WASHINGTON (AP) — The bipartisan coalition behind a contentious overhaul of immigration laws stuck together on a critical early series of test votes Thursday, turning back challenges from conservative critics as the Senate Judiciary Committee refined legislation to secure the borders and grant eventual citizenship to millions living in the United States illegally.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI did not initially share with Boston police the warnings it had received from Russia about one suspect in last month's marathon bombings, despite the work of four city police representatives on a federal terrorism task force, Boston's police commissioner told Congress on Thursday.

By William James and Patrick Temple-West LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A joint effort by Britain, the United States and Australia to track down people who conceal wealth in offshore tax structures has helped identify more than 100 individuals, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said on Thursday. "The message is simple: if you evade tax, we're coming after you," said Chancellor George Osborne. ...

SANDNES, Norway (AP) — Chess world champion Viswanathan Anand of India halved a point with the Norwegian world No. 1 Magnus Carlsen to draw in Thursday's second round of the Norway Chess Tournament.

CLEVELAND (AP) — An Ohio prosecutor said Thursday he may seek the death penalty against Ariel Castro as investigators charged that he impregnated one of his captives at least five times and then starved her and punched her in the belly until she miscarried.

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (AP) — AT&T is launching a prepaid cellphone service — Aio Wireless.

FREEHOLD, N.J. (AP) — When Kathleen Dorsett heard her ex-husband scream in agony in the backyard of her home in 2010, she finished changing their daughter's diaper knowing that her father was carrying out their plan to kill the man by hitting him in the head with a heavy cable.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday he's determined to answer any questions related to the deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as the House Republican leader pushed for more information from the Obama administration.

(Alison Frankel writes the On the Case blog for Thomson Reuters News & Insight http://newsandinsight.com. The views expressed are her own.) By Alison Frankel NEW YORK (Reuters) - On Wednesday, the Public Citizen Litigation Group filed an appeal for the online review site Yelp Inc, asking the Virginia Court of Appeals to review a trial-court order compelling Yelp to reveal the identity of seven anonymous reviewers who complained about a Washington carpet-cleaning service that subsequently sued them for libel and defamation. ...

By Ian Bremmer (Reuters) - Through two years of Syrian crisis, the Obama administration has cautiously dragged its feet as the United States is further enmeshed in the conflict. That's a sensible platform at home, with opinion polls showing that Americans don't think the country has a responsibility to intervene. It has strategic merit, too, given that intervention against Bashar al-Assad is an implicit endorsement of a largely unknown opposition force with radical, sectarian factions. ...

PHOENIX (AP) — The next phase of the Jodi Arias murder trial was postponed Thursday and will continue next week.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Key vote puts Minnesota in line to become 1st Midwestern Legislature to pass gay marriage law.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are edging lower on Wall Street as a powerful market advance slows down.

HONOLULU (AP) — The president of a helicopter company whose small chopper crash-landed on a downtown Honolulu street is praising the pilot, while the National Transportation Safety Board begins an investigation.

DUBLIN (AP) — Northern Ireland hopes to tear down the so-called "peace lines" of Belfast — dozens of walls of brick, steel and barbed wire that divide Irish Catholic and British Protestant neighborhoods — within a decade, officials said Thursday. But in setting a deadline of 2023, it's a sign of how difficult the task will be.

SHINGLETOWN, Calif. (AP) — Sheriff's SWAT teams are proceeding extremely carefully as they search a rural part of Northern California where an ex-convict suspected of fatally shooting his wife and two young daughters is believed to be hiding out, authorities said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fannie Mae said something Thursday that would have been unthinkable a few years ago: It earned a record $58.7 billion profit in the January-March quarter.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A reputed Connecticut mobster was sentenced Thursday to 2½ years in prison in a weapons and prescription drugs case that revealed federal authorities' belief that he knows something about the largest art heist in U.S. history.

By David Milliken LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England decided against pumping more stimulus into Britain's fragile economy on Thursday, as policymakers await the arrival of new governor Mark Carney amid signs that a slow recovery may be taking hold. The central bank made no statement alongside its widely- expected decision not to add to the 375 billion pounds of government bonds which it bought with newly-created money between March 2009 and October 2012. It also left interest rates at their record low 0. ...

DETROIT (AP) — Wayne State University had no idea that a folk hero was in its midst when the Detroit school awarded Sixto Rodriguez a philosophy degree in 1981.