Neil Bruce, president of its Resources, Environment & Water division, will take over immediately until a replacement can be found, the company said.

It was the latest in a series of management changes at SNC Lavalin, which earlier this month laid out a new growth strategy after a series of corruption and ethics misconduct cases involving former top executives.

(Reporting by Solarina Ho; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Jeffrey Benkoe)

"I am one imperfect man saved by God's grace," the Republican told about 100 cheering supporters Tuesday after defeating Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to win back the 1st District seat he held for three terms in the 1990s. "It's my pledge to all of you going forward I'm going to be one of the best congressmen I could have ever been."

On Wednesday, Sanford told NBC's "Today" show he thinks his record as a watchdog for taxpayers was more important than his personal redemption story.

"I think I have an incredibly strong track record with regard to watching out for people's pocketbook," he said.

Although the race was thought to be close going into the voting, Sanford collected 54 percent of the vote against Colbert Busch, the sister of political satirist Stephen Colbert, in a district that hasn't elected a Democratic congressman in more than three decades. About 32 percent of the district's voters went to the polls. Green Party candidate Eugene Platt finished far behind.

"Some guy came up to me the other day and said you look a lot like Lazarus," Sanford told the crowd Tuesday night, referring to the man who, according to the Bible, Christ raised from the dead. "I've talked a lot about grace during the course of this campaign," he said. "Until you experience human grace as a reflection of God's grace, I don't think you really get it. And I didn't get it before."

While he credited his conservative credentials on Wednesday, he did not back away from his problems.

"I let a lot of folks down back in 2009 and yet I've been on a remarkable personal journey since then and I hope my life will reflect that going forward," Sanford said.

Sanford, who turns 53 later this month, has now never lost a race in four runs for Congress and two for governor. And he said before the votes were counted Tuesday that if he lost this one, he wouldn't run for office again.

He saw his political career disintegrate in summer 2009 when he disappeared for five days, telling his staff he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. He returned to admit in a tearful news conference he had been in Argentina with his mistress, Maria Belen Chapur. He is now engaged to her, and she stood by his side Tuesday night after flying in from Argentina.

After the affair was revealed, Sanford paid a $70,000 ethics fine, the largest in state history, for using public money to fly for personal purposes. His wife and political ally, Jenny, divorced him.

Three weeks before the special election, news surfaced that Sanford's ex-wife had filed a court complaint alleging he was in her house without permission in violation of their divorce decree, leading the National Republican Congressional Committee to pull its support from the campaign. Sanford must appear in court Thursday on the complaint.

Sanford said he tried to get in touch with his ex-wife and was in the house so his youngest son would not have to watch the Super Bowl alone.

The congressional seat became vacant when U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint resigned from his Senate seat late last year. Governor Nikki Haley then appointed the sitting congressman, Tim Scott, to fill DeMint's seat.

"We put up a heck of a fight, didn't we?" Colbert Busch told a crowd of supporters at a hotel in Charleston. "The people have spoken, and I respect their decision."

Although the district is strongly Republican, Colbert Busch raised more money than Sanford. And national Democrats flooded the airwaves with ads attacking Sanford's past indiscretions.

Steve Israel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Sanford now becomes the face of the Republican efforts to reach out to women voters and the GOP will have to defend him.

"In this deep red Republican district that Mitt Romney won by 18 points, the fact that the Democrat made this competitive is a testament to the strength of Elizabeth Colbert Busch as a candidate and the Republican habit of nominating flawed candidates," he said in a statement.

But Greg Walden, his counterpart at the National Republican Congressional Committee countered that the "results demonstrate just how devastating the policies of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are for House Democrats in 2014. Democrats spent more than $1 million trying to elect a candidate who was backed by the Democrat machine, but at the end of the day, running on the Obama-Pelosi ticket was just too toxic for Elizabeth Colbert Busch."

Blacks were the only race or ethnic group to show an increase in voter turnout in November, most notably in the Midwest and Southeastern U.S., the Census Bureau said Wednesday. The analysis, based on a sample survey of voters last year, is viewed as the best source of government data on turnout by race and ethnicity.

The Associated Press reported last week that black voter turnout surpassed whites for the first time, based on an analysis by experts of earlier data.

In all, about 66.2 percent of eligible black voters cast ballots in 2012, up from 64.7 percent in 2008, according to census data. That compares with non-Hispanic white turnout of 64.1 percent, which fell from 66.1 percent four years earlier. As recently as 1996, blacks had turnout rates 8 percentage points lower than non-Hispanic whites.

Latino turnout dipped slightly, from 49.9 percent in 2008 to 48 percent, while Asian-American turnout was basically unchanged at 47 percent.

Voter turnout across all race and ethnic groups fell for a second consecutive presidential election, from 64 percent in 2004 to 62 percent in November, according to the census figures.

"Obama's win in 2012, despite the important Democratic constituency of young voters not participating at a high level, is good news," said Michael McDonald, a George Mason University professor who specializes in voter turnout. "The bad news is that voting is a habit and the fact that we saw turnout declines among younger African-Americans suggests Democrats will have to work even harder to excite these voters in future elections."

The data underscore how turnout plays an important role in elections for both whites and blacks, who will remain the two largest racial groups of eligible voters for the next decade. While Hispanics are now the fast-growing demographic group, they currently make up a smaller share of eligible voters because many are children and non-citizens, limiting their electoral impact for the immediate future.

In 2012, the number of blacks who voted rose by 1.7 million. Hispanics added 1.4 million and Asian voters increased by 550,000.

Meanwhile, even though the white population is slowly increasing, the number of white voters dropped by 2 million the first drop in absolute terms for any race or ethnic group since 1996.

By age, youth enthusiasm for voting fizzled in 2012.

About 41 percent of voters age 18-24 cast ballots in November, down 7 percentage points from 2008. The drop was greatest among whites, whose turnout fell from 49 percent to 42 percent. But young black voters also saw big declines, from 55 percent in 2008 to 49 percent. That's compared with a decline among young Hispanics from 39 percent to 34 percent.

The only subgroups showing increases in voter turnout were among blacks ages 45 to 64 as well as those 65 and older.

"Blacks have been voting at higher rates, and the Hispanic and Asian populations are growing rapidly, yielding a more diverse electorate," said Thom File, a census sociologist who wrote the voting analysis. "Over the last five presidential elections, the share of voters who were racial or ethnic minorities rose from just over 1 in 6 in 1996 to more than 1 in 4 in 2012."

"We do know the population is growing more diverse, and the electorate is growing more diverse in a different way," File added.

Other census findings:

White turnout declined in 39 states from 2008 to 2012, including presidential battleground states such as Ohio, Virginia and Florida.

The gender gap in voting persists, a trend since 1996. About 64 percent of women voted, compared with 60 percent of men.

Declines in voter turnout also were seen most notably among single people, the unemployed, renters and those with only a high school education or some college, suggesting in part voter disenchantment amid a sluggish economy.

Black voter turnout surpassed that of whites mostly in the Midwest region, which covers Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well as the Southern U.S. region including Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.

Demographers say the numbers pose long-term challenges for Republicans, given that 80 percent of nonwhites voted for Obama in November.

Analyses by Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey show that Republican Mitt Romney would have barely won the presidency if whites and other race groups had turned out at the same rates as they did in 2004, when black turnout was below its current historic levels. But if Democrats can replicate 2012 turnout rates in 2016, they would win the presidency, given current population trends, Frey said.

Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center, indicated the economy will be an important factor in future elections, noting that Hispanics and young people were among the hardest hit during the high unemployment years of 2008-2012.

"Given what we know about the youth bulge in the population, Millennials and Hispanics will become ever more important voting blocs in upcoming presidential elections," Taylor said. "But in 2012, both groups left a lot of votes on the table."

The census figures are based on the Current Population Survey as of November 2012. Since Hispanic is defined by the government as an ethnicity and not a race, census figures for "blacks" and "Asians" may include Hispanics. Census data for "white" refer to whites who are not of Hispanic ethnicity.

In a post titled "Stopping the Game of Clones", Jeffrey Bleich - himself a devotee of the HBO series - compared the rampant piracy of online thieves to the plotting and machinations of the noble houses in the show.

"Unfortunately, nearly as epic and devious as the drama is its unprecedented theft by online viewers around the world," he wrote on his official Facebook page.

"As the ambassador here in Australia, it was especially troubling to find out that Australian fans were some of the worst offenders with among the highest piracy rates of 'Game of Thrones' in the world".

TorrentFreak, a file-sharing news website, estimated that Game of Thrones was the most pirated TV series in 2012, with one episode notching 4.28 million pirated downloads, equal to the number of broadcast viewers for that episode, Bleich said.

When the second season began, Australian fans had to wait a week before being able to access new episodes by legitimate means, but the wait has come down to a few hours for the third season.

Neil Gane, managing director of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), said that surveys had found that unsurprisingly, most of the illegal downloaders said they did it because it was free.

Game of Thrones season 2 is priced at $38.99 in the Apple iTunes store in the United States and A$33.99 ($35.05) in the Australian store.

"The number of unauthorized downloads is staggering," he told Reuters in an email.

Based on the books by George R. R. Martin, the show follows a vast cast of characters fighting for control of the throne in the fictional world of Westeros.

"If the 4 million people who watched Game of Thrones legally had been illegal downloaders - the show would be off the air and there would never have been a season 3," Bleich said. ($1 = 0.9697 Australian dollars)

(Reporting By Thuy Ong; Editing by Elaine Lies and Robert Birsel)

Set to host the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi on the Black Sea coast, Russia plans tolater this year on Oct. 7. As the flame passes between runners in 2,900 towns and cities spread across the country, a replica of the torch and perhaps an imitation of its flame will lift off on a Soyuz spacecraft with the next crew members for the space station.

"No decision has been made so far whether an imitation of the Olympic flame or a torch without fire would be moved into outer space," a source in Russia's rocket industry told the Interfax-AVN news service. "No member of the state commission will assume responsibility for moving an open flame close to the Soyuz spacecraft or the ISS." []

Flame or no flame, Russia's space agency Roscosmos is planning to do more than deliver the torch to the orbiting outpost, a . The idea is to have cosmonauts carry the torch outside the station on a spacewalk prior to it returning to Earth.

According to the Interfax report, the Olympic torch will be "moved into open space" by cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, who will arrive at the space station in late September.

To choreograph the orbital torch relay, Roscosmos and its International Space Station partners, including NASA, will need to agree on adjustments to the schedule of launches and spacewalks.

To deliver the lit or unlit torch to the space complex, the planned Nov. 25 liftoff of Soyuz TMA-11M would need to launch almost three weeks earlier on Nov. 7. Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA's Rick Mastracchio and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata would fly to the space station with the torch.

The spacewalk, which would include other, more routine maintenance tasks for the two cosmonauts to complete in addition to carrying the torch, would then take place during the brief time between the arrival of Soyuz TMA-11M and the departure of Soyuz TMA-09M.

Under the proposed plan, Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Luca Parmitano will stay in space at least a day longer than originally scheduled to return to Earth with the torch on Nov. 11.

Thewould also result in a short period when nine people would be aboard the space station, a departure from what has in recent years become the norm for crew changes, when the prior crew of three would leave before the next crew arrives.

One of the key symbols of the Games, the torch for the 2014was designed by a team of famous Russian designers and engineers. The aluminum and red torch red being the traditional color of Russian sports was crafted to evoke the feathers of a Phoenix, which folklore says brings good fortune and happiness.

How the torches on the ground there are 14,000 being produced will differ from the one launching into space, and how the flame will be simulated or safely achieved in orbit, if it is flown, has yet to be released.

If approved, the torch's trip will mark the second time the Olympic torch has arrived . In May 2000, the space shuttle Atlantis launched the STS-101 mission to the orbiting outpost with a replica of the Sydney Summer Olympics torch.

Four years earlier on shuttle Columbia's STS-78 mission, the crew carried an unlit torch into orbit and then took part in the ground-based torch relay soon after landing back on Earth.

The Olympic flame, without the torch, also made its way through space in the form of an electric signal. As part of the 1976 relay, the flame was sent from Greece to Ottawa via satellite. Heat sensors in Greece detected the flame, the signal was transmitted overseas and a laser beam lit the torch.

Follow collectSPACE.com onand on Twitter at @. Copyright 2013 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.

Today's Highlight in History:

On April 23, 1943, U.S. Navy Lt. (jg) John F. Kennedy assumed command of PT-109, a motor torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands during World War II. (On Aug. 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, the Amagiri, killing two crew members; Kennedy and 10 others managed to survive.)

On this date:

In 1616, English poet and dramatist William Shakespeare, 52, died on what has been traditionally regarded as the anniversary of his birth in 1564.

In 1789, President-elect George Washington and his wife, Martha, moved into the first executive mansion, the Franklin House, in New York.

In 1791, the 15th president of the United States, James Buchanan, was born in Franklin County, Pa.

In 1910, former President Theodore Roosevelt delivered his famous "Man in the Arena" speech at the Sorbonne in Paris.

In 1940, about 200 people died in the Rhythm Night Club Fire in Natchez, Miss.

In 1954, Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit the first of his record 755 major-league home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals. (The Braves won, 7-5.)

In 1968, student protesters began occupying buildings on the campus of Columbia University in New York; police put down the protests a week later.

In 1969, Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)

In 1988, a federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went into effect.

In 1993, labor leader Cesar Chavez died in San Luis, Ariz., at age 66.

In 1998, James Earl Ray, who'd confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then insisted he'd been framed, died at a Nashville, Tenn., hospital at age 70.

In 2007, Boris Yeltsin, the first freely elected Russian president, died in Moscow at age 76.

Ten years ago: Global health officials warned travelers to avoid Beijing and Toronto, where they might get the SARS virus and export it to new locations. U.S. negotiators met with North Korean and Chinese representatives in Beijing for the first three-way meeting by the governments since the Korean War. American Airlines reported a billion-dollar first-quarter loss.

Five years ago: President George W. Bush, pushing for a Mideast peace agreement, met at the White House with Jordan's King Abdullah II. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that Army Gen. David Petraeus would be nominated by President George W. Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command. The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that police had the power to conduct searches and seize evidence, even when done during an arrest that turned out to have violated state law. The Chicago Cubs won their 10,000th game, joining the Giants in reaching that mark with a 7-6 victory in 10 innings at Colorado.

One year ago: Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson broke down in tears while testifying at the Chicago trial of William Balfour, the man accused of killing her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in a jealous rage in 2008. (Balfour was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.) The government reported that Social Security was rushing even faster toward insolvency, with its trust funds expected to run dry in 2033, three years earlier than previously projected.

Today's Birthdays: Actress-turned-diplomat Shirley Temple Black is 85. Actor Alan Oppenheimer is 83. Actor David Birney is 74. Actor Lee Majors is 74. Irish nationalist Bernadette Devlin McAliskey is 66. Actress Blair Brown is 65. Writer-director Paul Brickman is 64. Actress Joyce DeWitt is 64. Actor James Russo is 60. Filmmaker-author Michael Moore is 59. Actress Judy Davis is 58. Actress Jan Hooks is 56. Actress Valerie Bertinelli is 53. Actor Craig Sheffer is 53. Actor-comedian-talk show host George Lopez is 52. Rock musician Gen is 49. U.S. Olympic gold medal skier Donna Weinbrecht is 48. Actress Melina Kanakaredes (kah-nah-KAH'-ree-deez) is 46. Rock musician Stan Frazier (Sugar Ray) is 45. Country musician Tim Womack (Sons of the Desert) is 45. Actor Scott Bairstow (BEHR'-stow) is 43. Actor Barry Watson is 39. Actor Kal Penn is 36. MLB All-Star Andruw Jones is 36. Actress Jaime King is 34. Pop singer Taio Cruz is 30. Actor Aaron Hill is 30. Actress Rachel Skarsten is 28. Tennis player Nicole Vaidisova (vay-deh-SOH'-vuh) is 24. Actor Dev Patel (puh-TEHL') is 23. Actor Matthew Underwood is 23. Actor Camryn Walling is 23.

Thought for Today: "Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." From Act II, scene five of "Twelfth-Night," by William Shakespeare (1564-1616).

(Above Advance for Use Tuesday, April 23)

Copyright 2013, The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Duke's cash incentive payment in fiscal 2013 was nearly $4.4 million, up from nearly $2.9 million a year earlier.

Wal-Mart's total sales rose 5 percent to $466.11 billion in the fiscal year that ended in January. Sales at Walmart U.S., the company's largest unit, rose 3.9 percent to $264.19 billion.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago; Editing by Gary Hill)

A new study published in the  found that purple sea urchins that were exposed to acidified ocean conditions similar to those that might exist in the future were able to undergo genetic changes that may help them survive.

Biologist Melissa Pespeni, of Indiana University Bloomington, led the experiment, explaining to TakePart, We chose the purple sea urchin because theyre a really good developmental model organism. Theres been a genome sequence and theres a lot of standing information about them even with respect to ocean acidification.