NEW YORK (Reuters) – The New York State court system will lay-off as many as 500 workers in the coming weeks, according to a union memo released on Friday, as the state works to close a $10 billion budget gap.

New York state lawmakers recently passed a spending plan for fiscal year 2012 that includes across-the-board cuts to state agencies.

New York is not alone. Many cash-strapped states across the United States have been firing workers, delaying big building projects and raising taxes after the 2008 recession and financial crisis left state coffers severely depleted.

David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the court system, confirmed that layoffs are in the works but said it's too early to tell how many jobs -- or which ones -- will be lost.

"In the next two or three weeks we'll have a firm understanding of numbers," Bookstaver said.

New York is not alone in slashing expenses in its court system. Connecticut's top judge on Friday testified at a budget hearing that a proposed 10 percent cut to that state's court system could result in layoffs and courthouse closings.

Cuomo, a Democrat, has threatened 9,800 layoffs if public employee unions do not concede $450 million in savings from wages and benefits.

The New York state memo, prepared by the Civil Service Employees Association, says that no decisions have been made regarding what positions would be eliminated.

The court system currently has 15,350 employees, not including judges.

The cuts follow tense budget talks. After Governor Andrew Cuomo publicly criticized the court administration for proposing to hold spending flat, the court system agreed to a $100 million cut, but lost an additional $70 million in the final week of budget talks.

A Cuomo spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the CSEA memo, which says that some layoff notices could be sent out as early as next week, and would be effective May 4.

The freshman governor this week announced an accord with a relatively small law enforcement union, including a three-year wage freeze and increased health care contributions. But the state's two largest unions said that they rejected those proposals.

In a video message last month, State Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman said that the budget cuts would have "an unprecedented impact on the court system."

"The impact of our reduced budget will hurt our ability to serve all New Yorkers, in particular those who come to our courts seeking justice," Lippman said.

The judge went on to warn of a "significant number of layoffs across a broad range of operations," as well as cuts to legal aid, town and village courts and mediation.

(Editing by Chris Sanders)

DENVER (Reuters) – A Colorado woman who admitted her 13 month-old son drowned in the bathtub while she played on Facebook was sentenced on Friday to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

A judge also ordered Shannon Johnson, 34, to serve five years of mandatory parole upon her release from prison, Jennifer Finch, spokeswoman for the Weld County District Attorney's Office, said in a written statement.

Johnson pleaded guilty in March to felony child abuse resulting in the death of her son, Joseph.

She called 911 from her home in Fort Lupton, Colorado, last September when she found the toddler slumped over in the bathwater making "gurgling" sounds, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Under questioning by investigators, Johnson admitted she put her son in the bathtub and went into another room to play Facebook game "Cafe World," police said. The boy was alone for 10 minutes, she told them.

Joseph was airlifted to a Denver hospital, where medical personnel could not revive him.

Johnson told police she often left her son unattended in the bath, because as an "independent" child he liked to be left alone, and that she did not want him to be "a mama's boy."

(Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis)

LUBBOCK, Tex (Reuters) – A firefighter was killed on Friday west of Fort Worth as wildfires erupted across a wide swath of Texas, fanned by 60 mile per hour winds and feeding on brittle brush after the driest March in state history.

Gregory Simmons, 51, a firefighter in the community of Eastland, was killed fighting a fast moving brush fire near the town of Gorman, according to Eastland Mayor Mark Pipkin.

"To say we are shocked and saddened by this tragedy is a huge understatement," Pipkin said in a written statement.

Simmons was a 20 year veteran, including 11 years with the Eastland Fire Department, according to a city statement.

Simmons was the first death reported in fires that have scorched more than one million acres since February, according to the Texas Forest Service. A firefighter injured April 10 fighting a blaze in the Panhandle remained in critical condition in Lubbock on Friday.

At least nine separate fires were burning over 200,000 acres on Friday, and most of the fires were just zero to twenty percent contained by late in the day, according to April Saginor of the Texas Forest Service.

Strong winds have pushed fires sparked by metal work, train cars and lightning strikes across acres of thick grassland and tough terrain. Single-digit humidity and plentiful fuel have made every spark dangerous. Grasses and other plants that thrived in heavy rains last year dried to kindling over the winter.

"We're setting records for dryness and humidities and wind events that we've not seen here before," said Texas Forest Service spokesman Marq Webb.

Until Friday, the fires had been in rural areas and mostly away from heavily populated cities.

But emergency officials issued a mandatory evacuation for the northern suburbs of San Angelo in West Texas on Friday as wind gusts pushed wildfires sparked by lightning toward the city.

Flames were within a mile of a bedroom community of Grape Creek and roughly five miles from the outskirts of San Angelo, a city of more than 90,000, at the time of the evacuation.

Winds were gusting out of the north at up to 26 miles per hour, pushing the flames toward San Angelo, National Weather Service meteorologist Joel Dunn said.

All but a few holdouts in the small town of Rotan, population 1,100, were evacuated under clouds of thick smoke and ash for five hours Thursday evening as flames rushed in from the west.

The outbreak surprised crews who thought they had contained the fire far outside town, state fire information officer Les McNeely said.

Flames instead raced east at up to four miles an hour, he said. Empty cropland just outside the town gave firefighters the break they needed to protect it, he said.

"That's what happens out here when the weather and so forth, especially the winds, start pushing it when the fuel is this dry," McNeely said.

At least 50,000 acres burned in the fire, though high winds grounded observation helicopters and made the fire difficult to track through the rugged ranchland, he said.

"I could hardly drive this morning, not only from smoke, but from blowing dust," McNeely said.

State officials were cautioning residents across Texas to prepare for wildfires, including clearing dried brush away from homes and roofs. Texas Railroad commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones urged residents to move propane cylinders, a common fuel in rural Texas, away from homes and to clear brush around them.

(Additional reporting by Jim Forsyth; Editing by Greg McCune)

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The emergency manager appointed to put Detroit's troubled public school system on a firmer financial footing said on Thursday he was sending layoff notices to all of the district's 5,466 unionized employees.

In a statement posted on the website of Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb, the district's temporary head, said notices were being sent to every member of the Detroit Federation of Teachers "in anticipation of a workforce reduction to match the district's declining student enrollment."

Bobb said nearly 250 administrators were receiving the notices, too.

The district is unlikely to eliminate all the teachers. Last year, it sent out 2,000 notices and only a fraction of employees were actually laid off. But the notices are required by the union's current contract with the district. Any layoffs under this latest action won't take effect until late July.

In the meantime, Bobb said that he planned to exercise his power as emergency manager to unilaterally modify the district's collective bargaining agreement with the Federation of Teachers starting May 17, 2011.

Under a law known as Public Act 4, passed by the Michigan legislature and signed by the state's new Republican governor in March, emergency managers like Bobb have sweeping powers. They can tear up existing union contracts, and even fire some elected officials, if they believe it will help solve a financial emergency.

"I fully intend to use the authority that was granted under Public Act 4," Bobb said in the statement.

He was appointed emergency financial manager for Detroit's schools two years ago by then-Governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, to close chronic budget deficits brought on by declining enrollment in the city. Over just the past year, Detroit's population has dropped 25 percent, according to census data.

Bobb has closed schools, laid off workers and taken other steps to cut spending but the district still faces a $327 million budget deficit.

(Reporting by James B. Kelleher; Editing by Jerry Norton)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Spending by rich Americans on luxury goods is set to grow by $26.6 billion in 2011, with the number of affluent families planning to spend more almost doubling in the past three years, a poll found on Friday.

As the United States gradually emerges from its worst economic crisis in decades, the American Express Publishing and Harrison Group survey forecast spending on luxury goods to increase nearly 8 percent to $359 billion this year compared to 2010.

"It is a relief to finally be able to see a significant return of affluent consumers to the luxury marketplace," Jim Taylor, vice-chairman of Harrison Group, said in a statement.

But he said "the affluent consumer remains needs-based, resourceful and research-oriented."

"They will exercise discretion. They will pursue authenticity and extraordinary quality. They will engage in the art of the deal and the discount with relish. And, they will operate as families in need, not want," Taylor said.

The Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America polled 1,458 families with a discretionary income of more than $100,000 -- representing the wealthiest 10 percent in the United States who account for about 50 percent of all consumer spending.

It found that 15 percent of those families plan to spend more in 2011, up a quarter from 2010 and almost double from 2008, while the number cutting spending was nearly halved from last year to 9 percent and down two-thirds from 2008.

Taylor said that while 70 percent of affluent Americans still believed the country is in recession, they are less anxious -- concern over job loss has fallen 50 percent from 2010 and worries about the potential failure of their company are down to 11 percent from 28 percent.

"In the end, the increase in spending we foresee is not a return to the wanderlust of the past, but rather, an expression of sensible, resourceful, self-confident consumers expanding their portfolio of needs," he said.

"The nearly $4 trillion in their money market funds gives these consumers the power to purchase with cash. Their value equation reflects the price of recession: mature judgment," Taylor said.

A 2010 stock market rally, which pushed up the Dow Jones Industrial Average 11 percent, has also helped woo consumers.

Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of U.S. economic activity, grew at a brisk 4 percent pace in the final three months of last year. But U.S. retail sales posted their smallest gain in nine months in March, as auto sales plunged and consumers felt the sting of higher gas prices.

The online wealth survey was conducted from January 31 to February 14 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

(Editing by Mark Egan and Eric Walsh)

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – A tornado killed at least one person and destroyed the only school in the small southeastern Oklahoma town of Tushka on Thursday evening, authorities said.

The tornado, spawned by a cold front that swept through the state, struck about 7 p.m., residents said.

"It looked like Tushka School is pretty well wiped out. It's totaled," said Bennie Evans, chairman of the local school board.

The tornado also damaged about a dozen homes, a propane business and a fruit stand and left downed trees and powerlines around the town, Evans said.

Michelann Ooten, spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Management, said the state medical examiner's office confirmed one death from the storm.

At least 25 people were treated at Atoka Medical Center, said spokeswoman April McElmury. Most of the injured were released but a few were admitted to the hospital, she said.

The high winds rolled semi trucks onto their side, said Regina Cooper, a dispatcher with the Atoka County Sheriff's Department.

Some residents of the small town remained trapped either in their homes or their storm shelters several hours after the tornado struck because of the heavy debris, said Kim Winters, jail administrator for the Atoka County Sheriff's Department.

"We're going door to door right now checking," she said.

The school in Tushka, located 135 miles south of Oklahoma City, served 496 students from kindergarten through high school.

U.S. Highway 69 northbound was closed to clear the debris, according to the Oklahoma Office of Emergency Management.

(Editing by Peter Bohan and Jerry Norton)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is often mentioned as a presidential contender, but fewer than one in four voters in his home state would back him as a candidate, a poll released on Thursday said.

Two-thirds of registered voters "oppose Chris Christie for president in 2012," according to the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll.

Fewer than half of Republicans and a quarter of independents support Christie as a candidate, the poll found.

"This does not mean a future try would be opposed, just that New Jerseyans aren't joining the national media's storyline that Christie could take the nomination in 2012 if he wanted it," said David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and professor of political science at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Christie, a former prosecutor, has been seen as a rising Republican party star since taking office last year and pushing a lean-government, low-tax agenda. But he has said he did not think he was ready to be president and did not plan to run in 2012.

New Jersey voters are unconvinced the buzz surrounding the governor's political future is good for the state, the poll found.

Nearly two-thirds of those polled said having a governor on the national stage makes no difference or hurts the state's image, while a third of voters said it was a good thing for New Jersey.

The poll of 773 registered voters was conducted from March 28 to April 4 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Jerry Norton)

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) – The Oklahoma House approved a bill on Wednesday that prohibits health insurance companies from offering coverage of elective abortions in standard policies sold in the state.

Under the bill, approved by an 84-10 vote, people seeking abortion coverage could do so only by paying a separate premium for optional supplemental coverage.

The bill has already passed the Oklahoma Senate by a 36-10 vote and now heads to Governor Mary Fallin.

State Representative Mike Ritze, a physician from Broken Arrow, said the bill keeps pro-life Oklahomans from violating their beliefs when they buy standard insurance policies.

"Oklahomans who believe in the sanctity of life should not be forced to indirectly subsidize the abortion industry," he said.

Abortion restrictions such as this one have been opposed by groups including Planned Parenthood, which contend limitations being pushed across the country are denying women the right to decide whether and if to have children.

Lawmakers in 23 states this year have attempted to restrict abortion insurance coverage, according to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit think-tank that studies women's reproductive health issues.

Some bills call for abortion restrictions on all private insurance plans while others seek restrictions only on policies offered through the state insurance exchanges envisioned under federal health care reform, the Guttmacher report said.

(Reporting by Steve Olafson; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Jerry Norton)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. jury convicted Barry Bonds on Wednesday of one count of obstructing justice but deadlocked on other charges that baseball's home run king lied to a grand jury about whether he knowingly used steroids.

Bonds sat impassively as the jury was dismissed after four days of deliberations in the three-week perjury trial. His attorney, Allen Ruby, said he would file a motion to dismiss the conviction. Bonds faces up to 10 years in prison on the obstruction conviction but would likely receive far less.

U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag said the government would decide "as soon as possible" whether to seek a retrial on the three deadlocked counts. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston called a conference for May 20 to discuss the next moves in the case.

"We respect the jury's decision and their careful consideration of the evidence in this case and are gratified by the guilty verdict," Haag said in a statement.

But the trial delivered a mixed result both for the prosecution, which pursued the case for several years, and for Bonds, who was fighting for his reputation.

The charges stemmed from his testimony to a 2003 grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, or BALCO, in a nationwide probe of the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports.

Testifying to the grand jury, Bonds admitted getting flaxseed oil, vitamins, protein shakes and creams from his trainer, but he said he had no knowledge of human growth hormones or steroids. He said no one had ever injected him other than medical doctors.

Many fans and sportswriters have long believed that Bonds, who holds Major League Baseball's career and single-season home run records, took performance-enhancing drugs. The steroids scandal has tarnished some of baseball's biggest stars in recent years.

Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said the trial was a "stark illustration" of how far baseball had come, adding the sport now had a rigorous drug-testing program.

JURORS DIVIDED

Jurors after the trial told reporters they were deadlocked 11-1 in favor of conviction on a charge that Bonds lied about being injected by no one other than his doctors.

They said they were more divided on two other counts of lying about using performance-enhancing drugs and were generally wary of believing witnesses hostile to Bonds, including his former mistress and an old friend who became a business associate.

To be convicted of lying to a grand jury, prosecutors had to prove Bonds knew his testimony was false and important to their steroids investigation, court documents show.

The standard is slightly different for obstruction of justice, where the government had to show Bonds' answers were either false, evasive or misleading.

Nineteen-year-old juror Amber, who did not give her last name, told reporters she was not satisfied with his responses. "He was evasive," she said.

Bonds was one of the greatest players of his time. He was the National League's most valuable player seven times and finished his career in 2007 with 762 home runs, more than any other player in the history of Major League Baseball. Bonds, who spent much of his career with the San Francisco Giants, also set a single-season home run record with 73.

He was indicted three months after breaking Hank Aaron's career homer record in 2007.

"(The verdict) basically confirms their belief that Bonds had taken shortcuts," said Robert Boland, a professor at New York University's Tisch Center for Sports Management.

"With Barry Bonds convicted and Roger Clemens likely coming to trial, there is some potential harm to the history of baseball. And the history of baseball is more valued than in any other sport," he said.

Clemens, who was one of baseball's greatest pitchers, has been indicted on charges of lying to the U.S. Congress when he denied using performance-enhancing drugs.

Analysts said the conviction would make it tougher for Bonds to enter baseball's Hall of Fame.

Jim Palmer, a Hall of Fame pitcher with the Baltimore Orioles, said Bonds had excelled earlier in his career before any suspicions of doping.

"It's a little bit of a tragedy," Palmer told Reuters.

(Reporting by Laird Harrison, Dan Levine and Braden Reddall; Additional reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Peter Cooney)

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) – A federal jury on Tuesday found a Mexican drug trafficker guilty of second degree murder for killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent by deliberately swerving a truck at him in a dash back to Mexico to escape arrest.

According to the evidence presented at trial Jesus Navarro Montes, 25, struck U.S. Border Patrol agent Luis Aguilar with a Hummer H2 truck on January 19, 2008, in southern California, as he attempted to flee to Mexico.

Earlier that day, Border Patrol agents at the Imperial Sand Dunes close to the Mexico border in southern California spotted a pickup truck they suspected of smuggling narcotics, which was followed by the Hummer.

Aguilar and another agent set out a spike strip across an access road to stop the vehicles. But the Hummer swerved to avoid it, striking Aguilar before speeding south into Mexico. Aguilar died of his injuries at the scene.

Navarro was arrested in Mexico and extradited last year to the United States to stand trial.

After two hours of deliberation, the jury also found Navarro guilty on federal charges of conspiring to distribute marijuana.

"Our Office is gratified by the jury's verdict in this case and appreciates the service of each juror," Laura E. Duffy, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of California, said in a statement.

The prosecution team's efforts "honored agent Aguilar and the devastating impact this senseless crime has had on his family and colleagues," she said.

Navarro's defense had argued during the two-week trial that there was no forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony placing him behind the wheel of the speeding sport utility vehicle that struck and killed Aguilar.

Navarro pleaded guilty last month to a charge dating from a previous drug smuggling attempt in September 2007, in which he was arrested by Border Patrol agents as he drove a pickup truck packed with 979 pounds of marijuana, accompanied by an unidentified woman passenger.

While under arrest in a Border Patrol vehicle, the woman passenger jumped into the driver's seat and drove them both back to Mexico.

In an unusual legal defense in his murder trial, Navarro claimed that the loss of a large load of marijuana, together with his arrest and escape from federal custody, had caused him to dropped by his Mexican drug smuggling ring. That is why, he argued, other members of the drug ring testified against him.

U.S. District Judge Michael M. Anello scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 27, at 9:00 a.m.

Navarro faces a maximum prison sentence of 40 years on the drugs charges and a maximum sentence of life in prison on the murder charge.

(Writing by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Peter Bohan)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The judge overseeing the liquidation of Bernard Madoff's investment firm on Tuesday rejected requests by banks to keep secret the names of current and former employees mentioned in lawsuits seeking to recover alleged improper profits tied to the imprisoned Ponzi schemer.

The public disclosure of names of workers affiliated with financial institutions including Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and UBS AG was ordered by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland.

These names were used in lawsuits filed by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, to recover money for former Madoff investors, but the names were redacted from publicly distributed versions of the lawsuits. Picard has filed more than 1,000 lawsuits seeking to recover roughly $100 billion.

News media including New York Times Co and Comcast Corp's NBC News, CNBC and WNBC-TV had requested that the names be revealed.

Banks countered that disclosure was unnecessary, and could stigmatize the employees or suggest misconduct.

"The public has a qualified First Amendment right to access certain judicial documents," and the federal bankruptcy code "creates a strong presumption that court records in bankruptcy proceedings are accessible to the public," Lifland wrote.

"At bottom," the judge added, "the defendants have not adequately established any harm beyond merely embarrassing or prejudicial association with these Ponzi scheme proceedings."

Lifland did allow JPMorgan to keep under seal information concerning its "know-your-customer" and anti-money laundering procedures.

The trustee is suing JPMorgan, Madoff's main bank, to recover $6.4 billion.

Representatives of Citigroup, JPMorgan and UBS did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

Picard himself had opposed a broad-based ruling to keep names secret.

"Other than when an individual is named as a defendant, it is the institution which is charged with liability for its role in turning a blind eye to indicia of fraud," his lawyer, David Sheehan, wrote in a March 18 letter to Lifland. "Individuals played a variety of roles, including that of apprising others of potential fraud at BLMIS. Under these circumstances, a blanket ruling that all identities should remain redacted does not appear warranted."

The case is In re: Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-01789.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Gary Hill)

DETROIT (Reuters) – Federal agents executed search warrants at several Detroit area locations on Tuesday including a medical marijuana facility owned by a businessman who owns a long-closed auto plant that has become a symbol of Detroit's decline.

The Drug Enforcement Administration, state and local law enforcement agencies conducted the searches at offices in northwest suburban Detroit, Andrew Eiseman, group supervisor for the DEA in Detroit, said.

Eiseman confirmed searches were conducted at two Caregivers of America LLC medical marijuana offices, but would not confirm other locations searched on Tuesday under sealed warrants.

"It's a brand new investigation," Eiseman said. "It's ongoing at this point so we really can't confirm anything."

Eiseman declined to say whether the searches were being conducted as part of a state or multistate investigation.

Detroit-area businessman Romel Casab is listed as registered agent for the medical marijuana office in Novi that was raided on Tuesday, according to state business records.

Casab could not be reached for comment.

Bioresource Inc., which listed Casab as president, claimed ownership of the long-shuttered Packard auto plant that has figured prominently as a backdrop in television shows and recent movies in a lawsuit last year.

The company sued a local nonprofit studio in Wayne County Circuit Court for allegedly removing a mural painted on the plant property by the artist Banksy.

(Writing by David Bailey. Editing by Peter Bohan)

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Even as a five-year slump in house prices drags on, eight-out-of-10 Americans say bricks and mortar remain the best long-term investment, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The survey by the Pew Research Center's Social and Demographic Trends project found that 81 percent of respondents see housing as the best investment a person can make, despite a slump in prices that has knocked nearly a third off home values since 2006.

"The resilience of the American public's belief in the investment value of home ownership is pretty impressive," Paul Taylor, the project's director and a co-author of the report, told Reuters.

"In modern economic history we've never had a five-year period where home values have fallen as long or as far as they have now," he added.

U.S. home prices were down by around 32 percent at the start of this year from their pre-recession peak in July 2006, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices released late last month.

After a pause last year, prices fell again in the first quarter of this year, the Pew Research Center said.

The telephone survey was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 2,142 adults, between March 15 and March 29 this year.

It found that while the American public continued to believe in housing as an investment, there had been some falloff in the intensity of their faith.

It found that 37 percent "strongly" agreed that a home is the best long-term investment a person can make, while 44 percent "somewhat" agreed that homeownership is the best investment a person can make.

When the same questions were put to respondents in a CBS News/New York Times survey two decades ago, 49 percent "strongly agreed" that homes were the best investment, and 35 percent "somewhat agreed," the study noted.

Nearly half of all homeowners said that their home was worth less now than before the recession began in late 2007, the survey found.

Of that group, the overwhelming majority said it would take at least three years for values to recover, while nearly half said it would take at least six years to recover.

Among those whose homes have lost value, Westerners and Midwesterners were more pessimistic about a speedy recovery than those living in the South and East.

Nearly a quarter -- 23 percent -- of all homeowners said that if they had it to do all over again, they would not buy their current home.

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Jerry Norton)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan pleaded guilty on Monday to joining what he thought was an al Qaeda plot to bomb the Washington area subway system and received a 23-year prison sentence.

Farooque Ahmed, 35, was arrested in October in a government sting operation for conducting surveillance at subway stops and suggesting where to place explosives.

Ahmed, who moved to the United States in 1993, pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda and one count of collecting information to assist in the planning of a terrorist attack on a transit facility, the Justice Department said.

Ahmed, who previously pleaded not guilty, changed his plea during a federal court hearing in Alexandria, Virginia.

As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped one count against Ahmed and agreed to the 23-year prison term, officials said. He had previously faced up to 50 years in prison.

U.S. officials said the public was never in any danger and Ahmed's activities were closely monitored during the six-month sting operation in which government agents posed as al Qaeda operatives.

After his arrest, the FBI said Ahmed had told undercover agents that he had trained himself to use firearms in hopes of fighting U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, the Justice Department and FBI have faced criticism for such sting operations and questions over whether the suspects have been unfairly targeted and lured into plots.

Justice Department officials have defended them as legal and an important way to prevent another attack on U.S. soil.

Other recent sting operations include a Somali-born teenager arrested in November in Portland, Oregon, on charges of joining what he thought was a plot to set off a bomb at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Mark Zuckerberg won a legal battle against former Harvard classmates who accuse him of stealing their idea for Facebook, but the feud made famous on the silver screen is not over yet.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss must accept a cash and stock settlement with Facebook that had been valued at $65 million, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Monday. Meanwhile, a New York man filed an amended lawsuit against Zuckerberg on Monday, citing a 2003 email in which Zuckerberg discusses an urgent need to launch his site before "a couple of upperclassmen" could launch theirs, an apparent reference to the Winklevoss twins.

The Winklevoss brothers argued their settlement with Facebook was unfair because the company hid information from them during talks. But the twins were sophisticated negotiators aided by a team of lawyers, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel.

"At some point, litigation must come to an end," Kozinski wrote. "That point has now been reached."

An attorney for the brothers, Jerome Falk Jr., said on Monday his clients would seek a rehearing before a larger, "en banc" group of 9th Circuit judges.

That larger group can overrule a three-judge panel, although only a fraction of cases undergo such a review. Should the 9th Circuit refuse to rehear the case, the last option would be an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Falk said he "respectfully" disagreed with the 9th Circuit's conclusions.

The 6-foot, 5-inch (1.96-meter) Winklevoss brothers are Olympic rowers who participated in the 2008 games in Beijing, and their saga with Zuckerberg was dramatized in the film "The Social Network."

In the movie, actor Armie Hammer played both identical twins. Zuckerberg's character snidely called them on-screen the "Winklevi."

FACT AND FICTION

The twins, along with Divya Narendra, started a company called ConnectU while at Harvard. They say Zuckerberg stole their idea. Facebook denies these claims.

Facebook took in $1.2 billion of revenue in 2010's first nine months, according to documents that Goldman Sachs provided to clients to entice investors in a special fund set up to invest in the giant social networking firm.

The company was valued at $50 billion as part of that transaction. The company said on Monday it is evaluating the Internet market in China, but a source indicated it has not yet signed a business deal with any companies there.

The Winklevoss twins and Narendra agreed to a settlement that had been valued at $65 million. But they argue that, based on an internal valuation that Facebook did not reveal, they should have received more Facebook shares as part of the deal.

A lower court had granted Facebook's request to enforce the settlement with the Winklevoss twins and Narendra. The 9th Circuit agreed on Monday.

"The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace," Kozinski wrote.

Facebook deputy general counsel Colin Stretch said the company appreciated the court's careful consideration of the case and was "pleased" it ruled in their favor.

The case is not the only ownership dispute Zuckerberg must fend off. A New York businessman, Paul Ceglia, claims a contract with Zuckerberg to develop and design a website entitled him to an 84 percent stake in the privately held social networking site.

In a new twist to the long-running case, Ceglia filed an amended lawsuit on Monday, in which he outlined an 2003 email from Zuckerberg that suggested the Facebook founder stalled "a couple of upperclassmen here" from launching their competing website. The lawsuit does not specifically name the Winklevoss twins.

"If we don't make a move soon, I think we will lose the advantage we would have if we release before them," the lawsuit claims Zuckerberg wrote in an email.

Ceglia claims Zuckerberg pleaded with him for money to finance the social network's set-up with the intention of getting it live before the other site.

Facebook has repeatedly said it believes the lawsuit is fraudulent. Orin Snyder, a lawyer for the company, said Facebook looks forward to defending the case in court and on Monday characterized Ceglia's claims as "ridiculous."

The case involving the Winklevosses in the 9th Circuit is The Facebook Inc v. ConnectU Inc. 08-16745.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

LUBBOCK, Tex (Reuters) – Wildfires scorched more than 230,000 acres in Texas on Sunday, roaring through a West Texas town, destroying an estimated 80 homes and buildings and critically injuring a firefighter.

The Texas Forest Service reported more than 60,000 acres burned and 40 homes lost in one blaze that raced through West Texas and into the small mountain town of Fort Davis. The fire rushed across 20 miles in 90 minutes.

Officials at the scene, however, estimated at least 100,000 acres in two counties had burned from the fire, which continued to grow Sunday evening.

"I can only describe it as an ocean of black, with a few islands of yellow," State Representative Pete Gallego said.

Flames "licked at the edges" of the town but did not burn their way through its center, sparing more buildings than expected, he said.

But 17 to 20 homes were destroyed, and as many as 30 more buildings were burned, he said after visiting the town, including a more than 100-year-old historic wooden ranch home. Residents had worked overnight to save their homes and moved on to help their neighbors, he said.

Hot spots still burned along the highway, and a glow from miles away was visible at night, he said.

"Even now, the flames in some places are 15 to 20 feet high," Gallego said.

The town was without power Sunday evening. Gallego said many of the residents may not have been insured for fire.

Presidio County Emergency Management Coordinator Gary Mitschke said it was the first fire to scare him in 13 years of fighting grass fires. The blaze crossed railroad tracks and state highways as it roared past Fort Davis, he said.

Without a change in winds, which were keeping aircraft from helping firefighting efforts, the fire could burn for days or weeks, he said.

"Frankly, it moved almost as quick as a truck," Mitschke said. "When you hear the word firestorm, this is what I imagine."

A federal emergency management spokesman said a fire grant for the county had been approved Saturday and that the agency stood by to support as needed.

Wildfires fed by dry, windy conditions have charred more than 270,000 acres in eight days across Texas, burning homes, killing livestock and drawing in crews and equipment from 25 states.

Plants that thrived in wet weather turned to tinder under a cold, dry winter. Weeks of high winds and little moisture have made every spark dangerous.

A Texas firefighter was in critical condition with severe burns Sunday afternoon after fighting an estimated 60,000-acre fire in the northern Panhandle.

The cause of the fire was under investigation, but it started in an isolated area near a natural gas plant and a few other industrial sites in an empty town called Masterson, said David Garrett, an emergency management spokesman for Moore County.

"Kind of like a wide spot in the road that has a name," Garrett said. "The fire started in open country and stayed in open country."

Two nearby communities were considered threatened but were not evacuated late Sunday afternoon, according to the forest service.

A Midland County wildfire burned 40 homes and at least 15,000 acres, according to the service.

Crews had stopped from crossing a highway a sprawling 71,000-acre fire that killed almost 170 head of cattle in Stonewall County, spokesman Lee McNeely said.

Air tankers had dropped 60,000 gallons of retardant to help slow the blaze.

Firefighters had most of the day to prepare for a cold front with gusting winds, McNeely said.

High winds and dry conditions were expected to persist into the evening across West Texas, the National Weather Service warned.

In Oklahoma, where Governor Mary Fallin has extended a 30-day state of emergency she declared on March 11, firefighters and helicopters on Sunday mopped up the smoldering remains of two fires that erupted Saturday.

One wildfire in Cleveland in north central Oklahoma charred more than 1,500 acres and forced 350 people to evacuate while another struck near Granite in southwest Oklahoma, said Michelann Ooten, a spokeswoman for the state Office of Emergency Management.

(Additional reporting by Steve Olafson in Oklahoma City; Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Jerry Norton)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the United States has moved closer to $4, jumping more than 19 cents since mid-March to a level less than 10 percent below its all-time high, a widely followed survey said on Sunday.

The Lundberg Survey said the national average price of self-serve, regular unleaded gas was $3.765 on Friday, up from $3.573 on March 18, and up 91.3 cents from $2.852 a year ago.

Prices in several western U.S. cities are already above $4 per gallon, led by San Francisco at $4.13. Chicago was close behind at $4.11 a gallon, the survey said.

The national average would have been higher had refiners and retailers not resisted passing on rising crude oil prices as customers grow less willing to pay what it takes to fill their gas tanks, analyst Trilby Lundberg said in an interview.

"Demand has been falling at these prices," she said.

The record high average pump price is $4.112 set on July 11, 2008. Lundberg tracks roughly 2,500 gas stations.

Crude oil prices are higher amid unrest in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East, as well as a weaker U.S. dollar, which on Friday fell to a 15-month low against the euro.

A falling dollar often lifts dollar-denominated commodities such as oil. This is because some investors use commodities as an inflation hedge, and consumers who use other currencies may view the commodities as cheap and buy more, driving up prices.

U.S. crude settled Friday at $112.79 per barrel, after earlier reaching its highest intraday price since September 2008. ICE Brent crude settled at $126.65 per barrel, the highest settlement since July 2008.

Even if crude prices do not change, Lundberg said pump prices could rise another dime per gallon as earlier increases work their way into the retail market.

"One gets a little bit depressed talking about it, but we are getting closer" to a $4 per gallon average, though "there is no telling" when or whether it will occur, Lundberg said.

The average price for diesel fuel did top $4 per gallon for the first time since 2008, rising to $4.09 from $3.978 three weeks earlier, and $3.056 a year ago, according to the Lundberg survey, which is done in Camarillo, California.

The lowest average price for a gallon of unleaded gas in the 48 contiguous states was in Tucson, Arizona, at $3.41, Lundberg said. San Francisco had the highest price.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Severe weather including damaging winds, rain and hail cut through the Midwest and Plains on Sunday and is forecast to move eastward overnight.

The severe weather continued for a second day after a large tornado, part of a volatile storm system caused by a springtime warm weather front, left significant damage in Iowa.

"As some residents of the Plains, Ohio Valley and Southeast found out on Saturday, the atmosphere is ripe for severe weather, including tornadoes," said Accuweather.com senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.

"This could prove to be a memorable event for the Heartland," he said.

Sosnowski warned that the atmospheric conditions could bring risks of loss of life over the next few days as the slow-moving system crawls across the eastern half of the United States until it reaches the Northeast on Monday night.

The area from western New York and Ohio to Louisiana will be at the most risk for damaging weather, accuweather.com said.

Iowa governor Terry Branstad declared a state of emergency after the storm that destroyed over half the town of Mapleton, but left no one seriously injured among its 1,200 residents, according to local law enforcement.

The peak U.S. tornado season lasts from March until early July, the period when warm, humid air often has to thrust upward against cool, dry air.

This weekend's storm was caused by a front of warm air surging northward across the country's midsection, bringing very warm temperatures with some areas posting possible record highs.

Another day of record-breaking heat into the 90s was forecast for Nashville and much of Tennessee. This after Saturday's temperatures hit an all-time record high for the date of 91 degrees in Nashville.

It also was the earliest date on record that Nashville had hit the 90-degree mark, according to Bobby Boyd, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Nashville.

In the northern plains, the Red River on Sunday had started a gradual decline in the Fargo-Moorhead area of North Dakota after reaching a preliminary crest at the fourth-highest level on record with rain storms lighter than expected.

"Fortunately, most of the precipitation is coming in as pretty light," said Greg Gust, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

The Red River rose rapidly last week and appeared ready to threaten the 40.84 foot record crest at Fargo of two years ago. However, the rise had slowed considerably by Saturday.

The weather service said Sunday the river had reached a preliminary crest in the Fargo-Moorhead area at 38.75 feet Saturday night with prolonged flooding expected.

Crews battled more than 65,000 acres of wildfires on Sunday that caused the evacuation of a West Texas town, destroyed 90 homes and critically injured a firefighter.

In Oklahoma, where Governor Mary Fallin has extended a 30-day state of emergency she declared on March 11, firefighters and helicopters on Sunday mopped up the smoldering remains of two fires that erupted Saturday.

One wildfire in Cleveland in north central Oklahoma charred more than 1,500 acres and forced 350 people to evacuate while another struck near Granite in southwest Oklahoma, said Michelann Ooten, spokesman for the state Office of Emergency Management. Damage assessments are still being compiled, she said.

(Additional reporting by Tim Ghianni in Nashville, Kay Henderson in Des Moines, David Bailey in Minneapolis, and Elliott Blackburn in Texas; Editing by Jerry Norton)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A blast outside a Los Angeles-area synagogue this week was caused by an explosive device and police on Saturday were looking for a suspect, authorities said.

The explosion on Thursday near the Chabad House in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica injured no one and was blamed by police that day on a mechanical failure.

The blast sent a pipe hurtling through the air and crashing onto an apartment building next to the synagogue.

Santa Monica police said in a statement late on Friday that they were looking for a transient suspect named Ron Hirsch in connection with the blast.

In the course of examining the scene, investigators determined the blast was actually caused by an explosive device, police said.

Police gave no details on how the device was constructed, but they said items found in and around the mechanism were linked to Hirsch, who also goes by the name Israel Fisher.

Hirsch is known to frequent synagogues and Jewish community centers seeking charity, police said.

Police also released a photo of Hirsch, showing him to be heavy-set and bearded with green eyes.

Hirsch is considered "extremely dangerous," police said.

The FBI, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Los Angeles Police Department are also involved in the investigation.

In the first hours after the blast, police said it appeared to have been caused by a pipe bomb. But they reversed themselves that day and said it was due to a mechanical failure, before investigators came to their latest conclusion and started a manhunt for Hirsch.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

LUBBOCK, Texas (Reuters) – Firefighters from across the country expected no help from the weather on Saturday as they battled a remote, fast-moving 61,000-acre blaze in Texas.

A huge, dark thunderhead of smoke visible for miles hung over Stonewall County in northern Texas as ranchland burned, the Texas Forest Service said.

Wildfires fed by dry, windy conditions have charred more than 82,000 acres over seven days across the state, killing livestock, destroying buildings and drawing in crews and equipment from 25 states.

"Predicted fire weather for tomorrow is even worse," Forest Service spokesman Alan Craft said. "These are the worst conditions we have ever seen."

The state forest service has helped fight 92 fires in the past week.

Plants that thrived in wet weather last year have dried to tinder under a drought covering all of Texas, and weeks of high winds and little moisture have made every spark dangerous.

Sparks thrown by pipe cutting in Stonewall County lit a sprawling fire in rugged terrain, Craft said.

The blaze moved 12 miles in less than four hours on Friday, despite 58,000 gallons of fire retardant dumped from helicopters and the efforts of bulldozers and firefighters from as far away as Montana and Washington on the ground.

Almost 170 head of cattle were reported killed and four unoccupied homes were destroyed, Forest Service information officer Mary Kay Hicks said.

Portions of the fire had run out of fuel, helping crews on Saturday before winds began to pick up again, she said.

"They made progress, but the wind is fighting against them."

Temperatures were in the mid-90s, with winds gusting up to 35 miles per hour, said National Weather Service meteorologist Robert Barritt.

Sunday was expected to be worse, with wind gusts of up to 50 miles per hour, but Barritt said winds should die down by Monday afternoon after a cold front passes through.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Chris Michaud)

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) – A federal judge on Saturday rejected a plan negotiated between the government and wildlife advocates to remove most wolves in the Northern Rockies from the Endangered Species List.

The deal struck earlier this month between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 10 conservation groups would have lifted federal protections from an estimated 1,200 wolves in Idaho and Montana, allowing those states to restore licensed hunting of the animals.

A similar plan for removing Endangered Species Act safeguards for wolves in Montana and Idaho, and turning management of the animals over to state game officials, was implemented by the federal government in 2009.

But 14 conservation groups challenged that move in court, and a U.S. district judge in Missoula, Montana, sided with the environmentalists in August of 2010, ordering federal protections of the wolves restored.

The same judge, Donald Molloy, refused Saturday to approve the latest de-listing plan, which 10 of the 14 conservation groups had hammered out with the Obama administration. The four remaining groups opposed the settlement.

They said in legal filings that supporters of the proposed settlement were improperly being driven by a wish to lessen the public conflict over wolves, rather than by science.

Powerful ranching interests in Montana and Idaho opposed reintroduction of wolves to the region some 15 years ago and have continued to resist federal protection of the animals as a threat to livestock. Sportsmen complain that wolves are killing too many big-game animals, such as elk.

But in the decision handed down on Saturday, Molloy said that to reverse his August 2010 decision would be tantamount to sanctioning an illegal action.

Molloy ruled then that the government erred in lifting federal protections for wolves in Idaho and Montana while leaving them intact for wolves in neighboring Wyoming. He agreed with conservationists that the wolves in all three states were part of a single population that could not be treated separately under the Endangered Species Act.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has left Wyoming and its estimated 500 wolves out of its de-listing proposals because that state's management plan would generally have allowed wolves to be shot on sight, as opposed to the licensed-hunting regimens planned by Idaho and Montana.

Despite Molloy's latest ruling, the outcome of wolf protections in the Northern Rockies remained unclear.

Amendments tacked on to budget bills that Congress is expected to vote on next week would accomplish through legislation what the proposed settlement Molloy rejected would have done through the courts, according to a statement posted online by U.S. Sen. John Tester, a Montana Democrat.

If the budget rider is enacted it would be the first time that an animal has been removed from the Endangered Species List by an act of Congress.

In yet another wrinkle, Idaho's Republican governor is considering signing into law a measure that declares the estimated 700 wolves in the state a "disaster emergency." The measure would allow him to marshal state and local law enforcement to kill wolves.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and David Bailey)