hole Wednesday. He hit two shots off the tee, one in the fairway and one in the rough, about the same distance. He hit an iron with the ball in the fairway, pin-high about 15 feet left of the flag. He used the same club from the rough and watched it sail over the green. That's the trouble with this rough. It's not very high, and the ball can jump out of there.

As he played the par-5 ninth, caddie J.P. Fitzgerald reminded him that it's best to lay up on the hole. McIlroy smashed his tee shot and his caddie told him, "You have 266 (yards) to the front. Perfect 5-iron." McIlroy followed his instructions, hit the shot and then threw down another ball and asked for the 3-wood.

He missed to the right of the green, shrugged and said, "Just wanted to get it out of my system."

In discussing the course, McIlroy is coming to the same conclusion. It's OK to be aggressive, as long as he picks the right spots.

"I think you've got to find a balance around here of being conservative, but also you have to take on things, as well," he said. "There is no point in not hitting the driver anywhere around here because you're not going to make enough birdies to contend, but you don't want to be hitting driver everywhere either because you're going to find trouble. So you have to find a balance.

"There are a few holes out here that you can take advantage of, and you have to because there are so many difficult holes out here that you sort of play for par and if you make birdie, it's a bonus."

NBC Sports analyst Johnny Miller said players have to "tippy-toe" their way around the golf course.

Masters champion Adam Scott, meanwhile, is still floating.

Scott has virtually disappeared since holing that 12-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole to become the first Australian to win the Masters. He was in New York for a couple of days and then headed to the Bahamas, where he has a home.

He usually takes a few weeks off after a major to decompress. This time, he waited an extra week before picking up a club. It felt that good.

"I've had a really nice break since the Masters, which I had planned anyway," Scott said Wednesday. "But it was even better because I was floating around on the clouds the last three weeks. It's been an overwhelming time for me."

Once he finally put a club back in his hands, the swing felt as pure as that final round at Augusta. He was eager to compete again, and The Players Championship is enough to get any pro's attention.

It features the strongest and deepest field in golf all year, on a Stadium Course that had can be challenging, frustrating, punishing and rarely dull. Scott won The Players in 2004 after hitting 5-iron into the water on the 18th and making a 10-foot bogey putt to win by a shot.

"It's a nice week for me to come back to Sawgrass and The Players, because I've had such a great run here over the years," Scott said. "I'm excited about playing this week. I hopefully can take my head out of the clouds and come back down to earth and play some good golf."

That would be the only way to make it around this golf course.

Woods and Phil Mickelson, the best two players of their generation, each have one win at the home of the PGA Tour. The list of winners ranges from power players such as Greg Norman and Davis Love III to pea shooters in the mold of Fred Funk and Tim Clark.

McIlroy and Graeme McDowell last won in America on courses designed by Pete Dye: McIlroy at the PGA Championship (Kiawah Island) and BMW Championship (Crooked Stick); McDowell at Hilton Head a couple of weeks ago.

"I think Pete Dye designed a certain type of golf course," McDowell said. "He likes to penalize the player in his own kind of unique way, and this golf course certainly has its dangers. But it's certainly scorable at the same time."

McIlroy is still trying to discover that secret.

WADA president John Fahey is an Australian with long political and sporting ties in the country.

An Australian Crime Commission report in February said dozens of players in the Australian Football League and NRL might have used illegal supplements.

Fahey says doping authorities cannot rely on that background for any potential action against the athletes.

But he says he's confident the battle will continue, pointing to the success of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's lengthy investigations which led to Lance Armstrong's eventual confession that he had doped while winning the Tour de France.

Havelange quit as FIFA's honorary president last month, shortly before the publication of a report by the federation's ethics committee into allegations he took bribes from the ISL sports marketing company while president of soccer's governing body.

"The name Joao Havelange is today linked to fraud investigations and scandals at FIFA," said city councilor Renato Cinco, one of the proponents of the legislation.

"It doesn't make sense for a city which is going to host the World Cup and Olympic Games have the name of its stadium with this reference."

The stadium, often known as the Engenhao but officially named the Joao Havelange Olympic stadium, was built for the 2007 Panamerican games but was closed for repairs in March after structural problems were found in the roof.

It is due to be used for the athletics events when Rio hosts the 2016 Olympics, although the opening and closing ceremonies will be at the Maracana.

The councilors have suggested changing the stadium's name to Joao Saldanha, who coached Brazil in the 1970 World Cup qualifying competition.

"The change of name to Joao Saldanha is an attempt to resolve not just a matter of ethics, considering that Joao Havelange is not worthy of this tribute, but also to bring fresh air to this stadium built on the basis of overblown costs and with structural problems," said councilor Eliomar Coelho, another of the authors of the bill.

A Swiss prosecutor said in a legal document last July that Havelange and former FIFA executive committee member Ricardo Teixeira, took multi-million bribes from ISL on World Cup deals in the 1990s.

The FIFA ethics committee report also said that "not inconsiderable amounts" were channeled to Havelange and Teixeira from ISL, and there was no indication either of them gave any service in return.

Teixeira, formerly Havelange's son-in-law, was president of the Brazilian Football Confederation from 1989 until last year.

(Reporting by Pedro Fonseca; Writing by Brian Homewood; Editing by Alison Wildey)

(Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp reported quarterly earnings that beat Wall Street expectations, aided by growth at its cable networks, and said it is on track to split off its slow-growing publishing business by the end of June.

Its revenue rose 14 percent from a year earlier to $9.5 billion in the quarter, ended March 31, News Corp said on Wednesday. The company posted adjusted earnings of 36 cents per share, just beating the 35 cents expected on average by analysts, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

News Corp shares rose 3.6 percent to $33.00 in after-hours trading, after closing at $31.86 on the Nasdaq.

One-time items, including the purchase of a controlling stake in German pay TV operator Sky Deutschland and the sale of an ownership stake in New Zealand's Sky Network Television, helped lift net income to $2.85 billion, a jump from $937 million a year earlier.

The New York-based company said it is on track to separate its cable channels, movie studio and other fast growing entertainment assets from its newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal, near the end of its fiscal year in June.

Its entertainment assets helped boost revenue and earnings for the quarter, led by its cable networks business, which includes the Fox News Channel, FX and regional sports networks.

Operating income at the cable network programming unit rose 17 percent from a year earlier to $993 million, as channels in the United States and abroad commanded higher fees from cable operators and more advertising revenue.

News Corp Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said the company will invest to build new cable networks, with the launch in August of Fox Sports 1, a competitor to Walt Disney Co's ESPN, and FXX, aimed at young adults, in September. The company intends to spend "a couple hundred million and change" over the next year to build those channels and some international networks, Carey said.

The media company is also trying to improve the Fox broadcast network, whose ratings slid this fall as aging singing competition "American Idol" drew a smaller audience.

"We are clearly disappointed with this season's ratings at the Fox broadcast network, and are taking steps now to improve next season's lineup," Carey told analysts on a conference call.

Lower advertising revenue for "Idol" dragged down the performance of the television unit, whose operating income still increased 15 percent, the company said.

The 20th Century Fox movie studio gained from the success of Oscar-winning film "Life of Pi," which grossed $600 million at theaters worldwide, and home entertainment sales from thriller "Taken 2" and animated hit "Ice Age: Continental Drift."

Operating income at the publishing unit, which includes its newspapers and the HarperCollins book publishing business, declined to $85 million, from $130 million a year earlier.

The company recorded $42 million in the quarter for costs related to investigations of phone hacking at its newspapers in Britain.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

Taxes are all about changing behavior, and the proposed Senate bill to enforce online-sales taxes is no different. Peter the Greats tax was intended to encourage shaving. The Senate effort operates on a similar principle: It seeks to encourage more consumers to shop at brick-and-mortar stores instead of online retailers. The beard tax ultimately failed to change behavior. And its not clear that the online-sales tax will achieve its behavioral goal either.

The online-sales tax effort is not about choosing one industry over the other, its proponents argue. In fact, it seeks to do the opposite: eliminate what some say is an unfair advantage given to online retailers, who have not had to collect state sales taxes for online purchases. Its not about giving physical retailers more customers, but rather about correcting for an unfair imbalance. That may be true, but the movement is still about changing how consumers behave.

"Thousands of local businesses are forced to do business at a competitive disadvantage because they have to collect sales and use taxes and remote sellers do not, which in some states can mean a 5 to 10 percent price advantage, one of the cosponsors of the bill, Sen. Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., said in a March floor statement. Eliminate that price advantage and all those local businesses might see more customers.

Charging state sales taxes on Internet purchases will no doubt narrow the price gap between online and brick-and-mortar retailers, but it wont necessarily eliminate it. Online sellers such as Amazon have a serious advantage: lower overhead costs. They can set up fewer, bigger buildings in places where land is cheap, they dont need big parking lots for customers cars, and they dont need as many customer-service employees. In fact, retailerswith their own websites for sales. And the price gap persists even in states that have already passed laws forcing online retailers to collect sales taxes. At least one study has shown that Amazon maintains a price advantage over some big-box retailers even in states where it collects the state sales tax; enforcing state taxes won't eliminate the online advantage.

Recent research also suggests that the very behavior retailers hope the proposal will curb may be a myth. The retail lobby insists that imposing sales taxes online will put an end to showrooming, a practice in which consumers use physical stores to browse and online stores to purchase. Butfrom PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that showrooming not only may not exist, but that consumers in fact seem to act in the opposite way. They found that 23 percent of online consumersin a survey of more than 10,000researched consumer electronics online and then bought products in-store, while only 2 percent did the opposite. Shoppers were attracted by the ability to get products immediately and to see and try them in the store, the reports authors write.

We also cant emphasize enough that the physical store remains the centerpiece of the purchase journey for many categories, they added. In nine out of 11 categories, in fact, the majority of consumers use physical stores for both researching and purchasing the products they want to buy.

In other words, the very behavior retailers hope the Senate bill and new online taxes will correct may not even be that pronounced.

Other research also suggests that sales taxes may not play a big role in online purchases anyway. In a late 2011 report, advisory firm Forrester Research commissioned a survey looking into how influential sales taxes are in purchasing decisions. They found that about three-fourths of the 34,000 respondents hadn't considered sales taxes when buying online. Only 8 percent of those surveyed cited the lack of a sales tax online as a priority in their purchasing decision. And Web retailers may not even pass on the full cost of taxes to consumers, thus negating the narrowed price gap real-world retailers hope for, the report suggests. Many shoppers were online not because of the sales tax advantage, but in spite of it.

Theres no doubt that the sales-tax bill will achieve one of its goals: raising billions in revenue for states. But whether it will help retailers regain customers lost to the Web is another question altogether.