WASHINGTON (AP) — Wind energy facilities have killed at least 67 golden and bald eagles in the last five years, but the figure could be much higher, according to a new scientific study by government biologists.

The research represents one of the first tallies of eagle deaths attributed to the nation's growing wind energy industry, which has been a pillar of President Barack Obama's plans to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming. Wind power releases no air pollution.

But at a minimum, the scientists wrote, wind farms in 10 states have killed at least 85 eagles since 1997, with most deaths occurring between 2008 and 2012, as the industry was greatly expanding. Most deaths — 79 — were golden eagles that struck wind turbines. One of the eagles counted in the study was electrocuted by a power line.

The vice president of the American Bird Conservancy, Mike Parr, said the tally was "an alarming and concerning finding."

A trade group, the American Wind Energy Association, said in a statement that the figure was much lower than other causes of eagle deaths. The group said it was working with the government and conservation groups to find ways to reduce eagle casualties.

Still, the scientists said their figure is likely to be "substantially" underestimated, since companies report eagle deaths voluntarily and only a fraction of those included in their total were discovered during searches for dead birds by wind-energy companies. The study also excluded the deadliest place in the country for eagles, a cluster of wind farms in a northern California area known as Altamont Pass. Wind farms built there decades ago kill more than 60 per year.

"It is not an isolated event that is restricted to one place in California, it is pretty widespread," said Brian Millsap, the national raptor coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and one of the study's authors.

The study excluded 17 eagle deaths for which there was not enough evidence. And, in a footnote, it says more golden and bald eagles have since been killed at wind energy facilities in three additional states — Idaho, Montana, and Nevada.

It's unclear what toll the deaths could be having on local eagle populations. And while the golden eagle population is stable in the West, any additional mortality to a long-lived species such as an eagle can be a "tipping point," Millsap said.

The research affirms an AP investigation in May, which revealed dozens of eagle deaths from wind energy facilities and described how the Obama administration was failing to fine or prosecute wind energy companies, even though each death is a violation of federal law.

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Graphic shows how birds are harmed by wind turbines; 3c x 7 inches; 146 mm x 177 mm;

Documents obtained by the AP under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act show that in two cases in Iowa federal investigators determined that a bald eagle had been killed by blunt force trauma with a wind turbine blade. But neither case led to prosecution.

In one of the cases, a bald eagle was found with a missing wing and a leg in a corn field near a turbine at EDP Renewables North America LLC's Pioneer Prairie facility in Iowa. But the report says, "due to the sensitive nature of wind farm investigations and the fact that this investigation documented first violation for EDPR in Midwest, no charges will be pursued at this time." The report lists four other golden eagle deaths at a wind farm operated by the company in Oregon. The company did not return emailed questions about the incidents from the AP.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, which employs the six researchers, has said it is investigating 18 bird-death cases involving wind-power facilities, and seven have been referred to the Justice Department. The authors noted the study's findings do not necessarily reflect the views of the agency, although some of their data was obtained from staff.

Meanwhile, the wind energy industry has pushed for, and the White House is currently evaluating, giving companies permission to kill a set number of eagles for 30 years. The change extends by 25 years the permit length in place now, but it was not subjected to a full environmental review because the administration classified it as an administrative change.

Wind farms are clusters of turbines as tall as 30-story buildings, with spinning rotors as wide as a passenger jet's wingspan. Though the blades appear to move slowly, they can reach speeds up to 170 mph at the tips, creating tornado-like vortexes.

Wind farms in two states, California and Wyoming, were responsible for 58 deaths, followed by facilities in Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Washington, Utah, Texas, Maryland and Iowa.

In all, 32 facilities were implicated. One in Wyoming was responsible for a dozen golden eagle deaths, the most at a single facility.

The research was published in the Journal of Raptor Research.

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'Alarming' discovery about wind farms

The clean-energy facilities are proving to be a deadly addition to the natural environment.

Violating federal law

It's been 12 years since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and though al Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden was killed more than two years ago, the group and its terrorist affiliates remain - populated in part by high-profile recruits straight from the American homeland.

Below are five men, considered U.S. persons and alleged supporters of terrorism wanted so badly by the U.S. government that a reward of $21 million has been offered in total for information leading to their arrest or conviction. Federal authorities consider all of these men "armed and dangerous."

RELATED: Obama Marks 9/11 With Nod to Benghazi, Syria Crisis

Omar Shafik Hammami: $5 Million

Omar Hammami, known as the rapping jihadist for a series of videos in which he rhymes about battling infidels, was born in Alabama but traveled to Somalia years ago to fight alongside al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda-affiliated terror group there.

Known to his terrorist comrades as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, or "the American," Hammami is accused by the U.S. government of being a propagandist for al-Shabaab and, at times, a military leader in the organization. However, a curiously public spat between Hammami and al-Shabaab's local leadership has put his status in the organization into question.

Hammami is wanted by the U.S. government for allegedly providing material support to terrorists.

READ: American Terrorist's Mom Wants Him Back Home

Adam Yahiye Gadahn: $1 Million

Born Adam Pearlman, Adam Gadahn is one of the most high-profile members of al Qaeda. He left his home in California for Pakistan more than a decade ago, seeking out the terror group.

The 35-year-old has served as a spokesman for al Qaeda in the past and in 2010 released a video message to President Obama, ridiculing him for a drop in popularity.

Documents recovered from bin Laden's Pakistani compound show that Gadahn was a "breakout personality" who plays a "significant role" in al Qaeda for his media skills, according to West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

He is wanted for "treason and [providing] material support to al Qaeda," according to the FBI.

Jehad Serwan Mostafa: $5 Million

In March 2013, when Hammami was added to the State Department's Rewards for Justice Program, so was Jehad Mostafa.

Mostafa, a former resident of California, at the time was also believed to be in Somalia where authorities say he "served as a media expert and leader of foreign fighters for al-Shabaab." He is formally accused of a number of terrorism related crimes, including providing material support to terrorists.

Adnan G. El Shukrijumah: $5 Million

Adnan El Shukrijumah, an asthmatic native of Saudi Arabia but considered a U.S. person by the government after living in America for years, is accused of playing a role in a plot to attack the New York City's subway system in 2009.

U.S. authorities believe the plot was hatched by senior al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan and El Shukrijumah is "thought to have served as one of the leaders of al Qaeda's external operations program," according to the FBI.

Jaber A. Elbaneh: $5 Million

Jaber Elbaneh was born in Yemen but hold dual citizenship with the U.S. He lived in New York and the FBI's Wanted poster for him says that he worked for a time as a salesman and a taxi driver.

He also allegedly provided material support to al Qaeda and was indicted in absentia as early as 2003. He was reported to have been associated with the Lackawanna Six, a group of terrorists arrested in 2002 after returning to the U.S. from an Afghan terror training camp, but Elbaneh did not return to the U.S. with the others and instead went to Yemen.

Elbaneh, who The New York Times reported briefly worked in a cheese factory in the U.S., has been in and out of prison in Yemen but the country repeatedly refused to extradite him to the U.S. to face charges.

On each of the wanted posters, the FBI asks that anyone with information relating to the suspects contact their local FBI field office or the closest U.S. embassy or consulate.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., warned that negotiations about Syria handing over its chemical weapons better not be a "ploy,"saying Congress is "watching closely" and that the threat of military action remains on the table

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday removed from immediate consideration a proposed resolution authorizing military force against Syria in response to a request from President Barack Obama.

The move will provide U.S. officials time to negotiate a diplomatic solution with the war-torn nation.

“We’ve agreed on a way forward based on the president's speech last night,” Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on the Senate floor. “The president has asked Congress to postpone a vote to authorize the use of force in Syria and pursue a diplomatic solution to see if that works.”

Just days after Obama called on lawmakers to support a resolution approving a “limited” strike on the Syrian government over the alleged use of chemical weapons, thepresident visited Capitol Hill on Tuesday and urged them to delay a vote. He cited the possibility of a pending deal with the Russian government that would require Syria to turn over its chemical arsenal and join a pact against using such weapons in the future.

Reid had originally said he planned to schedule a procedural vote on the resolution Wednesday, but he declined to file cloture on the bill Monday, an almost sure indication that the vote would be delayed.

In the meantime, administration officials and diplomats have scheduled meetings with foreign leaders to discuss a possible diplomatic deal with Syria, although the president and many top lawmakers remain skeptical. In postponing the resolution, however, Reid said he would reserve the right to call the Senate to the floor for a vote should the talks fall through or appear not to be serious.

“Congress will be watching these negotiations very closely,” Reid, one of the most passionate defenders of Obama’s call for a military strike, said. “If there is any indication they're not serious or they're being used as a ploy to delay, then Congress stands ready to return to that Syria resolution to give the president the authority to hold the Assad regime accountable for the pain, suffering and death that he caused with those chemical weapons.”

At the White House Wednesday, Obama spokesman Jay Carney would not provide a specific timetable for the talks, but said it will “take some time.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that unilateral US military action could unleash chaos as the former Cold War rivals discussed a plan to neutralize Syria's chemical weapons arsenal.

In a bid to appeal directly to US voters and policy-makers over the head of President Barack Obama, Kremlin leader Putin penned a commentary in the New York Times.

His article appeared at the same time as US Secretary of State John Kerry took off for Geneva, where he was to work with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov on a plan to decommission Syria's chemical weapons.

Putin welcomed Washington's willingness to engage with the Moscow initiative, but he rebuked Obama for his previous threat to launch US military strikes to punish Bashar al-Assad's regime.

He warned that carrying out such a move without the approval of the United Nations Security Council, where Moscow wields a veto, would destroy the credibility of the world body.

"No-one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage," he said, referring to the United Nations' failed inter-war predecessor.

"A strike would increase violence and unleash a new wave of terrorism," Putin wrote, in a piece that emphasized that many of the rebels ranged against Assad have ties to Al-Qaeda.

"It could undermine multilateral efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear problem and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and further destabilize the Middle East and North Africa," he continued.

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Graphic presenting two methods, incineration and neutralisation, used in the destruction of chemical …

"It could throw the entire system of international law and order out of balance," he said.

Russia is a traditional ally of Assad, and Moscow has blocked any attempt to sanction his regime through the United Nations during Syria's bloody two-and-a-half year civil war.

Last month, when hundreds of civilians were killed in a night of chemical weapons strikes in the suburbs of Damascus, the United States and France threatened to take action.

Despite a US intelligence report that tied the strike to Assad's regime and alleged that 1,400 people died, Obama struggled to win domestic support for unilateral action.

Then on Monday, Russia announced a plan for Syria to surrender its banned weapons to international control for destruction. Assad's regime quickly said it would comply.

Despite deep skepticism about both Russia and Syria's sincerity, Obama agreed to examine the plan.

In an address to the American people on Tuesday he postponed, but did not withdraw, the threat of military action and ordered Kerry to meet Lavrov and work on the details.

"Judging by the statements of President Obama, the United States sees this as an alternative to military action," Putin wrote.

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US Secretary of State John Kerry departs Andrews Air Force Base in Washington for a meeting with Rus …

"I welcome the president's interest in continuing the dialogue with Russia on Syria. We must work together to keep this hope alive."

However Putin demonstrated the gulf that exists between the United States and Russia by saying the strikes were probably carried out by Syrian rebels rather than Assad's forces.

"No one doubts that poison gas was used in Syria," Putin wrote.

"But there is every reason to believe it was not used by the Syrian Army but by opposition forces to provoke intervention by their powerful foreign patrons..."

Putin also leveled broader criticism at Washington's foreign policy.

Drawing on a passage in Obama's Tuesday night address that said the United States' has an "exceptional" role to play, Putin said it was wrong for any power to presume a unique leadership role.

"It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation," he wrote.

"We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord's blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal."

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Demonstrators opposed to US intervention in Syria listen to President Obama address the nation on Se …

Earlier, envoys from the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- held inconclusive talks on Syria at the United Nations.

Kerry, meanwhile, was en route for Geneva with a team of arms experts and senior officials to spend two to three days with Lavrov poring over Russia's proposal.

The most vocal advocate for Obama's call for strikes to punish Assad, Kerry alleged this week that Damascus has 1,000 metric tonnes of deadly chemical agents, including sulfur, mustard, sarin and VX.

While in Kerry Geneva, will also seek to revitalize political moves to call a peace conference to end Syria's civil war, in which more than 110,000 people have died since March 2011.

He will meet UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to discuss UN-backed efforts to bring the Assad regime to the table with the opposition rebels.

The Syrian opposition has reacted with dismay to the Russian plan, warning that negotiations over chemical weapons will only deepen the chaos and misery in their country.

With the risk of an attack having receded, Assad -- who celebrated his 48th birthday on Wednesday -- was free to pursue his battle with a dismayed rebel coalition.

The regime carried out an air strike on a field hospital in the province of Aleppo, killing at least 11 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Rebel Sunni hardliners killed at least 20 civilians in the central province of Homs, with fighters from the Qaeda-linked Al-Nusra Front and other groups attacking Alawite villages, the Observatory said.

Assad, a secular leader who has largely protected the rights of minorities, belongs to the heterodox Alawite sect, a Shiite Islam offshoot that Sunni hardliners consider un-Islamic.

Sunni Arab monarchies Qatar and Saudi Arabia have funded the rebels, while Shiite theocracy Iran has staunchly backed Assad.

Putin: U.S. strike could unleash chaos

The Russian leader warns in a New York Times op-ed that an attack could spur "a new wave of terrorism."
Says rebels, not Assad, used gas

Florida pastor faces felony after threats to burn Korans on 9/11

Pastor Terry Jones, (R), talks to a member of the Polk County Sheriff's Department as he sits in his vehicle prior to his arrest after being pulled over while travelling on State Road 37 in Mulberry, Florida September 11, 2013. REUTERS/Michael Wilson/The Lakeland Ledger

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Anti-Islam pastor Terry Jones was arrested on a felony charge in Florida on Wednesday, police said, after announcing plans to burn nearly 3,000 copies of the Koran on a barbecue grill.

Jones was towing the grill and the kerosene-soaked holy books in the back of his pickup truck to a park in Mulberry, Florida, according to follower Stephanie Sapp, whose husband, Marvin Wayne Sapp Jr., was also arrested.

Sapp said Jones's group, Stand Up America Now, had earlier announced plans on Facebook to torch the Korans on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the U.S. The Koran is the most sacred religious text in the Muslim religion.

Jones and Sapp Jr. were each charged with unlawful conveyance of fuel, a felony, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said in a statement. Jones was also charged with a misdemeanor of openly carrying a firearm.

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Controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones sits in the courtroom of the 19th District Dearborn Court f …

Judd said in the statement that his detectives had repeatedly warned Jones that while he was welcome in Mulberry, he would be arrested if he broke the law.

Sapp said she and her husband, Jones, and four others drove to Mulberry in three vehicles. They made a stop near the park at a fast food restaurant.

When the group drove back on the road, several unmarked cars pulled them over, she said. Jones and her husband were taken into custody.

Police "informed them that it is illegal to have a grill with kerosene in it in any way behind a vehicle traveling down the highway,'' Sapp said.

She said Jones's group brought 2,998 Korans, one for each of the victims of the September 11 attacks. She said that in burning the holy books, they sought to raise awareness of "the dangers of Islam."

"We had the Korans inside the grill and we had prepared them by soaking with kerosene, just like you would if you had charcoal on a grill and poured lighter fluid on it," Sapp said.

Jones, who heads a small evangelical Christian church in Gainsville, first drew attention to himself in 2010 when he threatened to burn a Koran on September 11 that year.

Media attention to Jones's plans sparked a fury and violent protests from Muslims in the Middle East. Jones was talked out of those plans but has since made similar threats.

(Reporting by Barbara Liston; Editing by Chris Francescani and Ken Wills)

Pastor arrested before he could burn Korans

An anti-Islam Florida pastor is caught hauling nearly 3,000 kerosene-soaked holy books inside a mobile barbecue grill.
Past controversies