[More from BGR: ]

All that said, there are still a lot of unanswered questions. As Kotaku notes, its not clear if users can get away with blocking or obscuring the Kinect sensor from watching them if they still want to play games. Whats more, Microsoft hasnt yet provided any details about what it will do with all the data that Kinect records of users behavior in their living rooms. Instead, the Microsoft spokesperson simply said that we know our customers want and expect strong privacy protections to be built into our products, devices and services, and for companies to be responsible stewards of their data while adding that the company would fill in the blanks on privacy questions at a later date, most likely at the E3 gaming convention in June.

This article was

The decision is likely to affect a similar proposed ban making its way through the legislature in Arizona. Both states argue that taxpayers are inadvertently funding abortions when health-care clinics like Planned Parenthood receive Medicaid funding for services other than abortion. Federal law prevents the direct funding of abortion services, but the measures in Indiana and Arizona are seen as going a step further in stripping Medicaid dollars from any organization that offers abortion.

Opponents of the measures say the strategy denies low-income patients the right to obtain health care from their provider of choice. The Indiana chapter of Planned Parenthood, which operates 28 clinics in the state, says that it serves more than 9,300 Medicaid patients annually for preventive-care services that include cancer screenings, routine medical exams, and birth control.

Betty Cockrum, president and CEO of the Indiana chapter, released a statement Tuesday, characterizing legislators strategy as trying to score political points and wasting taxpayer dollars. Medicaid funding represents about 20 percent of the groups annual budget of $15 million.

The Indiana ban passed in June 2011 but was immediately blocked by the US District Court in Indianapolis. In signing the law, then-Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) said he was confident that all non-abortion services ... will remain readily available across the state and that, if the affected organizations eliminated abortion from their roster, they would once again become eligible for federal dollars.

Any organization affected by this provision can resume receiving taxpayer dollars immediately by ceasing or separating its operations that perform abortions, he said.

In October 2012, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago upheld the lower courts decision, which prompted the state to appeal to the higher court this year.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller said in a statement released Tuesday he would investigate any remaining legal avenues to uphold the ban and stressed that the issue was one of states rights, not an attack on abortion access.

My office always contended this is ultimately a dispute between the state and federal government, not between a private medical provider and the state, he said.

Even though a federal judge struck down a similar ban in Arizona last year, Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is including language along such lines as part of a plan to expand her states Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act. The plan passed the state Senate two weeks ago and faces an uncertain future in the House.

Tuesdays high-court move may dampen similar efforts to restrict Planned Parenthoods ability to offer abortion services, says Elizabeth Nash, the state issues manager at the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit in Washington that tracks abortion issues. But, she adds, such efforts will probably be replaced with other measures that are written with the same purpose such as creating a priority system for how Medicaid dollars can be spent, or instituting restrictions that are intended to separate abortion from other family-planning services.

There are other ways that have been used to varying degrees of success to essentially keep Planned Parenthood out of public dollars, Ms. Nash says.

Earlier this month, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) signed into law a bill restricting access to a so-called abortion pill, which accounts for about one-fourth of US abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The new law requires clinics that offer pill-induced abortions to meet the same standards as clinics that provide surgical abortions.

Planned Parenthood says the law is intended to target a single clinic in Lafayette, Ind., which is the only clinic in the state that offers nonsurgical abortions.

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s Xbox One wont surround you with holographic fir trees, azaleas and mountain laurels, nor, as far as I know, will it dish out interactive porn. But itis going to be listening and capturing data, and transmitting that data back to Microsoft in ways no device in your household has ever listened to or observed you before.

When Stan Lee wrote With great power comes great responsibility in Amazing Fantasy#15 back in 1962, he packed a longstanding philosophical notion into six culturally resonant words. Those words couldnt be more relevant today, with our lives awash in cloud-connected technology, generating and beaming back mountains of abstractly defined information thats quietly sifted by complex machine algorithms and pored over by corporations in search of new ways to further secure footholds in our future lives.

So with Xbox One, which promises to streamline how we interact with TV, movies, music and games by introducing always-on, always-connected digital ears and eyes to our living rooms, Id argue the burden on Microsoft to safeguard our privacy (and articulate that in a meaningful, non-pandering way) just shot through the roof.

Consider whatfor starters: The new console will come with Microsofts refined Kinect sensor, a detachable hammerhead-like camera with microphone that youll probably position somewhere high up in your entertainment center, where its upgraded 1080p widescreen eye can easily sweep your play-space. Unlike the Xbox 360, which functions whether the Kinect camera is attached to the console or not, Xbox One wont work without Kinect plugged in. At least part of the reason for this is that Microsoft wants its new system to be instantly responsive and interactively seamless so tuned to your physiology that the company is saying it can even measure your heartbeat simply by looking at you (courtesy its new infrared camera). But that sort of granularity also raises obvious and completely reasonable privacy concerns.

Microsofts been making the rounds in post-Xbox-One-reveal interviews, claiming that itll provide configurable privacy settings, but its been elliptical about what that means in specific terms; all we know for sure is that, at minimum, Kinect will have to be attached to the system for Xbox One to function. (To be fair, some of this pre-launch hedging is doubtless intentional, as the design team makes last minute changes and decisions about exactly how much control over privacy well be allowed.)

Weve also been told that while Xbox One wont cease to function should you a suffer temporary loss of Internet, Internet connectivity will, as rumored, be required; we dont have full details yet, but it sounds like the console will require a hotlineback to Microsoft HQ at least once a day.

Bearing these things in mind, heres my initial question list about Xbox One, narrowly focused on privacy and security concerns.

Will we be able to shut Xbox Ones camera and microphonecompletely off?

In , Xbox group program manager Jeff Henshaw explained that while we wont be able to remove Kinect without crippling the system, wewill be able to completely disable the camera. That should please anyone worried about having to shell out extra for duct tape (you know, to manually cover the lens). But assuming Henshaws properly describing the final shipping product here, note that he says nothing about disabling the microphone. Will we be able to disable Xbox Ones ears, too? And can we disable both of these things permanently, or will we have to do so each time we reengage the console?

Can we opt out of transmitting general behavior and performance data?

Many companies allow you to transmit information about how you use their services, but allow you to opt out completely if you so choose; , for instance, lets you transmit information about how you use OS X, but doesnt require it. Microsoft, by contrast, already requires certain types of data collection when using Kinect with the Xbox 360. For instance, according to the companys referring to Kinect Performance Data:

This information helps us continuously improve Kinect performance. It does not personally identify you, and collection of this data cannot be disabled. As you play, we collect information on how your Kinect device and platform software are functioning, usage patterns within the Xbox Dashboard applications, and other data that does not directly or personally identify you.

Notice the reference to other data that does not directly or personally identify you. That reference reappears in subsequent sections describing other types of Kinect data.Are claims of anonymity sufficient without disclosing what this other data is?

I realize other services (say,) gather reams of anonymous, generalized usage metrics in trade for service access, then shop that data out to third parties, but just because no ones cared enough to raise a fuss doesnt mean it ought to be status quo. With Xbox One, the possibility of capturing consumer data at an unprecedented data-point resolution level in traditionally off-limits environments may seema godsend to corporate marketing departments, but at what point does trading away your ability to control how information youve generated is used for access to whatever service cross the line between reasonable and invasive? If youre going to turn your consumer base at least partially into free marketing fodder, you should at least give them the option not to participate.

Why are Microsofts references to targeted advertising are so vague?

I believe Microsoft when it says Xbox One wont try to target-advertise to individuals based on what they say or do while engaging with Xbox One. But Im not at all convinced Microsoft wont pass aggregatedata on to third parties to use in more general terms. In a sense, youre looking at a hypothetically vast and unparalleled sociological experiment about to embark, where companies can quietly gather behavioral information about us from within the intimacy of our households, collate that data (all while claiming, probably accurately, that its being done anonymously) then use it for marketing and who-knows-what-other purposes, potentially extending well beyond the scope of Xbox One. As noted earlier, just because collected taste-related datas being anonymized doesnt preclude us from being targeted at the demographic level.

How is Microsoft safeguarding Xbox One from hackers? What sort of security measures is it taking, both on the client and server sides?

This isnt just paranoid thinking. Consider the case against furniture retailer Aarons Inc., which whether itself or via franchisees , computers that eventually sent some 185,000 emails containing sensitive information back to corporate computers. The idea that computers in intimate settings might, for one reason or another, surreptitiously capture what were doing and transmit that information illicitly isnt fanciful worst-casing: its already happened.

Over the past few years, weve seen everything from s PlayStation Network to Stratfor to the C.I.A. hacked, whether to deface or disrupt web services or to pilfer personal information or shame companies by distributing that information en masse. An always-on, always-listening system that lives with us in our homes requires extraordinary attention to security much more than just a wink and a smile from Microsoft in its terms and conditions assuring that everythings under control.

Should companies that hope to place a device like this into tens of millions of households have to submit to independent, periodic security reviews? Its worth asking the question. I dont want to overreach, but then imagine how people might react if someone managed to hack into Xbox One server- or client-side captured someone engaged in highly sensitive activity, then pushed that online for public viewing.

Less a question than a request: Dont patronize us in your upcoming Xbox One privacy FAQ, and dont assume the only thing we care about when it comes to data aggregation and transmission is anonymity (or that thats a sufficient definition of privacy and security).

Im not fundamentally opposed to the idea that technology might track my comings and goings and doings at home, or that it might relay that information on to a company like Microsoft, which Im sure intends to use it in at least some capacity to simply improve the service. Making what you do friendlier, more efficient and more relevant is an important aspect of any contemporary, Internet-connected service and theres definitely a glass half full angle to much of this. But we deserve better explanations about these processes as well as reasonably broad control over how they work. And while I have no issue with a console requiring Internet connectivity to function in 2013, I do take issue with this idea that giving up certain privacy rights is an acceptable exchange for access to Xbox Ones traditional services.

In other words, if Microsoft wants to kick this eyes and ears in your home can down the road some more, fine, but the barrier to entry ought to be higher a lot higher than its ever been before.

Remember that scene from Jurassic Park when the two paleontologists see the herds of living, breathing dinosaurs for the first time? Their eyes widen in disbelief, mouths agape, unable to speak at first.

That's the reaction I had over 30 years ago when I first stepped out of the dense tropical rain forest of Central African Republic's Dzanga-Sangha region into a 30-acre clearing with mineral rich soils known as the "Village of the Elephants." Instantly I was transported into prehistory, with forest elephants of every size, shape and color sucking the mineral salts out of the soil, chasing one another, rolling around in mud-pits and fighting for the best mate or mineral pool. Elsewhere in the clearing, known as the Dzanga Bai, I was awed by bongo, buffalo, sitatunga and hundreds of birds.

This elephant Eden, now a crown jewel in the three-nation , is under attack. Its remote location, combined with effective anti-poaching efforts, have until recently helped it stay out of the severe upswing in poaching across Central Africa. But that isolation is no more: 17 men armed with Kalashnikov rifles recently entered the park and four of them calves collecting as much ivory as possible before disappearing to most likely begin preparing their next attack.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to weigh in on a dispute between states and electronics manufacturers over whether restitution claims based on alleged price-fixing in the market for liquid crystal display panels should be heard in state or federal court.

South Carolina and Mississippi are among 13 states that have sued various manufacturers, including AU Optronics Corp, LG Display Co Ltd and LG Electronics Inc. They seek restitution over an alleged conspiracy among the companies to fix prices, which has been the subject of a criminal probe and multiple lawsuits.

Some of the cases are in federal court, but South Carolina and Mississippi were among five states that sued in state courts, which are generally seen as friendlier to plaintiffs.

The companies sought to move the cases to federal court, which corporate defendants generally prefer. They succeeded in the Mississippi case but not in the South Carolina litigation.

Both cases were appealed to the high court, but the justices only agreed to hear the Mississippi case.

The Supreme Court will now decide whether lawsuits filed by a state on behalf of citizens can be viewed as similar to a class action, meaning they can be moved to federal court.

Oral arguments and a ruling are due in the court's next term, which begins in October and ends in June.

The case is Mississippi v. AU Optronics Corp, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-1036.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller, Gerald E. McCormick and Lisa Von Ahn)

Now for a disclaimer: When my daughter was 14, I came up with the same idea in the form of a wager. I bet her that if she could resist peer pressure and not become a smoker by the time she was 21, I would buy her the dress of her dreams. To my delight, she won the bet. By then she was studying to become a marine biologist, so instead of a dress, the money went toward a wetsuit.

At 43, she's still a nonsmoker and she has now made that same bet with her children. It's the best money I ever spent. -- RETIRED CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

DEAR R.C.S.W.: Oh me, oh my, did I get clobbered for my response to that letter. Out of the hundreds of letters and emails received, only one person agreed with me. The rest were smokin' mad. Read on:

DEAR ABBY: In my many years as a school psychologist, I have counseled hundreds of parents and teachers about dealing with behavioral issues in children. I often make the distinction between a "bribe" and a "reward" by describing a bribe as something you give someone to do something dishonest, while a reward is given for doing something commendable. What she did was reward their good choice in not developing a potentially fatal habit. -- OLD-SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGIST

DEAR ABBY: When you give someone money for something that has already been completed, it's a paycheck and not a bribe. It was pointed out to me that few of us would continue to go to work if we weren't paid for it, and those grandchildren were being paid for "work" that was already completed. It's an important distinction that may be helpful for parents and other adults to understand. -- FORMER SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

DEAR ABBY: I disagree with your answer! What that grandmother did was reward her grandchildren, not bribe them. A lot of pressure is put on teens, and it takes considerable willpower and maturity to avoid some of these temptations.

At 16 or 17, it is hard for them to imagine being over 30, and none of them can imagine being 60 or 70 with lung disease. Hooray for grandparents who can help them avoid adopting a life-threatening habit in any way they can! -- GRANDMOTHER IN IOWA

DEAR ABBY: I told my son I would give him $1,000 at the age of 21 if he didn't smoke. It wasn't bribery. It was a great tool to combat peer pressure. Whenever he was offered a cigarette, he could simply say he had a better offer. Not only did it work, the other kids were envious. -- MICHIGAN MOM

DEAR ABBY: My pre-teen daughter was devastated when her maternal grandfather died from the effects of emphysema. In spite of it, she took up smoking in her teens. We threatened her, grounded her, took away privileges, even tried guilt trips. Nothing worked. Her choice to smoke was influenced by her peer group.

I would have mortgaged our home, sold our possessions and borrowed money from the bank if I thought I could have altered her choice by bribing her. By the way, she has been diagnosed with pre-cancerous cells, but even this hasn't been enough to cause her to quit. -- WOULD HAVE DONE ANYTHING

Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Write Dear Abby ator P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.

For everything you need to know about wedding planning, order "How to Have a Lovely Wedding." Send your name and mailing address, plus check or money order for $7 (U.S. funds) to: Dear Abby, Wedding Booklet, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Shipping and handling are included in the price.)

"There is a growing sense of urgency about what's going on in the environment," Todd Clear, dean of Rutgers University's School of Criminal Justice, said here at a symposium Tuesday (May 14) on wildlife crime.

A variety of new research projects highlighted during the conference show that poaching and crimes against wildlife do follow patterns seen in other areas of criminology, knowledge that could be used to prevent these misdeeds. Famed Rutgers criminologist Ronald Clarke called on biologists and criminologists to work together to fight poaching and other issues where illegal acts are committed against nature.

As with other crimes, poaching often takes place in certain hotspots where conditions are optimal. Rhinos and elephants, for example, are often shot near watering holes where they predictably return to drink and the poaching of elephants and rhinos is at an all-time high in many areas. Poaching has already pushed , for example. []

Andrew Lemieux, a scientist at the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, has outfitted rangers in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park with GPS-enabled cameras that allow them to cheaply document signs of crimes like poaching, setting animal snares or harvesting of firewood. The project, which began earlier this year, will help rangers know where to go to best prevent these illicit activities, he said during his presentation.

'Hot products'

Animals like parrots are also desirable to poachers in the same way certain "hot products" like cellphones and jewels are desirable to thieves. These products can be described by the acronym "CRAVED," which stands for concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable and disposable, Clarke said. Most parrots poached from the , for example, meet these criteria, and are opportunistically plucked from the forest by villagers looking for supplemental income, said Stephen Pires, a Florida International University researcher.

The same goes for fish, which are illegally caught more often when they are CRAVED. Fish found in multiple recipes, a measure of enjoyableness, are nine times more likely to be caught illegally than those less often found in cookbooks, said Gohar Petrossian, a researcher at William Paterson University in New Jersey. There are also 10 ports around the world that account for a large percentage of , she said. In the same way the most crimes occur near a perpetrator's home, the illegal fishing tended to take place near these ports, Petrossian said.

Poverty also plays a large role, said Kenyan scientist andat the conference. In many cases poachers are opportunistic, poaching to supplement their incomes, or merely survive. Throwing money at the problem, like hiring rangers, doesn't necessarily help, Leakey said. Some rangers in East Africa make about $500 per month. If you've got 10 elephant tusks, though, you could make a cool $10,000. It's easy to see how rangers could be bought off, especially if poaching seems like the only viable way to feed one's family, said Leaky, who is the son of famed paleontologist and fossil hunters Louis and Mary Leakey, and himself a paleoanthropologist.

"If you haven't got enough money to see your kid through the next semester of school, and if you can be offered several years worth of income by turning a blind eye who wouldn't?" Leakey said. "Hell, I would if my family were at stake."

Too often Westerners ignore the underlying poverty and assume the people committing these crimes have completely different values, Leakey said. "I think we need to change the idea that if you went to Cambridge or Rutgers, you have a different value set."

Taking aim at poaching

Besides dealing with poverty, Leakey offered two options to fight poaching. First, he advocated building more fences around large reserves a suggestion that was met with some resistance by at least one ecologist at the conference, who questioned Leakey after his talk about the fence's ability to stop elephants. Leakey noted that electrified fences were quite capable of stopping the large animals. In places where they've been installed, he added, sheep herders have come to rely on fences to protect their flock from predators inside the parks meaning they can help both people and animals, he said.

Fenced reserves have helped South Africa prevent more poaching than many of its neighbors, Leakey added (athough even in ). While this takes funding, he said, the problem is not lack of money per se, but a lack of political will.

By making it harder to enter and exit reserves, fences increase both the risks and difficulties involved in poaching, both widely accepted tenets of crime prevention, Clarke said.

The second tool to fight poaching is awareness. One of the main reasons thatand rhinos has shot up in the past few years is due to growing demand in China for ivory and medicinal products (although rhino horns are made of the same material in finger nails and have no curative properties, they are desired for their supposed healing powers in traditional Chinese medicine). But Leakey said that most of these consumers buying , or visiting traditional pharmacies have no idea these animals are dying out. []

Increasing awareness would likely reduce demand for these products. As with other illegal activities, reduced rewards mean reduced crime, Clarke said.

In 1989, when Leakey headed the Kenya Wildlife Service, he came up with the idea to burn 12 tons ofto bring public attention to poaching, which in the late '80s had flared up. The ploy worked, cutting the value of ivory by a factor of 30 and almost single-handedly suppressing elephant poaching for nearly two decades, Clarke said.

Perhaps it's time to do something similar, he said. But as to what exactly that might be, Leakey didn't have any concrete suggestions.

"We need to get youngsters in the conservation world to think outside the box," he said. "Thinking inside the box isn't working... continuing to talk, talk, talk nothing gets done."

Emailor follow him onor. Follow us ,or. Article originally on LiveScience.com.

But so far, the companies operating industrial-sized turbines here and elsewhere that are killing eagles and other protected birds have yet to be fined or prosecuted - even though every death is a criminal violation.

The Obama administration has charged oil companies for drowning birds in their waste pits, and power companies for electrocuting birds on power lines.

But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly.

"What it boils down to is this: If you electrocute an eagle, that is bad, but if you chop it to pieces, that is OK," said Tim Eicher, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service enforcement agent based in Cody.

It's a double standard that some Republicans in Congress said Tuesday they would examine after an Associated Press investigation revealed that the Obama administration has shielded the wind power industry from liability and helped keep the scope of the deaths secret.

"We obviously don't want to see indiscriminate killing of birds from any sort of energy production, yet the administration's ridiculous inconsistencies begs questioning and clarity clarity on why wind energy producers are let off the hook," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La.

The House Natural Resources Committee, which was at the beginning stages of an investigation, vowed to dig deeper Tuesday.

"There are serious concerns that the Obama administration is not implementing this law fairly and equally," said Jill Strait, a spokeswoman for the committee's chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash.

Wind power, a pollution-free energy intended to ease global warming, is a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's energy plan. His administration has championed a $1 billion-a-year tax break to the industry that has nearly doubled the amount of wind power in his first term.

"Climate change is really greatest threat that we see to species conservation in long run," said Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe in an interview with the AP on Monday. "We have an obligation to support well-designed renewable energy."

But like the oil industry under President George W. Bush, lobbyists and executives have used their favored status to help steer U.S. energy policy.

The result is a green industry that's allowed to do not-so-green things.

More than 573,000 birds are killed by the country's wind farms each year, including 83,000 hunting birds such as hawks, falcons and eagles, according to an estimate published in March in the peer-reviewed Wildlife Society Bulletin.

Getting precise figures is impossible because many companies aren't required to disclose how many birds they kill. And when they do, experts say, the data can be unreliable.

When companies voluntarily report deaths, the Obama administration in many cases refuses to make the information public, saying it belongs to the energy companies or that revealing it would expose trade secrets or implicate ongoing enforcement investigations.

Nearly all the birds being killed are protected under federal environmental laws, which prosecutors have used to generate tens of millions of dollars in fines and settlements from businesses, including oil and gas companies, over the past five years.

"We are all responsible for protecting our wildlife, even the largest of corporations," Colorado U.S. Attorney David M. Gaouette said in 2009 when announcing Exxon Mobil had pleaded guilty and would pay $600,000 for killing 85 birds in five states, including Wyoming.

The large death toll at wind farms shows how the renewable energy rush comes with its own environmental consequences, trade-offs the Obama administration is willing to make in the name of cleaner energy.

"It is the rationale that we have to get off of carbon, we have to get off of fossil fuels, that allows them to justify this," said Tom Dougherty, a long-time environmentalist who worked for nearly 20 years for the National Wildlife Federation in the West, until his retirement in 2008. "But at what cost? In this case, the cost is too high."

The Obama administration has refused to accept that cost when the fossil-fuel industry is to blame. The BP oil company was fined $100 million for killing and harming migratory birds during the 2010 Gulf oil spill. And PacifiCorp, which operates coal plants in Wyoming, paid more than $10.5 million in 2009 for electrocuting 232 eagles along power lines and at its substations.

But PacifiCorp also operates wind farms in the state, where at least 20 eagles have been found dead in recent years, according to corporate surveys submitted to the federal government and obtained by the AP. They've neither been fined nor prosecuted. A spokesman for PacifiCorp, which is a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. of Des Moines, Iowa, said that's because its turbines may not be to blame.

By not enforcing the law, the administration provides little incentive for companies to build wind farms where there are fewer birds. And while companies already operating turbines are supposed to avoid killing birds, in reality there's little they can do once the windmills are spinning.

Wind farms are clusters of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with spinning rotors as wide as a passenger jet's wingspan. Though the blades appear to move slowly, they can reach speeds up to 170 mph at the tips, creating tornado-like vortexes.

Flying eagles behave like drivers texting on their cellphones; they don't look up. As they scan for food, they don't notice the industrial turbine blades until it's too late.

The rehabilitation coordinator for the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, Michael Tincher, said he euthanized two golden eagles found starving and near death near wind farms. Both had injuries he'd never seen before: One of their wings appeared to be twisted off.

"There is nothing in the evolution of eagles that would come near to describing a wind turbine. There has never been an opportunity to adapt to that sort of threat," said Grainger Hunt, an eagle expert who researches the U.S. wind-power industry's deadliest location, a northern California area known as Altamont Pass. Wind farms built there decades ago kill more than 60 per year.

Eagle deaths have forced the Obama administration into a difficult choice between its unbridled support for wind energy and enforcing environmental laws that could slow the industry's growth.

Former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in an interview with the AP before his departure, denied any preferential treatment for wind. Interior Department officials said that criminal prosecution, regardless of the industry, is always a "last resort."

"There's still additional work to be done with eagles and other avian species, but we are working on it very hard," Salazar said. "We will get to the right balance."

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has proposed a rule that would give wind-energy companies potentially decades of shelter from prosecution for killing eagles. The regulation is currently under review at the White House.

The proposal, made at the urging of the wind-energy industry, would allow companies to apply for 30-year permits to kill a set number of bald or golden eagles. Previously, companies were only eligible for five-year permits.

In exchange for the longer timetable, companies agree that if they kill more eagles than allowed, the government could require them to make changes. But the administration recently said it would cap how much a company could be forced to spend on finding ways to reduce the number of eagles its facility is killing.

The Obama administration said the longer permit was needed to "facilitate responsible development of renewable energy" while "continuing to protect eagles."

A similar explanation was given when the Fish and Wildlife Service recently authorized the killing of a single California condor, an endangered species, by a proposed wind farm in California. It also authorized a real estate developer to disturb four birds for its project.

That's because without a long-term authorization to kill eagles, investors are less likely to finance an industry that's violating the law.

Typically, the government would be forced to study the environmental effects of such a regulation before implementing it. In this case, though, the Obama administration avoided a full review, saying the policy was nothing more than an "administrative change."

"It's basically guaranteeing a black box for 30 years, and they're saying 'trust us for oversight.' This is not the path forward," said Katie Umekubo, a renewable energy attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former lawyer for the Fish and Wildlife Service. In private meetings with industry and government leaders in recent months, environmental groups have argued that the 30-year permit needed an in-depth environmental review.

The tactics have created an unexpected rift between the administration and major environmental groups favoring green energy that, until the eagle rule, had often been on the same side as the wind industry.

Those conservation groups that have been critical of the administration's stance from the start, such as the American Bird Conservancy, have often been cut out of the behind-the-scenes discussions and struggled to obtain information on bird deaths at wind farms.

"There are no seats at the exclusive decision-making table for groups that want the wind industry to be held accountable for the birds it kills," said Kelly Fuller, who works on wind issues for the group.

The eagle rule is not the first time the administration has made concessions for the wind-energy industry.

Last year, over objections from some of its own wildlife investigators and biologists, the Interior Department updated its guidelines and provided more cover for wind companies that violate the law.

The administration and some environmentalists say that was the only way to exact some oversight over an industry that operates almost exclusively on private land and generates no pollution, and therefore is exposed to little environmental regulation.

Under both the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, the death of a single bird without a permit is illegal.

But under the Obama administration's new guidelines, wind-energy companies and only wind-energy companies are held to a different standard. Their facilities don't face additional scrutiny until they have a "significant adverse impact" on wildlife or habitat. But under both bird protection laws, any impact has to be addressed.

The rare exception for one industry substantially weakened the government's ability to enforce the law and ignited controversy inside the Interior Department.

"U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does not do this for the electric utility industry or other industries," Kevin Kritz, a government wildlife biologist in the Rocky Mountain region wrote in government records in September 2011. "Other industries will want to be judged on a similar standard."

Experts working for the agency in California and Nevada wrote in government records in June 2011 that the new federal guidelines should be considered as though they were put together by corporations, since they "accommodate the renewable energy industry's proposals, without due accountability."

The Obama administration, however, repeatedly overruled its experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service. In the end, the wind-energy industry, which was part of the committee that drafted and edited the guidelines, got almost everything it wanted.

"Clearly, there was a bias to wind energy in their favor because they are a renewable source of energy, and justifiably so," said Rob Manes, who runs the Kansas office for The Nature Conservancy and who served on the committee. "We need renewable energy in this country."

The government also declared that senior officials in Washington, many of whom are political appointees, must approve any wind-farm prosecution. Normally, law-enforcement agents in the field have the authority to file charges with federal attorneys.

While all big cases are typically cleared through headquarters, such a blanket policy has never been applied to an entire industry, former officials said.

"It's over," Eicher said. "You'll never see a prosecution now."

Not so, says the Fish and Wildlife Service. It said it is investigating 18 bird-death cases involving wind-power facilities, and seven have been referred to the Justice Department. A spokesman for the Justice Department declined to discuss the status of those cases.

Ashe said his agency always made it clear to wind companies that if they kill birds they could still be liable.

"We are not allowing them to do it. They do it," he said of the bird deaths. "And we will successfully prosecute wind companies if they are in significant noncompliance."

But officials acknowledge that their priority is cooperating with companies before wind farms are built to encourage them to be put where they won't harm birds. Once they are built, there is little companies can do except shut down turbines or remove them and that means reducing the amount of electricity they generate and violating deals struck with companies purchasing their electricity.

By contrast, there are easy fixes for oil companies and companies operating power lines to stop killing birds. The government often requests companies take such steps before it decides to prosecute.

"We just can't be bringing a criminal case against a company that is up and running if there is not a solution," said Jill Birchell, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement office in California and Nevada. "We can fine them, but that doesn't help eagles."

In the meantime, birds continue to die. The golden eagle population in the West, prior to the wind energy boom, was declining so much that the government's conservation goal in 2009 was not to allow the eagle population to decrease by a single bird.

The reason boils down to biology. Eagles take five years to reach the age when they can reproduce, and often they only produce one chick a year.

In its defense, the wind-energy industry points out that more eagles are killed each year by cars, electrocutions and poisoning than by turbines.

Ashe noted that the government doesn't require other industrial facilities to disclose the numbers of birds they kill.

Documents and emails obtained by the AP offer glimpses of the problem: 14 deaths at seven facilities in California, five each in New Mexico and Oregon, one in Washington state and another in Nevada, where an eagle was found with a hole in its neck, exposing the bone.

Unlike the estimates, these are hard numbers, proof of deaths, the beginnings of a mosaic revealing the problem.

One of the deadliest places in the country for golden eagles is Wyoming, where federal officials said wind farms have killed more than 50 golden eagles since 2009, predominantly in the southeastern part of the state. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose the figures.

At a different facility, Duke Energy's Top of the World wind farm, a 17,000-acre site with 110 turbines located about 35 miles east of Casper, 10 eagles have been killed in the first two years of operation. It is the deadliest of Duke's 15 wind power plants for eagles.

The company's environmental director for renewable energy, Tim Hayes, said Duke is doing all it can, not only because it wants to fix the problem but because it could reduce the company's liability. Two of the company's wind farms in Wyoming Top of the World and Campbell Hill are under investigation by the federal government for the deaths of golden eagles and other birds, according to a report the company filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week. The report was filed after the AP visited a Duke facility in Wyoming and asked senior executives about the deaths.

Duke encourages workers to drive slower so as not to scare eagles from their roosts. They remove dead animals that eagles eat. And they've removed rock piles where the bird's prey lives. They also keep internal data on every dead bird in order to determine whether these efforts are working. The company is also testing radar technology to detect eagles and is considering blaring loud noises to prevent the birds from flying into danger.

The only other option is shutting off the turbines when eagles approach. And even that method hasn't been scientifically proven to work.

At Top of the World, Duke shut down 13 turbines for a week in March, often the deadliest time for eagles. The experiment, the company says, paid off. Not a single eagle was killed that month.

Hayes says the company has repeatedly sought a permit from the federal government to kill eagles legally, but was told it was killing too many to qualify.

When an eagle is killed, Duke employees are also prohibited by law from removing the carcass.

Each death is a tiny crime scene. So workers walk out underneath the spinning rotors and cover the dead bird with a tarp. It lies there, protected from scavengers but decaying underneath its shroud, until someone from the government comes to get it.

___

Follow Dina Cappiello at http://www.twitter.com/dinacappiello

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations(at)ap.org

This month, tuber processing giant J.R. Simplot Co. asked the U.S. government to approve five varieties of biotech potatoes. They're engineered not to develop ugly black bruises. McDonald's, which gets many of its fries from Simplot, rejects those. They're also designed to have less of a natural but potentially cancer-causing neurotoxin, acrylamide.

Much has changed in 12 years, according to the Boise-based company.

Unlike transgenic varieties Monsanto commercialized in the 1990s using genes from synthetic bacteria to kill insect pests, Simplot's new "Innate"-brand potatoes use only potato genes.

Haven Baker, Simplot's Yale- and Harvard University-trained vice-president of plant sciences, said his scientists journeyed inside the vegetable's genome to "silence" unwanted attributes, while making sure it remained 100 percent potato.

"You'll never get as much beneficial effect from traditional plant breeding," he said. "And it'll take twice as long."

Those in the industry remember Monsanto's ill-fated foray and say Simplot's major challenge in avoiding a similar fate is ensuring its product is acceptable among growers, processors and, ultimately, people eating it.

"Unless your customers are prepared to embrace this product, it's not going to be successful," said Frank Muir, president of the Idaho Potato Commission that represents Idaho's $3 billion industry. His group, whose website currently boasts Idaho potatoes aren't genetically engineered, hasn't weighed in on Simplot's endeavor.

But Muir does think the company is making the right moves: Reaching out to the industry, as well as consumers who may eventually buy Innate potatoes as big, un-bruised bakers or golden fries. "They're taking all the appropriate steps."

As the USDA and Food and Drug Administration embark on vetting Simplot's potatoes, the agencies are nearing completion of a similar review of a genetically engineered apple created by a Canadian company, Okanagan Specialty Fruits, to resist browning when cut.

The apple industry has opposed Okanagan's "Arctic" apple, on grounds it could create marketing headaches for growers of unmodified apples. Christian Schlect, the Northwest Horticultural Council president, said he hopes the potatoes go to market first.

"We'd just as soon the potato people take the initial foray on marketing this technology, and we'll follow their experience," he said.

In fact, the two products, should they win the government's blessing, could hit customers about the same time, 2015 or 2016.

Baker said with Simplot's new potatoes, growers would earn more money with less wastage from bruising, something that can affect up to 5 percent of their harvest. Additionally, the spuds are designed to produce acrylamide levels so low they skirt California's strict, voter-mandated cancer labels on french fries and potato chips, he said.

McDonald's didn't return a call seeking comment about the tubers. A big Simplot processing rival, ConAgra, says its potatoes are not genetically engineered.

Twelve years on, St. Louis-based Monsanto remains tight lipped about jettisoning its "New Leaf" potatoes engineered, among other things, to kill Colorado potato beetles. That was a business decision "not influenced by any negative reaction to genetically-modified organisms," spokeswoman Carly Scaduto said.

But experts say plunging interest including from Simplot, which told farmers in Idaho and North Dakota in 2000 to quit planting New Leaf potatoes after restaurants like McDonald's banished them from their fryers drove the spuds from the fields. Monsanto's biotech potatoes, planted on 55,000 acres in North America in 1996, disappeared by 2002.

Joe Guenther, a University of Idaho professor of agricultural economics, in 2011 won funding from Simplot to survey potato industry players about re-introducing genetically engineered potatoes into the food chain. His conclusion: It could succeed, provided potatoes were modified with potato genes, not foreign microorganisms that in the 1990s spawned terms like "frankenfood."

"The Monsanto product crossed that species line," Guenther said. "The exciting thing about the Simplot product is, it stays within the potato species."

Another thing Guenther's 2011 report said would help was backing from an environmental group, something that remains a scarce commodity. Groups worried about corporations commandeering potato genes a decade ago remain no less alarmed.

Bill Freese, science policy analyst with Washington, D.C.-based Center for Food Safety, said Simplot's potatoes join a litany of other genetically engineered crops that don't face rigorous-enough USDA or FDA testing.

While Simplot's Baker said 20 field trials demonstrate Innate potatoes exhibit characteristics virtually identical to their unmodified cousins, Freese painted a darker picture: Genetic engineering is a noisy, unpredictable process, where the best-intentionedgenome tinkering could be accompanied by unforeseen effects on human health and the environment.

Freese said the absence of long-term animal feeding trials and labeling requirements is also cause for worry, since potatoes are staple crops people eat directly. Freese predicted Innate potatoes will fail, just like Monsanto's did.

"The question is why do they continue to so miscalculate public perception?" he said. "The biotech approach is to change the food on a genetic level in quite frankly risky ways with inadequate regulation to adapt a crop to an industrial food system that's really unhealthy in so many ways."

Simplot's Baker pointed to, among other sources, the FDA, which says genetically-engineered foods it reviews meets the same safety requirements as those from traditionally-bred plants. "The nutrients and allergens are no different from conventional potatoes," he said.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Potato Commission, representing 45,000 U.S. growers, learned of Simplot's plans several months ago. Chief Executive Officer John Keeling said it supports scientific advancements to improve potatoes, but has advised Simplot to avoid past mistakes.

For instance, some Monsanto tubers found their way into Japan, where they weren't approved. After that, Japan-bound U.S. potatoes had to be tested, he said.

"If some parts of the marketplace are saying they don't want Innate technology and others want it, you've got to be able to address both of those issues." Keeling said. "Simplot seems to have taken to heart the thoughts that we had."

Simplot is seeking approval in Japan, as well as Canada, Mexico and South Korea.