AP Top News at 5:16 p.m. EST

Report: NSA spying on virtual worlds, online games

LONDON (AP) — American and British intelligence operations have been spying on gamers across the world, media outlets reported, saying that the world's most powerful espionage agencies sent undercover agents into virtual universes to monitor activity in online fantasy games such as "World of Warcraft." Stories carried Monday by The New York Times, the Guardian, and ProPublica said U.S. and U.K. spies have spent years trawling online games for terrorists or informants. The stories, based on documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, offer an unusual take on America's world-spanning surveillance campaign, suggesting that even the fantasy worlds popular with children, teens, and escapists of all ages aren't beyond the attention of the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ.

Undetectable guns: Congress ready to renew the ban

WASHINGTON (AP) — Racing a midnight deadline, Congress is ready to renew the expiring ban on plastic firearms that can evade airport detection machines. But lawmakers are sure to reject toughening those restrictions — the latest defeat for gun-control forces in the year since the grade school massacre in Newtown, Conn. The Senate planned to give final congressional approval Monday evening to a 10-year extension of the prohibition against guns that can slip past metal detectors and X-ray machines. The quarter-century-old ban has been renewed twice and would expire Tuesday without action.

Recalling life under apartheid in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — My mother was furious. The operators of the gas station in rural, racist South Africa had taken her money to fill the car, but would not give her the key to the toilets. They were for whites only. It was the early 1960s, and apartheid was the law of the land.

'Rainbow Nation' mourners swarm Mandela's mansion

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Along a street lined with walled mansions shaded by graceful jacaranda trees, mourners, black and white, by the thousands rubbed shoulders Monday outside the villa where Nelson Mandela died, placing flower bouquets and condolence notes on top of piles already knee-high. Others danced while singing praise for the anti-apartheid leader — a vivid example of the "Rainbow Nation" unity of race-blind multiculturalism championed by Mandela for South Africa. As players for the nation's top Kaizer Chiefs soccer team were escorted inside the villa in one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods to grieve with Mandela's relatives, hospital receptionist Nelson Jabulani Dube said the crowd of black, white and mixed race mourners transforming a street corner into a makeshift shrine was evidence that Mandela succeeded in breaking down barriers in a country defined for generations by race-based hate.

Health care debate has trust, politics themes, too

WASHINGTON (AP) — For months, the talk was all about computer code. About response times. About glitches and bugs. People who didn't know a URL from an http were blithely expounding on software snags and web design, thanks to the clunky launch of healthcare.gov, the insurance marketplace for the government's big health care overhaul.

US vet held in N. Korea says statement was coerced

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The 85-year-old U.S. veteran who was detained for weeks by North Korea said Monday that the videotaped confession in which he apologized for killing North Koreans during the war was given involuntarily and under duress. In a written statement issued Monday, Merrill Newman, of Palo Alto, Calif., said he tried to show that the words he read on the recording were not his own by emphasizing the apology's awkward phrasing and poor English grammar.

18 LA sheriff's deputies face US charges

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal officials on Monday unsealed five criminal cases filed against 18 current and former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies as part of an FBI investigation into allegations of civil rights abuses and corruption in the nation's largest jail system. The charges were announced at a press conference after 16 of 18 defendants were arrested earlier in the day. They were expected to be arraigned later in U.S. District Court.

Study says many lung cancer tumors prove harmless

CHICAGO (AP) — Harmless lung cancer? A provocative study found that nearly 1 in 5 lung tumors detected on CT scans are probably so slow-growing that they would never cause problems. The analysis suggests the world's No. 1 cause of cancer deaths isn't as lethal as doctors once thought.

Officials seek sanctuary for Iowa alligator

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Animal control officials in the Iowa city of Waterloo are seeking a new home for a baby alligator named Chompey. A resident of the eastern Iowa city of about 68,000 people bought the alligator after spotting an online advertisement, but he later learned state law does not allow people to keep alligators or other exotic animals, The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reported (http://bit.ly/J7SVtu ) Monday.

Torre, La Russa, Cox elected to baseball Hall

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox spent decades trying to beat each other, no holds barred. On this day, however, they were a mutual admiration society. And why not? They were going to the Hall of Fame together.