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But it was too late: by the time Miller apologized, people hadto NYU's administration,of endorsing eugenics, and dug up  that he had deleted a month ago. Less than 48 hours earlier, The Washington Post , direly, of the "Twitter Police," the paper's name for users who take glee in surveilling Twitter accounts for errant or offensive content, who supposedly threatened "to turn interesting, provocative people — those most likely to find their accounts hounded should they say something controversial — into guarded politicians, saying a lot while meaning nothing." Miller, it seemed, was their latest target.

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How appropriate, though, was the academic outrage directed at Miller? There's a difference, after all, between saying something stupid — something you don't actually believe — and accidentally unmasking an abhorrent belief. Remember whenHarvard professor Niall Ferguson's fixation on John Maynard Keynes' homosexuality? The evidence in Miller's case is similarly complex, if not exactly conclusive. In a series of deleted tweetsby Brooklyn editor Erin Kissane, Miller argues that human diversity is a "weakness" and that "if we all ate Paleo diets and did CrossFit, mental and physical health would soar." (The so-called Paleo diet, which emphasizes food that our prehuman ancestors would have likely consumed,in many ways.) Meanwhile, Austin neuroscientist Steve Phelpsa January 2013 essay  (which was ) in which Miller unreservedly praises China's eugenics program. And then there's this tweet of Miller's, published earlier this year:

Dean Kamen's new device to suck food out of people's stomachs? Or, fat people could just STOP EATING?

Taken together, these thoughts do suggest something troubling. Here is a tenured, credentialed professor of psychology who appears to harbor an active disdain for those he deems genetically or physically inferior, and trades on that disdain with Twitter jokes. (Who except a snotty teenager ridicules fat people for no apparent reason?) Plus, Miller  on admissions committees for PhD candidates. This is why the Twitter Police came out in such full force: in the context of his prior comments about human differences — and his desire to eliminate them — a joke about the hopelessness of fat PhD applicants is not "idiotic" or "impulsive" or "badly judged," as Miller suggested in his apology. The wisecrack precisely corresponds to positions he has already staked out. On Twitter, it seems, the only thing worse than throwing around a repugnant idea is lying about whether you believe it.

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Miller's continued silence hasn't helped his case, either. He did not respond to emails at his NYU account, and a staff member at the university said that he was not in his office today. Which is a shame. He inspired  that, despite his area of expertise, Miller refuses to engage. Instead he strained to explained, before before disappearing, what his "true views, values, [and] standards" were not — leaving open the important question of what his true views and values really are.

The Senate will vote on an overhaul of the nation's immigration system before the Fourth of July, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Friday.

On Thursday, Reid set in motion the lengthy process required to bring a bill to the Senate floor, giving lawmakers an opportunity to debate the issue this morning.

Speaking from the Senate floor Friday, Reid said he would utilize an "open as possible process" for senators wishing to add amendments to the bill, but he would place restrictions in order to finish work on the bill within the next month.

"I have committed to as open an amendment process as possible. I don't want to say totally open because sometimes with the procedures we have here, as with the farm bill, people throw monkey wrenches into things and we're not able to do as we want to do," Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said. "But we'll wrap this legislation up before the July 4 recess."

Opponents of the overhaul were quick to reserve time on the Senate floor to speak out. Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who has led the opposition movement against the bill, was the first to speak.

In truth the bill is amnesty first with a promise of enforcement later, Sessions said. It devastates and weakens current law so that can never happen effectively."

Senators on both sides of the issue will take turns giving speeches through the rest of the day and into next week.

The timing of the vote is politically important. Immigration reform proponents know they need to complete work on the bill before the long summer recess, when lawmakers conduct town-hall meetings with constituents.

In 2009, the year President Barack Obama began pushing for a national overhaul of the health insurance system, some members of Congress faced furious and organized opposition at home that summer, which may have contributed to the reason why votes were delayed into the next year.

Achieving passage in the Senate, however, is just one hurdle, and it may not be the largest in this process. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House have still not made public their own proposal in the Republican-majority lower chamber, where there is more opposition to the measure than in the Senate. The schism could cause significant delays in bringing a final product to the president's desk.

Many Republicans in the House say they would prefer taking a piecemeal approach to reform instead of passing a comprehensive plan in one bill. Opponents to the bill, and even some key Republican supporters like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, emphasize that the bill does not contain satisfactory enforcement measures and will need to be changed before they will offer their support.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX on Wednesday agreed to pay $10 million, the largest penalty ever levied against a stock exchange, to settle civil charges stemming from mistakes made during Facebook's initial public offering last year, U.S. securities regulators said on Wednesday.

In its administrative proceeding against the stock exchange operator, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Nasdaq's "ill-fated decisions" on the day of the IPO led to a series of regulatory violations.

The SEC said Nasdaq's senior executives were aware of technical problems but decided to open up Facebook stock for secondary trading without first getting to the root cause of the troubles.

After trading had opened to the wider marketplace, the problems persisted. The exchange's chief economist spotted discrepancies in trading volume, and complaints from market makers started to mount. Still, exchange management decided not to halt trading, the SEC said.

As a result of those poor decisions, more than 30,000 Facebook orders remained stuck in Nasdaq's system for more than two hours when they should have been either executed or canceled. Investors were left in the lurch and market makers lost an estimated $500 million.

"This action against Nasdaq tells the tale of how poorly designed systems and hasty decision-making not only disrupted one of the largest IPOs in history, but produced serious and pervasive violations of fundamental rules governing our markets," said George Canellos, co-director of the SEC's enforcement division.

The exchange operator agreed to settle the charges without admitting or denying the allegations.

Separately, the exchange has agreed to pay as much as $62 million to compensate market makers for losses, an agreement approved by the SEC earlier this year.

Wednesday's settlement marks a major step for Nasdaq as it seeks to put the fallout from the Facebook debacle behind it. The exchange is still facing lingering battles with market markers who lost money in the May 18, 2012, IPO.

UBS, which lost $300 million - by far the most of any market player - is in arbitration with Nasdaq in an effort to recoup more money. A representative of UBS declined to comment on the status of the arbitration.

The SEC's case is the latest in a continuing crackdown on stock exchanges. Regulators are using enforcement as a tool to get exchanges to beef up their compliance with regulations and make sure they are properly self-policing.

Last year, the New York Stock Exchange became the first exchange in SEC history to face a financial penalty after it was accused of giving certain customers an "improper head start" on trading information.

In 2011 the SEC sanctioned Direct Edge for weak controls, and earlier this month the Chicago Board Options Exchange said it expects to be fined as much as $10 million to resolve an SEC probe into its duties as a self-policing organization.

In an open letter issued on Wednesday, Nasdaq CEO Robert Greifeld said the challenges that the exchange faced when the Facebook stock debuted were unprecedented.

"In the last year, we have carefully reviewed these events," Greifeld wrote. "As market leaders, we view our experiences as opportunities to learn and improve."

Facebook's IPO, the largest ever in terms of volume, was a much anticipated event. But the hype soon turned into panic after a software error at Nasdaq led to a 30-minute delay in the IPO.

The SEC said Nasdaq's senior management thought they had fixed the systems problem after removing a few lines of computer code and decided not to delay the start of secondary market trading.

But the technical problems persisted, with many brokers waiting for more than two hours to hear about the status of their orders.

In addition to charges stemming from poor decision-making, the SEC also said it was charging Nasdaq with a series of technical rule violations.

Nasdaq assumed a short position of more than 3 million shares of Facebook in an unauthorized account and covered that short position for a $10.8 million profit, two violations of exchange rules, the SEC said.

The agency also said it had found other problems unrelated to Facebook involving additional technology glitches. In those cases, in October 2011 and August 2012, the glitches led the exchange to violate rules that require investors to get the best bids and prices, the SEC said.

The settlement requires the exchange to make certain technical fixes related to its matching system for buy and sell orders for IPOs.

It also must expand the scope of its regulatory group's coverage of the rules governing its trading platforms and get the group more involved in decisions about software changes.

In his open letter, Greifeld said Nasdaq has already put new safeguards in place.

He said many of the SEC's demands have already been met, but he expects all of the requirements to be completed by the end of the year.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by John McCrank in New York; Editing by Kenneth Barry and John Wallace)

He also decides how much they get paid and what the contract details will be. So Robert Guerrero was somewhat prepared when Mayweather picked him to be the opponent for his first fight in a year Saturday night at the MGM Grand hotel.

What he wasn't prepared for was what Mayweather's camp insisted on putting in the contract.

"He asked for a rematch clause. That was the very first thing," Guerrero said. "It just shows me where his head is at."

Where Mayweather's head is at has, of course, been the topic of many conversations over the years. When he fought last May against Miguel Cotto the worry among his fans was that he would be distracted by an upcoming jail sentence, though that turned out to be unfounded.

Talk to Mayweather now, and his head seems to be fine. So, too, are his reflexes at the age of 36, at least judged by a sparring session last week where he practiced landing right hand leads against a fighter mimicking Guerrero's southpaw style.

He has to lose sometime because nearly every fighter not named Rocky Marciano lost at some point in their career. But Mayweather has a new six-fight television deal that should cement his status as the world's highest paid athlete, and he doesn't seem terribly concerned about a loss or a possible rematch of their welterweight title fight.

"I've done this my whole life," Mayweather said. "This is what I love to do."

Though Mayweather sees Guerrero as just the latest opponent for yet another huge payday, Guerrero sees things quite differently. He believes he is the fighter who will be the first to beat Mayweather, and he's eager to earn both the recognition and the money that would come with such a win.

At the final pre-fight press conference Wednesday he said Mayweather made a mistake by picking him as an opponent.

"They talk about this as Floyd Mayweather's home," Guerrero said. "Well, this is a home invasion."

Oddsmakers don't share Guerrero's confidence, making the former champion in three weight classes a decided underdog in the biggest fight of his career. But the once-beaten (31-1-1) fighter from Gilroy, Calif., said he's been underestimated his entire career.

"The only thing that means something is what you do in that ring," he said. "I just can't wait to get in that ring."

Both fighters were on their best behavior at their final press conference, though their fathers almost mixed it up. Floyd Mayweather Sr.and Ruben Guerrero who both train their sons exchanged words after Reuben Guerrero went into a rant about Mayweather being a woman beater for the altercation with the mother of his children that got him jailed for 70 days last year.

There is an undercurrent of hostility between the fighters, too, with Mayweather suggesting Guerrero who talks openly about his faith is a hypocrite for getting busted in a New York gun charge while promoting the fight. Mayweather also said that Guerrero used his wife's fight with leukemia she is now healthy to gain fans and sympathy for himself.

"It's laughable," Guerrero said. "I don't need sympathy, I come to fight. Sympathy doesn't win fights."

Though Mayweather is unbeaten in 43 fights and has been a pay-per-view star since his 2007 win over Oscar De La Hoya, he has been fighting professionally for 17 years and is getting to an age that historically fighters have had trouble with. The fact he's fought only four times since beating Ricky Hatton more than five years ago and has not fought in a year leads some in boxing to believe he may have as much trouble with ring rust as he has with Guerrero.

There are signs, too, that perhaps his appeal is fading, though Mayweather would argue that his fan base is bigger than ever. Seats are still readily available for the fight at the MGM arena, and the All Access shows promoting the fight on Showtime have generated little buzz.

A documentary on Mayweather's life that aired last Saturday in primetime on Showtime's sister network, CBS, also drew miserable ratings.

Still, Mayweather who acts as his own promoter insists the promotion is going well and people will tune in at home, even at a suggested retail price of $69.95. Mayweather's win over Cotto last May drew 1.5 million pay-per-view buys, his biggest sales since he and De La Hoya combined for a record 2.5 million.

"I think everything is playing out like it should play out," Mayweather said. "I'm ready to go out there and perform.

____

Tim Dahlberg can be reached at http://twitter.com/timdahlberg

The Jascon 4, a tug boat, went down Sunday off the coast of Nigeria's Delta state. Sea Trucks Group spokeswoman Corrie van Kessel said Tuesday that divers were searching for missing sailors and an investigation was under way. The Jascon 4 worked for a Sea Trucks subsidiary called West African Ventures.

Working offshore of Nigeria can be dangerous, as sailors face attacks by pirates and militants. Industrial accidents happen as well. A sailor drowned in 2010 after falling overboard from a boat working for French oil firm Total SA.

Chevron, based in San Ramon, California, operates offshore oil sites through a subsidiary in concert with Nigeria's state-run oil company.

By Martyn Herman

PARIS, May 31 (Reuters) - Kevin Anderson became the first South African to reach the fourth round of the French Open since 1996 when he outslugged 14th seed Milos Raonic on Friday.

The 27-year-old, Africa's only men's singles main draw entrant, won 7-5 7-6 (4) 6-3 in a match he dominated with his serve to equal the feat of Wayne Ferreira.

The 6-foot-8 (2.03-metre) Anderson also equalled his best ever grand slam showing having also reached the last 16 at the Australian Open earlier this year.

"Wayne is a great player to aspire to and to try and reach some of his achievements," Anderson told reporters.

"He was a great player and I've still obviously got a long way to go to...but being in the fourth round is great. A lot of people think clay is not a good surface but I enjoy playing on it."

After disposing of Canada's big-serving powerhouse Raonic, Anderson's next challenge will be Spanish fourth seed David Ferrer, a player he shares a 1-1 record with.

It will be a different type of contest to the one against the giant Raonic and Anderson is hoping for warmer, drier weather in time for Sunday's fourth round.

"I think it might help," said the South African after delivering 16 aces. "The serve might bounce up a little bit more and it may be easier to control points and get the ball up a little bit.

"I think that would be a bit more to my advantage." (Editing by Toby Davis)

The new Common Core standards replace a hodgepodge of educational goals that had varied greatly from state to state. The federal government was not involved in the state-led effort to develop them but has encouraged the project.

While proponents say the new standards will better prepare students, critics worry they'll set a national curriculum for public schools rather than letting states decide what is best for their students.

There was little dissent when the standards were widely adopted in 2010, but that begun changing last year and debate picked up steam this year. The standards have divided Republicans, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush championing them and conservatives such as Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, opposing them.

Lawmakers and governors are reviewing the standards in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Indiana, Alabama, South Carolina and Utah. Grassley, meanwhile, persuaded eight other senators to sign onto a letter in April asking the Senate Appropriations Committee to stop the Education Department from linking adoption of the standards to eligibility for other federal dollars. That same month, the Republican National Committee passed a resolution calling the standards an "inappropriate overreach."

Kristy Campbell, a spokeswoman for the Bush-backed Foundation for Excellence in Education, said conservatives historically have supported higher standards and greater accountability.

"The fact that they are opposed to Common Core now is a little surprising and disappointing given the fact that states came together to solve a need," Campbell said, adding that the new standards will allow for state-by-state comparisons that haven't been possible before. "We are going to have more rigorous assessments that are going to test kids against those higher standards and hopefully achieve what we all want, which is a dramatically greater quality of education in America."

The American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative, Washington-based think tank that espouses conservative policies in state legislatures, debated in November whether to oppose the Common Core standards. The group ultimately decided to remain neutral, but its discussion, along with concerns raised by conservative groups such as the Goldwater and Pioneer institutes, caught the attention of lawmakers.

States that adopt the standards are supposed to use them as a base on which to build their curricula and testing, but they can make their benchmarks tougher than Common Core. While the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, found the new standards to be more rigorous than those that had been used by three-quarters of all states, critics question what will happen in states whose previous standards were tougher.

"So in that regard we really viewed Common Core as the race to the middle, not to the top," said Jamie Gass, director of the Center for School Reform at the Pioneer Institute.

Questions about testing also have arisen. In New York, among the first states to test students based on the standards, some students complained this spring that the Common Core-aligned English exams were too difficult to complete in the allotted time, and there were reports of students crying from stress.

Jonathan Butcher, education director for the Goldwater Institute, based in Phoenix, said opposition also is gaining traction because states and districts are at the point where money has to be appropriated to pay for the standards.

"As soon as states had to start spending money on the Common Core, as soon as it became a line item in the budget, people sit up and take notice," Butcher said. "And that wasn't going to happen until now, until states started to implement it. So it's unfortunate that there is so much attention to it so late in the game but that's kind of where we are. As soon as it starts to become a money issue people will pay attention."

Calculations on the cost of implementing the standards vary, with the Pioneer Institute and two other anti-Common Core conservative think tanks estimating it will cost $16 billion over seven years. Meanwhile, the Fordham Institute, which is pro-Common Core, said the cost over a one-to-three-year transition period could range from $8.3 billion to breaking even or even saving money, depending on things like whether the states purchase hard-copy textbooks or use open-source learning material written by experts, vetted by their peers and posted for free downloading.

One issue is that new tests tied to the standards will be computerized, requiring some states and districts to make technology upgrades. The Pioneer analysis included those technology costs; the Fordham one didn't.

In backing ultimately unsuccessful anti-Common Core legislation in Missouri, Rep. Kurt Bahr, a Republican from the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon, said he was concerned that many communities lacked the bandwidth and hardware to administer the tests.

"We don't have that connectivity," Bahr said. "It's about to become a massive pocketbook issue."

The standards are the result of an initiative sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. Carrie Heath Phillips, who oversees implementation of the standards for the council, played down the concerns about cost, noting that states periodically update their standards and that spending money to implement new ones is nothing new. She also acknowledged that technology upgrades can be a real issue for states that haven't invested in it, but asked, "If you're not moving into the 21st century now in 2013, when are you going to?"

The standards have a long list of supporters, including the National Parent Teacher Association, several education associations and businesses such as the Boeing Co. and Microsoft Corp.

Literacy teacher Jessica Cuthbertson said she attempted to fully implement the new standards in her sixth-grade Aurora, Colo., classroom for the first time this year and found her students' writing was "substantially better."

"I feel that often the debate isn't about the learning," said Cuthbertson, who also trains teachers to use the new standards as part of her job with a virtual teacher leadership initiative called the Center for Teaching Quality. "We're not talking about what the kids are producing and doing with these cool standards. We're talking about the big brother federal government controlling curriculum. I don't think it's really grounded in student learning, and yet in the hands of teachers focused on student learning, I just think there is nothing but hope."

While the federal government wasn't involved in developing the standards, it has provided $350 million to two consortiums developing Common Core tests. The federal Education Department also encouraged states to adopt the standards to compete for "Race to the Top" grants and seek waivers around some of the unpopular proficiency requirements of the No Child Left Behind federal education act.

"They have done some things that have kind of muddied the waters at the very least," said Butcher of the Goldwater Institute. "It's hard for me to say, 'Well, clearly the federal government has no interest in this.'"

But in Michigan, where the Republican-led Legislature is taking steps aimed at halting the standards, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is defending them as a "really important opportunity" for the state.

"Unfortunately, it's been too much about politics," he said. "It's being viewed as the federal government putting another federal mandate on us. ... It was the governors of the states getting together ... to say we want a partner at the national level and all levels to say, 'Let's raise the bar.'"

___

Associated Press writers Chris Blank in Jefferson City, Mo., John Milburn in Topeka, Kan., Alanna Durkin in Lansing, Mich., Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Tom LoBianco in Indianapolis, Phillip Rawls in Montgomery, Ala., Seanna Adcox in Columbia, S.C., Michelle Price in Salt Lake City, Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., and Karen Matthews in New York contributed to this report.

Granat, 26, was included in Russia's squad for Euro 2012 by Capello's predecessor Dick Advocaat but has yet to make his international debut.

Kozlov, also 26, was a surprise addition to a 27-man squad, announced by Capello on Friday, having only attended Russia under-23 team's training camp some five years ago.

The Italian also recalled Spartak Moscow striker Artem Dzyuba for the first time since October but again overlooked experienced forwards Roman Pavlyuchenko and Pavel Pogrebnyak as well as former Russia captain Andrei Arshavin.

Russia, who top Group F with maximum 12 points from four matches, face Portugal in Lisbon on June 7.

The Portuguese are joint second along with Israel - a point behind - having played six games each.

Russia's qualifier against Northern Ireland, postponed following a heavy snowstorm in Belfast in March, has been rescheduled for August. (Reporting by Gennady Fyodorov, editing by Ed Osmond)