IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their exemption applications, Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups, said Friday. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

The agency led at the time by a Bush administration appointee blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware. But that wasn't good enough for Republicans in Congress, who are conducting several investigations and asked for more.

"I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not under way at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declared it was indeed inappropriate for the IRS to target tea party groups. But he brushed aside questions about whether the White House itself would investigate.

Instead, Carney said the administration expects a thorough investigation by the Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration. The inspector general has been looking into the issue since last summer, and his report is expected to come out next week, the IG's office said Friday.

Carney said he did not know when the White House first learned that tea party groups were being targeted.

Lerner acknowledged it was wrong for the agency to target groups based on political affiliation.

"That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That's not how we go about selecting cases for further review," Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

"The IRS would like to apologize for that," she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. Agency officials found out about the practice last year and moved to correct it, the IRS said in a statement. The statement did not specify when officials found out.

About 75 groups were inappropriately targeted. None had their tax-exempt status revoked, Lerner said.

The IRS is an independent agency within the Treasury Department that enforces the nation's tax laws. Revelations that the agency was targeting political groups because they were affiliated with a movement that is critical of President Barack Obama could become a new headache for the White House.

"The admission by the Obama administration that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political opponents echoes some of the most shameful abuses of government power in 20th century American history," said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Many conservative groups complained during the campaign that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups have made available, sought information about group members' political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on politics.

"There's absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people" who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

The IRS said senior leaders were not aware that specific groups were being targeted at the time of the hearing.

"While we acknowledged centralization of these applications last year, the IRS did not acknowledge the use of names as part of the process earlier because the details were not initially known to senior leadership and (the inspector general) has been reviewing the situation," the IRS said in a statement. "Their work is now far enough along that it was appropriate to address the issue when it came up during (Friday's) tax conference."

Shulman was appointed by President George W. Bush. His 6-year term ended in November. President Barack Obama has yet to nominate a successor. The agency is now being run by acting Commissioner Steven Miller.

Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., chairman of the Ways and Means oversight subcommittee, requested a trove of documents from the IRS on Friday, including all communications containing the words "tea party" and "patriot."

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said Friday he will hold a hearing on the matter has not yet set a date.

"The IRS absolutely must be non-partisan in its enforcement of our tax laws," Camp said. "We will hold the IRS accountable for its actions."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have also promised investigations.

Treasury spokesman Anthony Coley said the department will support the inspector general's investigation.

"The Treasury Department expects all individuals and organizations to be treated fairly by the IRS. Anything less is inappropriate and unacceptable."

There has been a surge of politically active groups claiming tax-exempt status in recent elections conservative and liberal. Among the highest profile are Republican Karl Rove's group, Crossroads GPS, and the liberal Moveon.org.

These groups claim tax-exempt status under section 501 (c) (4) of the federal tax code, which is for social welfare groups. Unlike other charitable groups, these organizations are allowed to participate in political activities but their primary activity must be social welfare.

That determination is up to the IRS.

Lerner said the number of groups filing for this tax-exempt status more than doubled from 2010 to 2012, to more than 3,400. To handle the influx, the IRS centralized its review of these applications in an office in Cincinnati.

Lerner said this was done to develop expertise among staffers and consistency in their reviews. As part of the review, staffers look for signs that groups are participating in political activity. If so, IRS agents take a closer look to make sure that politics isn't the group's primary activity.

As part of this process, agents in Cincinnati came up with a list of things to look for in an application. As part of the list, they included the words, "tea party" and "patriot," Lerner said.

"It's the line people that did it without talking to managers," Lerner told The AP. "They're IRS workers, they're revenue agents."

In all, about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, Lerner said. Of those, about a quarter were singled out because they had "tea party" or "patriot" somewhere in their applications.

The IRS statement said that once applications were chosen for review, they all "received the same, even-handed treatment."

Lerner said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.

"Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale," the IRS said in a statement. "We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system."

"I don't think there's any question we were unfairly targeted," said Tom Zawistowski, who until recently was president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, an alliance of tea party groups in the state.

Zawistowski's group was among many conservative organizations that battled the IRS over what they saw as discriminatory treatment. The group first applied for nonprofit status in June 2009, and it was finally granted on Dec. 7, 2012, he said one month after Election Day.

"It is suspicious that the activity of these 'low-level workers' was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred," said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, which describes itself as the nation's largest tea party organization. "President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grass-roots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again."

___

Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Jim Kuhnhenn in Washington and Steve Peoples in Boston contributed to this report.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

One of the women told a 911 dispatcher the person who had taken her was gone, and she pleaded for police officers to come and get her, saying, "I'm free now."

Cheering crowds gathered Monday night on the street near the home where police said Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight were found earlier in the day.

Police didn't immediately provide any details of how the women were found but said they appeared to be in good health and had been taken to a hospital to be reunited with relatives and to be evaluated.

On a recorded 911 call Monday, Berry declared, "I'm Amanda Berry. I've been on the news for the last 10 years."

She said she had been taken by someone and begged for police officers to arrive at the home on Cleveland's west side before he returned.

"I've been kidnapped, and I've been missing for 10 years," she told the dispatcher. "And I'm here. I'm free now."

Berry disappeared at age 16 on April 21, 2003, when she called her sister to say she was getting a ride home from her job at a Burger King. DeJesus went missing at age 14 on her way home from school about a year later. They were found just a few miles from where they had gone missing.

Police said Knight was 20 when she went missing around 2000.

Police said a 52-year-old man was arrested. There was no immediate word on charges.

Loved ones said they hadn't given up hope of seeing the women again. Among them was Kayla Rogers, a childhood friend of DeJesus.

"I've been praying, never forgot about her, ever," Rogers told The Plain Dealer newspaper. "This is amazing. This is a celebration. I'm so happy. I just want to see her walk out of those doors so I can hug her."

Berry's cousin Tasheena Mitchell told the newspaper she couldn't wait to have Berry in her arms.

"I'm going to hold her, and I'm going to squeeze her and I probably won't let her go," she said.

Berry's mother, Louwana Miller, who had been hospitalized for months with pancreatitis and other ailments, died in March 2006. She had spent the previous three years looking for her daughter, whose disappearance took a toll as her health steadily deteriorated, family and friends said.

Mayor Frank Jackson expressed gratitude that the three women were found alive.

"We have many unanswered questions regarding this case, and the investigation will be ongoing," he said in a statement.

At Metro Health Medical Center, Dr. Gerald Maloney declined to go into details about the women's conditions.

"We're assessing their needs, and the appropriate specialists are evaluating them as well," he said at a news conference, which concluded with a round of applause from a large gathering of area residents.

In January, a prison inmate was sentenced to 4 1/2 years after admitting he provided a false burial tip in the disappearance of Berry, who had last been seen the day before her 17th birthday. A judge in Cleveland sentenced Robert Wolford on his guilty plea to obstruction of justice, making a false report and making a false alarm.

Last summer, Wolford tipped authorities to look for Berry's remains in a Cleveland lot. He was taken to the location, which was dug up with backhoes.

Two men arrested for questioning in the disappearance of DeJesus in 2004 were released from the city jail in 2006 after officers did not find her body during a search of the men's house.

One of the men was transferred to the Cuyahoga County Jail on unrelated charges, while the other was allowed to go free, police said.

In September 2006, police acting on a tip tore up the concrete floor of the garage and used a cadaver dog to search unsuccessfully for DeJesus' body. Investigators confiscated 19 pieces of evidence during their search but declined to comment on the significance of the items then.

No Amber Alert was issued the day DeJesus failed to return home from school in April 2004 because no one witnessed her abduction. The lack of an Amber Alert angered her father, Felix DeJesus, who said in 2006 he believed the public will listen even if the alerts become routine.

"The Amber Alert should work for any missing child," Felix DeJesus said then. "It doesn't have to be an abduction. Whether it's an abduction or a runaway, a child needs to be found. We need to change this law."

Cleveland police said then that the alerts must be reserved for cases in which danger is imminent and the public can be of help in locating the suspect and child.

___

Associated Press writer Kantele Franko in Columbus contributed to this report.

Jurors concluded their first full day of deliberations on Monday after getting the case late Friday afternoon.

The 32-year-old is charged with first-degree murder in the June 2008 death of her one-time boyfriend Travis Alexander at his suburban Phoenix home. He was shot in the head and stabbed and slashed nearly 30 times. Jurors could also convict her of second-degree murder or manslaughter.

Prosecutors say Arias planned the attack in a jealous rage.

Arias initially denied involvement then blamed it on two masked intruders. Two years after her arrest, she said she killed Alexander in self-defense.

Testimony in the case began in early January, and Arias spent 18 days on the witness stand beginning in early February.

Nobody Spoils a Good Story Like Congress

Enjoy the good news, America, while it lasts.

The Labor Department reported today that U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in April and far more in February and March than expected, despite tax increases and federal spending cuts.

Enter Congress. Lawmakers return from vacation Monday to begin squabbling over another self-created economic crisis: the nations debt limit. House Republicans will push a bill signaling no retreat from their demands for more spending cuts as a condition for avoiding default.

Also on Congresss crowded agenda:

Ron Fournier

JOBS REPORT BEATS PROJECTIONS, BUT LAGS BEHIND NECESSARY GROWTH. The Labor Department released its monthly jobs report this morning, reflecting faster-than-expected increases in employment in April and an upward revision of the employment figures for February and March. Nonfarm payrolls added 165,000 jobs in April, and overall unemployment dropped to 7.5 percent, a level not seen since December 2008. The figures beat economists projections ahead of the report. Despite the gains, the growth rate lagged behind the first-quarter monthly average of 206,000 jobs added, signaling a potential economic slowdown. The increases were driven by private-sector growth, as public-sector employment dropped by 11,000 in April. Economists estimate that employment must grow by an average of 300,000 positions per month to markedly reduce unemployment.

OBAMA IN MEXICO CITY: COUNTRIES ARE GREATEST OF PARTNERS. In a speech at the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City this morning, President Obama expounded on the relationship between Mexico and the United States. This is your moment, Obama said. As you dream for that future, always remember that you have the greatest of partners, the greatest of friends, the nation that is rooting for your success more than anybody else, your neighbor, the United States of America. The president also addressed the ongoing debate over immigration reform, telling the crowd, I am optimistic that after years of trying, we are going to get it done this year. I'm absolutely convinced of it. Obama also urged the abandonment of old stereotypes on both sides of the border.

INOUYES WIDOW BACKS HANABUSA IN SPECIAL ELECTION. Irene Hirano Inouye, the widow of the late Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, has endorsed Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii in the special election to replace her husband. Sen. Inouye wrote to Gov. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, shortly before his death to urge Abercrombie to appoint Hanabusa to his seat. Abercrombie instead appointed his lieutenant governor, Brian Schatz. Shortly after she was elected president of the Hawaii state Senate, Dan recognized that Colleen was more than capable of succeeding him and he began to mentor her, Irene Inouye said in a statement. His last wish was that Colleen serve out his term because he was confident in her ability to step into the Senate and immediately help Hawaii. I am honoring one of his last requests, and look forward to supporting Colleen on the campaign trail.

STATE DEPARTMENT WILL NOT FURLOUGH EMPLOYEES THIS YEAR. The State Department will not furlough any of its employees due to budget cuts imposed by sequestration, Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy said today. Ultimately the department will have to cut $400 million from its budget, rather than the $850 million that was initially expected. Kennedy said that in light of this revision and cost-cutting measures such as travel and hiring reductions, the department will avoid furloughs at least until the end of the current budget year.

PRITZKER NOD COULD HIGHLIGHT TENSE RELATIONSHIP WITH JARRETT. President Obamas nomination Thursday of Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker to serve as Commerce secretary brings to Washington a rivalry with Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, BuzzFeed reports. Jarrett reportedly attempted to torpedo the appointment on the grounds that labor groups would oppose Pritzker due to tensions with the Hyatt Hotel corporation, which is controlled by her family. Pritzker has close ties to the business community, which in large part backed her nomination Thursday.

THE GOPS OBAMACARE PLOY. Alegislative proposal from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman DaveCamp, R-Mich., will keep alive the controversy over whether Democrats inCongress really want their colleagues in government to get theirinsurance on new health exchanges--a story that is playing well forRepublicans. But it will come at the cost of a federal-employee healthinsurance system that conservatives have long held up as a model for howinsurance should be delivered, National Journals Margot Sanger-Katz reports.

STOPPING TERRORISM AT ITS SOURCE. The more we learn about the Boston Marathon bombings, the greater our sense that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspected perpetrators, could have been stopped. Its a seductive notion: The families of an 8-year-old boy, two young women, and a campus police officer might still have their loved ones today, and that dozens of others might still possess limbs and their former lives, if only the FBI, the CIA, and other agencies had pieced together clues that in hindsight appear obvious. After an era when homeland terrorism was nearly forgotten, Americans had better be set for the next threat, and fast, National Journals Michael Hirsh reports in this weeks magazine cover story.

WHAT IS A RED LINE WORTH? The United States cant bluff. That is the consensus inside the White House on the issuing of red lines, including President Obamas publicly declared prohibition against Syria using or transferring its chemical weapons, or Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb. But as National Journals James Kitfield reports, Syria is testing the idea that nations cant cross the United States. What happens if other countries copy it?

THE CAJUN COMEBACK. New Orleans officials are trying surprising new approaches that, before Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, would have been impossible. These tactics arent designed merely to repair the damage and restore the city that was, but to improve on it. A crisis, New Orleanians seem to have collectively decided, is a terrible thing to waste. From education to tech to film, residents have turned their town into a laboratory for civic experimentation. Theyre luring Hollywood studios by teaching themselves showbiz tricks, advancing a state tax-credit program launched before Katrina. Theyre running new data-driven nonprofits. And theyve chartered more than 80 percent of the school system, National Journals Adam Kushner reports.

WHAT YOUVE ALWAYS WANTED: THE AL FRANKEN COOKBOOK. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., has published a cookbook of recipes from the state delegations annual Hotdish Cook-Off, whichApril 10. Among the offerings are the contest-winning Hermann the German Hotdish from Democratic Rep. Tim Walz and the Hormel I Cant Believe Its Not SPAM Pepperoni Pizza Hotdish from Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar. The book is availableonline.

"I pray that Hillary Clinton decides to run for president of the United States." Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, speaking in Arkansas ()

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A ZOO OF DANGEROUS ANIMALS IS RELEASED ON A TOWN? Early one evening in Zanesville, Ohio, retired schoolteacher Sam Kopchak was doing a routine check on his horses, walking toward a barn when his eye caught something out of place, just sitting there on the ground, facing their way. A fully grown male African lion, writes Chris Heath for GQ in his National Magazine Award-winning piece about a depressed, desperate man, Terry Thompson, who set a vast array of exotic animals looseincluding 18 tigers, 17 lions, eight bears, three cougars, two wolves, one baboon, and one macaque. Heath chronicles the tragic hunt for the animals that played out in the days after their release, and the national discussion that ensued about the unregulated world of exotic pets that is much more commonplace than most people could imagine.

OBAMA IN MEXICO. President Obamas trip to Mexico had Jay Leno dwelling on two of his favorite political topics: Obamas economic record and the immigration issue. The president is in Mexico to talk with leaders there about the North American economy and immigration, which prompted the Tonight Show host to say that Obama actually has to leave the country to tout any economic successes. Leno later compared talking about immigration in Mexico to touting same-sex marriage in San Francisco. Stephen Colbert jumped on Obamas recent comments about closing the detention facilities at Guantnamo Bay. With hunger strikes ongoing, Colbert mentioned Mahatma Gandhis fame in the arena.

THINK DEMOCRATS HAVE MILLENNIALS LOCKED UP? THINK AGAIN. President Obama carried the 18-to-29-year-old voting bloc by 34 points in 2008 and by 23 points last year. But a national survey of millennial voters conducted by Harvards Institute of Politics suggests that this emerging generation might not be as locked into the Democratic camp as conventional wisdom suggests, and that young voters exhibit some of the same stark partisan divides as older Americans, The Cook Political Reports Charlie Cook writes.

SYRIA, BOSTON AND IMMIGRATION ON TAP. This week the Sunday shows are focusing on Syria and the continuinginvestigation on the Boston Marathon Bombing. The specter of immigrationreform will also have a role in the programming. President Obama will appear on Univision's Al Punto.

"I think that we do need to finalize a concept release that we've been working on for many moons here at the CFTC," Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler told a public meeting of the agency on Tuesday.

Hackers took control of the AP's Twitter account on April 23 and sent a false tweet about explosions in the White House that briefly wiped out $136.5 billion of the S&P 500 index's value before markets recovered.

People in the market blamed automated trading for the wild swings.

The CFTC first announced it would come out with a concept release on high-frequency trading and other market structure issues last year.

But last week's events had reminded Gensler of the urgency of the report, he said.

Gensler said he hoped to put the concept release out in the next month or two, adding that the CFTC would seek public comments on it. A concept release constitutes the first tentative step toward possible rulemaking.

(Reporting by Douwe Miedema; Editing by Jan Paschal)

[More from BGR: ]

All of this was possible, Hempton notes, because governments have access to Androids source code and can thus demand and implement any changes they want as a precondition of selling devices on national wireless carriers. Hempton says that its significantly more challenging for repressive regimes to drastically overhaul Apples iOS for their own purposes since Apple does not hand out its source code to anyone who asks for it. Instead, the regime must negotiate with Apple over potential country-specific modifications to iOS, which means that the government is unlikely to get everything it wants.

[More from BGR: ]

Of course, there is a solution to this for Android users living under more repressive governments: They can simply root their phones and install stock Android or remove their devices more oppressive features. But Hempton worries that knowledge about rooting Android phones will be severely limited in many countries and that rooted Android phones will be used only by a tiny elite who have educationin coding.

All of this brings us to the looming battle between . Hempton speculates that Apple might have to make such severe changes to its operating system to gain broad access to the Chinese market that it could actually wind up degrading its devices overall user experience. This will only stand to benefit Android vendors, especially among elites who will know how to root their devices to open up access to more apps and content.

I am assuming that if Apple goes mass-market in China it will sell systems with enough apologiesto the cultural differences of China, he writes. Those apologies will make a rooted Android massively superior to a botched-up Apple. The elite will want their SamsungsSome bullson Apple and China may be just flat wrong

This article was

HANGZHOU (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China's largest e-commerce platform, said it will commit "as many resources necessary" to stop the sale of pirated goods on its Taobao shopping portals, where transactions exceeded $161.7 billion last year.

The company said its incoming chief executive would join a task force to combat piracy on its platforms.

Alibaba has been clamping down on the sale of fake goods, but users of Alibaba's Taobao Marketplace, which is similar to Amazon.com's marketplace, can still find knockoff Chanel bags or Vera Wang dresses. Its Taobao Mall has storefronts where retail brands can sell to consumers.

Industry watchers widely expect Alibaba to seek an initial public offering as early as this year, and intellectual property protection concerns may turn off some potential investors. Addressing the issue now could help the company avoid some uncomfortable questions during an IPO road show.

The company said it will partner with government bureaus and ministries such as China's Ministry of Public Security to fight counterfeiting and intellectual property rights infringement.

"Counterfeits are the narcotics of the marketplace," said Alibaba founder and Chairman Jack Ma, who announced in January that he was stepping down as CEO. "We don't want Alibaba's name to be associated with counterfeiting."

Incoming CEO Jonathan Lu will head the IP task force, which will also include chief risk officer Polo Shao.

"We are committed to put as many resources as necessary to tackle the problem," Shao said in a speech at Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, about an hour from Shanghai by high-speed train.

The task force will cooperate with government bureaus to report stores that infringe on intellectual property rights, to share information and to help trace the source of fake goods.

In December, the United States dropped Taobao from its annual list of the world's most "notorious markets" for sales of pirated and counterfeit goods because the company had "undertaken notable efforts" to clean up its shopping sites.

In September, Taobao Marketplace signed a pact with the Motion Picture Association (MPA), an affiliate of the Motion Picture Association of America, to curb the sale of counterfeit and copyright-infringing products on the platform.

Alibaba Group said in December the value of transactions on its Taobao platforms exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($161.74 billion)for the first time in January-November last year.

"The protection of IPR and fighting against counterfeit goods, if we don't do it well, will be something I'll regret," Ma said.

In 2012, Alibaba said it provided information to law enforcement officers involving 72 brands, and 170 million yuan worth of merchandise was taken down from its shopping sites.

($1 = 6.1826 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Emily Kaiser)

George Zimmerman has waived his right to a pretrial hearing over whether he should be acquitted of murder charges under Florida's "stand your ground" law.

Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who's charged with second-degree murder in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, , the Orlando Sentinel reported.

The surprising move by Zimmerman's legal team means the controversial case will go straight to trial in early June.

Zimmerman had the right under Florida's 7-year-old "stand your ground" law to argue to the judge in a special hearing without a jury that he's immune from both civil and criminal prosecution. The law, , says people who have a reasonable belief their lives are in danger in a public place can harm an attacker without first attempting to retreat.

The 29-year-old says he acted in self defense when Martin attacked him on Feb. 26, 2012. Prosecutors say Zimmerman profiled Martin, pursuing him around the neighborhood, and then confronting and killing him with his gun.

Jose Baez, an Orlando area defense attorney who worked on the Casey Anthony trial, said he thinks the decision to pass up the immunity hearing means Zimmerman's attorneys are going for an "all or nothing" defense and don't want to show their hand too early.

"The defense doesn't want to give the prosecution a preview of its defense should they lose on the 'stand your ground' hearing when it comes trial time," theorized Baez. "Obviously, a prosecutor would be much better prepared after he's had his shot to cross examine Mr. Zimmerman. He can only get better at it the more he does it."

But the choice to forgo the hearing means that even if Zimmerman is acquitted of charges in trial, he can still face civil prosecution. Martin's parents have already won a civil settlement in excess of $1 million from Zimmerman's homeowners' association.

Zimmerman's attorney, Mark O'Mara, said he may still argue that his client deserves immunity under the law in the full trial. The lawyers argue that Zimmerman was acting in self defense and could not be convicted on murder charges even without the "stand your ground" law.

Zimmerman has lived in hiding since he was released on bail.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Firms that scour social media sites such as Twitter for information to help investors and traders make money faced their biggest test yet this week.

A tweet reporting explosions at the White House appeared on the Associated Press's official feed Tuesday afternoon, sparking a temporary sell-off that briefly wiped out about $140 billion in market value on the S&P 500.

The tweet was a fake and the account had been hacked. But for analytics firms that comb through tweets for tradable ideas - a small but growing niche industry - it was the latest example of the challenges they face in delivering information to a client base that often prizes speed first.

Failure to highlight a tweet saying President Barack Obama had been injured in an explosion would have left people in the dust as the market zoomed lower - but a hair-trigger response to sell may have been worse.

Some of these firms did throw up red flags, based on other tweets or on the unusual nature of the news, but the selloff had already happened. For some of the firms, that's just fine - they're aware of their limitations.

"The guys who trade on tweets as they happen will always be susceptible to things like this, that's why we've shied away from delivering every tweet to people for them to trade off," said Oli Freeling-Wilkinson, chief executive officer of the London-based analytics firm Knowsis, one of several recent start-ups which sell subscriptions to investors and institutions such as retail brokers and fund managers.

"Algorithms used to trade off news headlines, now they trade off tweets. That's very dodgy, very shaky ground."

For Knowsis and other firms doing this analytical work, the ability to discern news from noise is the key to success, and it appears to be getting harder. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said earlier this month that companies can use Twitter, Facebook and other social media to make key announcements.

Tuesday's fateful tweet appeared at 1:07 p.m. EDT. It was picked up almost immediately by investors and analytic companies scanning Twitter for key words to determine breaking news or measure sentiment. Stocks and commodities moved sharply lower and bond prices soared.

Within minutes, analytics firm Dataminr issued an alert saying the AP account was probably hacked, citing another tweet by a reporter in the White House basement.

That warning came at 1:11 pm EDT, "just four minutes after the fake message had been published on the AP's hacked Twitter account," said Ted Bailey, New York-based chief executive of Dataminr, which was founded in 2009.

The difficulty of reacting to such news can be seen in this case, however. By the time Dataminr's message went out, the market recovery was already underway.

The nature of the hoax created a challenge as the AP account is considered a trusted source. Past hoaxes originated from newly created accounts that were more readily identifiable as suspect. But the extraordinary nature of the news would have been another cautionary signal, some said, especially in the absence of similar reports by other news outlets.

"We would have published the AP tweet but because it could not have been verified at the time we would have clearly marked it as a rumor," said Emmett Kilduff, chief executive officer at Eagle Intel in Dublin. "When it was proven to be false we would have published a note to our clients saying so."

Kilduff, in an email, noted differences in the language of the fake tweet and official Associated Press style that could have outed it as a hoax, including the use of capital letters and that it referred to "Barack Obama" instead of "President Obama" or "Obama," the two ways the AP refers to the president.

European markets were closed at the time of the hoax tweet.

The mini-crash sparked by the bogus tweet was reminiscent of the "flash crash" of May 2010 when security prices suddenly plunged, as if the floor had been yanked from underneath them.

The free-fall nature can be explained by a couple of factors. For one, automatic stop-loss orders, which are designed to limit an investor's losses, kicked in, adding to the selling.

In addition, trading firms that provide liquidity pulled their bids, making the selloff more chaotic. Similar moves worsened the flash crash. In a market where participants step back when news is either onerous or uncertain, the combination of stop-loss orders and market makers withdrawing bids can make a selloff worse.

"We see this every time this type of news comes out: liquidity evaporates quickly. High-frequency traders cancel their orders on even one little tweet," said Dennis Dick, a trader at Bright Trading LLC in Las Vegas.

Freeling-Wilkinson said analytics firms like his are more interested in looking at trends than individual tweets.

"I would never recommend that anyone trades on a single tweet," he said.

(Additional reporting by Herb Lash; Editing by Claudia Parsons)

Gonzalez was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, from Santa Barbara in December, one of nearly 2 million removals from the United States since Barack Obama was first elected president.

"I have nobody here," said Gonzalez, who serves breakfasts in a Tijuana migrant shelter while nursing a foot that fractured in 10 places when he jumped the border fence in a failed attempt to rejoin his mother, two brothers and extended family in California. "The United States is all I know."

While a Senate bill introduced earlier this month would bring many of the estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. illegally out of the shadows, not everyone would benefit. They include anyone who arrived after Dec. 31, 2011, those with gay partners legally in the U.S., siblings of U.S. citizens and many deportees such as Gonzalez.

With net immigration from Mexico near zero, the number who came to the U.S. since January 2012 is believed to be relatively small, possibly a few hundred thousand. They include Isaac Jimenez, 45, who paid a smuggler $4,800 to guide him across the California desert in August to reunite with his wife and children in Fresno.

"My children are here, everything is here for me," Jimenez said from Fresno. He lived in the U.S. illegally since 1998 and returned voluntarily to southern Mexico last year to see his mother before she died.

So far, advocates on the left have shown limited appetite to fight for expanded coverage as they brace for a tough battle in Congress. Some take aim at other provisions of the sweeping legislation, like a 13-year track to citizenship they consider too long and $4.5 billion for increased border security.

"It's not going to include everybody," said Laura Lichter, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "It's not perfect. I think you hear a lot of people saying, 'Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good,' and this is good."

Peter Nunez, who supports restrictive policies as chairman of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, rates the bill an 8 or 9 on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most inclusive. He criticizes a measure that allows deportees without criminal histories to apply for permission to return if they have spouses or children in the U.S. legally, a step that supporters say would reunite families.

"I just don't understand why we are going to basically undo a deportation," said Nunez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego.

Senate negotiators were more forgiving of criminal records than the Obama administration was when it granted temporary work permits last year to many who came to the U.S. as children. The administration disqualified anyone with a single misdemeanor conviction of driving under the influence, domestic violence, drug dealing or certain other crimes. The Senate bill says only that three misdemeanors or a single felony make someone ineligible.

Deportations topped 400,000 in fiscal 2012, more than double from seven years earlier, sending Mexicans to border cities like Tijuana where they often struggle to find work. The Padre Chava migrant shelter serves breakfast to 1,100 people daily in a bright yellow building that opened three years ago because it outgrew its old quarters. Director Ernesto Hernandez estimates 75 percent are deported.

"Many come wearing sneakers that cost hundreds of dollars and nothing in their pockets," Hernandez said.

About 10 percent of the shelter's deportees speak little or no Spanish, including Salvador Herrera IV, 28, who came to the U.S. when he was 2 in the back seat of a car and grew up skateboarding and playing basketball in Long Beach. With a conviction for grand theft auto putting his legal status out of the question, he is considering paying $8,000 for someone else's identity documents to try to return illegally to Southern California.

"I'm basically American," he said. "I'm a beach boy. I do American stuff."

Many at the shelter have convictions for DUI or domestic violence, said Hernandez, reflecting the Obama administration's priority to target anyone with criminal records for deportation.

Gonzalez was arrested in Santa Barbara on suspicion of disorderly conduct, landing him in Tijuana for New Year's Eve. He said he had several misdemeanor convictions, including a DUI, which he committed shortly after turning 18.

"That's when you party a lot and you think it's not going to matter," he said.

Gonzalez was born in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City, and came to the U.S. by plane when he was 2 years old, never leaving Santa Barbara. After graduating from Santa Barbara High School in 2002, he took automotive classes at community college, worked about four years at a Jiffy Lube outlet and held jobs as a mechanic, gardener and telemarketer in the picturesque California coastal city of 90,000 people.

Gonzalez doesn't know where he will settle after his foot heals. His family helped with more than $3,000 in medical expenses, including a metal rod that holds a toe together.

He may try to find an aunt in Cuernavaca but doesn't have her phone number or address.

"I never thought I would be in this predicament," he said.