All eight GOP members of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee failed to show up at the meeting to consider the nomination of Gina McCarthy, who currently heads the EPA's air pollution office. Committee rules require at least two minority members to be present for a vote.

Republicans are demanding answers from the EPA on a range of transparency issues. But they aren't satisfied with the responses they've received.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, who heads the committee, urged Republicans to vote, or she said Democrats alone would advance McCarthy's bid.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to Texas, called on Republicans "to stop the theater and to move forward with the process."

Carney said there has been "an historic level of obstructionism" on McCarthy and other nominees.

House and Senate Republican leaders told Obama Thursday that they will refuse to nominate candidates to serve on an advisory board that is to play a role in holding down Medicare costs under the new health care act.

And on Wednesday, Republicans used a procedural move to delay a Senate panel from considering the confirmation of Obama's pick to the head the Labor Department.

Follow Dina Cappiello on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dinacappiello.

"I don't get the drama around having an 'always online' console," Microsoft Studios creative director on Twitter. "Every device now is 'always on'. That's the world we live in. #dealwithit" In doing so, Orth dismissed what he saw as "drama" about the rumor that the next-generation Microsoft Xbox console would not be able to play games at all unless it were connected to the Internet, and also insulted the people concerned about it.

Polygon's Samit Sarkar, however,with Manveer Heir, a BioWare game designer, in which Heir brought up people who'd be left out by always-on DRM. Orth was dismissive, but here's a look anyway at a few people who will find an always-on Xbox hard to "deal with."

People with unreliable Internet connections

"Why on earth would I want to live there?" Orth asked, supposedly as a joke, when Heir brought up people living in small towns with unreliable Internet access. In the United States, however, a lot of people have connection issues because of where they live, not to mention competing wi-fi signals in apartment complexes. Some gamers are disconnected multiple times per day, which complicates online gaming for them. Always-on Xbox DRM would add nothing to their console experience, and bring the frustrations of online gaming to all of their single-player offline games as well.

People who buy games with unreliable Internet servers

Thanks to always-online requirements, launch day (or week, or month) server issues are no longer exclusive to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) like World of Warcraft. Diablo 3's servers buckled under the weight of thousands of gamers playing it right after launch, all of them required to sign in online with their Battle.net account even though many of them were playing the game offline. Andcaused thousands of gamers to leave one-star product reviews on Amazon.com, as its mandatory online component (placing cities in regions with other players') rendered the game unplayable --

People who get banned for whimsical reasons

When you can't play your games at all unless your account with a third-party service (like Xbox Live) is in good standing, a ban means you lose your whole library. EA's Origin service (a Steam competitor) probably takes the cake for arbitrary abuses of power here, as according to John Walker of Rock Paper Shotgun one player was permanently banned becausewith his username in it.

Could this actually happen?

No laws currently regulate what console makers can and can't do with this regard. Depending solely on what Microsoft decides to do, an always-online requirement could allow Microsoft to "flip the kill switch" on a gamer's entire collection -- including retail DVDs -- if it should decide to do so. (In contrast, getting banned from Sony's PlayStation Network

Microsoft's official reply

Microsoft rep Larry Hyrb said Orthbut the apology on his site only says that "his personal views do not reflect" how Microsoft would have phrased that if it'd wanted to say it.

Officially, Microsoft has not yet announced whether the rumors of always-online DRM are true.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Carbon dioxide was measured at 400 parts per million at the oldest monitoring station which is in Hawaii sets the global benchmark. The last time the worldwide carbon level was probably that high was about 2 million years ago, said Pieter Tans of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That was during the Pleistocene Era. "It was much warmer than it is today," Tans said. "There were forests in Greenland. Sea level was higher, between 10 and 20 meters (33 to 66 feet)."

Other scientists say it may have been 10 million years ago that Earth last encountered this much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The first modern humans only appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The measurement was recorded Thursday and it is only a daily figure, the monthly and yearly average will be smaller. The number 400 has been anticipated by climate scientists and environmental activists for years as a notable indicator, in part because it's a round number not because any changes in man-made global warming happen by reaching it.

"Physically, we are no worse off at 400 ppm than we were at 399 ppm," Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer said. "But as a symbol of the painfully slow pace of measures to avoid a dangerous level of warming, it's somewhat unnerving."

Environmental activists, such as former Vice President Al Gore, seized on the milestone.

"This number is a reminder that for the last 150 years and especially over the last several decades we have been recklessly polluting the protective sheath of atmosphere that surrounds the Earth and protects the conditions that have fostered the flourishing of our civilization," Gore said in a statement. "We are altering the composition of our atmosphere at an unprecedented rate."

Carbon dioxide traps heat just like in a greenhouse and most of it stays in the air for a century; some lasts for thousands of years, scientists say. It accounts for three-quarters of the planet's heat-trapping gases. There are others, such as methane, which has a shorter life span but traps heat more effectively. Both trigger temperatures to rise over time, scientists say, which is causing sea levels to rise and some weather patterns to change.

When measurements of carbon dioxide were first taken in 1958, it measured 315 parts per million. Some scientists and environmental groups promote 350 parts per million as a safe level for CO2, but scientists acknowledge they don't really know what levels would stop the effects of global warming.

The level of carbon dioxide in the air is rising faster than in the past decades, despite international efforts by developed nations to curb it. On average the amount is growing by about 2 parts per million per year. That's 100 times faster than at the end of the Ice Age.

Back then, it took 7,000 years for carbon dioxide to reach 80 parts per million, Tans said. Because of the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, carbon dioxide levels have gone up by that amount in just 55 years.

Before the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels were around 280 ppm, and they were closer to 200 during the Ice Age, which is when sea levels shrank and polar places went from green to icy. There are natural ups and downs of this greenhouse gas, which comes from volcanoes and decomposing plants and animals. But that's not what has driven current levels so high, Tans said. He said the amount should be even higher, but the world's oceans are absorbing quite a bit, keeping it out of the air.

"What we see today is 100 percent due to human activity," said Tans, a NOAA senior scientist. The burning of fossil fuels, such as coal for electricity and oil for gasoline, has caused the overwhelming bulk of the man-made increase in carbon in the air, scientists say.

The world pumps on average 2.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide into the air every second for a total of 38.2 billion tons in 2011, according international calculations published in a scientific journal in December. China spews 10 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air per year, leading all countries, and its emissions are growing about 10 percent annually. The U.S. at No. 2 is slowly cutting emissions and is down to 5.9 billion tons per year.

The speed of the change is the big worry, said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann. If carbon dioxide levels go up 100 parts per million over thousands or millions of years, plants and animals can adapt. But that can't be done at the speed it is now happening.

Last year, regional monitors briefly hit 400 ppm in the Arctic. But those monitoring stations aren't seen as a world mark like the one at Mauna Loa, Hawaii.

Generally carbon levels peak in May then fall slightly, so the yearly average is usually a few parts per million lower than May levels.

___

Online:

NOAA monitoring at Mauna Loa: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/weekly.html

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A U.S. magistrate judge sentenced Grammy-winning hip hop artist Lauryn Hill to three months in prison, three months in home confinement and a $60,000 fine on Monday for federal tax evasion.

Hill pleaded guilty last year to three counts of failing to file tax returns on more than $1.8 million of income between 2005 and 2007 and faced up to three years in prison.

Hill has attributed her failure to pay taxes to years of pressure she experienced as a recording star while raising six children, forcing her to go underground and stay out of the public eye.

On the eve of her scheduled sentencing, Hill paid $504,000 in back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service and another $420,000 to the state of New Jersey, her attorney told the court. She still owes another $285,000 in interest and penalties.

"When the government is asking for 36 months and the judge gives three months, I think the judge gave a fair and reasonable sentence," Hill's attorney Nathan Hochman told reporters.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 30 months to the maximum of 36 months.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo cited Hill's lack of a criminal record, her six children and her repayment of the back taxes as mitigating factors in the sentence.

Hill must report on or before July 8. Her attorney asked the court to assign the native of South Orange, New Jersey, to a facility close to home. The three months of home confinement following the prison stay is part of one year of supervised probation.

Hill told the court she pulled away from society because her life was in crisis, received veiled threats and was blacklisted because she did not conform to the norms of the music industry.

"I was being perceived as a cash cow, not a person," Hill said.

A new single by Hill, her first in several years, called "Neurotic Society," was posted on iTunes on Friday.

"Here is a link to a piece that I was 'required' to release immediately, by virtue of the impending legal deadline," her Tumblr social media page said on Saturday.

Her lawyers confirmed that she signed a new contract with Sony Worldwide Entertainment and was working on her first album of new material in more than a decade.

Hill's seminal 1998 solo album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" won the singer, a former member of the Fugees rap trio, five Grammy awards.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta, Andrew Hay and Philip Barbara)

The company said it had paused the production, sale and marketing of Alert to give the FDA time to develop a new regulatory framework for the addition of caffeine to food and drinks.

The recently launched gum has about 40 milligrams of caffeine, as much as a half a cup of coffee, in each piece.

"After discussions with the FDA, we have a greater appreciation for its concern about the proliferation of caffeine in the nation's food supply," Wrigley North America President Casey Keller said in a statement.

Keller said there was a need for change in the regulatory framework to "better guide" consumers and the industry about the appropriate use of caffeinated products.

The company previously said it marketed the gum as an energy product for adults aged 25 and older, and that it exceeded current regulatory requirements on labeling.

The FDA said last month that it was taking a "fresh look" at the issue in response to the launch of a caffeinated gum, and warned that it would take action "if necessary".

The FDA did not name Wrigley, owned by privately held Mars Inc, or the gum in its statement.

Wrigley is not the first company to market gum with energizing properties. Mondelez International Inc sells a line of gums with ingredients like ginseng, green tea and Vitamin C. Stride Spark sells gum that have Vitamins B6 and B12 added.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore and Martinne Geller in New York; Editing by Stephen Coates)

Officials say 912 bodies have been recovered from the rubble of the fallen eight-story building as of Thursday morning.

An army official says 100 badly decomposing bodies being kept at a makeshift morgue near the building site in a Dhaka suburb will be sent to hospitals for DNA testing.

It is not clear what the final toll will be from the disaster, already the world's deadliest garment industry disaster and one of the worst industrial accidents.

More than 2,500 people were rescued alive after the April 24 accident. An unknown number of people were inside.

Officials say a bipartisan group of about a dozen senators and representatives were invited to attend the discussion with White House staff Thursday. President Barack Obama won't attend since he is traveling to Texas.

A new report shows up to 26,000 military members were sexually assaulted last year. Obama has said he has no tolerance for the problem and the Pentagon must address it.

The officials weren't authorized to speak on the record and thus requested anonymity.

The discussion was to be led by Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Tina Tchen, the first lady's chief of staff. Both are members of the president's Council on Women and Girls.

Willie Jerome Manning had been set to die by injection shortly after 6 p.m. CDT at the state prison in Parchman.

The court said the execution should be delayed until it rules further on the case.

Manning's lawyers had claimed DNA evidence would clear him of the killings.

The FBI has said in recent days that there were errors in an agents' testimony about ballistics tests and hair analysis in the case.

Manning was convicted in 1994 of the shooting deaths of two Mississippi State University students, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller. Prosecutors said Manning was arrested after he tried to sell some items belonging to the victims.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tax breaks for attending "civic values" courses, tax-free sales of second-hand furniture, special treatment for call centers and an informal economy employing six out of 10 workers are all in the line of fire as Mexico prepares a long-awaited tax overhaul.

An analysis of budget data shows Mexico's extensive network of tax breaks and stimulus programs generate costs equal to about half the taxes actually collected.

Mexico has the lowest tax revenue in the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, crimping its ability to spend on health, infrastructure and social programs vital to boost living standards and growth in what is Latin America's second-largest economy.

Finance Minister Luis Videgaray has given few details of the overhaul, due to be presented in the autumn session of Congress, but has promised it will be "large," reviewing both direct and indirect taxes and making those who earn more, pay more.

Currently, the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, is in the same tax bracket as a worker earning $2,700 a month, paying 30 percent income tax - low compared to top rates of 39.6 percent in the United States, 45 percent in Germany and 50 percent in Japan.

No data is available on revenue by tax bracket, but most of the poor live and work in a shadow economy that accounts for one-third of gross domestic product (GDP) and pay little tax.

That leaves a high burden on middle-income earners.

The narrow tax base, along with a complicated tax code and rampant evasion, capped gross tax revenues at just 9.7 percent of GDP in 2012.

The reform will aim to boost that and ease the country's reliance on oil revenues, which account for nearly 40 percent of government income and make it vulnerable to market swings.

OECD head Angel Gurria, a former Mexican finance minister, still shudders at the memory of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998, when benchmark oil prices fell as low as $8 per barrel, half the level the government had budgeted for.

"One day when I was finance minister I came into the office at 9 a.m. and the budget deficit was at 0.5 (percent of GDP) and by the time the day was over it was at 3 percent," he told Reuters in January.

Although Mexico has a balanced budget and optimism about the government's reform agenda is drawing a surge in foreign investment, ratings agencies say the skimpy tax base and oil dependence have been hurdles to a sought-after upgrade, especially as oil output has dropped by a quarter since 2004.

Standard & Poor's changed its outlook on Mexico's BBB-rating to positive in March, suggesting an upgrade is possible within 18 months, but S&P credit analyst Joydeep Mukherji said the scope of the fiscal reform would be key.

"If it's basically a relatively small impact and kind of gets washed out among other things, it won't have a big impact and we may not upgrade," he said. "You can't rely forever on that much money from the oil sector and such high oil prices."

LAPSES AND LOOPHOLES

Mexico's net tax income, taking the negative impact of fuel subsidies into account, was worth just 8.5 percent of GDP last year.

Total government revenue, including oil, averaged 18 percent of GDP in the last decade, compared to 26 percent in the United States, 32 percent in Brazil and more than 40 percent in some European countries, OECD data show.

Experts estimate Mexico must boost its tax intake by 6-8 percentage points of GDP, or about $100 billion a year to reduce its reliance on oil revenues and fund increased government spending, although the reform could start out netting half that amount and be ramped up progressively over coming years.

Measures to bridge the gap could include increased efforts to tackle tax evasion, worth 2.57 pct of GDP in 2007 according to the Monterrey Institute of Advanced Technological Studies.

Other options are raising top personal tax rates for the rich; making state governments levy more tax; imposing taxes on capital gains, inheritances and property transfers; and scrapping an entrenched zero rate of value-added tax (VAT) on basic food and medicine.

This last exemption is the biggest single contributor to tax breaks worth 4.8 percent of GDP in 2012, equivalent to about half of tax revenues. Mexico's ratio of tax breaks to revenue is similar to the United States but more than in Germany, Spain and South Korea, a sign of the complexity of its tax code.

One tax break the government has vowed to end is consolidated reporting for firms, which allows companies to set losses in one business against gains elsewhere - a practice critics say is easily abused.

Total discounts and deductions, listed in a 117-page budget document, include special tax regimes which mean many family firms and self-employed workers pay no income tax or VAT, and allow individual deductions for medical expenses, school fees, some share purchases and courses which promote "civic values," while VAT discounts and exemptions span items from gold ingots to lottery tickets, medical services and table water.

The governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has taken a step towards breaking the taboo of no VAT on food and medicines by removing a ban on such a move from its statutes, although insiders say staples such as tortillas and beans may remain exempt, or be charged at a low rate, such as 3 percent.

Many Mexicans shop for groceries at canvas-covered farmers' markets and buy anything from chewing gum to calendars from roving street vendors, none of whom pay or charge tax.

"You have to revise the zero rate," said Ernst & Young partner Herbert Bettinger, who has advised the PRI on past tax reforms. "You can leave it on food, but everything else should be removed."

However, extending VAT to products currently exempt is a sensitive political issue and the government may struggle to win support from opposition parties and even some lawmakers inside the PRI.

The Mexican Institute of Chartered Public Accountants (IMCP) says tackling the informal economy must be one of the priorities of the new regime, which the government hopes will be passed together with the 2014 federal budget and take effect next year.

The IMCP, which would also like to scrap a 'flat tax' option for firms and lower the corporate tax rate from the current 30 percent, estimates that taxing all informal workers would boost the tax take by 3 percentage points of GDP.

"The 10 percent (of GDP) tax that Mexico does raise, it raises from 40 percent of the economy because 60 percent of workers are informal and don't pay tax," said IMCP president Carlos Cardenas. "We can't do a fiscal reform just for that 40 percent."

($1 = 12.0933 Mexican pesos)

(Additional reporting by Thomson Reuters' service Dofiscal and Pablo Garibian; Editing by Kieran Murray and David Brunnstrom)

RELATED:

We analyzed the tweets from both accounts — @barackobama, which is controlled by the non-profit Organizing For Action that leases the account from Obama's campaign, and @whitehouse, controlled by government employees in the administration — from February 14 to May 2. In the chart below, those tweets are plotted. The blue line is tweets from @barackobama; the red, from @whitehouse. Our report on the former was released on April 8, represented by the black line.

RELATED:

Calculating the average number of tweets sent each day from each account, the change becomes clear. Prior to the report, @barackobama tweeted an average of 8.15 times a day, while @whitehouse tweeted 7.04 times. After, @barackobama tweeted 3.05 times on average to @whitehouse's 13.91.

RELATED:

There are other signs that the White House is increasing its social media presence while OFA is scaling back. Last week, the White House . The Tumblr page , now controlled by OFA, has not been updated for three months. A report from Politico this morningaround the recent gun control debate.

RELATED:

When we spoke with Organizing For Action for our initial report, a spokesperson said, "Generally speaking, Organizing for Action, as a private and independent organization, does not coordinate its digital communications, including those on Twitter, with the White House." OFA didn't return a request for comment this morning.