The online blueprints for a fully functional 3D-printed gun have disappeared faster than a speeding bullet.

On Wednesday, the State Department ordered the company that posted the schematics, Defense Distributed, to remove them from the web. (Watch a Defense Distributed video explaining the gun above.) According to the State Department, publicly posting the instructions may have violated the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which governs the "transfer of, and access to" certain weapons and their technical details. By posting the files to the web where anyone in the world could download them, the company may have inadvertently violated those export restrictions.

"Please note that disclosing (including oral or visual disclosure) or transferring technical data to a foreign person, whether in the United States or abroad, is considered an export," the State Department  in a letter.

However, the State Department did not say that the instructions must remain offline for good. Rather, the department asked that Defense Distributed file the necessary paperwork for the government to determine if the blueprints are, in fact, a violation of ITAR. In the meantime, State wrote, the company "should treat the above technical data as ITAR-controlled."

That letter came just two days after Defense Distributed, through its open-source printing project DEFCAD, posted the instructions for its "Liberator" handgun to the Internet. In just three days, the instructions had already been downloaded more than 

Here's how it works, :

Fifteen of the gun's 16 pieces are constructed on the $8,000 Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer, Forbes said. The final piece is a common nail, used as a firing pin, that can be found in a hardware store. []

And indeed, by Thursday evening, the webpage to download the instructions had been updated with the : "This file has been removed from public access at the request of the US Department of Defense Trade Controls. Until further notice, the United States government claims control of the information."

Still, the federal order does not mean all copies of the blueprints have been be wiped from the web. The instructions have been posted to the file-sharing sites Pirate Bay and Mega, among others, meaning they're still available for download.

Wilson, who claims to have been inspired by anarchist writings, himself made that point in an , saying he thought he would ultimately be free from the government's oversight.

"I still think we win in the end," he said. "Because the files are all over the Internet, the Pirate Bay has it to think this can be stopped in any meaningful way is to misunderstand what the future of distributive technologies is about."

Lawmakers at the state and federal level have already moved to ban printable firearms.

In California, Democratic state Senator Leland Yee said in athat he would soon introduce a bill to ban weapons that "are invisible to metal detectors and that can be easily made without a background check." At the federal level, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have likewise called for legislation to ban such firearms.

"A terrorist, someone who's mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon can essentially open a gun factory in their garage," Schumer

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The suspension will keep Andersen from playing on Saturday when the Heat, one win away from a third consecutive trip to the NBA Finals, visit the Indiana Pacers with a 3-2 series lead.

"Andersen knocked Indiana Pacers forward Tyler Hansbrough to the floor, escalated the altercation by shoving Hansbrough, and resisted efforts to bring the altercation to an end," the NBA said in a statement.

Andersen, who received a flagrant foul 1 on the play, finished the game with four points, four rebounds, two blocks and one steal in Miami's 90-79 win.

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

The openly gay state representative led the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in what may be the most Catholic state in the nation's most Catholic region.

In early May, Rhode Island became the sixth and final New England state to allow gay couples to marry. The Democratic-dominated Legislature, led by an openly gay House speaker, overcame years of successful lobbying by the Catholic Church.

"They put the fear of God into people," Ferri said, claiming that "the influence of the church" had been the primary stumbling block as every other neighboring state, and many people across the country, started embracing gay marriage.

Ferri's victory marked the Catholic Church's most significant political defeat in an area where more than 40 percent of the population is Catholic.

Perhaps more problematic for the church is that state-by-state setbacks on gay marriage illustrate a widening divide between the church hierarchy and its members that may be undermining Catholic influence in American politics.

The disconnect plays out in polling.

In March, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a majority of Catholics, 60 percent, felt the church was out of touch with the views of Catholics in America today.

A CBS News/New York Times poll in February found that 78 percent of Catholics said they were more likely to follow their own conscience than the church's teachings on difficult moral questions.

That poll highlighted several areas where most Catholics break with church teachings: 62 percent of American Catholics think same-sex marriages should be legal, 74 percent think abortion ought to be available in at least some instances and 61 percent favor the death penalty.

At Vatican, newly selected Pope Francis, while a bishop in Argentina, angered other church leaders by supporting civil unions for gay couples ahead of that country's vote to legalize gay marriage.

He has taken no such position as pope.

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a member of one of the most storied Catholic families in American politics, says she's encouraged by Francis' early leadership. But she says the church's political influence will continue to wane unless it adapts.

"Gay marriage is part of a larger refusal on the part of the church to listen to, and to understand, the people in the pews," said Townsend, who regularly attends church and wrote the book, "Failing America's Faithful: How Today's Churches Are Mixing God With Politics and Losing Their Way."

Church officials in Washington, Boston and Providence declined to be interviewed for this report.

The church for decades has employed aggressive lobbying efforts on a range of political issues, and Catholic leaders have used the power of the pulpit and substantial financial resources to maintain clout. At times they've gone so far as to tell leading Catholic lawmakers they were not welcome to receive Communion if they opposed church teachings on matter such as abortion and gay marriage.

These days, the church remains active in political battles over abortion, President Barack Obama's health care law, poverty and immigration. But the church had little success influencing the gay marriage debate here and elsewhere.

In many statehouses, the church relies on lobbying consortiums made up of lay people, known as Catholic conferences, to influence state policy, aided by donations from dioceses across the country.

In Washington, the church's primary voice is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which had an annual budget last year of $26.6 million, according to the Pew Forum of Religion and Public Life.

"They've certainly been players at the national level," said Mark Silk, the director of Trinity College's Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life.

He noted that the church has been most successful in recent years by building alliances with other religious lobbies, including evangelicals, to help shape public policy such as the contraception provision in the president's health care law. Religious leaders have successfully pushed to tighten abortion laws in some states.

Thirty states have adopted constitutional provisions limiting marriage to a man and a woman, although that's mostly in the South and West where there are fewer Catholics.

Silk suggested that some Catholic leaders in the United States may be eroding their influence by "jumping up and down" to fight gay marriage despite strong public support.

As American attitudes rapidly shifted in favor of legalized same-sex marriage in recent months, the archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, likened gay marriage to male breastfeeding and denounced Rhode Island's vote as violating "the very design of nature."

In Minnesota, Catholic leaders spent nearly $1 million last year to support a ballot measure banning gay marriage. The year before, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis produced and distributed 400,000 copies of a DVD in which Archbishop John C. Nienstedt called same-sex marriage, at best, "an untested social experiment."

Thousands of Minnesota Catholics returned the DVDs in protest. Last month, the state Legislature voted to legalize gay marriage, making Minnesota the 12th state to do so.

In Providence, the Rev. Bernard Healey led the lobbying effort to counter legalization attempts. The Catholic priest is well-known at the Rhode Island Capitol.

In late April, before the final gay marriage vote, Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin warned Rhode Island lawmakers: "It is only with grave risk to our spiritual well-being and the common good of our society that we dare to redefine what God himself has created."

The Legislature overwhelmingly voted days later to support same-sex marriage.

That led Tobin to condemn "immoral or destructive behavior" and say that Catholics should "examine their consciences very carefully" before deciding whether to attend gay marriage ceremonies, "realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others."

As for Ferri, he said he's at peace with God, regardless of the warnings of the church. A faithful member of his church choir for decades, he recalled sitting alone at the altar while struggling with his homosexuality years ago.

"I got a message from God: 'You're going to be OK. Be who you are,'" he said during a recent interview in his small office in the Statehouse.

Noting that a church lobbyist would be pushing abortion-related legislation later that day, Ferri said the Catholic Church will always have some political influence in Rhode Island.

"They just picked the wrong battle this time. And I think it hurt them," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Brian Bakst in Minnesota and AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta in Washington contributed to this report.

KYOTO, Japan (Reuters) - Japanese author Haruki Murakami made his first public appearance in his homeland in 18 years on Monday, describing his newest novel, which was an instant-best seller, as a story that takes place in the real world, unlike many of his other novels.

"Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage" has attracted positive reviews, with readers spotting familiar Murakami themes such as people bonding through pain.

Publisher Bungeishunju made the rare decision to print 1 million copies within a week of its April release in Japan.

The novel is about a lonely 36-year-old engineer named Tsukuru Tazaki, who embarks on trips in Japan and Finland to overcome his most painful experience - broken friendships.

"Usually things are divided into the real and unreal, but I was wondering how it will be if I bring all of that into the stage of the real world," Murakami told an audience of about 500 fans in Kyoto.

"People get hurt and close their minds, but as time passes, they gradually open up, and they grow as they repeat that. This novel is about growth."

The fans who won a lottery to attend the event were surprised that the 64-year-old, whose fiction is often surreal and who has made a handful of speeches overseas in recent years but none in Japan, was actually speaking to the public.

"I am a fan of his novels but I have never seen him in person nor heard his voice. Is he a normal person?" Hiroko Yamada, 40, asked as she waited for the event to start.

Murakami said he decided to speak in public to honor his friend Hayao Kawai, a psychologist who died in 2007.

"It's not like I get purple dots all over myself when I am in front of many people. I like to go around on the bus and the subway and live a normal life," he joked.

"I want you to think of me like an endangered species - it's fine to look at me from far away, but be careful because I may bite if you come near and talk to me or touch me."

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

James Loney homered twice, four Tampa Bay pitchers combined on a one-hitter and the Rays endured nearly five hours of rain delays before beating the Cleveland Indians 9-2 for their sixth straight win in a game that ended at 2:53 a.m.

Scheduled to start at 7:05 p.m., the game was delayed three times before finally resuming at 12:13 a.m. 2 hours, 39 minutes after the third and lengthiest delay. Before that there was uncertainty, confusion and, of course, rain.

"It's a very awkward way to do this, "said Maddon, who spent the weather stoppages monitoring the storms on an iPad in his office. "But if you're going to stick around that long you might as well win."

The teams were delayed a total of 4:49, long enough for the calendar to change before nine innings were played. It ended just before 3 a.m., giving the teams a short turnaround before a 1:05 start on Saturday.

It was the majors' third marathon game in two days. On Thursday night, Kansas City and St. Louis were delayed an hour before the first pitch and another 4 hours, 32 minutes by rain before the Royals beat Cardinals 4-2 well after 3 in the morning.

And about 20 minutes after the Rays got their final out, the San Diego Padres finished off a 4-3, 17-inning victory over the Toronto Blue Jays that took 4:58.

Afterward, Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria went on Twitter to thank the few thousand fans who hung around until the end.

"A sincere thanks to each and every fan that stuck around to watch that game!" Longoria wrote. "You all made it fun. (hash)ClevelandRocks."

Matt Joyce and Loney connected for two-run homers in Tampa's five-run third inning off Scott Barnes (0-1), who replaced starter Corey Kluber following the weather stoppages. Loney added a solo shot to make it 6-2 in the eighth.

Jamey Wright (1-1) came in for unbeaten Tampa starter Matt Moore and pitched three innings for the Rays, who went an AL-best 18-10 in May. Cleveland's only hit was Ryan Raburn's RBI double in the fifth off Josh Lueke.

Cesar Ramos pitched three hitless innings for his first career save.

The teams had little choice but wait out the long delays. With a forecast for heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday, crew chief Fieldin Culbreth and the umpires figured they had to try to get in one game with the possibility the whole weekend could get washed out. The teams aren't scheduled to meet again this season.

The game was delayed 1 hours, 57 minutes at the start, 13 minutes in the second inning and then for another 2:39 before it started again in front of a crowd that began as more than 30,000 and dwindled to just a few thousand, who waited it out and were rewarded for their patience.

At about 11 p.m., Maddon, Indians manager Terry Francona, Cleveland general manager Chris Antonetti and two umpires did a walking tour of the saturated outfield grass to inspect the conditions. Not long after that, the overworked grounds crew was summoned again to get the field ready and at 12:13 a.m. Wright threw a pitch to Nick Swisher.

At one point during the third delay, Maddon, with the hood of his blue sweatshirt pulled over his head to try and stay dry, took a stroll through the soggy outfield and thought it might be unplayable.

But in the end, he felt Culbreth and his crew handled things well.

"It was very confusing to everybody," Maddon said. "Fieldin and the boys, umpiring wise, they were handed this. The group here felt the Indians really wanted to play the game tonight."

Francona, too, praised the umpires.

"I thought they handled it very well," he said.

After thunderstorms blasted through the area, the 7:05 p.m. start was pushed back to 9:02 p.m. and the teams took the field under threatening skies.

Kluber got two outs in the second inning when play was halted by rain at 9:18 as Culbreth ordered the grounds crew to put the tarp on the field. But within seconds of the infield being covered, the rain stopped and the game was re-started just 13 minutes later.

Kluber gave up a walk and got Desmond Jennings to line out for the last out in the second when the rain resumed after three minutes of play and the game was stopped again at 9:34 p.m.

Both Maddon and Francona met separately with the umpires as fans scrambled to stay dry. The Indians announced they reduced $1 dollar hot dogs to 50 cents as a way of thanking fans for enduring the rain. During the third delay, fans watched out-of-town games on the giant scoreboard and cheered when Baltimore beat the first-place Detroit Tigers on a walkoff homer, moving the Indians into a temporary tie atop the AL Central.

Joyce said players wondered if they would ever take the field.

"We were actually in the dark pretty much the whole night," he said. "It's tough. A lot of guys were ready to go home and play a doubleheader (Saturday)."

The Rays came out swinging after the lengthy delays as Joyce and Loney homered off Barnes in the third to give Tampa Bay a 5-0 lead.

Yunel Escobar singled with one out, and with two outs, Joyce drove Barnes' pitch 411 feet over the wall in right-center for his 10th homer. Kelly Johnson walked and scored on Longoria's double, and Loney followed with his sixth homer, a shot that drew boos from the doused fans hanging around.

Held without a hit through four innings by Moore and the journeyman Wright, the Indians cut it to 5-2 in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Yan Gomes and Raburn's two-out RBI double.

NOTES: It was Loney's first multihomer game since Sept. 7, 2007. ... Maddon said there has been discussion about starting Moore on Sunday, built it's more likely he will next in Detroit next week. ... Browns offensive linemen, including Pro Bowler Joe Thomas, visited the Indians clubhouse before the game and then crowded into the dugout to stay out of the rain. Thomas couldn't convince one of the rookies to do a belly slide across the tarp for money. ... Indians closer Chris Perez, on the disabled list with a sore right shoulder, will be reevaluated Sunday before the next step in his rehab is mapped out. ... Rays RHP Alex Colome, who made his major league debut Thursday in Miami, was optioned to Triple-A Durham. LHP Jeff Beliveau was recalled, but later optioned so Rays RHP Chris Archer can make his season debut Saturday.

Nokia's India unit was served in March with the tax demand for five years starting from 2006/07, in one of several tax disputes involving a foreign company in India.

The Finnish phone company said on Friday that it will examine all options, including taking the case back to the Delhi High Court. ($1 = 56.2450 Indian rupees)

(Reporting By Ritsuko Ando; editing by Keiron Henderson)

(Reuters) - Nike Inc is dropping its partnership with the Livestrong Foundation, the cancer charity founded by disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong, the latest repercussion from the doping scandal that last year stripped him of his titles.

Nike said on Tuesday it would end production of its Livestrong gear and apparel after the 2013 holiday line, concluding a long-standing licensing agreement for footwear and apparel between the two that helped Livestrong raise a total of $100 million over the course of the partnership.

"We expected changes like this," Katherine McLane, a Livestrong spokeswoman, said in a conference call with reporters. "Could there be fallout? Of course," she said. "We remain enormously confident...We are in strong fiscal shape."

When Armstrong left Livestrong's board, Nike said it would still back the charity, but no longer sponsor the man behind it.

However, Nike spokeswoman Mary Remuzzi told Reuters late on Tuesday that the decision to drop the partnership was taken as sales of the products had not met company's expectations.

Nike also distributed Livestrong's ubiquitous yellow wrist-bands, of which 87 million were sold.

Armstrong founded Livestrong in 1997 after being diagnosed with testicular cancer. The group flourished during his cycling career in which he won the Tour de France seven times.

The cyclist, who stepped down from Livestrong's board last October, admitted in January to systematic use of banned, performance-enhancing drugs after years of denials.

"This does show there are pros and cons of (a philanthropic foundation) being so closely associated with one person," said Patrick Rooney, associate dean of academic affairs and research at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

Still, Rooney predicted a large enough number of people would be able to separate Armstrong's misdeeds and the foundation's good works that it could survive.

Livestrong said its 2013 budget is $38.4 million, a 10.9 percent reduction from 2012, but that revenue projections were ahead by 2.5 percent.

Livestrong has similar licensing deals with sports eyewear maker Oakley, owned by Italy's Luxottica and others.

Nike will benefit from distancing itself from the charity and from the scandal-tainted athlete, said Robert Boland, a professor of sport management at New York University's Tisch Center.

"Their relationship with Livestrong was so based on Lance Armstrong and his story that it's almost impossible to separate them from a branding standpoint," Boland said. "The chief thing that is motivating Nike is they're looking to move on and put their years with Lance Armstrong behind them."

(Reporting by Phil Wahba, Ellen Wulfhorst and Scott Malone; additional reporting by Sakthi Prasad; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Leslie Adler, Marguerita Choy and Dan Grebler)

The National Book Critics Circle announced Wednesday that starting in 2014 the John Leonard Award will be given for the year's best debut book. Leonard, who died in 2008, was known for championing authors early in their careers. Among those he supported: Nobel laureate Toni Morrision and "Woman Warrior" writer Maxine Hong Kingston. Leonard wrote for The New York Times, The Nation and other publications.

The book critics circle, which already gives out prizes for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and criticism, was founded in 1974 and has around 500 members. Leonard himself was given a lifetime achievement award by the critics circle in 2006.

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$450 a month: What the average "silver plan" — meaning medium level of coverage, or about 70 percent of medical expenses — wasto cost, according to a projection from the actuarial firm Milliman.

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$300 a month: What the average "silver plan" will actually cost.

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13 percent: The amount the cost of premiums is expected to rise for California's Blue Shield plans — before subsidies. About 8 percent of 9 percent of that increase is from year-over-year increase in medical costs.

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$3,600 a year: The average price of one of the cheaper silver plans for a 40-year-old single person.

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$2,400 a year: The price of that silver plan for a someone making $29,000 a year, or 250 percent of the federal poverty level.

$700 a year: The price of that silver plan for someone making about $17,000 a year, or 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

$0 a year: The price of a cheaper bronze plan, which pays 60 percent of medical costs, for someone making $17,000 a year, or 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

$5,500 a year: The price of a typical plan from an employer.

Less than $45,960 a year: How much an individual can make and still qualify for a subsidy to help cover the cost of premiums.

7.1 million: Number of uninsured residents in California.

2.6 million: Number of Californians expected to get subsidies to buy insurance.

About 12 percent: Portion of Americans who live in California.

We've see this happen in other states. Earlier this month, rate proposals released by insurance companies in Washington state showed some people's premiums would actually go down. Premera Blue Cross had estimated that premiums would rise about . When Oregon released proposed health care premiums online in May, two insurers requested the chance to adjust their rates — . Why is this happening? "The premiums and participation in California, Oregon, Washington and other states show that insurers want to compete for the new enrollees in this market," the Kaiser Family Foundation's Gary Claxton told The New Republic. The glories of the free market.

The six were charged with extortion on Monday, Xinhua said, citing a statement from judicial authorities in Chongqing, where they are slated to be tried.

Investigators said the group "lured officials into having sex with women and secretly recorded their encounters to blackmail them from 2008 to 2009", Xinhua said.

The charges come after a high profile case in which footage of a district party chief having sex with his mistress went viral on the microblog service Sina Weibo, creating an uproar. State media said the official, Lei Zhengfu, has been removed from his post and will face corruption charges.

Party officials are banned from keeping mistresses and the video came to symbolize in many people's eyes the excesses and corruption of the ruling elite.

President Xi Jinping has called for a crackdown on graft and has warned that the problem could threaten the party's survival, though only a small number of senior officials have been fired or investigated for corruption since Xi came to power last year.

A total of 10 government officials and heads of state-owned enterprises were fired in January for their involvement in sex videos, Xinhua said.

They include county- and district-level officials and the heads of state-owned firms in Chongqing, the power-base of now-disgraced former top leader Bo Xilai, who was sacked last year amid allegations of corruption and murder.

(Reporting By Megha Rajagopalan; Editing by Robert Birsel)