WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama left plenty of ambiguity in new policy guidelines that he says will restrict how and when the U.S. can launch targeted drone strikes, leaving himself significant power over how and when the weapons can be deployed.

National security experts say it's imperative to leave some room in the guidelines given the evolving fight against terrorism. But civil rights advocates argue too little has been revealed about the program to ensure its legality.

An unclassified version of the newly established drone guidelines was made public Thursday.

The congressional Intelligence committees and Capitol Hill leadership have been briefed on the more detailed, classified policies. But because those documents are secret, there's no way of knowing how much more clarity they provide.

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ATLANTA - Authorities say 18 people have been taken to the hospital following a crash between a hotel shuttle bus and a tractor-trailer near Atlanta's airport.

Atlanta Fire Rescue Department spokeswoman Janet Ward says the accident happened around 10:30 a.m. Friday. She says it's not immediately clear what caused the accident.

Ward says there were 18 people on the bus at the time of the accident. Nine were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital, including one who was in critical condition. The other nine were taken to Atlanta Medical Center.

Ward says the bus served Hampton Inn, Fairfield Inn and Hilton hotels and was headed to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International airport.

Overhead shots from WSB-TV show the shuttle ran into the left side of the trailer that was stretched across the road.

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MOUNT VERNON, Wash. - A trooper says the truck whose oversize load caused the collapse of an interstate bridge in Washington state was hauling drilling equipment from Canada.

Nobody was killed when the bridge collapsed, but three people were injured.

Washington State Patrol Trooper Mark Francis told the Skagit Valley Herald the driver works Mullen Trucking in Alberta. Francis says the tractor-trailer was hauling drilling equipment housing to Vancouver, Wash.

Francis says the truck was marked as an oversize load. He says the top right front corner of the load struck several trusses on the bridge.

An accident report says the driver was William Scott, of Spruce Grove, Alberta, near Edmonton. He voluntarily gave a blood sample for an alcohol test and was not arrested.

Witness Francisco Rodriguez looked at the damage Tuesday evening and realized the area has lost an important transportation link.

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GRAPEVINE, Texas - The Boy Scouts of America's National Council has voted to ease a long-standing ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted as Scouts.

Of the local Scout leaders voting at their annual meeting in Texas, more than 60 percent supported the proposal.

Under the proposal drafted by the Scouts' governing board, gay adults will remain barred from serving as Scout leaders.

The outcome is unlikely to end a bitter debate over the Scouts' membership policy.

Some conservative churches that sponsor Scout units wanted to continue excluding gay youths, in some cases threatening to defect if the ban were lifted. More liberal Scout leaders - while supporting the proposal to accept gay youth - have made clear they want the ban on gay adults lifted as well.

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WASHINGTON - A day after she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, Lois Lerner has been replaced as director the Internal Revenue Service division that oversaw agents who targeted tea party groups.

Danny Werfel, the agency's new acting commissioner, told IRS employees in an email Thursday that he has selected a new acting head of the division.

Ken Corbin will be the acting director of the agency's exempt organizations division. Corbin is currently deputy director of submission processing in the wage and investment division.

A congressional aide said Lerner has been placed on administrative leave. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel matter.

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COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Federal forecasters are predicting yet another busy hurricane season.

Thursday's outlook calls for 13 to 20 named storms, 7 to 11 that strengthen into hurricanes and 3 to 6 that become major hurricanes.

The prediction by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is more than what's considered an average Atlantic season.

Last year was the third-busiest on record with 19 named storms. Ten became hurricanes and were two major storms, with winds over 111 mph.

That included Sandy, which caused $50 billion in damage even though it lost hurricane status when it made landfall in New Jersey.

The last time a major hurricane made landfall in the United States was Wilma in 2005. The seven year U.S. landfall drought is the longest on record.

The six-month season starts June 1.

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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says he has established a new framework to govern U.S. force against terrorists.

He says it includes clear guidelines as well as oversight and accountability. Obama says in a speech Thursday he put this framework into a single document by signing on Wednesday what is known as presidential policy guidance.

He also says he will talk to Congress about refining, and ultimately repealing, the authority it gave the president in 2001 to wage war on al-Qaida. He says he will not sign laws designed to expand that authority any further.

Obama cautions that terrorism will remain a national security problem. But he says it must be recognized that not every, quote, "collection of thugs" affiliated with al-Qaida will pose a credible threat to the U.S.

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WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Energy Committee says a website partially funded by the oil and gas industry is a constructive tool that could be used by federal regulators in requiring public disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon stopped short of endorsing FracFocus.org but said it could be helpful as lawmakers and federal agencies consider ways to regulate hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.

A draft rule issued by the Interior Department last week would rely on FracFocus to track the chemicals used in fracking operations on public lands. The 2-year-old website was formed by industry and intergovernmental groups. It allows users to gather data on more than 45,000 wells across the country.

A dozen states use FracFocus to help regulate fracking.

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MOORE, Okla. - A band of thunderstorms battered the Oklahoma City area Thursday, slowing cleanup operations in the suburb where a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes this week.

The first of the funerals, for a 9-year-old girl killed at a Moore elementary school that took a direct hit in Monday's storm, took place Thursday morning. A family photo showed the girl, Antonia Candelaria, beaming with a big smile and wearing a white sun hat.

Early estimates indicate the tornado caused more than $2 billion of damage in Moore. Whole subdivisions in the fast-growing community of 56,000 people were destroyed.

Antonia's relatives and friends huddled under umbrellas in a downpour as they hurried into a chapel for her funeral. Mournful country music played in the chapel that was adorned with photos of the smiling girl.

Two elementary schools were hit - one was leveled - by Monday's tornado. Antonia was one of seven children who perished at the Plaza Towers Elementary School, a one story building with barely a wall left standing. Altogether, 10 children were killed in the storm, including two infants.

The medical examiner reported that six of the children who died at Plaza Towers suffocated after being buried under a mass of bricks, steel and other materials as the building collapsed. A seventh child who died there, 8-year-old Kyle Davis, was killed instantly by an object - perhaps a large piece of stone or a beam - that fell on the back of his neck.

Thursday's thunderstorms produced hail, heavy rain and high winds in the morning. A flash flood warning was also in effect. The National Weather Service said more severe storms were forecast for late afternoon and at night, and that more tornados were a possibility.

The weather was hampering cleanup and recovery efforts that had just begun to accelerate now that all of the missing have been accounted for. Residents were only formally allowed back into the damage zone on Wednesday afternoon, where they picked through enormous piles of debris.

Shayne Patteson was among them, moving around the ruins of his three-bedroom home. All that was left was the tiny area where his wife hunkered down under a mattress to protect their three children when a tornado packing winds of at least 200 mph slammed through his neighborhood.

Patteson vowed to rebuild, likely in the same place, but said next time he will have an underground storm shelter.

"That is the first thing that will be going into the design of the house, is the storm shelter and the garage," he said as he looked around piles of bricks and plywood where their home once stood.

Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis said Wednesday he would propose an ordinance in the next couple of days to require all new homes to have storm shelters.

The city already has some. After a massive tornado tore a near-identical path in 1999, city authorities provided incentives such as federal grant dollars to help residents cover the costs of safe rooms. This time, though, Lewis thinks it is necessary to compel people to include them in all new construction.

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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama says he has signed new policy guidelines to oversee when the U.S. can use drone strikes against suspected terrorists.

Obama says clear guidelines, oversight and accountability are spelled out in "policy guidance" he signed Wednesday.

He says Thursday in a national security speech that the administration has been working for the past four years to put in place a framework that governs the use of force against terrorists.

Obama also said his administration has briefed Congress on every drone strike America has ordered. He says the briefings included the one instance in which an American citizen was the target: Anwar al-Awlaki.

Officials say al-Awlaki was a leader in a branch of al-Qaida that operated in the Arabian peninsula, and that he had ties to at least three attacks planned or carried out on U.S. soil.

Obama spoke a day after the administration disclosed the deaths of three other Americans abroad in drone strikes.

The president also said he's willing to consider additional oversight of drone strikes outside of war zones. Obama took note Thursday of a number of proposed ways of doing that -- including the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch of the government.

He did not endorse any particular proposal but said he will engage Congress in exploring a number of options for increased oversight. He cautioned that some proposals may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national-security decision-making, without giving the public added confidence in the oversight process.

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MOORE, Okla. - The first of the funerals is scheduled today following the deadly tornado in Moore, Okla.

It will be for 9-year-old Antonia Candelaria, one of seven children who died at a destroyed elementary school.

Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis says he'll propose an ordinance to require all new homes to have storm shelters. President Barack Obama travels to Moore on Sunday.

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NEW YORK- A global stock market slump is continuing on Wall Street as traders worry about how committed the Federal Reserve remains to keeping up its bond-buying program.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 112 points to 15,191 in early trading Thursday, or 0.7 percent.

The Standard & Poor's 500 fell 16 points to 1,638, or 1 percent. The Nasdaq fell 29 points to 3,433, or 0.8 percent.

Stocks were down 2.7 percent in Germany and 2.6 percent in France. Japan's Nikkei plunged 7 percent but is still up 39 percent this year.

Investors were spooked by minutes from the latest Fed meeting indicating that several policymakers are leaning toward slowing the central bank's bond-buying program, which has been keeping interest rates low and encouraging investors to buy risky assets like stocks.

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GRAPEVINE, Texas - The Boy Scouts of America's national leadership votes today on whether to allow openly gay Scouts in its ranks.

The roughly 1,400 national council members will vote on whether to stop excluding young Scouts solely for being gay.

A ban on gay adult leaders would remain.

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OKLAHOMA CITY - A band of thunderstorms is battering the Oklahoma City area and slowing cleanup operations in the southern suburb where a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes earlier this week.

The National Weather Service said Thursday that the storms are producing hail, heavy rain and high winds. A flash flood warning is also in effect for some areas.

The Weather Service says more severe storms are forecast for late afternoon and at night. It says tornados are a possibility.

The suburb of Moore was hit by a powerful twister Monday that shattered whole neighborhoods and hit two elementary schools. Ten children were among the dead.

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WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama is likely to talk about the need for greater transparency in U.S. drone strikes when he delivers a speech this afternoon at the National Defense University.

One administration official says responsibility for drone strikes has been shifting from the CIA to the U.S. military, giving Congress greater oversight of the secretive program.

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NEW YORK - Twitter is adding an extra security measure to users' accounts in an effort to prevent unauthorized logins.

Twitter said that users will be able to enroll in a login verification program.

For those who sign up, Twitter will send a six-digit code using a text message each time they sign in to Twitter.

Besides their username and password, users will have to enter the code to log in as well.

Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. already allow two-step verification as an option.

 

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LAS VEGAS- Las Vegas police are investigating a woman's allegations that former baseball player Jose Canseco sexually assaulted her.

Police say the 48-year-old Canseco was named as a suspect in the investigation.

However, no charges have been filed and no arrest has been made.

Word about the investigation became public after Canseco posted information about it on the social media network Twitter.

The former Oakland Athletics slugger hit 462 career home runs during a career that included stints with seven other major league teams from 1985 to 2001.

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