Rep. Steven Horsford underwent surgery July 1 at a Virginia hospital after doctors discovered an undetected hereditary condition. He was released from the hospital July 5.

On Friday, Horsford's post-surgery cardiac care was transferred from Inova Heart and Vascular Institute in Fairfax, Va., to physicians in Las Vegas, who will oversee his recovery.

In a statement, the Las Vegas Democrat says he expects to be back at 100 percent soon.

He also says the experience has toughened his resolve to advocate for affordable health care.

After a yearlong construction shutdown because of a funding dispute, and additional months of cleanup following a shocking flood caused by Superstorm Sandy, work has been racing ahead again at the museum, which sits in a cavernous space below the World Trade Center memorial plaza that opened in 2011.

About 130 workers are at the site each day and there is much left to be done, but officials with the museum said the project is on track to open to the public in the spring of 2014.

Some of the museum's most emotion-inspiring artifacts already are anchored in place.

Tears rolled down Anthoula Katsimatides' cheeks Thursday as she toured halls holding a mangled fire truck, strangely beautiful tangles of rebar and the pieces of intersecting steel known as the Ground Zero Cross.

"It makes me sad," said Katsimatides, whose brother John died at the trade center. But it's also inspiring, said Katsimatides, who sits on the museum's board. "Seeing it come to fruition is pretty intense."

Work on the museum was halted for nearly a year, starting in the fall of 2011, because of a money fight between the memorial foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site.

In retrospect, that slowdown was a blessing. Shortly after the two sides worked out their differences, Superstorm Sandy sent the Hudson River thundering through lower Manhattan and filled the museum cavern with 7 feet of water.

The flood destroyed interior walls and electrical circuits, but the construction delay meant that hundreds of artifacts and exhibits that might have been in the museum still hadn't been fabricated or were sitting safely in storage. There was minor flash rusting to one of the fire trucks that had already been lowered into the space, but the damage was repaired by conservators and isn't noticeable today, said National September 11 Memorial & Museum President Joseph Daniels.

Today there is no sign that there was ever a flood. Daniels said there has been "almost indescribable" progress on construction since the storm.

Structural work appears mostly complete on the glass pavilion and wide staircase and ramp visitors will use to descend into the museum, past two towering "tridents" that once helped form the distinctive base of the twin towers. Once silvery, the columns were stripped bare by the fires on 9/11 and are now the color of rusted, raw steel.

From a mezzanine, patrons will be able to peer into a deep, nave-like hallway nicknamed the South Canyon. The hall's high western wall will eventually be covered with a multitude of notes and letters of support that people around the world sent to New York after the attacks.

"They continue to send things. It's amazing," Katsimatides said. "That outpouring of support is one of the things that got the 9/11 families through."

Further down the ramp, visitors come to a platform overlooking an even more massive cavern bordered by the slurry wall, a 70-foot-tall, steel-studded concrete slab originally built to keep the Hudson River from flooding the trade center construction site.

In the hall's center stands the last steel column removed from ground zero during the cleanup operation. Recovery workers covered the pillar with their signatures before it was carried away, and visitors will get a chance to leave their own mark on another big piece of steel near the museum's exit though their autographs will be captured by a computerized touch screen and projected on the slurry wall, rather than left in ink on metal.

Throughout the museum, curators have hung pieces of steel that were bent and twisted into striking shapes, including one sheet of metal that now appears to ripple like a flag and a huge girder bent by the impact of the aircraft hitting the towers.

Many of them look like sculptures.

"In a strange way, they are like pieces of art," Katsimatides said. But Daniels added that they weren't chosen for their beauty, but to explain what happened at the site on 9/11.

A few design elements of the museum are still under discussion.

When visitors descend to the very bottom of the museum where, in some places, they will be able to view the very bedrock that the towers once rested upon they will enter a hall with a large wall bearing an inscription from Virgil. "No day shall erase you from the memory of time."

Behind that wall will sit a special mausoleum, off limits to the general public, containing the unidentified remains of hundreds of 9/11 victims. Most of the interior walls of the museum have the look of bare concrete, as a constant reminder of the site's location within the old trade center foundation. But Daniels said the museum's designers are talking about possibly cladding this wall in a different material, or a different color, to separate it from the rest.

"It's a special place. Do we need something to distinguish it?" he said.

The bulk of the work remaining to be completed will revolve around installing the museum's exhibits, which will include many artifacts, including a wall made up of portraits of all 2,983 victims and a room where visitors will be able to call up video presentations that tell a story about each of them.

"The idea is to learn about the lives that they lived, not just the deaths that they died," Daniels said.

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The early arrival of China's rainy season has caused havoc across not only the west, but also parts of the country's north, with a total of 1.6 million people affected since Sunday and thousands of homes damaged, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. An unknown number have been killed nationwide.

The casualties in the west included two people confirmed dead and 21 missing in a massive landslide outside the city of Dujiangyan in Sichuan province.

Mudslides and flooding are common in China's mountainous areas, killing hundreds of people every year, but in some areas the current floods are already the worst in half a century.

Also in the west, more than 2,000 people were rescued after being trapped for several hours Wednesday in a highway tunnel between Dujiangyan and Wenchuan the epicenter of the Sichuan earthquake five years ago that left 90,000 people dead or missing.

Bridges have been closed and train service suspended in some parts of the province.

In nearby Beichuan county, flooding destroyed buildings and wrecked exhibits at a memorial for the 2008 earthquake.

The flooding also caused the collapse of an almost 50-year-old bridge in a neighboring county, sending six vehicles into the raging waters and leaving 12 people missing.

In the northern province of Shanxi, meanwhile, at least 12 workers were killed Tuesday when a violent rainstorm caused the collapse of an unfinished coal mine workshop they were building.

Another three people were drowned in a car in Hebei province outside the capital, while an additional 11 people were reported dead or missing in Yunnan province, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, and Gansu province.

Lampedusa, a treeless, strip of an island nine kilometers (four miles) long, is closer to Africa than the Italian mainland and is the main port of entry into Europe for African migrants smuggled by boat from Libya or Tunisia.

Dozens of Lampedusan fishing boats accompanied Francis' coast guard ship as it pulled into port, a seaborne motorcade to honor the first pope to visit an island that often complains it has been forgotten by Europe to process the thousands of would-be immigrants who come ashore each year.

"Pope Francis, only you can save us," read a banner on one of the boats. "You're one of us," said a spray-painted sign hanging from an apartment building overlooking the port.

As his plane was landing, a boat carrying 162 Eritreans arrived in port, the latest in a new wave of migrants taking advantage of calm seas and warm weather to make the treacherous crossing. Officials said they were in good condition, just cold.

Francis, whose ancestors immigrated to Argentina from Italy, has a special place in his heart for refugees: As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he denounced the exploitation of migrants as "slavery" and said those who did nothing to help them were complicit by their silence.

He has also said he wants his to be a missionary church, one that goes to the "peripheries" to minister to the most marginal.

It was appropriate then that he choose Lampedusa as the destination for his first pastoral visit outside Rome, and its residents welcomed him warmly, shouting "Viva il Papa" and wildly waving the yellow and white flags of the Vatican.

As he pulled into port, Francis blessed a wreath of yellow and white flowers and tossed it into the sea in memory of those migrants who never arrived. He then disembarked and greeted a few dozen migrants one by one, stopping to chat with a few before heading to celebrate Mass on the island's main sports field.

In yet another indication of how Francis is changing the rules of this papacy, he traveled by open-top vehicle through throngs of well-wishers to reach the Mass site, shunning the bullet-proof popemobile that popes usually use when outside the Vatican.

The Mas site is located near the "boat cemetery" that houses the remains of broken migrant ships that have reached Lampedusa's rocky shores.

A small, painted boat was turned into the altar, a recycled helm decorated the lectern and pieces of wood from wrecked migrant boats were crafted into his pastoral staff and the chalice used at Mass. Officials have said the simple nature of the Mass was in keeping with the express wishes of Francis, who only decided last week that he would come after hearing about the deaths of a dozen migrants on one particularly bad crossing.

According to the U.N. refugee agency, 8,400 migrants have landed in Italy and Malta in the first six months of the year, almost double the 4,500 who arrived during the first half of 2012. It's still a far cry from the tens of thousands who flooded to Italy during the Arab Spring exodus of 2011.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has recorded 40 deaths in the first half of 2013, and a total of 500 for all of 2012, based on interviews with survivors. Fortress Europe, an Italian observatory that tracks migrant deaths reported by the media, says about 6,450 people died in the Canal of Sicily between 1994 and 2012.

The island, and Italy as a whole, has insisted that the Europe Union craft a comprehensive migration policy so that the Mediterranean border countries don't have to bear the burden of housing, screening and caring for migrants on their own.

Italy enraged the UNHCR in 2009 when it started sending migrants intercepted at sea back to Libya without screening them first for asylum. Just last week, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat refused to exclude sending migrants back to Libya unless the EU shows greater solidarity.

Lampedusa, with a local population of roughly 5,000 people, has struggled to keep up with the pressure of receiving boatload after boatload of migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa but also from Egypt, Pakistan and Syria. The island's holding center has room for nearly 400 migrants, but it often houses hundreds more awaiting transfer to the Italian mainland. Protests, including some in recent days, are common.

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Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield

CANNES (Reuters) - Three years after "Senna", the hit film biography of the late Brazilian racing driver Ayrton Senna, sporting documentaries about Jackie Stewart, Muhammad Ali and Pele are competing for attention at the Cannes Film Festival.

In "Weekend of a Champion", the Polish-French filmmaker Roman Polanski follows Stewart, his long-time friend, as he prepares to drive in the 1971 Monaco Grand Prix, at a time when the risks to drivers were far greater than they are now.

Polanski said he had forgotten about the film, which was screened at the Berlin film festival in 1972 but never released, until a recent call from a processing lab holding the footage.

He decided to resurrect it, adding a sequence where he and Stewart reunite more than 40 years later to discuss how the sport has changed.

"Back in the day, it was much freer. People could practically, or almost, walk onto the track. Now it's a bit NASA, a bit Martian," Polanski said after the revised version premiered in Cannes on Tuesday.

Three-times world champion Stewart, now 73, said Formula One had always been at the sharp end of technology, "but I think the racing is still as good today as ever, maybe even better".

"The animal is the same, the driver has the same mentality, the same type of person," he told Reuters in an interview.

British director Stephen Frears' documentary "Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight" aims to bring public attention to the boxer's court battle after he refused to fight in the Vietnam War, a stand that made him known far beyond his sport.

HERO AND VILLAIN

Ali refused to be conscripted into the U.S. military in 1967, on the basis of his religious beliefs and his opposition to the war. A hero to a growing anti-war movement, vilified by others, he was found guilty of evading the draft.

At the height of his career, he was stripped of his world heavyweight title and barred from the ring for nearly four years while his ultimately successful appeal worked its way up to the Supreme Court.

The film, made for Time Warner's HBO cable network and screened at Cannes on Wednesday, stars Christopher Plummer and Danny Glover, but no one plays Ali, now 71, who has suffered from Parkinson's disease for three decades and appears only in archive footage.

Frears said he had wanted to highlight the case after discovering how badly Ali had been treated, and had received Ali's approval when he showed him the film two weeks ago.

"I just had no idea that that was the story, but nobody did, nobody realized," Frears said.

Pele, 72, was in Cannes to discuss a film about his life being made by Hollywood producer Brian Grazer, maker of "Apollo 13" and "A Beautiful Mind", to be released next year as Brazil hosts the 2014 soccer World Cup.

"Pele" focuses on the Brazilian star's rise from an impoverished childhood to lead his country to its first World Cup victory, in Sweden in 1958.

A documentary called "Pele Forever" was made about his life in 2004, but he said the new one aimed to inspire young people, many of whom are facing bleak prospects.

"The way we constructed the film is for the new generation," he told Reuters in an interview.

(Additional reporting by Rollo Ross and Johnny Cotton; Writing by Belinda Goldsmith; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

The surprise measure was passed late Tuesday with the votes of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling party, which holds a parliamentary majority.

The move, which requires the president's approval before taking effect, would hand over the powers of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects to the ministry in charge of the environment and urban planning. It also deprives the union of a major source of revenue.

Ali Uzunirmak, a member of Turkey's nationalist party, called the measure "pirate" legislation that avoided discussions in parliamentary committees since it was debated in a midnight session.

The government defended the measure saying it would benefit architects and engineers who are not members of the union.

Union members had opposed construction plans for Istanbul's Taksim Square, including the demolition of Gezi Park, one of a few remaining green spaces in the area.

A police crackdown on a sit-in to protect the park ignited nationwide protests in June that turned into expression of discontent with what opponents say is Erdogan's increasingly authoritarian style of governing. The death toll in the protests, meanwhile, increased to five Wednesday when a demonstrator who was in a coma died.

"With this proposal, the government is making the (Union) pay for Gezi," Milliyet newspaper quoted pro-secular opposition legislator Akif Hamzacebi as saying while speaking out against the measure in Parliament. "This is an extension of the government's witch hunt."

On Monday, seven activists opposed to the redevelopment plans all members of the Union were detained as they tried to reach Gezi for a rally they had organized. Their homes were searched Tuesday, according to media reports. The European Union's expressed concern over the detentions and called on Turkey to respect "fundamental freedoms."

Erdogan, who rejects charges of authoritarianism, has blamed the protests on a conspiracy against his government, which received 50 percent of votes in 2011 elections.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Carrie Underwood has found her voice on Twitter.

The country music star and former "American Idol" champion admitted 3 years ago she was afraid to join Twitter, but since deciding to take the leap in 2011 she's embraced the social media tool in ways that go beyond fan engagement. Recently she used Twitter to oppose the "Ag Gag" bill in Tennessee, reaching out directly to Gov. Bill Haslam with a boldly worded message saying if he signed it "he needs to expect me at his front door."

It was the first time she's taken a political stand so publicly, and it seemed to have an impact. Haslam contacted Underwood to discuss the issue and went on to veto the bill that opponents claimed would have stopped investigation into animal abuse on farms.

"He really just wanted to hear everybody's point of view, which I really respected," Underwood said in a recent interview. "So it's kind of neat that (tweet) led to that, which was really cool."

Dave Smith, spokesman for Tennessee's Republican governor, said Haslam spoke to people on both sides and that Underwood's was the only celebrity counsel he sought.

Underwood also recently declared "Hug a soldier day," and puts her support behind movements like the "End It" anti-slavery campaign and animals rights. She has 2 million followers.

"Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a thinker and I'm a planner and I would never weigh in on anything unless I know the full story on it," Underwood said. "So I do my research. I don't think I'm a bandwagon kind of person. People are always retweeting sort of weird stuff. I do my own research. I'm not a political person at all. I doubt anyone can tell you what party I mostly affiliate myself with. But that was just something that was in my backyard."

As you might expect, there was pushback. Rather than shrink from it, she responded with some grit.

"I realize it's not necessarily so scary," she said. "Most of the comments I get back on anything are positive. There's the occasional negative one, but I enjoy blocking that person."

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Follow AP Music Writer Chris Talbott: http://twitter.com/Chris_Talbott.

LAC-MEGANTIC, Quebec (Reuters) - Canadian police on Tuesday said they had opened a criminal investigation into the train explosion that likely killed 50 people in Lac-Megantic, and some 200 officers were scouring the town's devastated center for clues.

Inspector Michel Forget said police did not believe terrorism was involved when a runaway train hauling 72 cars of crude oil barreled into town early on Saturday, derailed on a curve and exploded into a huge fireball that destroyed the center of the lakeside community.

"I will not speculate on the evidence that we've recovered because (it is) secret," Forget said. But he indicated that some evidence might point to "criminal acts."

"We don't think the terrorism aspect is a part of that," he added. "Criminal negligence might be one of the leads we are looking at."

Almost a third of the town's 6,000 residents were evacuated from their homes as firefighters from Canada and the nearby U.S. states of Maine and Vermont struggled to bring the massive blaze under control. Just over half have been allowed back.

Montreal Maine & Atlantic, which owned the train, is one of many North American railroads that have vastly stepped up crude-by-rail deliveries as producers seek alternatives to pipelines that have been stretched to capacity by higher output in Canada and North Dakota.

The oil in the train that crashed was being transported from the Bakken fields of North Dakota to eastern Canada.

Police have found 15 bodies, but residents hold out little hope that the 35 or so people still missing will be found alive in an incident that could turn into North America's worst rail disaster since 1989.

Officials from the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said more than a dozen investigators were examining every angle of the accident, although even they had not yet gained access to the central "red zone."

CARS AND BRAKES

Key elements of the TSB probe, led by investigator Donald Ross, will include the strength of the widely used DOT-111 cylindrical tanker cars that carried the crude, as well as how the train, almost a mile long, was secured for the night on a stretch of rail line in Nantes some eight miles from Lac-Megantic.

Industry rules say engineers must set enough of a train's handbrakes to ensure it cannot move, and then test that they have done a proper job. Ross said his team cannot check whether the brakes were set until it can enter the center of town and examine the pile of derailed cars.

Montreal Maine & Atlantic Chairman Ed Burkhardt told Reuters the company had followed protocol, using the same standard as Canadian Pacific Railways, Canada's No. 2 railroad.

The company had always put a lot of effort into safety, he said in an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"Obviously we've blown it all with this tragedy," he said.

Ross said the train was on a 1.2-percent grade when it started sliding toward Lac-Megantic, a relatively steep grade in railroad terms.

He said the train line lacked a signal system that could have warned the dispatcher of a runaway train, and that although all trains are required to have automatic braking systems for runaways - called dead man switches - they only work when the train's locomotives are running.

Most of the railcars now lie where the rail line used to run, crumpled together like the squished-up links of a chain.

"If we think there needs to be a safety message out to the industry that they need to beef things up, we're going to do it," Ross said.

The TSB and its U.S. equivalent, the National Transportation Safety Board, have long urged tougher rules for the DOT-111 cars.

But nobody knows if stronger cars would have prevented the disaster, which involved a train that Ross said was traveling "well in excess of its authorized speed."

The train was parked in nearby Nantes, Quebec, on Friday night when one of its engines, which had been left running to ensure the air brakes had enough pressure, caught fire. Local firemen turned off the engine, put out the fire and went home.

The unattended train then started moving downhill toward Lac-Megantic, and derailed and blew up in the town center at just after 1 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Saturday.

Montreal, Maine & Atlantic says shutting off the engine caused the air brakes on the locomotive to lose pressure, possibly allowing the train to break free.

But a briefing from Transport Canada, which regulates railroads, focused on the train's handbrakes, a separate system that locks individual locomotives and railcars in place. It highlighted how unusual it was to leave an unattended train on a main line.

Experts see handbrakes as crucial for trains that are parked overnight, given that air brakes need power from a locomotive.

With fires out and authorities probing the center of the blast, the death toll is expected to climb. The coroner's office asked relatives of the missing to bring in brushes, combs and razors so experts could extract DNA samples from strands of hair.

"They know their loved ones were there, on the site. Most of them are now waiting for confirmation - because that makes it official," said Steve Lemay, the parish priest of Lac-Megantic, who has been meeting with families. "It's clear that they are not waiting for the missing to return."

(Writing by Janet Guttsman and David Ljunggren; Editing by Eric Walsh, Paul Simao and Xavier Briand)