Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said today he is reconsidering his department's decision to fire a Georgia official in wake of new details about her controversial speech to the NAACP.

Vilsack said in a statement early Wednesday morning that he will "conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts" about his decision to ask Shirley Sherrod to resign. Washington's apparent reversal came hours after a video of Sherrod's full speech was released, and the director of rural development in Georgia was defended by the white couple at the center of the controversy.

The full, uncut video of a federal agricultural official's NAACP speech purporting racial scheming, told a different story than the barely-three-minute snippet that cost Sherrod her job.

Despite admitting in the edited version of the taping that she once withheld help to the couple on the basis of race, Sherrod was defended Tuesday by the wife of a white Georgia farmer.

Sherrod, "kept us out of bankruptcy," said Eloise Spooner, 82, of Iron City in southwest Georgia. Spooner, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, added she considers Sherrod a "friend for life." She and her husband, Roger Spooner, approached Sherrod for help in 1986 when Sherrod worked for a nonprofit that assisted farmers.

Sherrod, who is African-American, was asked to resign Monday night by a USDA official after videotaped comments she made in March at a local NAACP banquet surfaced on the Web. Recounting her dealings with the Spooners, Sherrod said she didn't help them as much as she could because of their race.

But a review of the entire 43-minute, 15-second speech -- released Tuesday on the NAACP Web site -- showed that Sherrod was giving a cautionary tale about the evils of racial separation.

"When I made that commitment (at age 17 years old to remain in Georgia and help people), I was making that commitment to black people, and to black people only," Sherrod said nearly 15 minutes into the recording, just seconds before the segment that brought her trouble. "But you know, God will ... put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle was really about poor people."

Next, Sherrod would say the words that eventually led to her losing her job.

"[The white farmer] was trying to show me he was superior to me," she said, recalling the day some 24 years ago. "I knew what he was doing, but he had to come to me for help."

Eloise Spooner said as far as she's concerned Sherrod worked tirelessly to help the couple hold onto their land as they faced bankruptcy.

Spooner said she spoke to Sherrod by phone Tuesday morning after the story hit cable news.

"She's very sad about it," Spooner said. "She told me she was so glad we talked. I just can't believe this is happening to her."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack issued a statement Tuesday saying the controversy made Sherrod's position as a rural development director, a job she was appointed to last March, untenable. But Vilsack said Wednesday that after learning more about what Sherrod actually said, he would reconsider.

Vilsack said in a statement early Wednesday morning that he will "conduct a thorough review and consider additional facts" about his decision to ask Sherrod to resign.

The NAACP, which had released a statement Monday critical of Sherrod, backtracked Tuesday, saying it was "snookered" by Andrew Breitbart, whose Web site biggovernment.com released the edited video. Breitbart did not respond to a request seeking comment.

"Having reviewed the full tape, spoken to Ms. Sherrod, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans," NAACP President Ben Jealous said in a statement. "The tape of Ms. Sherrod’s speech at an NAACP banquet was deliberately edited to create a false impression of racial bias, and to create a controversy where none existed. This just shows the lengths to which extremist elements will go to discredit legitimate opposition."

In the video, Sherrod told the crowd at the NAACP banquet in Douglas, Ga., that she didn't do everything she could to help a white farmer whom she said was condescending when he came to her for aid.

"What he didn't know while he was taking all that time trying to show me he was superior to me was, I was trying to decide just how much help I was going to give him," Sherrod said on the video, recorded "I was struggling with the fact that so many black people had lost their farmland, and here I was faced with having to help a white person save their land. So I didn't give him the full force of what I could do. I did enough."

Sherrod, in her first interview after the clip surfaced, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution the video was selectively edited.

While she soon admitted as she told her story that she referred the Spooners to a white lawyer so "his own kind would help him," she followed that admission with a revelation that was omitted from the two-minute, 36-second excerpt of the speech posted by Breitbart's group.

Sherrod told the crowd that she discovered the white lawyer she had referred the Spooners to took their money for six months, but did nothing to help them.

"This lawyer told them, ‘ya'll are getting old ... why don't you just let go of the farm,'" she said. "I could not believe he said that to them."

Sherrod said she'd learned her lesson.

"It's about the poor," Sherrod said, just over 20 minutes into the speech. "It made me see it really was about those who have, versus those who don't ... black, white or Hispanic.

"It made me realize that I needed to work to help poor people ... those who don't have access the way others have."

She said the incident helped her get beyond issues of race.

"And I went on to work with many more white farmers," she said. "The story helped me realize that race is not the issue, it's about the people who have and the people who don't."

Sherrod accused the USDA of cowering to right-wing media.

"They were just looking at what the Tea Party and what Fox (News) said, and thought it was too [politically] dangerous for them," Sherrod said of her former employer.

The Sherrod video surfaced a week after the NAACP issued a resolution calling some elements of the National Tea Party racist for comments allegedly made against President Obama and African-American congressmen during the health care debate.

Sherrod said it wouldn't have made any sense for her to espouse racist comments before the NAACP audience.

"There were some white people there. The mayor [of Douglas] was there," Sherrod recalled. "Why would I do something racist if they were there?"

Douglas Mayor Jackie Wilson told the AJC she introduced speakers at the banquet but left before Sherrod's speech.

Wilson said she did not hear of any controversy in the weeks following the banquet, adding she was shocked to learn of Sherrod's resignation.

"She's not someone I know extremely well, but I respected her and thought she was doing a good job. And she seemed to be a fair person," said Wilson. "I just hate that this kind of thing happened in Douglas."

Eloise Spooner said she'll stand up for her friend.

"She helped us and we're going to help them," she said.

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The 5,600 vessels taking part in the oil spill operation on the Gulf of Mexico make up the largest fleet assembled since the Allied invasion of Normandy, according to the Coast Guard.

Hordes of helicopters, bulldozers, Army trucks, ATVs, barges, dredges, airboats, workboats, cleanup crews, media, scientists and volunteers have descended on the beaches, blue waters and golden marshes of the Gulf Coast.

That's a lot of propellers, anchors, tires, and feet for a fragile ecosystem to take, and a tough truth is emerging: In many places, the oil cleanup itself is causing environmental damage.

Part of that is inevitable — the oil has to get cleaned up somehow, and BP and the government will be subject to second-guessing no matter what.

"Absolutely nothing you do to respond to an oil spill is without impacts of its own," said Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20, killing 11, and oil began gushing into the Gulf, federal, state and BP officials say they have been guided in their response by picking the less damaging cleanup method.

Still, environmentalists and veterans of other spills say the torrent of untested cleanup methods rushed into practice by panicked officials and unqualified experts is wreaking havoc and, at least in spots, may be unnecessary.

"The more you disperse (with chemicals), the more you bring in these big machines, the more you bring in inexperienced people and the more sand berms you build, the less chance you have of letting Mother Nature and skimmers and booms do the job," said Mike Brewer of Buras, La., who ran an oil spill response company and is working on the BP cleanup.

For starters, the EPA allowed BP PLC to spray a chemical dispersant, a product called Corexit, to break up oil right as it came out of BP's broken well nearly a mile below the surface. The idea is to save shorelines from being clobbered with vast waves of crude.

In practice, the use of dispersants that had never been tested that far beneath the surface has made the oil much more difficult to track than it would have been in a single, massive slick. And environmentalists and marine biologists still aren't convinced the chemicals are safe for sea life.

The EPA halted underwater spraying while it tested samples collected by BP, then allowed it to resume once the results came back to the agency's satisfaction. Further tests are ongoing, and crews quit spraying dispersant once the well was contained this week, Jackson said.

"Basically, we conducted uncontrolled experiments in the open ocean — that does not seem like a good idea to me," said John Hocevar, the oceans campaign director for Greenpeace USA.

Jackson said there was little evidence that the chemical dispersants had caused damage and called their effects "relatively mild."

Eager to be seen as taking charge, Gov. Bobby Jindal began building a series of untested sand islands and other barriers along the Louisiana coast, making construction of these berms a personal crusade. In theory, sand berms and jetties will stop the oil from entering sensitive estuaries.

But berms and jetties interrupt shrimp and fish migrations as well as tidal flows; the work can even undermine what little is left of Louisiana's gooey and sediment-layered shoreline.

"None of the coastal scientists have signed onto this thing," said Leonard Bahr, a former adviser to both Republican and Democratic governors in Louisiana on coastal restoration issues.

Fishermen and locals, however, almost unanimously agree with Jindal's unorthodox barrier plans.

"We know these (berms) stop the oil. It worked on Fourchon Beach," said Windell Curole, a levee manager in south Lafourche Parish, an area long struggling with erosion. "The people that are pushing for these things are more invested in it than the scientists."

In a move that put its compensation costs toward curtailing the spill's environmental effects, BP hired truckloads of inexperienced oil spill responders — shrimpers, unemployed workers, college students, and migrant workers. The manpower is essential, but their footprint can be huge, especially if they're not used to watching their step.

"It was like the Wild West there for a while, and it still is to some degree," said Drew Wheelan, a wildlife biologist with the American Bird Association Inc., a conservation group.

Wheelan said cleanup crews trampled on numerous nesting bird colonies, including at least one batch of least tern eggs he saw. Wilson's plovers and endangered black skimmers on Louisiana's Grand Isle and East Grand Terre islands were threatened by intensive beach cleanups.

"The whole entire area in the past two weeks has been completely crisscrossed by tire tracks. The entire cleanup there has been entirely sickening," Wheelan said recently of East Grand Terre. "There are tire tracks from the low tide line all the way up into the dune vegetation. Not an inch of that frontal beach has been spared from traffic."

Out on the Gulf, BP brought in a super-sized skimmer from Taiwan — the "A Whale" — capable of sucking up 20 million gallons of water a day, aiming to corral huge quantities of oiled water at once. Like some of the other methods, it had never been tested and scientists worried that it could cause serious damage.

"It will suck in a lot of biology," said James Cowan, a Louisiana State University fisheries scientist.

Coast Guard officials questioned its effectiveness, noting that it would be better for attacking a single huge slick than for the countless smaller pools that the dispersant helped create. Authorities announced last week that the massive ship was dropping out of the spill operation.

Forrest Travirca has seen the cleanup's side effects up close as a land manager for the Wisner estate, a public land trust that includes Fourchon Beach and a large marsh area that has seen some of the heaviest oil so far.

On an airboat cruise through marsh, signs of the messy cleanup jumped out. Reddish-brown and sticky tar coated the blades of marsh grass behind a beach lined with sand baskets brought in by Army dump trucks. Absorbent boom lay washed up against shorelines. Crews had staked down shade tents every few hundred yards.

Almost as soon as he stepped onto the sand, Travirca saw something he didn't like: Two ATV tracks meandering carefree across the sands. Someone with the cleanup had strayed from designated traffic corridors.

"This really upsets me," Travirca said, standing over the fresh set of tracks. "They're not supposed to be driving back here. They've got to drive along the front of the beach. Birds nest back here."

He walked a few paces away and pointed out another set of ATV tracks he discovered a few days before. "This track here was inches from a tern nest with eggs."

At least now, more than three months after the spill, the cleanup is becoming more organized.

In the beginning, he said, the beach "looked like the autobahn."

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A white former transit police officer in the western U.S. state of California has been convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the videotaped shooting death of an unarmed black man that triggered protests and rioting last year.

The defendant in the racially charged trial, Johannes Mehserle, 28, testified that he mistakenly drew a pistol instead of his electric Taser weapon and shot Oscar Grant, 22, while attempting to subdue him in Oakland, east of San Francisco. Several witnesses captured the January 2009 encounter on video.

Prosecutors had sought murder charges against Mehserle for shooting Grant while he was face down.

But the jury of four men and eight women believed Mehserle lacked the intent to kill.

The trial was moved to Los Angeles due to concerns that extensive media coverage of the case in the San Francisco area would inflame tensions caused by the killing.

Police in Oakland braced for the possibility of renewed violence following the verdict. Civic leaders have appealed for calm.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger urged state residents not to resort to violence.

At least five bystanders videotaped the New Year's Day incident.

Involuntary manslaughter is punishable by two to four years in prison. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday that Mehserle could also receive three to ten years for using a gun, meaning his sentence could range from five to 14 years. Sentencing is set for August 6.

The racially polarizing case has drawn comparisons to the case of Rodney King, a black man whose vicious beating by a group of white Los Angeles police officers in 1991 was captured on video. In April 1992, four white officers were acquitted by an all-white jury, sparking three days of rioting in Los Angeles that left 53 people dead.

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A federal judge in Boston, Massachusetts, has ruled that the federal ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, because it interferes with an individual state's right to define marriage.

The ruling gives same-sex married couples in Massachusetts the same right to federal benefits that heterosexual couples enjoy.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Tauro ruled that "as irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest," the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the protection under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

Tauro ruled simultaneously in favor on two separate lawsuits that were filed by the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) on behalf of eight same-sex married couples and three widows, and by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage has been permitted for over six years.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley called the ruling "a victory for civil rights." Coakley, who attended court Thursday for the ruling, told reporters, "All citizens who are married in Massachusetts should be treated equally."

Tauro ruled that in DOMA it was "only sexual orientation that differentiates a married couple entitled to federal marriage-based benefits from one not so entitled."

He added that "the relevant distinction to be drawn is between married individuals and unmarried individuals. To further divide the class of married individuals into those with spouses of the same sex and those with spouses of the opposite sex is to create a distinction without meaning,"

Nancy Gell, one of the plaintiffs in the case said that she let out a huge "Yahoo!" when she heard the ruling on television as she was cooking dinner. "We are just absolutely thrilled, I am so happy I can't ever put it into words," she told reporters.

Coakley who said that she believed that DOMA statute had no purpose other than to discriminate, said that the ruling applied to all same-sex married couples in Massachusetts.

Gary Buseck, GLAD's legal director, said that Thursday's ruling "is for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, so it seems to be encompassing all of the same-sex married couples in Massachusetts." He added that it would be "highly unusual" if the ruling was not appealed.

Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said of the ruling, "We are reviewing the decision."

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In a seeming flashback to the cold war, Russian and American officials traded prisoners in the bright sunlight on the tarmac of Vienna’s international airport on Friday, bringing to a quick end an episode that had threatened to disrupt relations between the two countries.

Planes carrying 10 convicted Russian sleeper agents and 4 men accused by Moscow of spying for the West swooped into the Austrian capital, once a hub of clandestine East-West maneuvering, and the men and women were transferred, according to an American official. The planes soon took off again, presumably heading back to Russia and the United States in a coda fitting of an espionage novel.

The first sign that the exchange — one of the biggest in over two decades — was under way came as an American Vision Airlines jet carrying the Russian agents deported from the United States touched down and taxied to park only a matter of yards from the Russian plane from Moscow’s Emergencies Ministry. For a while the only sound of movement was an unidentified emissary shuttling between the airplanes.

Then, more than an hour later, with little fanfare and no formal announcement from either side, the Russian-flagged plane took off into clear blue skies, closely followed by the American airplane.

The swap was among the biggest since the Soviet dissident Anatoly Shcharansky — who as Natan Sharansky became a political figure in Israel — was released along with eight imprisoned spies in a classic cold war exchange in 1986. But that exchange took place in a wintry Berlin across the snow-dusted Glienicke Bridge in Berlin at a time when the Iron Curtain cut Europe into rival ideological camps and this city provided one of few avowedly neutral havens.

The swift conclusion to the case just 12 days after the arrest of the Russian agents evoked memories of that time, but it also underscored the new-era relationship between Washington and Moscow. President Obama has made the “reset” of Russian-American relations a top foreign policy priority, and the quiet collaboration over the spy scandal indicates that the Kremlin likewise values the warmer ties.

Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, told the PBS program “NewsHour” that the president was fully briefed on the decision and that the case showed that the United States was still watchful even as relations improved. The 10 sleeper agents had pleaded guilty to conspiracy before a federal judge in Manhattan after revealing their true identities. All 10 were sentenced to time served and ordered deported.

A lawyer for one of four prisoners freed by the Russian government called it “a historic moment” and said she believed her client, a former Russian intelligence agent named Aleksandr Zaporozhsky, would be reunited with members of his family, who live in the United States.

Within hours of the New York court hearing, the Kremlin announced that President Dmitri A. Medvedev had signed pardons for the four men Russia considered spies after each of them signed statements admitting guilt.

The Kremlin identified them as Igor V. Sutyagin, an arms control researcher held for 11 years; Sergei Skripal, a colonel in Russia’s military intelligence service sentenced in 2006 to 13 years for spying for Britain; Mr. Zaporozhsky, a former agent with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service who has served 7 years of an 18-year sentence; and Gennadi Vasilenko, a former K.G.B. major who was arrested in 1998 for contacts with a C.I.A. officer but eventually released only to be arrested again in 2005 and later convicted on illegal weapons charges.

Yelena P. Lebedeva-Romanova, a lawyer for Mr. Skripal, 59, said she was very pleased that he had received an amnesty, in part because he suffers from diabetes and she worried about the effects of prison camp life on his health.

Mr. Zaporozhsky’s lawyer, Maria A. Veselova, said attorney-client privilege prevented her from revealing details of the negotiations that led to his release, but said she had long detected signs that he might be freed.

“For the last couple of years I was absolutely sure it was going to happen,” said Ms. Veselova, who represented him in the 2003 espionage trial where he was sentenced to 18 years. “It has to do with the relations between the two countries, and with political games going on at the top. It is always connected with these chess games.”

But for the second day, Mr. Sutyagin’s family, who live in the scientific community of Obninsk about 60 miles outside Moscow, were relying on media reports to track his whereabouts.

“I will only believe it when my son calls me,” said his mother, Svetlana Y. Sutyagina, a chemical engineer who spent most of the day working. “We are waiting and waiting for his call. That’s all we can do, is wait.”

She said they had no idea where he will live after his release, or even where his final destination is on Friday. She said she didn’t know whether his wife or daughters would ultimately join him there.

“We will only know his plans when we hear his voice,” she said. “Then we can think about what’s next. Now we have only one thought — when will he call. Nothing else matters.”

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As President Obama campaigned for Rory Reid's famous and powerful father in Nevada, the son was hundreds of miles away campaigning for governor.

While there's no animosity between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his son, the younger Reid's use of his first name on his campaign's website and television ads is telling, a veteran political observer in Nevada said.

"Obviously he's trying to downplay his last name," said Jon Ralston, a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun and publisher of the Ralston Report. "In so obviously downplaying it, he's called even more attention to it."

The reason, he said: Poll numbers showing high unfavorable ratings for both Reids.

In a Las Vegas Review-Journal poll from June, 52 percent had an unfavorable view of Harry Reid. Polls also indicate Rory Reid trails his Republican gubernatorial opponent, Brian Sandoval, by double digits.

"The reason he's [Rory] losing so badly is because his identity is inextricably linked to his father," he said. "So his father's negatives are attaching to him."

Ralston also suspects that a majority of Nevadans simply do not want two Reids on the ballot.

"What Harry Reid is doing in his campaign is going to end up hurting Rory Reid. Even if he can convince people to hold their noses and vote for him, they're not going to vote for two Reids. They might vote for Harry Reid ... they'll say 'one Reid is my limit.' "

Harry Reid has come to his son's defense, saying in an interview with the Review-Journal that while he "cares a great deal about him ... he has to run on his own."

For his part, Rory Reid told Fox's Las Vegas affiliate that he thinks "people know who I am and I like the way my first name sounds."

And it's evident. His campaign website's top banner reads, "Rory2010" -- and on the "Meet Rory" biography section, there is no mention of his last name. His first television ad drew criticism because his last name was not mentioned. A recent ad, however, briefly used his last name.

"The story surrounding his first ad was how he didn't mention his last name," Ralston said. "They thought by putting his last name once in another ad, it wouldn't be talked about as much ... It's become such an issue now that it's very difficult for him to get away from it."

And it didn't take long for Republicans to jump on that. In an ad by the Republican Governors Association, two people appearing to be aides walk up to Rory Reid's dressing room. A gold star on the door reads "Rory," with his last name blacked out.

Political blogs and some residents are also poking fun at the name controversy.

The blog Wonkette, in a post titled "Rory Reid No Longer Related to Harry Reid," reads: "It's also funny how the Rory 2010 website refers to all other human beings with their last names, yet not him. Is Rory Reid better than other humans?"

In the letter to the editor section of the Review-Journal, Daniel Maxime of Las Vegas, wrote: "Elvis! Liza! Engelbert! Cher! Madonna! Rory! ... When did Clark County Commissioner and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Rory Reid become a one-name star? Of course, if my last name were Reid, I surely would be running from it this election year."

Ralston said Rory Reid's campaign is overthinking the name issue.

"Everything he does is Rory this, Rory that. How often do you see that in a campaign where someone's just using their first name?" he said. "It just doesn't happen."

So what can the gubernatorial candidate do to turn around his poll numbers?

"He should take a page out of his dad's book: His dad realizes the only way for him to win is to raise his opponent's negatives," Ralston said. "That's the only way that Rory Reid has a chance."

Dan Hart, a political consultant who appeared on Ralston's "Face to Face" television show, said give him time.

"He has to tell people about himself, what he's accomplished, what his goals for the state are," Hart said. "He will, and it will take a bit of time."

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When Sen. Robert C. Byrd's niece began to sing "On the Wings of a Snow White Dove" at his funeral Tuesday, she faltered.

Jassowyn Sale Hurd said she had never gotten the chance to sing with the late statesman, and now, as she stood before his polished brown casket in an Arlington church, she briefly forgot the tune.

She apologized. "Let me try this again," she said, and as she did, the congregation assembled to bid the lawmaker a last farewell on a broiling summer day began to softly sing along:

When troubles surround us, when evils come, the body grows weak, the spirit grows numb.

It was a moment that might have made the Democrat from West Virginia smile: the sweet melody, the evocative refrain:

On the wings of a snow-white dove, He sends His pure sweet love.

The longest-serving lawmaker in the history of Congress and proud son of Appalachian Bible country was borne to his rest Tuesday amid the strains of the music he loved and the words of the Scripture he revered.

Byrd, who died June 28 at age 92, was buried beside his wife, Erma, in an Arlington County cemetery after a simple but moving funeral at Arlington's Memorial Baptist Church.

It was the final goodbye in a week of heartfelt salutes to the child of the coal fields who grew up to become a lion of the U.S. Senate and a legend in West Virginia.

Byrd's flag-draped casket arrived a little after 9 a.m. and was carried by a military honor guard from the gleaming hearse into the red-carpeted sanctuary of the 60-year-old brick church on Glebe Road.

The casket, covered in a large bouquet of white roses with a single red rose in honor of Byrd's wife, was placed at the front of the church on a catafalque hung with black, as dignitaries and mourners paused outside in the shade to sign a guestbook.

On a table before the casket, a large Bible was opened to the 23rd Psalm: "The Lord is my shepherd . . . "

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