In opening remarks in the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, the panel's senior Republican, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, charged that the landmark bill backed by President Barack Obama does little more than repeat mistakes of the past.

"It falls short of what I want to see in a strong immigration reform bill, so you will hear me say many times that we shouldn't make the same mistakes that we made in 1986," the last time Congress passed a major immigration overhaul bill, Grassley said. "You'll hear me say many times that we ought to move ahead with a bill that does it right this time."

A lead author of the bill, Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, countered that the legislation represents the country's best hope for immigration reform and a chance to break through the partisanship that's riven Congress and the country.

"We have come up with a fair bill where no one gets everything they want, but at the end of the day, it will mean dramatic improvement for the American economy, the American people, and will make our immigration policy much more in sync with what is good for jobs and America," Schumer said.

The 844-page legislation crafted in months of closed-door negotiations by four Democratic and four Republican senators would toughen border security, remake legal immigration to allow tens of thousands of new high- and low-skilled workers into the country, require all employers to check their workers' legal status, and create a 13-year path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants already in the U.S. illegally.

Senators on the Judiciary Committee have filed some 300 amendments on a wide range of issues including border security and workplace enforcement, along with Democratic-authored measures to make the legislation more welcoming to immigrant families.

A focus throughout the committee session, expected to last about two weeks, will be on whether the four committee members among the so-called Gang of Eight senators who authored the legislation can stick together to protect against efforts to chip away at the bill's core provisions.

In addition to Schumer, those lawmakers are Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Although the bill allows citizenship to go forward only after certain border security goals have been met, those "triggers" haven't proven convincing enough for many GOP lawmakers. Amendments expected to be offered Thursday were likely to focus on that issue, according to the schedule laid out by Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Even one of the bill's authors, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has said border measures need to be stronger, so some changes are likely to be accepted as the authors work to show they are open to alterations that could attract additional support for the bill.

But measures offered by some Republican senators would dramatically change the bill's delicately crafted compromises in a way its authors are unlikely to accept.

For example, Grassley has filed an amendment to prohibit anyone from obtaining legal status until the Homeland Security Department has maintained "effective control" of the border for six months a potentially arduous standard to reach, depending upon how it is defined.

Rubio conceded in a broadcast interview Thursday that some amendments could be seen as attempts to thwart the legislation, but said he thought most were intended to refine and improve it, saying "that's the way the process is supposed to work."

He called the work of the Gang of Eight "an excellent starting point" and said there is overwhelming support among the American people, including social conservatives, for immigration changes as long as they tighten border security. Rubio said in an interview on "CBS This Morning" that the public wants legislation that would ensure that "this illegal immigration wave doesn't happen again."

Lawmakers approved it 75-59, a critical step for the measure that would allow same-sex weddings beginning this summer. It's a startling shift in the state, where just six months earlier voters turned back an effort to ban gay marriage in the Minnesota Constitution.

The state Senate plans to consider the bill Monday and leaders expect it to pass there, too. Gov. Mark Dayton has pledged to sign it into law.

"It's not time to uncork the champagne yet. But it's chilling," Rep. Steve Simon, a suburban Democrat who backed the bill, said at a raucous rally in the state Capitol rotunda minutes after the vote.

Rep. Karen Clark, the bill's sponsor, said her only goal was equal treatment under state law for same-sex couples. In a deeply personal speech, the Minneapolis Democrat talked of the support she got from her own family after coming out as gay decades ago.

"My family knew firsthand that same sex couples pay our taxes, we vote, we serve in the military, we take care of our kids and our elders and we run businesses in Minnesota," she said.

Hundreds of supporters and opponents gathered outside the House chamber up to and during the debate, chanting and waving signs. They sang "We Shall Overcome" and the John Lennon song "Give Peace a Chance" substituting the word "love" for "peace."

Four of the House's 61 Republicans voted for the bill, while two of its 73 Democrats voted no. None of the four Republicans committed support beforehand; one, Rep. Jenifer Loon, said she made up her mind during the three-hour House debate, in which lawmakers listened with rapt attention while their colleagues spoke.

"There comes a time when you just have to set politics aside and decide in your gut what is the right thing to do," said Loon, whose suburban district southwest of Minneapolis voted strongly against last fall's gay marriage ban. The other Republicans to vote for gay marriage also hail from suburban or exurban districts: Pat Garofalo of Farmington, David FitzSimmons of Albertville and Andrea Kieffer of Woodbury.

The two Democrats who voted no, Patti Fritz of Faribault and Mary Sawatzky of Willmar, represent largely rural districts where the gay marriage ban was backed by a majority of voters. But most of the Democrats from rural, more socially conservative areas ended up voting for the bill.

Opponents argued it would alter a centuries-old conception of marriage, and leave those people opposed for religious reasons tarred as bigots.

"We're not. We're not," said Rep. Kelby Woodard, a Republican from Belle Plaine. "These are people with deeply held beliefs, including myself."

House Republican Leader Kurt Daudt acknowledged that views on gay marriage are changing, but said the bill's sponsors stood to alienate thousands of Minnesotans who still believe in the male-female definition of marriage.

"Hearts and minds are changing on this," Daudt said. "But Minnesotans are still divided."

That could be seen outside the House chamber, where supporters and opponents of the bill stood shoulder to shoulder and chanted with equal vigor. Gay marriage backers dressed in orange T-Shirts and held signs that read, "I Support The Freedom to Marry." Behind them, opponents held up bright pink signs that simply read, "Vote No."

Among the demonstrators was Grace McBride, 27, a nurse from St. Paul. She said she and her partner felt compelled to be there to watch history unfold. She said she hopes to get married "as soon as I can" if the bill becomes law. The legislation would allow her to do so starting Aug. 1.

"I have thought about my wedding since I was a little girl," she said.

On the other side of the divide, Galina Komar, a recent Ukrainian immigrant who lives in Bloomington, brought her four-year-old daughter and one-year-old son to the Capitol to express her religious concerns.

"I do believe in God, and I believe God already created the perfect way to have a family," Komar said.

Eleven other states allow gay marriages including Rhode Island and Delaware, which approved laws in the past week.

Iowa allows gay marriages because of a 2009 court ruling. Leaders in Illinois the only Midwestern state other than Minnesota with a Democratic-led statehouse say that state is close to having the votes to approve a law too.

But most other states surrounding Minnesota have constitutional bans against same-sex weddings, so the change might not spread to the nation's heartland nearly as quickly as it has on the coasts and in New England.

The Minnesota push for gay marriage grew from last fall's successful campaign to defeat the constitutional amendment that would have banned it. Minnesota was the first state to turn back such an amendment, after more than two dozen states passed one over more than a decade.

The same election put Democrats in full control of state government for the first time in more than two decades, a perfect scenario for gay marriage supporters to swiftly pursue legalization. The bill cleared committees in both chambers in March, at the same time a succession of national polls showed opposition to gay marriage falling away nationally.

"There are kids being raised by grandparents, single parents, two moms or two dads," said Rep. Laurie Halverson, a Democrat from a suburb south of St. Paul. "Some of those folks are my friends. And we talk about the same things as parents. We talk about large piles of laundry, and how much it hurts to step on a Lego. That's what we do, because we're all families."

Thethousands of atoms that have been carefully arranged into nearly 250 frames with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM),tool invented by scientists at IBM three decades ago. The tool first allowed scientists to visualize single atoms.

"It weighs two tons, operates at a temperature of negative 268 degrees Celsius [minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit] and magnifies the atomic surface over 100 million times," Christopher Lutz, an IBM research scientist, said of the machine.

To position the atoms, the team used the microscope to drag a super-sharp needle along a copper surface. This needle, positioned just a nanometer away from the surface,and pulled them into place so that the scientists could take still images for each movie frame. The film shows a boy playing with a single atom, dancing and jumping on a trampoline. It was verified as the world's smallest stop-motion movie by Guinness World Records.

The moviemakers say there's more to their work than mere novelty. Atoms are the smallest raw materials for data storage devices, and the same researchers who made the stop-motion film also made the world's smallest magnetic bit using just 12 atoms, according to IBM. That's astoundingly small considering a bit of data on the average computer or electronic device today is made up of roughly 1 million atoms. A chip the size of a fingernail using the researchers' 12-atom bits would be able to store all of the movies ever made, IBM researchers say.

"As data creation and consumption continue to get bigger, data storage needs to get smaller, all the way down to the atomic level," IBM researcher Andreas Heinrich said. "We're applying the same techniques used to come up with new computing architectures and alternative ways to store data to making this movie."

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The false tweet said there had been two explosions at the White House and that President Barack Obama was injured. The attack on AP's Twitter account and the AP Mobile Twitter account was preceded by phishing attempts on AP's corporate network.

The AP confirmed that its Twitter account had been suspended following a hack and said it was working to correct the issue.

The false tweet went out shortly after 1 p.m. and briefly sent the Dow Jones industrial average sharply lower. The Dow fell 143 points, from 14,697 to 14,554, after the fake Twitter posting, and then quickly recovered.

A Securities and Exchange Commission spokeswoman declined comment on the incident.

AP spokesman Paul Colford said the news cooperative is working with Twitter to investigate the issue. The AP has disabled its other Twitter accounts following the attack, Colford added.

The Syrian Electronic Army claimed responsibility for the hack. This couldn't be corroborated.

The FBI has opened an investigation into the incident, spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said. She declined to elaborate.

The SEA has taken credit for a string of Web attacks on media targets it sees as sympathetic to Syria's rebels. Among the targets the group claims to have hacked are Twitter feeds of Al-Jazeera English and the BBC.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said the president was fine. "I was just with him," Carney said at a news briefing.

Twitter had no comment.

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists are stepping up clinical tests of gene therapy in a bid to help people with advanced heart failure pump blood more efficiently.

Researchers said on Tuesday they planned to enroll patients into two new clinical trials using Mydicar, a gene therapy treatment made by privately held U.S. biotech company Celladon.

After more than 20 years of research, the ground-breaking method for fixing faulty genes is starting to deliver, with European authorities approving the first gene therapy for an rare metabolic disease last November.

In the case of heart failure, the aim is to insert a gene called SERCA2a directly into heart cells using a modified virus, delivered via a catheter infusion. Lack of SERCA2a leads to ever weaker pumping in people with heart failure.

Although drugs offer some relief, there is currently no way of restoring heart function and the prognosis for those with advanced disease is worse than for many cancers.

One of the studies, led by scientists at Imperial College London, is part of a wider mid-stage Phase II project sponsored by Celladon that involves 200 patients worldwide, some of whom have already been treated in the United States and Denmark.

The second trial, which is due to start in the summer, will test the same treatment in 24 British patients already fitted with mechanical heart pumps to see how the approach may help in this particular setting.

It promises to be a long haul, with extensive Phase III studies still needed once results of the current mid-stage tests are received, which Celladon expects in the first half of 2015.

Gene therapy has experienced a series of advances and setbacks over the decades. The most notable blow came in 1999 when an Arizona teenager died in a gene therapy experiment. More recent results, however, have been promising in fields ranging from immune system diseases to blindness.

"It is a great example of the slow burn of good laboratory science translating into a potential clinical treatment," said Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, which is co-funding the second trial.

Because gene therapy replaces or boosts the activity of a faulty gene, it offers the possibility of a one-time "fix" - and that creates an economic challenge.

Any gene therapy is bound to be expensive, since a single dose could last a lifetime and the manufacturer will have just one shot at recouping its investment.

But Alexander Lyon of Imperial College, lead investigator on both studies, said it could be a cost-effective solution in heart failure if it avoided the need for interventions such as heart transplants at 200,000 pounds ($300,000) each.

($1 = 0.6455 British pounds)

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; editing by Patrick Graham)

Karlyn Tilley, a spokeswoman for the Golden Fire Department, tells The Denver Post (http://bit.ly/10EYRgW ) the man was climbing with his two adult children while using technical gear at a popular cliff about 20 miles west of Denver. She says he fell at about 1 p.m. Saturday.

About a dozen climbers who were nearby helped with the rescue and brought the man off the mountain within an hour of the fall.

Tilley says the man was unresponsive and not breathing when paramedics arrived.

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Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com

Blood Testing for Harrington's Former Patients

In aprovided by the Tulsa Health Department on Tuesday, it was reported that more than 2,500 people have received free blood testing through that county's agencies, nearly 60 more through the Oklahoma City-County Health Department and nearly 600 others through 30 other various county health departments, bringing the.

Situation updates yesterday by both the Oklahoma State Department of Health and Tulsa Health Department revealed that of the total tested thus far, 57 people have tested positively for hepatitis C, three have tested positively for hepatitis B, and at least one person has tested positively for HIV -- all conditions that are blood-borne.

Confidential, personal notifications have begun to be made to those who tested positive and further investigation into the origins of the positive test results will begin, as is routine for any positive results of such testing, explained, director of the Tulsa Health Department.explained that questions and investigations will help to determine whether the positive tests were as a result of exposure through Harrington's actions or another method and the public will be updated as further information is available.

Dentist Waives Hearing

Harrington, the dentist whose practices are at the center of this public health dilemma, was scheduled for a hearing Friday with the Oklahoma Board of Dentistry for possible suspension of his dental license. Through his attorney, Harrington notified the board that he waived today's hearing, reported, and is now scheduled for an Aug. 16 hearing for possible revocation of his license.

Harrington voluntarily surrendered his credentials to officials March 20, and both his Tulsa and Owasso offices are closed.

Free Blood Testing Continues

For current and former patients living in the Tulsa area, free blood testing continues to be offered at the North Regional Health and Wellness Center. While walk-ins are taken, it is advised to call the Center at 918-595-4380 to schedule an appointment for testing to minimize wait time.

Current and former patients of Harrington living elsewhere in the state should contact their local county health department for testing availability.

A Patient Information hotline, 918-595-4500, is available for questions or concerns. Both English- and Spanish-speaking representatives are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. through 5 p.m.

Bottom Line

It is too early in the blood testing process to determine how many, if any, of the people who have tested positive for blood-borne diseases acquired them through unsanitary dental practices or were exposed in another way. In the meantime, current and former patients of Harrington should continue to avail themselves of the free blood testing.

In a tongue-in-cheek challenge issued at a news conference, the 28-year-old royal warned his competitors that the Brits would have some tea "ready for you when you join us at the Pole."

Harry and his fellow Walking With The Wounded teammates will participate in the 208-mile (335-kilometer) South Pole Allied Challenge in November and December of this year.

That may be the height of the Antarctic summer, but conditions will still be bitterly cold. The four-week expedition will see racers drag sleds weighing more than 150 pounds (68 kilograms) and face extreme temperatures and savage winds.

Harry has already taken part in one expedition with Walking With The Wounded, a charity which raises funds and keeps injured servicemen and women in the public eye through feats of endurance.

In 2011, he took part in the charity's North Pole trek, but had to withdraw earlier to attend his brother Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton.

During the news conference, Harry was given a red polar coat by adventurer Inge Solheim, who served as the North Pole treks' guide.

This time around Solheim will be the guide for the American team from Soldiers to Summits, which is made up of Mark Wise from Colorado Springs, Colorado, Therese Frentz, from Del Rio, Texas, Margaux Mange, from Lakewood, Colorado, and Ivan Castro, from Raeford, North Carolina.

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Online:

http://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/

I was in Chile's Atacama Desert this March for the(Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array), a collection of 66 radio antennas mounted at an altitude of 16,500 feet (5,000 meters) on the Chajnantor Plateau.

I don't know what was more thrilling seeing the spectacular observatory, or experiencing its otherworldly surroundings.

Theis so dry that some parts of it haven't received rain for hundreds of years. Certain spots are orange and red, evoking the terrain of Mars more than Earth. Yet other areas experience enough rainfall to support a surprising amount of scrub vegetation and even cacti.

And on the horizon, pointed volcanoes and snowcapped Andes mountains tower over the scene. Many of the volcanoes are active, with smoke seeping ominously from the tops of some. A byproduct of this volcanism is the salt that's littered throughout the desert, coating many ground surfaces with a white sheen.

All these factors combine to create a landscape unlike any place I've ever seen.

Clara Moskowitz visited Chile on a trip paid for by the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory.Follow Clara on and . Follow us,or.Original article on .

NASHVILLE, Tenn (Reuters) - At least 30 people were arrested and a police officer sustained a head injury when a celebration of the University of Louisville's national collegiate basketball victory Monday night got out of hand, police said Tuesday.

Those arrested faced a variety of charges, primarily disorderly conduct and alcohol-related offenses, according to Officer Carey Klain, spokeswoman for the Louisville Police Department.

The men's basketball team, the Cardinals, beat the University of Michigan 82-76 in the NCAA Division I championship game Monday night. While most of the thousands of fans in the area around the campus celebrated peacefully, some rowdy fans had to be subdued, according to university spokesman John Drees.

Overhead cameras showed that a woman appeared to have stripped off her clothes, and police went into the crowd to arrest her. She was not found, but the crowd got rough, and two officers were knocked down, Drees said.

"The police then decided it was time to disperse the crowd and they brought out the pepper spray," Drees said. But the crowd still refused to leave and started throwing beer bottles at the police. One officer suffered a head injury from being hit in the back of the head.

He was released from a hospital Tuesday morning. Other officers suffered cuts and bruises and were treated at the scene.

Police also reported that guns were fired into the air, a mattress was set on fire and roads were blocked by unruly fans. Some small trees were destroyed by students who climbed into them, Drees said.

The Louisville women's basketball team is facing the University of Connecticut in New Orleans on Tuesday for the NCAA Division I championship. If it wins, officials expect another celebration in Louisville. Police cautioned that disorderly conduct and unlawful use of firearms would not be tolerated.

"We're excited about the possibility of bringing home two championships," said Drees. "The women get great support. We do expect to have some crowd and have some celebration."

Coach Rick Pitino of the men's team quietly arrived back in town Tuesday afternoon. A parade may be held in the near future, according to Drees.

(Reporting by Tim Ghianni; Editing by Mary Wisniewski, Greg McCune and Steve Orlofsky)