By Tim Kenneally

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - A "Voice" coach's penchant for calling it as he sees it has once again generated controversy.

A mere week after Adam Levine grabbed headlines by blurting out "I hate this country" on the NBC singing competition, Blake Shelton has found himself in a no-doubt unwanted spotlight, after going off on a music critic via Twitter.

Shelton hurled industrial-size portions of vitriol at Houston Chronicle music critic Joey Guerra on Tuesday night, after Guerra wrote about contestant Holly Tucker's departure in less-than-kind words.

In a series of venomous tweets, Shelton called Guerra a spineless coward.

Just kidding; Shelton was much harsher, characterizing Guerra as a "chicken shit" who lacks the "balls" to criticize Tucker - a member of Shelton's team - to Shelton's face.

"OH. Holly Tucker is gone. It took much too long," Guerra wrote in his recap of Tuesday night's episode. "But finally. Back to Baylor University in Waco for you, madam."

That was enough to make Shelton engage in a flurry of what would no doubt be called "fightin' words" in Shelton's neck of the woods.

"It's people like you @joeyguerra that make me sick... Holly is not only a talented singer but a great person that's simply chasing a dream," Shelton wrote.

And then he got nasty.

"How about you @joeyguerra grow some balls and come tell me to my face how terrible some of these kids are face to face..?" Shelton asked of the critic. "You won't. Ever."

And, "You @joeyguerra are a chicken shit. I can't stand a person that makes a point to write hurtful things about kids just trying their best."

And lest Guerra forget just what variety of farmhouse excrement that Shelton believes him to be, the country singer reiterated, "How much do y'all wanna bet he'd NEVER criticize my team OR me like that face to face.... Chicken shit."

Shelton later apologized to his three-million Twitter followers - but notably, not to Guerra - in a tweet explaining that he's "passionate" about nurturing young talent.

"I'm sorry for going off y'all...," Shelton wrote. "But I am passionate about encouraging young people to follow their dreams.. We GOOD people don't need hate."

Except, apparently, when it comes to hating poison-penned music critics.

Killing these iconic birds is not just an irreplaceable loss for a vulnerable species. It's also a federal crime, a charge that the Obama administration has used to prosecute oil companies when birds drown in their waste pits, and power companies when birds are electrocuted by their power lines.

But the administration has never fined or prosecuted a wind-energy company, even those that flout the law repeatedly. Instead, the government is shielding the industry from liability and helping keep the scope of the deaths secret.

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

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

The result is a green industry that's allowed to do not-so-green things. It kills protected species with impunity and conceals the environmental consequences of sprawling wind farms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dan Ashe, the Fish and Wildlife Service's director, in an interview Monday with The Associated Press said his agency always made it clear to wind companies that if they kill birds they would still be liable.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Interior Department recently approved construction of the nation's largest wind farm in Wyoming, with what would be 1,000 turbines. The federal government predicts that project, which was analyzed because it was on federal land, would kill 46 to 64 eagles each year.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___

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

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

Daniel Nava added a three-run homer in the eighth to conclude the rout.

Felix Doubront (4-2) allowed a run on six hits while striking out six to end a five-appearance winless streak.

The Yankees chose to walk David Ortiz in the third inning, loading the bases for Napoli. Phil Hughes left a fastball over the plate and Napoli smashed it for his fifth career grand slam and a 5-0 lead.

Nava's blast to right-center in the eighth put the game beyond the Yankees at 8-1 and Stephen Drew hit a solo homer in the ninth.

The loss was New York's sixth in the last seven games but they will have chance for revenge when they face the Red Sox again on Sunday.

In the National League, Atlanta outfielder B.J. Upton drove in the winning run with a single in the 10th inning as the Braves extended their East division lead over visitor's Washington with a 2-1 win.

Jordan Walden (2-1) worked a perfect 10th for the win as four Braves pitchers combined on a five-hitter.

Andrelton Simmons gave the Braves a 1-0 lead with an RBI groundout in the third and Ian Desmond's two-out RBI single in the fourth levelled it up. (Reporting By Simon Evans. Editing by Patrick Johnston)

He just can't. Not yet, at least.

Maybe Hamlin has to learn to win at Dover before he can truly embrace the mile concrete oval.

Hamlin has been tormented for years by the track and voiced his disdain for Dover as finishes in the 30s or worse piled up. Hamlin also knows he can't focus on the past disappointments. He has to conquer his Dover demons and try and win there if he wants to keep his long shot bid to make Chase alive.

Winning the pole for Sunday's race was a nice start.

Hamlin, actually, has won the last two poles at Dover and parlayed his top spot into an eighth-place finish in the September race. The top-10 snapped a streak of three straight double-digit finishes at the Monster Mile. Hamlin had a four-race stretch from 2007-09 where he finished no better than 36th.

Those are usually the results for a driver like Casey Mears, not someone like Hamlin, who is always in the thick of the championship hunt.

His average Dover finish of 19.6 is the worst of any track.

But two poles and a top 10 could be the start of a new era for Hamlin.

"We possibly could have turned the corner here," Hamlin said. "We'll actually see the results on Sunday."

Hamlin needs a big payoff in the form of a checkered flag at the 400-mile race. Hamlin's four-race absence because of his back injury has him needing wins to make the Chase and race for his first career championship.

Hamlin's fourth-place finish last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway moved him up three spots to 24th in the standings, 53 points out of 20th position, where he'd need to be to be eligible for one of two wild-card slots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. He is 97 points out of the top 10 and an automatic berth in the Chase.

Hamlin is ready drive for wins, not just a solid points day.

"We're going to need to win races, so we're going to do everything we can to try to get that," he said. "I''ll be as aggressive as I can, so I'm treating this as more of an offensive race than a defensive one, for sure."

He's in a hole after being sidelined for four races with a compression fracture in his lower spine following a March 24 crash involving former teammate Joey Logano. His Joe Gibbs Racing team has done all it can to make him comfortable in the No. 11 Toyota. He switched up his seat belt configuration, had air bags stuffed into the driver's seat to assist with comfort and there's padding to help support his still achy back.

"I'm pretty comfortable right now, really as comfortable as I've been," Hamlin said.

The adjustments to his seat certainly haven't affected his performance. Hamlin has moved up seven spots to 24th place in the standings since his return. JGR teammate Kyle Busch is the only driver 11th to 20th in the standings with a victory.

Hamlin, who won five times last season, has 20th in sight and one of his favorite tracks up next Pocono Raceway. He has four career wins at Pocono.

"We're going to have to capitalize on our money tracks," Hamlin said. "We're going to have to win at those race tracks, and sneak a few in here and there when we don't expect it. We're doing everything we can. If we come up short, then we come up short."

Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson are the only two drivers to make the Chase for the Sprint Cup every year they've been eligible.

The Chase may as well have already started for Hamlin.

Not only does he need to win, he has to hope that many former Cup champions stuck in the 11th to 20th spots also don't drive their way into Victory Lane. Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart are among the drivers who need a win to help solidify a wild-card spot.

"If you go for wins, then you're going to run well and finish consistent," Busch said.

With the way Hamlin has been running, he should crack the top 20.

One big win sure would help.

"We just need to win everything we can," he said.

___

Follow Dan Gelston on Twitter: http://twitter.com/APGelston

However, three other European diplomats insisted the 27-member bloc still had a chance to come to an agreement. One said Monday's talks in Brussels were "far from over." The three spoke on condition of anonymity as the proceedings continued.

During a break from critical EU talks aimed to work out a common position on Syria, Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger told reporters he was concerned about what he called a failure to reach a common position and said that after the EU sanctions collapse "everybody is entitled to deliver weapons to the Assad regime or to the opposition."

But he said he also was holding out hope for a last-minute reversal that could salvage an accord in the talks set to continue deep into the evening.

Speaking at an impromptu news conference, Spindelegger said that during the talks France and Britain had agreed not to deliver any weapons until Aug. 1. Those two countries the EU's biggest military powers have been pushing the bloc to lift its embargo on delivery of weapons into Syria to help the embattled opposition.

British and French diplomats did not immediately return calls seeking comment after Spindelegger's remarks.

British Foreign Minister William Hague left the EU offices for the dinnertime break, saying only that he would return later.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius left the talks earlier Monday to return to Paris to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov over the issue.

The talks had been billed as a pivotal opportunity for the bloc to overcome differences about whether to ease sanctions against Syria to allow arms shipments to the rebels. Earlier, France added urgency to the debate, with Fabius pointing to increasing signs that chemical weapons were being used in the conflict.

Austria has been among the most outspoken opponents of such deliveries, arguing that pouring more weapons into the war zone will only increase the deaths in Syria and tarnish the EU's reputation as a peace broker.

The EU nations have been steadfast opponents of Assad in the war and have steadily increased restrictive measures against his regime, including visa restrictions and economic sanctions. In February, the 27-nation bloc also amended the arms embargo to allow for non-lethal equipment and medicine to protect Syrian civilians. If not renewed, all those measures expire at the end of May.

Meanwhile, Assad's government has agreed in principle to participate in peace talks in Geneva next month. The United States and Russia hope to bring together the Syrian government and opposition for direct talks, but the exact date, agenda and participants still remains unclear.

Washington has also been reluctant to provide rebels with more sophisticated weapons for fear they might end up in the hands of the radical Islamic factions, including the al-Qaida-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra, a group that has been the most effective fighting force on the opposition side.

Several EU ministers said arming the opposition would create a more-level playing field that could force Assad into a negotiated settlement.

Political leaders and civil groups have protested the naming of a cyclone after King Mahasen, who ruled Sri Lanka in the 4th century. At least 18 deaths related to Cyclone Mahasen were reported in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka before it weakened by May 16. Bangladesh alone evacuated 1 million people from coastal areas.

S.H. Kariyawasam, director general of the meteorology department, said Tuesday that he apologizes "if any insult was caused to King Mahasen or the country's proud history."

Mahasen built 16 large reservoirs, including the massive Minneriya tank, and two irrigation canals that even today are part of the irrigation system in the north-central region. After his demise, people started venerating him as "God of Minneriya."

Groups such as the National Council for the Protection of Historical Irrigation Cultural Heritage, Buddhist monks and political leaders have said it was an insult to name a cyclone after Mahasen. The council even threatened to take legal action if the meteorlogy department fails to conduct a proper inquiry.

The department decided to drop the name Mahasen from the cyclone May 13 and requested that other countries follow suit, but the name continued to be used across the region.

In a letter addressed to the council Tuesday, Kariyawasam said Mahasen was among 23 names submitted by Sri Lanka in 2003 to the Panel on Tropical Cyclones for the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, which is responsible for naming tropical storms in the region. Eight other Asian countries also submitted names.

He wrote that the names "were merely proposed as Sri Lankan names and their selection did not have any basis, explanation or intention."

The president of the council, Buddhist monk Kamburugamuwe Vajira, accepted the apology but said Sri Lankans were greatly saddened by the use of the king's name.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Two top aides quit Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's office on Monday as the embattled leader of Canada's biggest city faces lingering allegations he was caught smoking crack cocaine on video, accusations he has firmly denied.

The departures of the mayor's press secretary and deputy press secretary came just days after Ford fired his chief of staff. The mayor confirmed on Monday that both George Christopoulos and Isaac Ransom left of their own accord.

"I wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors and I want to thank them for working hard in this office," he told a crush of journalists outside his office. "That's it, it's business as usual."

Christopoulos and Ransom could not be reached for comment. But their departures renewed questions about whether the mayor would be able to weather his most serious controversy to date.

Ford has been under fire since reporters from the Toronto Star and Gawker Media said in separate reports on May 16 that they had seen a video that purports to show Ford smoking crack. The mayor directly denied the allegations on Friday, after initially dismissing the media stories as "ridiculous," without giving a full statement.

Reuters cannot confirm the existence of the video or its content.

The video, according to The Star and Gawker, was being shopped around by people involved in the drug trade. Both media outlets declined to pay the six-figure sum requested by the video's owners.

The controversy has made headlines across Canada and outside the country and drawn ridicule from late-night TV humorists Jimmy Kimmel, Jay Leno and Jon Stewart.

Speaking on his weekly radio show on Sunday, Ford brushed off the scandal, calling the media a "bunch of maggots," and promised to run in the next election.

"I'll be the first putting my name on that ballot," he said.

Ford apologized for his maggot comment on Monday.

The drug-use allegations are the latest in a string of scandals for the mayor, who has been chided for ignoring city work to coach high school football and was briefly ordered out of office last year after he was found guilty of conflict of interest.

While some of Ford's opponents have called for him to step down, one municipal affairs specialist said there was little that could be done under the current system to force a Toronto mayor from office.

"There is no recall or impeachment provision," said John Mascarin, a lawyer with Aird & Berlis LLP. "Stupidity is not one of the things" that can get you removed.

Elected officials can be removed from City Hall by court order in a conflict-of-interest situation, or if they do not attend council meetings for several months without being formally excused.

'FORD NATION'

Also on Ford's side is the steadfast backing of his core supporters, said Ivor Tossell, a journalist and author of the biography 'The Gift of Ford'.

"One of Ford's great political assets is he plays on a sense of marginalization and grievance among his supporters. He likes to play the little guy," he said. "In a way, the more the institutions like the media attack him, the stronger he gets."

The latest controversy does not appear to have hurt Ford's popularity, according to a Forum Research Inc poll released over the weekend, although he is at risk of being ousted in a 2014 election.

The poll, taken on Friday after Ford denied the drug-use claims, found the mayor would still lose a one-on-one battle if pitted against Olivia Chow, a former city councilor and current federal member of Parliament widely touted as a candidate.

It showed Ford would get 36 percent of the vote, in line with a May 10 poll taken before the latest scandal broke, while Chow would get more than half the vote.

The mayor's popularity has been attributed to the support of the "Ford Nation," suburban voters who pushed Ford into the city's top office in 2010 and back his agenda of cutting taxes and reducing city spending.

"Rob Ford is really both the Teflon and Kevlar Mayor - nothing sticks to him and nothing penetrates his armor," Forum Research founder Lorne Bozinoff said in a statement.

"His recent troubles have had absolutely no effect on his electoral prospects."

(Additional reporting by Susan Taylor; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson and Peter Cooney)

The review will be done by "experts who are entirely independent of the Pac-12 Conference," the league said. The investigation is expected to be completed by June.

Ed Rush resigned as the conference's coordinator of officials Thursday. He told The Associated Press he was just trying to "lighten the mood" in a tense locker room when he "jokingly" made offers of $5,000 or a trip to Mexico for any referee who disciplined Arizona coach Sean Miller during the league tournament.

The Pac-12's officiating program has endured a swarm of public criticism since the incident became public and questions about whether Rush was joking persist. Some reports also have accused Rush of creating a culture of bullying.

"Nothing is more important to the Pac-12, or to me personally, than maintaining confidence in our integrity," Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said in a statement. "Given the conflicting media reports, it is important that we do whatever we can to understand all the facts, not only to resolve the questions about officiating during the tournament but also to learn lessons that will help us make changes and improvements to our overall program."

Oregon State President Edward J. Ray, also the Pac-12 CEO Group chairman, agreed with Scott's decision.

"I agree that an independent review is important to maintain the confidence of our members, and of the public, in the integrity of our competition," Ray said. "While the review will focus primarily on the tournament, we expect that it will inform a broader examination of our men's basketball officiating and help us provide the best possible program."

On March 15, officials whistled Miller for a technical foul in the semifinals against UCLA for arguing a late double-dribble call against Wildcats guard Mark Lyons. Arizona lost 66-64.

Miller went on a memorable postgame rant about the technical foul, waving his arms while repeating "he touched the ball" five times in a row. He was later handed a $25,000 fine from the Pac-12 for what the conference said was confronting an official on the floor and acting inappropriately toward a staff member in the hallway.

Scott said last week that Arizona officials alerted him to Rush's remarks the night of March 17, a day after Oregon won the league tournament. He said he launched an internal investigation into the matter the next day and he concluded that it was not a "fireable offense," just a bad joke that stained the Pac-12's official program.

Rush said his remarks were part of an overall "point of emphasis" to crack down on coach misconduct on the sideline after Arizona's 79-69 win over Colorado in the Pac-12 quarterfinal March 14. In the course of that meeting, Rush said he called out officials who worked the game Michael Greenstein, Tony Padilla and Brett Nansel for not disciplining either Miller or Buffaloes coach Tad Boyle for their behavior.

Officials who were working the California-Utah game next Verne Harris, Deron White and Dave Hall also were in the locker room getting ready.

"I said, 'The game cried out for a bench warning. It would have been very simple to take care of that. It cried out for bench warnings,'" Rush said in a phone interview with the AP last week. "Another crew was waiting in there, getting ready for the next game. I would say there was a level of tension in the locker room, just because the disappointment that they worked this game, but they didn't take care of something that was a point of emphasis.

"So in an effort just to lighten the mood, I said to them, 'Hey, guys. What's it going to take? Do you think we could give you a trip to Cancun or maybe $5,000? Or who wants what?' And now they're all laughing, which is basically what I wanted to do. So I said, 'I know you guys, you probably want $5,000, you want the money, you won't take the trip to Cancun. So I'm going around, 'What would you take?' At that point, I said, 'By the way, you know my wife's not going to go for this. I'm going to have to pull this off the table.' They all laughed, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, bud.' That was it, and I walked out."

The 70-year-old Rush, a longtime NBA referee and the league's former director of officiating, had been a consultant to the Pac-12 since 2007 before becoming conference coordinator of officials last May. He said he offered his resignation to Scott by phone Thursday afternoon once it became clear it was going to be difficult to rebuild the trust of the coaches, players and public.

Rush said he plans to continue helping the NBA Development League find and train officials.

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Antonio Gonzalez can be reached at: www.twitter.com/agonzalezAP

If the ITC had found that Microsoft infringed, it could have barred the Xbox from being imported into the United States.

The fight over the Xbox is related to a larger smartphone patent war between Apple, Microsoft and the mobile phone makers who use Google's Android software, including Motorola Mobility.

Motorola Mobility originally accused Microsoft of infringing upon five patents when it filed its complaint in 2010. Four were dropped in ensuing months, leaving just one - a patent which allows devices to communicate wirelessly over short distances.

"This is a win for Xbox customers and confirms our view that Google had no grounds to block our products," David Howard, a Microsoft deputy general counsel, said in a statement.

Motorola was "disappointed with this decision" and is evaluating its options, a company spokesman said in a statement.

Technology companies have spent billions of dollars to buy patent portfolios, and still more money litigating patent cases around the world.

The Xbox case has seen many twists and turns since it was filed in late 2010.

In April 2012, ITC Judge David Shaw said in a preliminary decision that Microsoft infringed four patents and did not infringe on a fifth. But instead of deciding the case, as is usual, in June 2012, the trade panel sent the case back to the judge for reconsideration.

In January, following an antitrust settlement with federal regulators, Google asked a trade panel to drop two patents from the complaint because they were essential to a standard. These types of patents ensure interoperability and get special treatment.

Google had promised the Federal Trade Commission that it would no longer request sales bans based on the infringement of standard essential patents.

By that time, just one patent remained. In March, an ITC judge said that Microsoft did not infringe that technology and recommended that the case be terminated. The full ITC followed that recommendation on Thursday.

The case is at the International Trade Commission, No. 337-752.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio)

TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - Florida Governor Rick Scott signed the largest budget in his state's history on Monday while vetoing a college tuition increase and axing $368 million in projects he said did not meet his Republican criteria of job creation, education improvement and holding down the cost of government.

Scott, who had a tough time selling some of his economic priorities in the Republican-led legislative session that ended May 3, used his line-item veto to delete a 3 percent tuition hike. The increase was a priority of House Speaker Will Weatherford, a fellow Republican who had personally thwarted the governor's plan to expand Medicaid during the session.

At a news conference before leaving on a trade mission to Chile, Scott said he was not punishing the presiding officers with his vetoes in the $74.1 billion budget.

But some of Scott's vetoes appeared to be made with an eye toward his re-election in 2014. He allowed $1 million for a Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami but vetoed $500,000 for Broward County's Holocaust Documentation and Education Center and axed $1 million earmarked for the Black Cultural Tourism Enhancement Commission.

Cuban-Americans tend to vote Republican in the Miami area, while blacks and Jewish voters mainly support Democrats.

"It's really tough to make these decisions," Scott said, when asked about the vetoes. "I look at every project and say, 'Will it help create more jobs? Will it improve our education system? Will it keep the cost of government low?'"

Scott's opposition to the tuition increase was expected and could still be challenged in court.

Scott also vetoed $50 million for a cross-state bicycle trail, saying it was nice but not vital for improving education and the economy.

The budget contains $480 million for teacher pay raises of $2,500 for good-performing teachers and $3,500 for those rated superior. State employees will get their first general raises in six years, $1,400 for those making less than $40,000 and $1,000 for others.

Weatherford praised Scott's budget decisions. "While we did not agree on every line item, he signed 95 percent of our budget, which is a resounding endorsement of the House and Senate work product," the speaker said.

Other Republicans praised Scott for signing a budget that did not raise taxes while increasing the salaries of state workers and teachers.

There was also $70 million for Everglades restoration.

"This is the most important environmental and economic restoration project in the world," said Eric Eikenberg, CEO of the Everglades Foundation. "Our foundation is grateful to be part of protecting and preserving this very special ecosystem that Florida families and our growing population can rely on for years to come, as a clean-water source and natural wonder."

Senate Minority Leader Chris Smith, a Democrat, said he was "extremely disappointed" by the governor's line-item vetoes.

"His targets reveal a basic misunderstanding of the critical role local communities, and local community projects, play in Florida," said Smith.

(Editing by David Adams and Dan Grebler)