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BOSTON (AP) — Sixteen hours after investigators began interrogating him, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings went silent: he'd just been read his constitutional rights.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. Attorney's office entered his hospital room and gave him his Miranda warning, according to four officials of both political parties briefed on the interrogation. They insisted on anonymity because the briefing was private.

Before being advised of his rights, the 19-year-old suspect told authorities that his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, only recently had recruited him to be part of the attack that detonated pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line, two U.S. officials said.

The CIA, however, had named Tamerlan to a terrorist database 18 months ago, said officials close to the investigation who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case with reporters.

The new disclosure that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was included within a huge, classified database of known and suspected terrorists before the attacks was expected to drive congressional inquiries in coming weeks about whether the Obama administration adequately investigated tips from Russia that Tsarnaev had posed a security threat.

Shortly after the bombings, U.S. officials said the intelligence community had no information about threats to the marathon before the April 15 explosions that killed three people and injured more than 260.

Tsarnaev died Friday in a police shootout hours before Dzhokhar was discovered hiding in a boat in a suburban back yard. He was wounded.

Washington is piecing together what happened and whether there were any unconnected dots buried in U.S. government files that, if connected, could have prevented the bombings.

Lawmakers who were briefed by the FBI said they have more questions than answers about the investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said lawmakers intend to pursue whether there was a breakdown in information-sharing, though Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, said he "hasn't seen any red flags thus far."

U.S. officials were expected to brief the Senate on the investigation Thursday. That same day, the suspects' parents, Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, plan to fly to the U.S. from Russia, the father was quoted as telling the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. The family has said it wants to take Tamerlan's body back to Russia.

It is unclear whether the issue of their younger son's constitutional rights will matter since the FBI say he confessed to a witness. U.S. officials also said Wednesday that physical evidence, including a 9 mm handgun and pieces of a remote-control device commonly used in toys, was recovered from the bombing scene.

But the debate over whether suspected terrorists should be read their Miranda rights has become a major sticking point in the debate over how best to fight terrorism. Many Republicans, in particular, believe Miranda warnings are designed to build court cases, and only hinder intelligence gathering.

Christina DiIorio Sterling, a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, said in an email late Wednesday, "This remains an ongoing investigation and we don't have any further comment."

Investigators have said the brothers appeared to have been radicalized through jihadist materials on the Internet and have found no evidence tying them to a terrorist group.

U.S. investigators traveled to the predominantly Muslim province of Dagestan in Russia and were in contact with the brothers' parents, hoping to gain more information.

They are looking into whether Tamerlan, who spent six months in Russia's turbulent Caucasus region in 2012, was influenced by the religious extremists who have waged an insurgency against Russian forces in the area for years. The brothers have roots in Dagestan and neighboring Chechnya but had lived in the U.S. for about a decade.

Dzhokhar told the FBI that they were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the killing of Muslims there, officials said.

Dzhokhar's public defender had no comment on the matter Wednesday. His father has called him a "true angel," and an aunt has insisted he's not guilty.

Investigators have found pieces of remote-control equipment among the debris and were analyzing them, officials said. One official described the detonator as "close-controlled," meaning it had to be triggered within several blocks of the bombs.

That evidence could be key to the court case. And an FBI affidavit said one of the brothers told a carjacking victim during their getaway attempt, "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that."

Officials also recovered a 9 mm handgun believed to have been used by Tamerlan from the site of an April 18 gunbattle that injured a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority officer, two U.S. officials said.

The officials told the AP that no gun was found in the boat where Dzhokhar was hiding. Boston police Commissioner Ed Davis said earlier that shots were fired from inside the boat.

Asked whether the suspect had a gun in the boat, Davis said, "I'm not going to talk about that."

But Kurt Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said a police officer was shot within half a mile of where Tsarnaev was captured, "and I know who shot him."

Authorities had previously said Dzhokhar exchanged gunfire with them for more than an hour Friday night before they captured him inside a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston neighborhood backyard. But two U.S. officials said Wednesday that he was unarmed when captured, raising questions about the gunfire and how he was injured.

In other developments:

— Vice President Joe Biden condemned the bombing suspects as "two twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis" while speaking at a memorial service Wednesday for Sean Collier, a campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was ambushed in his cruiser three days after the bombing. More than 4,000 mourners paid tribute to the officer.

— The Office of Health and Human Services in Massachusetts confirmed a Boston Herald report Wednesday that Tamerlan, his wife and toddler daughter had received welfare benefits up until last year, when he became ineligible based on family income. The state also says Tamerlan and his brother received welfare benefits as children through their parents while the family lived in Massachusetts.

— The area around the marathon finish line was reopened to the public.

____ Yost and Jakes reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier, Matt Apuzzo, Eileen Sullivan, Adam Goldman and Eric Tucker in Washington, David Crary, Denise Lavoie, Bridget Murphy and Bob Salsberg in Boston and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth is fine with manager Davey Johnson's plan to shuffle the lineup after the team dropped below .500 with its ninth loss in 12 games.

Even told Johnson he'd be OK moving out of his No. 2 slot in the batting order after Washington's 4-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday completed a three-game sweep.

Something needs to change, Werth knows.

"We need to jumble it up, and we need to switch the `mojo' a little bit," Werth said, sitting in front of his locker in the home clubhouse at Nationals Park. "I think somebody was talking about (former NBA coach) Phil Jackson the other day. We need to call him up, have him come in here and burn some sage or something. We're not very `feng shui' right now."

Johnson said he would insert bench player Steve Lombardozzi in the lineup Thursday against Cincinnati and make other changes for a club that scored four runs in three days against St. Louis and is averaging 2.9 runs over its last dozen games.

"It's frustrating. We're just not doing the things we're capable of doing," Johnson said. "Guys are trying to do too much. (Ian Desmond) looked like he was trying to hit the ball to the light tower. Little things where guys are trying to create something that's not there yet."

"It'll change, but I'm going to have to jumble things up a little bit," he added. "Try to light a fire."

Johnson's players seemed open to the idea of giving that a shot.

"If it works tomorrow, then it works," second baseman Danny Espinosa said.

The Nationals went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position Wednesday, after falling behind 3-0 in the first inning as Stephen Strasburg (1-4) lost his fourth consecutive start. It's the longest such stretch of the All-Star ace's young career.

The game's very first batter, Matt Carpenter, got it started against Strasburg by stretching a single into a double when Bryce Harper's throw to second base was bobbled and fell to the dirt.

One out later, Matt Holliday singled. Carlos Beltran walked. Then Yadier Molina delivered a two-run single. And a throwing error on Daniel Descalso's fielder's choice grounder padded the score.

Just like that, 23 pitches in, the Cardinals had a lead that would hold up.

"It was good to get on Strasburg early," Cardinals shortstop Pete Kozma said. "That's what we were trying to do from the get-go, before he starts to settle in."

Jaime Garcia (2-1) allowed a run on Harper's sixth-inning groundout, but otherwise added to the offensive struggles of the Nationals, who have lost six consecutive home games while falling to 10-11.

Trying to generate something for Washington's slumbering offense, Desmond bunted for a base hit with one out in the second. He then stole second and advanced to third on a flyout to the warning track. But rookie third baseman Anthony Rendon struck out to end the inning.

Strasburg actually was the one who got Washington going at the plate, grounding a single up the middle to lead off the sixth. Denard Span followed with a single, and Werth's groundout moved the runners up for Harper. He grounded out to second, but at least that got Strasburg home with a rare run to make it 3-1.

A walk to Tyler Moore ended Garcia's day after four hits in 5 2-3 innings. Righty Joe Kelly entered to face Desmond, who struck out swinging and flung his bat and helmet.

In the seventh, a pair of singles put runners at the corners with one out, but Kelly got out of that jam when pinch-hitter Lombardozzi struck out and Jhonatan Solano, taking off from first on a hit-and-run, was thrown out at second by catcher Molina.

Werth's fourth homer, a solo shot to left off Trevor Rosenthal with one out in the eighth, gave Washington its second run. But that was too little to stop the Nationals from dropping below .500 for the first time since finishing the 2011 season 80-81.

"Somebody said last night it feels like we're 0-20, but it's not that bad. We're only one game under .500, and it's April. We'll be all right," Werth said. "What we're going through, it's the first time this team has dealt with expectations, and there's something to be said about that. But we'll adjust. The league has adjusted to us, we'll adjust to the league."

NOTES: The Nationals are hitting .235 as a team with a .299 on-base percentage and .402 slugging percentage. ... Washington is 1-8 against teams that entered Wednesday with winning records this season. ... Washington begins a four-game series against visiting Cincinnati on Thursday, when Nationals LHP Gio Gonzalez (1-1, 5.85 ERA) faces RHP Bronson Arroyo (2-1, 3.54).

--- Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at HTTP://TWITTER.COM/HOWARDFENDRICH

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. students are falling behind their international rivals. Young people aren't adept at new technology. America's economy will suffer if schools don't step up their game.

"A Nation at Risk," the report issued 30 years ago by President Ronald Reagan's Education Department, was meant as a wake-up call for the country. It spelled out where the United States was coming up short in education and what steps could be taken to avert a crisis.

But its warnings still reverberate today, with 1 in 4 Americans failing to earn a high school degree on time and the U.S. lagging other countries in the percentage of young people who complete college.

"A Nation at Risk" spooked the public, urged an overhaul of how and what children are taught and sparked the school reform movement in the country. Current reform advocates such Michelle Rhee, the former District of Columbia schools chancellor, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush can trace their work back to the report.

"We opened the genie from the bottle and said, `You aren't doing so well,'" said Xavier University of Louisiana President Norman C. Francis, a member of the commission that produced the dire warning. "For us, we felt good about the fact that we wrote something that needed to be said. We had the research. And we hoped we would have a greater measure of return."

At times, President Barack Obama has seemed to take his cues from the report.

"What is at stake is nothing less than the American dream," he said in 2009, calling for education overhaul to keep pace with other counties.

"Despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we have let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short and other nations outpace us," he said.

Russ Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution and a former senior Education Department official, calls the report prescient. "The themes that it stressed - the increasing role of technology, globalization - is now the everyday stuff of education. But it wasn't at the time."

"I can't think of anything that painted with quite as broad a stroke as `A Nation at Risk,'" he added.

Its impact, however, was not as broad.

The commissioners urged extending the school year from 180 days to up to 220 days. The report also suggested an 11-month contract for teachers so they could spend their summers preparing for the next year. Neither recommendation has been put into widespread use.

The commissioners also said teacher salaries should be increased to be "professionally competitive." Again, there hasn't been near the movement commissioners sought. In today's dollars, the average teacher earned $46,700 in 1983 and $54,900 in 2010, according to the Education Department.

But some of the commission's other recommendations were put into practice, including a more rigorous curriculum. For instance, students graduating in 1982 had an average of 2.2 science credits on their transcripts. In 2009, that average number rose to 3.5 credits.

And the class of 1982 left high school with 2.6 math credits, compared with the 2009 graduates' 3.9 credits, according to Education Department data.

"The results are mixed," said William Bennett, who served as Reagan's second-term education secretary. "We have progress being paid to the right things: content, accountability. ... It was right about how we needed to beef up courses and how we needed to be stronger."

But when Bennett compares U.S. results with those of other nations, there's no reason to celebrate.

"If you look at those numbers, you get the story for 30 years," he said. "If there's a bottom line, it's that we're spending twice as much money on education as we did in '83 and the results haven't changed all that much."

American fourth-graders are 11th in the world in math in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, the measure of nations against each other. U.S. eighth-graders ranked ninth in math, according to those 2011 results.

The Program for International Student Assessment measurement found the United States ranked 31st in math literacy among 15-year-old students and below the international average. The same 2009 tests found the United States ranked 23rd in science among the same students, but posting an average score.

It's impossible to compare the rankings before 1995, when these international math and science tests were first given. The first international math literacy and science tests were given in 2001.

Yet domestic tests show there have not been major changes in students' scores.

Between 1980 and 2008, 13-year-old students posted only a 2-point gain in reading scores and 17-year-old students saw just a 1-point gain during that time. The tests were scored on a scale of 0 to 500, meaning the change was statistically insignificant.

Similarly, 13-year-olds saw a 12-point gain in math scores between 1982 and 2008. Seventeen-year-old students saw an 8-point gain during the same time on math scores. Again, the tests followed a scale of 0 to 500.

"We haven't yet gotten near the payoff that we want and need in terms of achievement in 30 years," said Chester Finn, a former senior Education Department official who now heads the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank.

"The fact that 30 years later, despite all of the reforming, the gains are so modest, they ought to serve to energize and even panic today's policymakers," he said.

Of course, stagnant scores don't automatically mean stagnant learning; higher standards could yield lower scores.

Domestic measurements comparing U.S. students to one another are relatively new and tests aren't given every year. Also, tracing changes isn't as simple as looking at the United States' standing compared with other countries today.

What is clear is that "A Nation at Risk" cast the United States as on the precipice of collapse, not unlike the warnings that followed the Soviet Union's 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite, which caught Americans by surprise.

While other education studies urged action, none was as intentionally alarming as this one.

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war," the commissioners wrote. "As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves. ... We have, in effect, been committing an act of unthinking, unilateral educational disarmament."

In a brisk 36 pages, the authors warned that schools were not preparing students for their future and cautioned that the country would suffer. In some ways, the same warnings have appeared in most reports on education in the last decades.

The report continued, "The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people."

Last year, another commission borrowed that indictment of mediocrity in similar language.

"The sad fact is that the rising tide of mediocrity is not something that belongs in history books," concluded a Council on Foreign Relations panel led by former New York City schools chief Joel Klein and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

When the Reagan-era commission began its work, no one expected the report to be so critical. In fact, Reagan campaigned for president on a pledge to dismantle the same Education Department that convened these leaders.

Instead, the commissioners brought together experts and original research to make the case for an expanded role for education. They wrote a document that Reagan eventually would wrap himself in, travel the country to promote and use as a rhetorical prop during the final decade of the Cold War.

"This was much more a political document. ... A lot of this was just bombastic, plug-and-play rhetoric," said Frederick Hess, director of education policy at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Where it excelled at language, it came up short on specifics, he said.

The data the commissioners used to reach their conclusions and recommendations 30 years ago pale in comparison to what researchers today have. The report sparked volumes of tests and rankings now common to measure students.

"Gosh, I think they got the message right, but the facts weren't strong enough to back them up," said Whitehurst, the Brookings scholar who was the first chief of the Education Department's current research arm. "A report trying to draw the same conclusions today would have more research."

Even so, the report has its place in history.

"It's been the most influential report on education in my lifetime. It was so blunt," said Michael Rebell, a professor of law and education at Columbia University's Teachers College. "It gave us the whole standards movement."

Francis, a member of the original commission, said the report should have scared Americans into much more sweeping action.

"We were saying in 1983, `This is a global society emerging and you need to worry about this now,'" he said.

Yet, despite the urgency, the report yielded no significant legislation and many of the problems it identified have not been solved.

"I still think we made a contribution," Francis said. "But maybe it could have been much more. But you never look back."

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