He'll have to do that again to dig himself out of a deep hole and defend his title.

Woods fought gusting winds, an occasionally errant shot and a balky putter during a second-round 2-over 74 on Friday, making the cut but leaving a lot of ground to make up on the weekend.

"All in all it was a day I fought hard and that's all I got," Woods said after finishing 36 holes at 1-over 145 10 shots back of early second-round leader Bill Haas.

There are a lot of reasons why Woods has not dominated like he so often does at Muirfield, where he's won more than $5 million in his 13 appearances.

Typically, he owns the par-5 holes. He was 8 under on them a year ago while finishing 9 under to hold off Andres Romero and Rory Sabbatini by two strokes.

This year, he's only even-par on them after the first two rounds.

The most costly error was a messy double-bogey at the reachable par-5 15th, a hole that he birdied three times in winning a year ago but on which he is 3 over so far in the two times he's played it. He pulled a wind-blown second shot left of the green onto a hillside, chipped through the green, lipped out a short pitch and three-putted from 5 feet.

"It's the way this golf course is playing right now," Woods said. "You have to take advantage of certain holes, the downwind holes for sure. Some of the par-5s are playing a little more difficult than others, but you can shoot a round under par here.

"You just have to really play well."

So far, he hasn't met his own lofty standards. After his opening 71, Woods said he wasn't happy with his accuracy with an iron in his hands.

In blustery conditions on Friday, he and playing partners Keegan Bradley and Fred Couples each struggled to figure out the swirling winds. At the par-3 fourth, Woods and caddie Joe LaCava deliberated for a full minute on what club to use on the 181-yard hole. He ended up with a relatively easy two-putt par.

At his final hole, the difficult ninth, Woods drove to an ideal location in the heart of the fairway and had a lofted club to the green. But a burst of wind knocked the ball down as it came out of a chute of trees that line the fairway and it came up short of the green. Woods then flopped on a flop shot, leaving the ball in the rough, before chipping onto the green and making a bogey.

"With a couple of holes left, I felt like I had a good chance to at least get to even-par for my round," Woods said. "I caught a huge gust on the last hole and barely got over the water."

Woods is usually primed for the weekend at the Memorial. In his wins, he has been on the lead or within two shots four times through 36 holes.

But in 2009, he had to make a charge after trailing by six strokes while tied for 24th going into Saturday. He shot a 68 in the third round to cut his margin to four strokes, then closed with a sterling 65 to hold off Jim Furyk by a shot.

Despite the gap he faces this year, Woods does not believe he cannot win. He never does.

Asked if he ever looks back at the midpoint of a tournament and wonders if it just isn't his week, he smiled and said, "I haven't won every tournament I've played in."

Left unsaid was that he never concedes anything at a place where he has such a remarkable track record.

"We'll see what happens," he added.

___

Follow Rusty Miller on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/RustyMillerAP

Representatives appeared to unanimously approve the proposal in a voice vote, sending it immediately to President Goodluck Jonathan for him to potentially sign into law in Africa's most populous nation. It wasn't immediately clear if Jonathan would sign the measure, though gays and lesbians already face public ridicule and possible prison sentences in Nigeria.

While Western diplomats declined to immediately comment, the United Kingdom already has threatened to stop aid to nations that discriminate against gays. But those threats appear unlikely to assuage the desire of Nigerian authorities to further criminalize homosexuality, part of a wave of such laws in African nations eager to legislate against what they believe is a challenge of their traditional values by the West.

Nigeria's Senate previously passed the bill in November 2011 and the measure quietly disappeared for some time before coming up in Thursday's session of the House. A copy of the House bill, obtained by The Associated Press, mirrored what the Senate previously passed.

Under the proposed law, Nigeria would ban any same-sex marriage from being conducted in either a church or a mosque. Gay or lesbian couples who marry could face up to 14 years each in prison. Witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars. Anyone taking part in a group advocating for gay rights or anyone caught in a "public show" of affection also would face 10 years in prison if convicted by a criminal court.

In its voice vote, the House simply adopted all the clauses previously passed by the Senate without any discussion. The bill now sits before Jonathan for his approval or veto. Presidential spokesman Reuben Abati did not respond to a request for comment Thursday night regarding the president's position on the measure.

Chidi Odinkalu, the chairman of Nigeria's National Human Rights Commission, said he only learned about the House's vote late Thursday night. He said the bill, if passed into law, likely would be challenged in court.

"If that's the scope, there will be serious issues," Odinkalu said.

Gay sex has been banned in Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people, since colonial rule by the British. Gays face open discrimination and abuse in a country divided by Christians and Muslims who almost uniformly oppose homosexuality.

Across the African continent, many countries already have made homosexuality punishable by jail sentences. Ugandan legislators introduced a bill that would impose the death penalty for some gays and lesbians, though it was amended in November to remove the threat of execution. Even in South Africa, the one country where gays can marry, lesbians have been brutally attacked and murdered in so-called "corrective rapes."

Nigeria's proposed law has drawn the interest of European Union countries, some of which already offer Nigeria's sexual minorities asylum based on gender identity. The British government recently threatened to cut aid to African countries that violate the rights of gay and lesbian citizens. However, British aid remains quite small in oil-rich Nigeria, one of the top crude suppliers to the U.S.

Hooman Nouruzi, a spokesman for the British High Commission in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, said diplomats were examining the measure and declined to immediately comment.

In 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama issued a similar directive asking officials to "ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of" gays, lesbians and the transgendered. That included having diplomats "combat the criminalization" of being gay by foreign governments.

Melissa Ford, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, did not respond to a request for comment.

Beyond that, the proposed law could have an immediate direct effect on some groups sponsored by USAID, an arm of the U.S. government. Some funding it gives to groups to combat HIV and AIDS in Nigeria includes work with gays and lesbians something that likely would be criminalized under the proposed law.

Nigeria has one of the world's largest populations of people living with HIV and AIDS.

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Jon Gambrell can be reached at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP .

Thesnapped pictures of several areas with densely packed pebbles, and by closely analyzing the rock images, researchers discovered that the shapes and sizes of the individual pebbles indicate that they traveled long distances in water, likely as part of an ancient riverbed.

The rocks were found near Curiosity's landing site, between the north rim of Gale Crater and the base of , a peak that rises 3 miles (5 kilometers) above the crater floor. []

Round and smooth

Scientists divided a photo mosaic of an area called Hottah into smaller frames to study the small rocks, which were cemented together and ranged in size from 0.08 inches (2 millimeters) to 1.6 inches (41 mm) across. In total, the researchers examined 515 stones and noticed that their .

Rocks worn by wind are typically rough and angular, whereas stones in water tend to become smooth over time, as the rocks get churned around with coarse grains of sand.

"We could see that almost all of the 515 pebbles we analyzed were worn flat, smooth and round," study co-author Asmus Koefoed, a research assistant at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, said in a statement.

The cemented sections of rock were likely formed by a combination of fine sand, mud, gravel and pebbles, the researchers said. This mixture clumped together and hardened, creating the solid formations seen by the Curiosity rover. Over time, as sand particles were blown across the surface of Mars, the tops of these cemented rocks became worn and flat, the researchers added.

Gale Crater

"The main reason we chose Gale Crater as a landing site was to look at the layered rocks at the base of Mount Sharp, about five miles away," study co-author Dawn Sumner, a geologist at the University of California, Davis, said in a statement. "We knew there was an alluvial fan in the landing area, a cone-shaped deposit of sediment that requires flowing water to form. These sorts of pebbles are likely because of that environment. So while we didn't choose Gale Crater for this purpose, we were hoping to find something like this."

The Martian pebbles offer tantalizing clues about Mars' aqueous past, said Morten Bo Madsen, head of the Mars research group at the Niels Bohr Institute.

"In order to have moved and formed these rounded pebbles, there must have been flowing water with a depth of between 10 centimeters (4 inches) and 1 meter (3.3 feet) and a flow rate of about 1 meter per second or 3.6 km/h (2.2 mph) slightly faster than a typical natural Danish stream," Madsen said in a statement.

Scientists have long been interested in thein order to determine if conditions on the planet were ever hospitable for microbial life.

Although modern-day Mars is an arid place, there is substantial evidence that water likely flowed on the planet's surface several billion years ago. NASA's , which both touched down on Mars in 2004, found signs of the planet's watery past.

In 2008, the agency's Phoenix Mars Lander confirmed the existence of current water-ice on Mars, after it scraped away clumps of dirt on the surface of the Red Planet.

The results of the new study show that Curiosity, which was launched in August 2012, has already achieved one of its main objectives: to investigate whether areas of Mars could have been habitable for ancient microbial life. The answer, apparently, is yes.

The results of the new study will be published in the May 31 issue of the journal Science.

Follow Denise Chow on Twitter . Follow us,or. Originally published on .

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Country singer Kellie Pickler won the 16th season of ABC's "Dancing With the Stars" on Tuesday night, winning over judges and TV audiences with her graceful style and high-jumping jives with partner and professional dancer Derek Hough.

Pickler, who first grabbed attention as a contestant on "American Idol" in 2006, screeched and jumped up and down when she learned she had won.

"This is amazing! Oh, my God!" she exclaimed, before fellow finalist and NFL player Jacoby Jones hoisted her on his shoulders to celebrate.

Pickler beat out Jones, former Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman, and Disney Channel star Zendaya, who goes by her first name. The show began with 12 celebrity contestants including singer Wynonna Judd and former Olympic skater Dorothy Hamill, who were paired with the show's professional dancers.

Raisman and her dance partner Mark Ballas were eliminated early in the two-hour finale after failing to garner enough judge points and audience votes for their performances on Monday night's show, leaving Pickler, Jacoby, and Zendaya to compete in an instant dance round.

The instant round, which allowed less than an hour for preparation, was scored by the show's judges, and helped determine the winner along with Monday's scores and votes.

All three remaining contestants earned perfect scores in the instant round, but fan votes and strong scores from Monday's show pushed Pickler over the top. She and her partner were also selected by audiences via Twitter to do an encore performance of their Monday freestyle dance.

Judge Carrie Ann Inaba called Pickler's freestyle performance "one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen."

The barefoot routine was meant to tell the story of a tormented couple, and was noted for its focus on grace and simplicity instead of flashy tricks.

Pickler and Hough brought back the energy on Tuesday with their upbeat jive to the song "Rockin' Robin," which included lifts and spins but was praised by judges for its precision.

The finale also featured musical performances by former contestant Judd, Korean pop star Psy, and recent American Idol runner-up Jessica Sanchez.

Dance numbers by past contestants and professional dancers entertained audiences as finalists worked on their instant routines, and montages of practices and backstage chitchat gave a look into the preparation behind the performances.

Hosts Tom Bergeron and Brooke Burke Charvet also encouraged viewers to donate to the Red Cross to help the victims of the Oklahoma tornado before diving into the dancing.

Inspired by the British show "Strictly Come Dancing," "Dancing With the Stars" has remained popular with American TV audiences since its debut in 2005, though its ratings have slipped over time. The show's judges award points to the couples based on their dance routines, which are weighed equally with audience votes to select the winner.

ABC is a unit of Walt Disney Co.

(Reporting by Andrea Burzynski; Editing by Elaine Lies, Eric Beech and Lisa Shumaker)

The latest study to document social learning in animals, published today (April 25) in the journal Science, has found thatlearned a new feeding technique from other humpbacks, a trait that stuck around and spread throughout the population.

In 1980, a whale in the Gulf of Maine (off the coast of New England) was first seen slapping its tail on the surface of the ocean before feeding on a type of fish called sand lance. This behavior soon spread and was passed down over several generations. It's now a commonplace behavior in humpbacks throughout the region, said Jenny Allen, a study co-author and researcher at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

27 years of data

It is difficult, of course, to prove that a certain , especially when it comes to marine animals. But the researchers behind the study developed a powerful computer model that allowed them to compare the likelihood that this behavior arose via social interaction versus individual learning.

Drawing upon a database of 27 years of observations of whale foraging, the model returned a result that, at a bare minimum, the humpbacks were 1 million times more likely to have learned the feeding technique from peers than to have each learned it individually.

"It was so big my supervisor made me run it again because he thought I might have messed it up somehow," Allen told LiveScience. "It was so startling to have that strong a result."

The whales perform this behavior, slapping their mammoth tales on the surface one to four times, just before diving and , which helps to organize them into schools upon which the whales can more easily feed, Allen said. The purpose of the technique, called lobtail feeding, is unclear, but it's possible it helps organize the fish into tighter formations before mealtime, she added.

Learning from peers

Whales learn the technique from other whales that they tend to spend a lot of time with, the study found. Importantly, the humpback whales didn't appear to learn the technique from their mothers, said Jooke Robbins, a senior scientist at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Mass., who wasn't involved in the study. That makes it easier to conclude that the behavior is socially learned, as opposed to genetically preprogrammed.

Humpbacks have somewhat loose social structures compared to other whales; youngsters separate from their mothers after two years and don't usually interact with them much after that, Allen said. "They have associations that are kind of weak and flexible but even in that situation you can have information that's transmitted in a social context," Robbins said.

This is the first quantitative proof that whales can socially learn a new feeding behavior, Allen said. But it's hardly the first evidence of cultural transmission in whales: Humpbacks have been shown to learn songs from one another, and spermthat can be described as traditions, Allen said. []

These whales, in other words, have multiple traditions. And they likely have other socially learned behaviors and cultural quirks. "The reason we were able to identify this is because its a 50-foot whale waving its tail at you. But there are probably many other subtle behaviors that aren't as obvious and easy to record," that are also culturally transmitted, Allen said.

Scientists have also found abundant evidence for social learning and cultural transmission in a variety of primates. Another study published today in Science found that wild vervet , learning to eat what "local" monkeys in new areas are eating.

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

Jolie, 37, revealed on Tuesday that she carries a defective BRCA1 gene that puts her at high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. She had mastectomies in February followed by reconstruction with implants in April, Dr. Kristi Funk said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Funk treated Jolie at the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Beverly Hills and detailed her care on the center's website. She would not disclose when Jolie learned she carried the faulty gene, which gives a woman up to an 87 percent lifetime risk of developing breast cancer and up to a 54 percent chance of ovarian cancer.

"This family history would certainly meet any insurance carrier's criteria to cover genetic testing," Funk wrote.

It is unclear whether Jolie will have her ovaries removed, although she wrote in her op-ed piece in the New York Times that she "started with the breasts" because they posed the highest cancer risk.

Removing the ovaries is often advised for women with such gene mutations, said Dr. Charis Eng, a medical geneticist and cancer specialist at the Cleveland Clinic who had no role in Jolie's care.

"We usually say 'try to have your kids'" and then have your ovaries removed by age 40, Eng said. It's not possible to remove every speck of breast tissue, but removing the breasts and ovaries leaves very little behind that could develop cancer, so it dramatically lowers a woman's risks, she explained.

On the surgery center's website, Funk described Jolie's three operations, which were done through the crease underneath each breast. Jolie's partner, actor Brad Pitt, "was on hand to greet her as soon as she came around from the anesthetic, as he was during each of the operations," Funk wrote.

On Feb. 2, Jolie had a procedure aimed at preserving the nipples, which usually are removed when a mastectomy is done to treat breast cancer. Half of the skin is lifted from the surface of the breast tissue and a small disc of tissue is taken to be checked for cancer.

The tissue proved healthy and on Feb. 16 she had the two mastectomies. Doctors also took an unusual step: injecting dye to determine which lymph nodes in her arms were draining fluid from the breasts. Those nodes would be most likely to contain cancer if any turned out to be lurking in the breast, Funk explained.

When a preventive mastectomy is done, "there's a 2 to 8 percent chance" of finding cancer, even though there was no indication of cancer beforehand, Funk said. Stitches or a tiny clip can be placed to show the location of these key "sentinel" lymph nodes in case Jolie ever were to develop cancer in the future and those nodes would need to be checked again.

Also during this operation, doctors placed a tissue expander, a balloon-like device that is slowly inflated with saline to stretch the skin and make room for a permanent implant. Even though the implant could have been done at the time of the mastectomy, Jolie chose the two-step procedure to optimize the final cosmetic appearance.

Four days after her mastectomies, "I was pleased to find her not only in good spirits with bountiful energy, but with two walls in her house covered with freshly assembled storyboards for the next project she is directing," Funk wrote on the website.

On April 27, doctors did her reconstruction, using a newer teardrop-shaped implant plus sheets of cadaver skin, which "creates like a sling under the implant" to give a more natural look, Funk said.

The website describes how women with gene mutations that raise their risk for cancer are monitored starting at age 18, but Funk said she could not disclose when Jolie was tested and learned she had the BRCA1 gene. About 5 percent to 10 percent of breast cancers and about 15 percent of ovarian cancers are thought to be due to BRCA gene mutations.

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Online:

Jolie treatment: http://tinyurl.com/a53qoz9

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who take the epilepsy drug valproate during pregnancy are three times more likely to have a child with an autism spectrum disorder, suggests new research based on close to 700,000 babies born in Denmark.

Previous studies have found more birth defects and lower intelligence among children of mothers who took valproate, but the new work represents the "strongest evidence to date" of a link between the drug and autism, according to an editorial published with the study on Tuesday.

The results don't prove the generic drug, also sold as valproic acid, causes autism. But researchers were able to account for a number of underlying factors - such as the age and health of the mothers and the babies' fathers - that make the study more convincing, Christopher Stodgell said.

"This finding isn't necessarily a brand new finding, but it's an important finding in that (researchers studied) really a much larger population, and they also looked at some other underlying drivers," said Stodgell, who studies the origins of autism at the University of Rochester Medical Center but wasn't involved in the new research.

Women "need to be very diligent about what the effects are if they're taking valproic acid," he told Reuters Health.

About one in 88 children has an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those conditions range from autism itself to less disabling ones such as Asperger's syndrome.

For the new study, researchers tracked 656,000 kids born in Denmark between 1996 and 2006. Using a large prescription drug database, they found that just under 6,600 of the mothers of those children had epilepsy and 508 women took valproate while pregnant.

By 2010, 4.4 percent of the kids whose mothers had taken valproate during pregnancy were diagnosed with any ASD, including 2.5 percent with autism.

In contrast, 1.5 percent of all babies in the study had an ASD and 0.5 percent had autism, the study team reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Mothers' underlying epilepsy didn't fully explain the link, according to Jakob Christensen from Aarhus University and his colleagues. In addition, autism rates were higher among children of women who used valproate during pregnancy than those who had previously used the drug but stopped before conceiving.

CONSIDER RISKS, BENEFITS

"Valproate is an effective drug, but it appears that it is being prescribed for women of childbearing potential at a rate that does not fully consider the ratio of benefits to risks," wrote Dr. Kimford Meador and David Loring from Emory University in Atlanta, in a linked editorial.

Valproate could affect maturation of a fetus's brain, Christensen suggested, including the signal-sending neurotransmitters.

Women who may become pregnant "certainly should discuss with their doctor if there are alternative treatments that would be reasonable," he told Reuters Health.

For those with certain syndromes or generalized epilepsy, there aren't necessarily other good options. Stopping valproate in that case isn't a good idea, Christensen said.

"It's also a risk if you have seizures, both for the mother and the unborn child. (Stopping medication) is not a thing that you take lightly," he said.

"Even those that are exposed to this drug, there's still a good chance - more than a 95-percent chance - that their child will never develop signs of autism."

The study didn't take into account whether women drank during pregnancy, or if they took folic acid - which has been tied to a lower risk of some birth defects.

Christensen said there are steps pregnant women on valproate can take to lower any risks to their baby, such as using the lowest possible dose and dividing it up during the day.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/JjFzqx Journal of the American Medical Association, online April 23, 2013.

The Wildlife Conservation Society's shorefront aquarium will partially reopen on Saturday.

Visitors will be able to peer down into pools containing walruses, harbor seals and other mammals. Sea lions will perform in the renovated aquatheater.

And there are large tanks containing fish and other sea life, native to everywhere from Africa to Belize.

The back half of the aquarium remains closed for repairs until 2016.

The jellyfish and sea horse collections are among exhibits still off-limits.

The late October superstorm's surge flooded tanks with debris-filled water and knocked out backup power to all of the exhibits.

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Online: http://www.nyaquarium.com/

INDIANAPOLIS, May 24 (Reuters) - Alex Zanardi's dream of racing in the Indianapolis 500 continues to burn and team owner Chip Ganassi said on Friday that he has a car for his former champion whenever he is ready.

But for the 46-year-old Zanardi, age, and not the fact that he is a double-amputee, is catching up with the two-time CART drivers champion who made an emotional appearance at the famed Brickyard for a reunion with Ganassi and his former team.

"This would not be easy to organize but I am still very passionate about the sport," said Zanardi, who had both legs amputated above the knee in a 2001 crash.

"I still have the capability to steer the wheel and if down the road the right opportunity would arise it would be hard not to be curious about it and look at it.

"At my age what you no longer have is the capability, the right focus throughout the season as when you are in your 20s. But if it is for one event then it would be a different deal."

Ganassi had a car for Zanardi on Friday, presenting the charismatic Italian with the lovingly restored Reynard he drove to victory at Laguna Seca in 1996 that confirmed his credentials as a future star.

"As we get older we would all like to make things happen in our lives that may or may not happen but you never know," Ganassi told Reuters when asked if he and Zanardi would team up for an Indy 500 bid. "But he has a friend with a team that always has a car for him."

Halfway through the final lap of the final race of the 1996 season, Zanardi made a daring move that is still referred to in IndyCar circles as "The Pass," diving under Bryan Herta in the Corkscrew section of the track then powering away for the win.

Zanardi finished that season as CART rookie of the year and would go onto win two series championships for Ganassi in 1997 and 1998 before jumping to Formula One with Williams.

"Out of all the highlights of my career Laguna Seca was probably the most emotional one and the one that actually changed my life," said Zanardi. "I was very lucky that day, don't get me wrong, but had I not tried that move who knows what my racing career might have been.

"It changed a lot of things, the perception of all the people watching, after that day I was a different guy. A guy to keep an eye on."

But Zanardi never found the success in F1 that he enjoyed in CART and in 2001 returned to Ganassi.

COMPETITIVE SPIRIT

At the peak of his career a bitter feud within the sport, which saw the series split into two series (CART and Indy Racing League), denied Zanardi the opportunity to test himself at the massive Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

It was at a 2001 race in Germany where Zanardi's IndyCar career came to a frightening end. He spun out while leading the race in the final laps and was rammed by Alex Tagliani, ripping the front off his car and severing both his legs.

After a long rehabilitation Zanardi's competitive spirit returned, winning a gold medal in handcycling at last year's Paralympics then announcing he was interested in returning to the cockpit and racing at the Indy 500.

With prosthetic legs, Zanardi has already returned to racing and has collected four wins competing in the European Touring Car Championships. But a return to IndyCars and competing at the Indy 500 will not be as straightforward.

The car would have to be designed with special hand controls while IndyCar rules require that a driver must be able to get in and out of the cockpit in a certain amount of time.

"I heard so many stories about this event that I kind of lived it somehow myself and I always had this dream of making real once in my life," admitted Zanardi. "It would be fantastic but it would also be fantastic to kiss Charlize Theron and this I guess will not happen in my life."

If Zanardi's Indy 500 dreams do not become reality others have already been fulfilled, although life did no exactly unfold as he played it out in his imagination as young boy growing up in Italy.

"I cannot say it was a dream of my childhood (to race at Indy) because my dream was to drive a red car at Imola and pass (former Formula One world champion) Jody Scheckter on the last corner on the last lap," smiled Zanardi. "But you know what, I had my red car.

"It didn't look exactly the same as the one I was dreaming of as a little kid but it was as beautiful and as joyful for me to drive it and I had my last lap pass although it was not Imola it was Laguna Seca.

"I had my great relationship not with Enzo Ferrari but with a friend named Chip Ganassi who changed my life.

"My dream came true." (Editing by Frank Pingue)

Lois Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service's director ofExempt Organizations who is at the center of the controversy after the agency targeted conservative organizations for gratuitous scrutiny, invoked herright against self-incrimination today at a congressional hearing examining the .

Lerner quietly took her seat at the witness table this morning, standing and raising her right hand as she swore to tell the truth alongside other seniorofficials testifying at the hearing.

When it became her turn to speak, Lerner read a brief statement into the record, declaring her innocence.

"I have not done anything wrong," she said. "I have not broken any laws, I have not violated any IRS rules or regulations, and I have not provided false information to this or any other congressional committee."

Lerner then said that while she "would very much like to answer the committee's questions," her counsel advised her to assert her constitutional right not to testify or answer questions related to the subject matter of the hearing.

"Because I'm asserting my right not to testify, I know that some people will assume that I've done something wrong. I have not," she reiterated. "One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I'm invoking today."

Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the committee, entered into the record written answers that Lerner provided for the inspector general's investigation. Rep. Darrell Issa, the Republican chairman of the committee, said he had not seen the document and asked Lerner to authenticate her answers.

The document was passed the Lerner, who put on her glasses to skim through it.

"This appears to be my response," she said.

"So it's your testimony?" Issa of California asked. "As far as your recollection, that is your response?"

"That's correct," Lerner answered.

Republicans on the committee quickly interjected, challenging that Lerner gave up her right to remain silent and should be compelled to answer questions from members.

"She just testified. She just waived her Fifth Amendment right to privilege," Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a former federal prosecutor, said, "You don't get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross-examination. That's not the way it works. She waived her right to Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing and opening statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions."

Members of the public watching in the committee room applauded enthusiastically.

Issa continued to quiz Lerner, who then declined to answer any further questions.

"Is it possible that we could narrow the scope of questions and that there are some areas that you would be able to answer any questions on here today?" Issa asked.

"I will not answer any questions or testify today," she responded.

Issa followed up: "Ms. Lerner, would you be willing to answer questions specifically related to the earlier statements made under oath before this committee?"

"I decline to answer that question for the reasons I've already given," she deadpanned.

Issa then dismissed Lerner from the hearing, and she quickly left the committee room.

When reporters caught up to Lerner in a back hallway as she made her way to her vehicle, she was guarded by a handful of U.S. Capitol Police officers and her legal team, and she ignored questions from the media about her decision to take the Fifth.

The frustration over her silence was shared on both sides of the aisle. During the hearing, Rep. Stephen Lynch warned Lerner that her silence could compel Congress to appoint a special prosecutor to conduct an investigation.

"If this committee is prevented, by obstruction or by refusal to answer, the questions that we need to get to the bottom of this, you will leave us no alternative but to ask for the appointment of a special prosecutor or appointment to special counsel to get to the bottom of this," Lynch, D-Mass., said. "I hope that's not the approach of the IRS going forward because there will be hell to pay if that's the route that we chose to go down."

While the IG's report found that the scandal was not the result of political motivations, Issa criticized the IRS for failing to meet its objective as an independent agency.

"We knew then that something seemed to be wrong. We knew then that there was smoke. We knew then that, in fact, something just didn't seem to be right," he said. "Many people believe that the IRS is an independent agency. Nothing could be further from the truth."