Nation

In 1986, lawmakers decided the problem of illegal immigration had to be dealt with. More than 3 million people were living in the United States after crossing the border illegally or overstaying their visas. A new law signed by President Ronald Reagan gave legal status and a path to citizenship to most of those unauthorized residents - helping many secure a slice of the American dream but also giving fuel to critics who sought to turn "amnesty" into a pejorative. Less than 30 years later, the number of immigrants living in the country illegally is thought to have nearly quadrupled, and the freighted baggage of amnesty looms over new efforts to reform the nation's immigration laws.

Walking into the Aviator Nation store on Abbot Kinney in Venice is like stumbling into a frat house with a feminine touch. Steely Dan, Doors and Grateful Dead album covers and vintage skate decks nailed to the walls, a record player spinning Aerosmith's "Sweet Emotion," a "720 Degrees" arcade game in the corner, stacks and stacks of foam trucker hats, T-shirts and hoodies spreading good vibes like "Pray for Surf" and "California Is For Lovers".......

In yet another scathing critique of government health officials, a federal judge refused Friday to stay his order making emergency contraceptives available to consumers of all ages without a prescription. Calling government efforts to restrict the sale of drugs such as Plan B "frivolous and taken for the purpose of delay," U.S. District Judge Edward R. Korman of New York wrote that the medications would be available to all unless the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled otherwise by noon Eastern time on Monday.

TUCSON - Young people granted immigration relief and work permits under a new Obama administration program still won't be able to obtain driver's licenses in Arizona, a federal judge has ruled. Although the decision is a win for Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, who issued the executive order denying driver's licenses to this particular group, it's just the first battle in a case that will probably be argued on constitutional grounds. U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell on Thursday turned down a request for a preliminary injunction blocking Brewer's order but stated that the plaintiffs - a contingent of immigrant rights groups - would probably prevail on their claim that the governor's order violates guarantees of equal protection under the U.S. Constitution.

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

Keegan Bradley had no thoughts about a course record, or the possibility of a 59, after consecutive bogeys in the middle of his opening round in the Byron Nelson Championship at Irving, Texas. Until his 136-yard wedge shot on his final hole Thursday. "It was going right at it. [A 59] crossed my mind for a second, and it would be unbelievable if I buried this," Bradley said. "But I had three feet to shoot 60. I was actually very nervous, uncomfortable over it and thank God I made it. " Bradley shot 10-under-par 60, completed by that short birdie at the 428-yard ninth hole, to break the TPC Four Seasons course record and match the best round ever at the Nelson.

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Friday he wanted to put more Americans to work by slashing the amount of time it takes to grant federal approval for big job-creating projects. But Obama's choice of venue for his remarks - a Baltimore company that makes mining and pumping equipment - provided fodder for Republicans. They noted that the company president had, just the day before, testified on Capitol Hill in support of the Keystone XL pipeline, which the Obama administration has delayed for years over environmental concerns.

WASHINGTON - President Obama forced out the head of the IRS on Wednesday, seeking to restore the public's faith in the tax agency while asserting a measure of control over a rapidly growing political problem. Making a hastily scheduled statement at the White House, Obama denounced the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service as "inexcusable" and pledged to "do everything in my power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. " "Americans are right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it," he said.

Michelle Knight, the longest-held of three women kidnapped and imprisoned in a Cleveland house for years, was discharged Friday from the hospital where she had been cared for after her ordeal. Reportedly in good spirits, Knight left MetroHealth Medical Center on the same day state officials announced that DNA testing had established that Ariel Castro, being held on kidnapping and rape charges, was the father of the 6-year-old girl born to another of the imprisoned women. Like her fellow captives, Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus, Knight asked for privacy.

WASHINGTON - First came the letter-writing campaigns, then the protests at town hall meetings and now the television ads. The last several weeks in New Hampshire have had the feel of a heated electoral season - but the target of this siege, first-term Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte, isn't on the ballot until 2016. Welcome to Round 2 in the battle over gun control. The first round ended last month, when a proposal to expand the background check system to cover most commercial gun sales fizzled in the Senate.

WASHINGTON - Steven Miller, the top enforcement official at the Internal Revenue Service, thought he might have trouble on his hands. Election season was well underway in March 2012 when tea party organizations started to complain angrily of IRS harassment over their requests for tax-exempt status. The media was looking into it. Congress had picked up the scent. Miller dispatched an advisor to Cincinnati, where a field office handles applications from nonprofits, to figure out what was up. What he learned would blow up into a crisis that would damage the agency's reputation and lead to his ouster last week.

LAREDO, Texas -- A recent wave of kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo was prominently featured in a recent Sunday edition of El Mañana, one of the largest and most long-standing Spanish-language newspapers on the border. But the story carried no byline, and no residents were quoted or pictured. "People don't want to go out for interviews - they say, 'No, we may get kidnapped,'" said Ninfa Cantú Deándar, who runs the paper with her siblings. Because of threats from Mexican cartels, the paper - published in the twin cities of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Laredo, Texas - is operating very differently these days.

WASHINGTON - Republican opposition in many statehouses to expanding Medicaid next year under President Obama's healthcare law - opposition that could leave millions of the nation's poorest residents without insurance coverage - will likely widen the divide between the nation's healthiest and sickest states. With nearly every GOP-leaning state on track to reject an expansion of the government health plan for the poor, the healthcare law's goal of guaranteed insurance will become a reality next year mostly in traditionally liberal and moderate states.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Proponents of fluoridating Portland's water supply had no trouble getting the local Urban League on board. Here in the biggest city in the country that still doesn't treat its water to prevent tooth decay, studies show that low-income children and kids of color have been hit hardest by untreated cavities. "Do we really want our children to be suffering from something we could prevent? Why would we not want to be involved?" said Jerome Brooks, an Urban League advocacy contractor who has helped marshal the civil rights group behind a fluoridation measure on Tuesday's municipal ballot.

Ruling out foul play, federal investigators were looking at a fractured rail as the possible cause of the Connecticut train crash that left dozens of commuters injured and is expected to disrupt travel in and out of New York City for weeks to come. Earl Weener, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, said in a media briefing that investigators had discovered that a section of the eastbound track was fractured at the rail joint. A portion of that track will be sent to a lab for analysis, Weener said.

The courtship that has riveted the neuroscience world blossomed at a Saturday night dinner in a tony Brentwood restaurant. USC provost Elizabeth Garrett and executive vice provost Michael Quick kept the conversation light. Over chicken with braised leeks, onions, mustard bread crumbs and white wine at Tavern, they talked to UCLA neuroscientist Arthur Toga about his life. Not the brain imaging research for which his lab is renowned but about "the things that get you excited in the morning," Toga recalled.

In a major case of academic poaching involving crosstown rivals, USC has lured away two prominent neuroscientists from UCLA with a promise to expand their internationally renowned lab that uses brain imaging techniques to study Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, autism and other disorders. Arthur Toga and Paul Thompson will move to the USC Keck School of Medicine campus next fall, along with scores of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staffers who now work at UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, known as LONI.

WASHINGTON - The head of the FBI said Thursday that there were lapses in tracking accused Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev's visit to Russia last year, saying that U.S. security officials failed to act on "text" alerts to a U.S. Customs agent about his trip. The inaction came after U.S. officials interviewed Tsarnaev and his parents about Russian concerns that he was traveling there "intent on returning and perhaps participating in jihad," FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said. Mueller told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that in March 2011, Russian authorities asked the U.S. for a background assessment on Tsarnaev and his mother.

On the limb of a barren tree in the tornado-devastated north Texas community of Rancho Brazos, an American flag flaps in the wind - placed there by a firefighter. "It's symbolic of, 'We're here, we're going to rebuild,'" said Sgt. Nathan Stringer, a Hood County sheriff's spokesman. The tornado has "broken homes, but it hasn't broken our will," he said. A fierce series of twisters tore through the northern part of the state Wednesday, killing six people, injuring 53, leaving scores of damaged and destroyed houses and many people homeless.

WASHINGTON - The ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for the agency's "foolish mistakes" in singling out conservative groups for intrusive and time-consuming scrutiny, but said that the effort was not driven by partisan motives. Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, whose tenure will end Wednesday after he resigned under pressure this week, said the agency staff's attempts to identify groups with political aims was not "targeting," as it was termed in an inspector general's audit.