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WASHINGTON — Tobacco companies deliberately changed the menthol levels in cigarettes depending upon whom they were marketing them to — lower levels for young smokers who preferred the milder brands and higher levels to "lock in lifelong adult smokers," researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health concluded.

The researchers reviewed industry documents dating back decades on product development and on strategic plans for menthol products. They said the companies researched how controlling menthol levels could increase sales among specific groups. Companies disputed the findings. Congress is considering legislation to give the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco.

WASHINGTON — The Senate voted Wednesday to triple spending for a much-acclaimed program that has treated and protected millions in Africa and elsewhere from the scourges of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.

The 80-16 vote committed the United States to spending up to $48 billion over the next five years for the most ambitious foreign public health program ever launched by the United States. The House passed its version of the bill in April.

The legislation would replace and expand the current $15 billion act that President Bush championed in a State of the Union address and Congress passed in 2003. That act expires at the end of September.

MADISON — The state Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by five men who claimed two Roman Catholic dioceses should have reported sexual abuse claims against a teacher before he moved on to a Kentucky diocese and molested them.

The lawsuit alleged that the Diocese of Milwaukee told Gary Kazmarek to "leave Milwaukee quietly" in the 1960s before he moved to suburban Madison and later Kentucky, where he is serving a 13-year prison sentence for abusing the five men between 1968 and 1973.

The court unanimously rejected the men's claims that the Madison diocese was negligent in failing to contact police or warn employers that Kazmarek was known for sexually abusing children. The justices said the men did not allege that the diocese even knew Kazmarek was teaching at a Catholic school in Louisville, Ky., or that the archdiocese there had ever asked for references.

The court said the Madison diocese's failure to warn potential victims in other states did not constitute negligence.

HOUSTON — In a tribute mixed with praise and personal anecdotes, pioneering heart surgeon Michael DeBakey was remembered at a memorial service Wednesday as not only a medical innovator, but also a friend and humanitarian.

Many of the medical professionals among the 1,800 in attendance wore their surgical scrubs or white coats to honor the father of modern heart surgery, whose body also was dressed in doctor's garb. DeBakey died Friday at age 99.

During the two-hour service at a Catholic church, the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, friends and colleagues detailed DeBakey's rise and called him one of the greatest doctors ever.

SEATTLE — After spending $5 million on its five automated public toilets, Seattle is calling it quits. The restrooms, installed in early 2004, had become so filthy, so overrun with drug abusers and prostitutes, that although use was free of charge, even some of the city's most destitute people refused to step inside them.

The units were put up for sale on Wednesday afternoon on eBay, with a starting bid set by the city at $89,000 apiece.

SAN FRANCISCO — An international team of AIDS scientists has discovered a gene variant common in blacks that protects against certain types of malaria but raises susceptibility to HIV infection by 40 percent.

Researchers, keen to find some biological clues to explain why people of African descent are bearing a disproportionate share of the world's AIDS cases, suspect this subtle genetic trait — found in 60 percent of American blacks and 90 percent of Africans — might partly explain the difference.

The gene study was led by Dr. Sunil Ahuja, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, and published Wednesday in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.

SAN FRANCISCO — Firefighters set more controlled burns Wednesday to block a wildfire that already has blackened 190 square miles and destroyed 27 homes on the central California coast.

The controlled fires were proceeding well despite high humidity that had prevented firefighters from setting "back burns" on Tuesday.

Mandatory evacuation orders were in place for about 20 homes along the heavily wooded ridges near Carmel Valley in Monterey County. Another 200 houses were emptied in nearby Cachagua because of the fire danger.

SAN FRANCISCO — The state Supreme Court on Wednes-day refused to hear a challenge to a ballot initiative that seeks to ban same-sex marriages.

The unanimous decision means that, barring further legal action, voters will consider a constitutional amendment in November that would limit marriage in California to a union between a man and a woman. The court did not give a reason for its decision. Same-sex marriages in California began June 16.