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Here, excerpted in the position in which they appear in the article, are the Times' most cutting dismissals of the president, of the PATRIOT Act, and of those in Congress who excuse and rationalize the collection of private data. We have censored those sentences that don't meet that standard.

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IOC medical commission chairman Arne Ljungqvist said researchers have made significant advances in devising a test, leaving officials hopeful a method can be approved soon for use at the Olympics and other events.

"Quite some progress has been made in terms of outlining the scientific basis for analysis of gene doping," Ljungqvist told The Associated Press. "We are moving. It's promising."

Up to 40 experts from around the world will meet in Beijing on June 5-6 to discuss recent findings and how to move forward in combatting the threat of athletes manipulating their genes to boost sports performance.

The meeting is being organized by the World Anti-Doping Agency in conjunction with China's national anti-doping agency. It will be the Olympic movement's fourth symposium on gene doping, following previous conferences in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, in 2002; Stockholm in 2005; and St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2008.

"There have been scientific studies which are quite promising," said Ljungqvist, also a WADA vice president. "We feel it's time to review this within the context of a small symposium of specialists."

Gene doping, which is prohibited by the IOC and WADA, involves transferring genes directly into human cells to blend into an athlete's own DNA to enhance muscle growth and increase strength or endurance. It is an illegal offshoot of gene therapy, which typically alters a person's DNA to fight diseases like muscular dystrophy and cystic fibrosis.

"We want to continue the momentum that we've got so we can get to a scenario where the detection methods can be approved," WADA director general David Howman told the AP. "It's close."

In 2010, two groups of scientists one in Germany and a U.S.-French research team said they developed gene doping tests in what WADA described at the time as a major breakthrough. One was a blood test that would detect doping as far back as 56 days, while the other was for detecting genetic doping in muscles.

However, the tests have not been validated and hopes they could be used at the 2012 London Olympics were not realized.

"When you have a scientific method, that is one thing, but you need to develop a technique and make good use of it," Ljungqvist said. "We have a reasonably good scientific basis and we'll have to discuss how to develop this further now."

How soon could a test be ready for use?

"You can never predict when," Ljungqvist said. "Science is full of surprises and obstacles."

The IOC and WADA say there is no evidence that athletes are gene doping, but warn that it may be only a matter of time. Scientists working on potential genetic cures for muscle diseases and blood disorders have been contacted by sports figures asking about enhancing performance.

"We know that those who wish to take a chance and cheat are ready to do anything," Ljungqvist said. "We've had people who are researching into this and they have been approached by coaches and the like. But we don't have any evidence suggesting this is yet in place."

Howman said WADA has received information about people looking on the black market for access to gene doping methods.

"Nothing has amounted that is sufficient to be able to put together a case," he said. "We don't discount the fact that people are fiddling around with it. Certainly, that possibility exists."

The prospect of genetic manipulation comes as drug cheats continue to turn to more traditional forms of doping, including steroids, EPO and blood transfusions.

Ljungqvist said the Lance Armstrong scandal, in which the American cyclist acknowledged doping during his seven Tour de France victories, shows that cheaters may not be as far ahead of the scientists as feared.

"The Armstrong case is very informative, that such an advanced doping cheat was using usual stuff," Ljungqvist said. "The wonder drugs are not there. It is still the same ones. That is interesting to us."

___

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's choice to be U.S. trade representative is expected to face questions at a Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday about the White House's commitment to pursuing legislation to strike new trade deals as well as his investment in an offshore tax haven.

Obama tapped Mike Froman, his chief international economic affairs adviser, in May to be the next USTR, replacing Ron Kirk who left in early March after four years in the job.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, will press Froman at the hearing at "to engage with Congress to pass TPA (trade promotion authority) legislation," a committee aide said.

The committee's senior Republican, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, will ask whether "the administration will formally request trade promotion authority," said a spokeswoman for Hatch.

Trade promotion authority is major piece of legislation that would allow the White House to submit trade agreements to Congress for straight up-or-down votes without any amendments.

The law expired in 2007 under former President George W. Bush, who had used to it negotiate about a dozen trade deals.

Obama has not formally asked for it to be renewed, although administration officials recently have said they are now prepared to work with Congress on drafting the legislation.

Hatch and Baucus have been in talks with the top Republican and Democrat on the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee in the hope of producing a bipartisan TPA bill that could be approved this year.

The bill has historically been difficult to pass because many Democrats and union groups believe trade deals lead to more jobs moving overseas. As a result, a push by Obama could be needed for a bill to succeed.

Business groups say the legislation is necessary to assure other countries that any deal they strike with the United States won't be picked apart by lawmakers during congressional debate.

The White House already is in a major trade negotiation with 11 other countries in the Asia Pacific region that it hopes to wrap up by the end of the year, and plans to start talks in July with the European Union on a transatlantic free trade pact.

CAYMAN ISLAND ACCOUNT

Froman is also expected to face questions from Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, about investments totaling about $500,000 in a Cayman Island account.

In a statement on Tuesday, Grassley accused Obama of hypocrisy for railing against offshore tax avoidance schemes during his re-election campaign and then nominating Froman for the USTR job, former White House budget director Jack Lew to be U.S. Treasury secretary and Chicago billionaire Penny Pritzker to be Commerce secretary.

"President Obama called the Ugland House the biggest tax scam in the world,'" Grassley said, referring to a building in the Cayman Island where the fund is registered.

"Yet he nominated two top advisers in a row who invested in the Ugland House. He also nominated a Commerce secretary with significant offshore income."

Lew's nomination was approved several months ago, but Pritzker's nomination is still pending.

White House officials said Froman disclosed the Cayman Island investment made through his former employer Citigroup when he joined the administration in 2009 and in annual reports since then.

"Mike Froman has paid every penny of his taxes and reported all of the income, gains and losses from the investment on his tax returns. The existence of this investment is not news. It has been available online for over four years," said White House spokesman Bobby Whithorne.

On the advice of USTR ethics officials, Froman plans to extricate himself from the investment within 90 days if he is confirmed. He was not required by White House ethics official to divest the funds in his old post, Whithorne said.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Christopher Wilson)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Last week the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage held steady at 3.55 percent, slightly above the record low of 3.49 percent that was reached in July. Meanwhile, the average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, dipped to 2.85 percent from 2.86 percent.

Cheap mortgages have helped the housing market recover this year. Sales of new and previously occupied homes are well above last year's levels.

Home prices are increasing more consistently this year, largely because the supply of homes has shrunk while sales have risen. And the number of Americans who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth declined in the second quarter.

Still, the housing market has a long way back. Home sales are below healthy levels. And many people are still having difficulty qualifying for home loans or can't afford larger down payments required by banks.

The report is expected at 10 a.m. Eastern.

LONDON (Reuters) - King Edward VIII may be best known for giving up the throne to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, but it wasn't the first time his love affairs posed a threat to the British monarchy.

A new book by British barrister and former judge Andrew Rose unearths a little-known affair with a French courtesan 20 years before Edward's abdication, which ended in a rigged trial at the behest of the British establishment trying to protect a future king's reputation.

"The Prince, The Princess, and The Perfect Murder" details how the then-Prince of Wales's first great love, French courtesan Maggie Meller, blackmailed him to avoid the gallows after murdering her playboy Egyptian prince husband.

Meller was acquitted in a high profile trial at London's Old Bailey in 1923 despite the evidence stacked against her.

Rose said the acquittal was a shock but his research has now revealed an extraordinary story involving the murder trial, a secret cache of vanished letters and a cover-up to save the reputation of the future king.

Six years before her trial, Meller had an affair with the British prince. She used evidence from that relationship to force the royal household to lean on the establishment in an effort to get her off the hook and cover up the scandal, Rose told Reuters.

"This affair had been carefully airbrushed from history so the connection between the murder and the Prince of Wales was never drawn," Rose told Reuters.

"The royal household took steps to make sure that the prince's name did not come out in the trial to protect the reputation of the future king. It is amazing that she got away with it."

Rose's book, published by Coronet this week forms the basis of a TV documentary, "Edward VIII's Murderous Mistress", on Britain's Channel 4 later this month.

The latest book was a follow-on work from Rose's book about the trial, "Scandal at the Savoy", published in 1991.

He was intrigued by Marguerite Alibert, better known as Meller, who, dressed in a Chanel gown, shot her second husband, Egyptian Prince Fahmy Bey, at London's Savoy Hotel in 1923.

COVER UP FOR THE PRINCE

At the time her past reputation as a gold digger was brushed off and the focus was on her claim that she acted in self-defense to protect herself from her abusive husband.

But after his book was released, Meller's grandson contacted Rose, informing him of her affair with the prince, love letters between the two, and a memoir she wrote in 1934.

Rose said it took several years to trace the relationship, accessing unpublished documents in royal archives and private collections but also finding a trail of destroyed documents.

Rose said the prince's involvement came as a surprise but was in character as Edward, who abdicated in 1936 after less than a year on the throne, was a well-known womanizer.

"He was emotionally immature and feckless in his private life ... although he had enormous charm," said Rose.

"But you can be approachable and amusing and also neurotic, self-centered and unreliable. He spent his time chasing woman, had a string of love affairs and was always susceptible particularly to powerful women."

Rose said the prince's protectors were quick to move once Meller was arrested, negotiating with her to return the prince's letters that she had stored in Cairo.

The crucial part of the deal, however, was that she would not mention the prince in court and she stuck to that.

Her promiscuous past was never mentioned in court and the trial instead focused on the violent nature and perverted sexual tastes of her husband.

"Really this was a show trial," said Rose, "The authorities wanted Marguerite to be acquitted. A murder conviction would have been catastrophic for the Crown."

Meller was released and moved back to France where she lived the rest of her life in Paris, dying wealthy in 1971.

"This story really does show another side to Edward and how unsuitable he always was to be king," said Rose.

(Reporting by Belinda Goldsmith, editing by Paul Casciato)

That makes South Florida, in the midst of a spat over expensive stadium renovations, a loser for the 2016 game.

And Miami took a double defeat when Houston was awarded the 2017 championship game.

In two separate votes, NFL owners Tuesday went with the both San Francisco Bay Area and Houston on the first ballot at their spring meetings. The 49ers' new home is set to open next year in Santa Clara, and will host the first Super Bowl in the area since 1985.

Houston staged the 2004 Super Bowl. Miami has hosted 10 of them including the Jets upset of the Colts in 1969 and is tied with New Orleans for the most. But South Florida got rejected twice after the Florida Legislature did not support financing to renovate Sun Life Stadium.

"We are so excited to be able to be able to put on the 'Golden Super Bowl' in the Golden State," 49ers CEO Jed York said.

They will stage it in what is being promoted as the most technologically advanced stadium in the world, and earned that right on a day when the NFL made a $400 million deal with Microsoft to upgrade the fan viewing experience. Levi's Stadium figures to be the first cashless, ticketless venue in NFL championship history, with WiFi capability for 75,000 people.

"After losing a Super Bowl (to Baltimore last February), it feels really good to win a Super Bowl," York cracked.

Houston hosted once before, in 2004, and is calling the 51st Super Bowl an international experience that will include fans from Mexico.

"I think a lot of them just felt like, hey, it's Houston's time," Texans owner Robert McNair said of his colleagues. "They knew we could do a good job. From 2004 to '17, that's 13 years. So I agree, I think it's Houston's time."

The only previous Super Bowl played in northern California was at Stanford Stadium in 1985.

When NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the 2016 decision, members of the San Francisco bid committee let out a roar of approval, then toasted each other with champagne.

Asked what he believed swayed the owners to vote for San Francisco, York added: "It's the will power of an entire area that gave an overwhelming push for us."

It was the first time in a decade that a Super Bowl was awarded on the first ballot.

"The Bay Area has been waiting for a (title) game since 1985. We have a stadium now ... we are just thrilled and couldn't be happier about this," said Daniel Lurie, a leader of the San Francisco bid.

"We are going to get to highlight the best the Bay Area has to offer."

That includes donating 25 percent of the proceeds from the game to fight poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area, York said.

The Dolphins were denied public money for a stadium upgrade in South Florida following widespread complaints about the public investment sunk into the Marlins' new baseball home.

Multibillionaire Dolphins owner Stephen Ross contends $350 million in stadium improvements are badly needed, but he doesn't want to pay for them by himself. Nor does he want a scaled-down renovation of the 26-year-old facility.

"I suspect there's a couple of state reps down in Miami-Dade County where I live who are going to look at this and realize this was a huge mistake," South Florida bid committee chairman Rodney Barreto said. "We had the better bid. I could just look at the body language from the NFL staff. It's a shame. We may not see another Super Bowl for another 10 years."

But, Ross said, South Florida "won't stop trying" to get one.

Goodell said some owners privately told him they were concerned with the stadium situation in Miami.

49ers owner John York suggested that San Francisco's winning effort offered a lesson in political cooperation.

"If this Super Bowl can show the state of California and other communities the opportunity with a new stadium to bring in fresh business, it could be a catalyst that stadiums can be built for Oakland and San Diego, which are in need of new ones," he said. "This may be the impetus to get one of those done."

For years, it was thought the NFL would seek to stage the 50th Super Bowl in Los Angeles, where the first one was played (but did not sell out) on Jan. 15, 1967. But with no franchise in LA and no suitable stadium projects approved, that hope disappeared.

Next Feb. 2, the game goes outdoors in a cold-weather site for the first time, at MetLife Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands. If that gamble pays off for the NFL, look for other cities in similar climates Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver to bid for future Super Bowls.

The 2015 game will be played in the Phoenix area.

Earlier Tuesday, owners approved a $200 million loan for stadium construction in Atlanta. The multipurpose stadium could cost as much as $1 billion, with team owner Arthur Blank committed to funding most of it. Blank, speaking at the NFL's spring meetings, called the decision by the team owners an "important milestone" in moving the project forward. The owners also approved financing for renovations of stadiums in Charlotte and Philadelphia.

Speaking with reporters after the votes, Goodell also said:

The draft will be held between May 8 and May 17 next year because the venue, Radio City Music Hall, is hosting an Easter show in April. He expects the draft will remain in May, with other adjustments to the NFL's calendar, including the dates for the combine and the opening of free agency, to be discussed with the players' union.

A third international game in upcoming seasons could be added now that both games for 2013 in London have sold out.

The Pro Bowl could be moved from Hawaii back to mainland cities after the 2014 game, but will remain on the Sunday one week before the Super Bowl.

Expanding the playoffs, and cutting two games off the preseason, still are being discussed. A reduced preseason could happen with either the current 16-game regular season or with an 18-game schedule.

___

AP Sports Writer Jimmy Golen contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court justices on Monday signaled reluctance to issue too broad a ruling about patents on human genes, and some indicated they might seek a compromise distinguishing between types of genetic material.

The biotechnology industry has warned that an expansive ruling against Myriad Genetics Inc could threaten billions of dollars of investment.

In weighing the question of whether any human genes can ever be patented - meaning the holders have exclusive rights to their intellectual property for a defined period - the nine justices asked tough questions about isolated genes that Myriad holds patents for.

But the justices also appeared to be inclined to draw a line between synthetically produced genetic material and natural genes.

A court ruling along those lines, suggested by the Obama administration, would have less impact on Myriad. Some of the latest research using human genes involves a synthetic form of DNA called recombinant DNA, or rDNA.

Shares of Myriad were up $1.43 or 5.4 percent at $27.53 on midday trading on the Nasdaq. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 1 percent.

The Myriad patents in dispute will all expire by 2015. A ruling is due by the end of June this year.

In probing the limits of what can be patented, the justices cited a wide range of products in raising hypothetical questions, including chocolate-chip cookies and baseball bats.

A group of medical researchers, associations and patients say human genes, including synthetically produced material, should not be patented. They sued in 2009, challenging seven patents owned by or licensed to Myriad on two human genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer. A federal judge said the patents were invalid. An appeals court overruled that decision, and the case landed at the Supreme Court.

Under the federal Patent Act, an inventor can obtain a patent on various new processes and products but "laws of nature, natural phenomena and abstract ideas" are not patentable. The broad legal question is whether the genes Myriad patented, called BRCA1 and BRCA2, are a product of nature. The appeals court said they were not.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents on at least 4,000 human genes to companies, universities and others that have discovered and decoded them.

CHOCOLATE CHIPS AND BASEBALL BATS

Lawyers from both sides and the Obama administration probed the limits of what can be patented. Justices cited examples of more familiar products, including chocolate-chip cookies and baseball bats.

It was Sotomayor who brought up the chocolate-chip cookies, wondering whether if it was possible to get a patent on an isolated human gene, it would be possible to do the same for salt, eggs and other cookie ingredients.

Separately, both Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts seized upon the suggestion made by Myriad lawyer Gregory Castanias that a baseball bat doesn't exist until it's isolated from the tree.

Roberts said a baseball bat was "quite different" because "you have to invent it" and not just "cut it off" from the tree.

Alito raised an even more extreme hypothetical question by asking whether a baseball bat that was naturally crafted after a piece of wood was tossed about in the ocean before washing up on shore could then be patented.

Several of the justices also ruminated at length on another colorful hypothetical question, also offered by Alito, concerning under what circumstances a company could claim a patent on material from a plant found in the Amazon jungle that can help treat cancer.

Others on the bench, such as Justice Elena Kagan, indicated concerns about the impact a broad ruling could have on companies that invest in such research.

"Why shouldn't we worry that Myriad or companies like it will just say, 'well, you know, we're not going to do this work anymore'?" she asked Christopher Hansen, the lawyer representing the challengers.

Alito appeared most concerned about the court issuing a sweeping ruling on what he described as a "very difficult" question.

"Why should we do that?" he asked.

POSSIBLE COMPROMISE?

Hansen sought to defuse concerns among the justices that he was asking for too broad a ruling. He said he was not asking for patents on rDNA to be invalidated, something industry groups had raised concerns about.

"Recombinant DNA is in fact what all the major innovations in the industry are doing these days," he said. "There is nothing in our position that would prevent recombinant DNA from being patented."

The Obama administration, which intervened in the case in support of neither side, has urged a compromise position, which several justices probed during the hour-long argument.

Government lawyers say that "synthesized genetic materials" can be patented because they are human-made inventions. But simply removing, or isolating, human DNA does not substantively change it and so it should not be eligible for a patent, the administration says.

If the court were to adopt that approach, which neither the plaintiffs nor Myriad accept, some of Myriad's patents, concerning synthetic molecules called cDNA, could survive, although the parties disagree on that point as well.

A majority appeared inclined to find that cDNA could be patented.

Emphasizing a need to tread carefully, Justice Stephen Breyer noted that patent law often involves "uneasy compromises."

Justice Anthony Kennedy asked Castanias directly whether a ruling based on the government position would give industry "sufficient protection" relating to innovation and research.

"I can't tell you for a certainty whether it would hurt the industry," Castanias said.

The case is Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-398.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller, John Wallace and Sofina Mirza-Reid)