By Marice Richter GRAPEVINE, Texas (Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America voted on Thursday to lift a ban on openly gay scouts that had been in place throughout the organization's 103-year history, capping weeks of intense lobbying on both sides, the group said in a statement. More than 60 percent of the group's National Council, composed of some 1,400 delegates, voted to end the ban effective January 1, 2014. A prohibition on openly gay adult leaders remains in place. ...

By Jeff Mason WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Thursday he directed Attorney General Eric Holder to conduct a review of Department of Justice guidelines for investigations that involve journalists and report back by early July. Obama has come under criticism for his administration's pursuit of journalists who have reported leaked material. In recent weeks, it emerged that the Justice Department seized Associated Press phone records as part of a probe into leaks about a 2012 Yemen-based plot to bomb a U.S. ...

GROZNY, Russia (Reuters) - The father of a Chechen immigrant killed during questioning over his links with one of the Boston Marathon bombings suspects said on Thursday he plans to travel to the United States where he thinks his son was tortured and killed. Ibragim Todashev, 27, was killed by a federal agent in his apartment complex when he became violent during questioning over his ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of two brothers suspected of planting two bombs at the marathon on April 15. ...