Danny Puff

WASHINGTON (AP) The video game industry, blamed by some for fostering a culture of violence, defended its practices Friday at a White House meeting exploring how to prevent horrific shootings like the recent Connecticut elementary school massacre.

Vice President Joe Biden, wrapping up three days of wide-ranging talks on gun violence prevention, said the meeting was an effort to understand whether the U.S. was undergoing a "coarsening of our culture."

"I come to this meeting with no judgment. You all know the judgments other people have made," Biden said at the opening of a two-hour discussion. "We're looking for help."

The gaming industry says that violent crime, particularly among the young, has fallen since the early 1990s while video games have increased in popularity.

There are conflicting studies on the impact of video games and other screen violence. Some conclude that video games can desensitize people to real-world violence or temporarily quiet part of the brain that governs impulse control. Other studies have concluded there is no lasting effect.

Cheryl Olson, a participant in Biden's meeting and a researcher of the effect of violent video games, said there was concern among industry representatives that they would be made into a scapegoat in the wake of the Connecticut shooting.

"The vice president made clear that he did not want to do that," Olson said.

Biden is expected to suggest ways to address violence in video games, movies and on television when he sends President Barack Obama a package of recommendations for curbing gun violence Tuesday. The proposals are expected to include calls for universal background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Obama appointed Biden to lead a gun violence task force after last month's shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 children and six educators dead.

Gun-safety activists were coalescing around expanded background checks as a key goal for the vice president's task force. Some advocates said it may be more politically realistic and even more effective as policy than reinstating a ban on assault weapons.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said some 40 percent of gun sales happen with no background checks, such as at gun shows and by private sellers over the Internet or through classified ads.

"Our top policy priority is closing the massive hole in the background check system," the group said.

While not backing off support for an assault weapons ban, some advocates said there could be broader political support for increasing background checks, in part because that could actually increase business for retailers and licensed gun dealers who have access to the federal background check system.

"The truth is that an assault weapons ban is a very important part of the solution and it is also much tougher to pass," said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines are also seen by some as an easier lift politically than banning assault weapons.

The National Rifle Association adamantly opposes universal background checks, as well as bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines all measures that would require congressional approval. The NRA and other pro-gun groups contend that a culture that glamorizes violence bears more responsibility for mass shootings than access to a wide range of weapons and ammunition.

In a 2009 report, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared, "The evidence is now clear and convincing: Media violence is one of the causal factors of real-life violence and aggression."

The report focused on all types of media violence. But for video games in particular, the pediatricians cited studies that found high exposure to violent ones increased physical aggression at least in the short term, and warned that they allow people to rehearse violent acts. On the other hand, it said friendly video games could promote good behavior.

A wide spectrum of the video game industry was represented at the meeting with the vice president, including the makers of violent war video games like "Call of Duty" and "Medal of Honor" and a representative from the Entertainment Software Ratings Board, which sets age ratings that on every video game package released in the United States.

The vice president met Thursday with representatives from the entertainment industry, including Motion Picture Association of America and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. In a joint statement after the meeting, a half-dozen said they "look forward to doing our part to seek meaningful solutions" but offered no specifics.

Biden, hinting at other possible recommendations to the president, said he is interested in technology that would keep a gun from being fired by anyone other than the person who bought it. He said such technology may have curtailed what happened last month in Connecticut, where the shooter used guns purchased by his mother.

The vice president has also discussed making gun trafficking a felony, a step Obama can take through executive action. And he is expected to make recommendations for improving mental health care and school safety.

"We know this is a complex problem," Biden said. "We know there's no single answer."

The president plans to push for the new measures in his State of the Union address, scheduled for Feb. 12.

___

Associated Press writers Lauran Neergaard and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) NBC journalist David Gregory won't face charges for displaying a high-capacity ammunition magazine on his "Meet the Press" news program last month, District of Columbia prosecutors announced Friday.

The city's Office of the Attorney General, which handles low-level crimes, said criminal charges wouldn't serve the public's best interests even though possession of the magazine capable of holding up to 30 rounds of ammunition was clearly against local gun laws.

"Influencing our judgment in this case, among other things, is our recognition that the intent of the temporary possession and short display of the magazine was to promote the First Amendment purpose of informing an ongoing public debate about firearms policy in the United States, especially while this subject was foremost in the minds of the public" after the Connecticut school massacre and President Barack Obama's address to the nation, D.C. Attorney General Irvin Nathan wrote.

Still, Nathan said, there were other legal ways to prove the point and that "there is no doubt of the gravity of the illegal conduct in this matter, especially in a city and a nation that have been plagued by carnage from gun violence." He said it was a "very close decision" to not bring charges.

Firearms laws in the nation's capital generally restrict the possession of high-capacity ammunition magazines, such as the one Gregory said he was holding up during a Dec. 23 interview, regardless of whether they're attached to a firearm. Punishment can carry up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine.

D.C. police say NBC asked for permission to use the clip during a segment and was advised that it would be illegal, though NBC has said it received conflicting guidance from other law enforcement sources.

Gregory held up the magazine as a prop during an interview on gun control with Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association.

"Here is a magazine for ammunition that carries 30 bullets. Now, isn't it possible that if we got rid of these, if we replaced them and said, 'Well, you can only have a magazine that carries five bullets or ten bullets,' isn't it just possible that we could reduce the carnage in a situation like Newtown?" Gregory asked, referring to the Dec. 14 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.

LaPierre replied: "I don't believe that's going to make one difference. There are so many different ways to evade that even if you had that" ban.

Police began investigating after the program aired and recently referred its findings to the attorney general's office.

Gregory, a longtime correspondent, was named "Meet the Press" moderator in 2008. The program is generally taped in Washington.

"Meet the Press" issued a statement Friday that said: "We displayed the empty magazine solely for journalistic purposes to help illuminate an important issue for our viewers. We accept the District of Columbia Attorney General's admonishment, respect his decision and will have no further comment on this matter."

Read More

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Evan Rachel Wood said on Friday that she and her husband, British actor Jamie Bell, are expecting their first child.

"Thanks for all your warm wishes," Wood, 25, wrote on her Twitter account. "We are very happy. I'm gonna be a mama!"

Moments earlier, Wood posted a picture of the pregnancy book "What to Expect When You're Expecting" on the social media site.

It will be the first child for both Wood and Bell, who wed in October.

Wood rose to Hollywood stardom for her roles in 2008's "The Wrestler" and the 2003 coming-of-age drama "Thirteen." She was nominated for an Emmy award for the 2011 television mini-series "Mildred Pierce."

Bell, 26, found fame as the teen star of "Billy Elliot," about a ballet dancer growing up in a tough coal mining town in northern England. He won a British BAFTA award for the role and has since appeared in adventure movies such as "The Eagle."

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; editing by Philip Barbara)

Read More

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Authorities in Northern California made a snappy discovery during a routine probation check: An alligator-like reptile named "Mr. Teeth," who was apparently protecting a stash of marijuana.

When Alameda County Sheriff's deputies entered the Castro Valley home on Tuesday, they not only found 34 pounds of marijuana valued at an estimated $100,000, but also the 5-foot-long caiman inside a Plexiglas tank guarding it in a bedroom.

Caimans are usually found in the wetland regions of Central and South America. They're considered close relatives of alligators.

"We get guard dogs all the time when we search for grow houses and people stashing away all types of dope. But alligators? You just don't see that every day," Sgt. J.D. Nelson said Thursday.

The reptile's owner, Assif Mayar, was arrested Tuesday and later charged with one count of possessing marijuana for sale. Mayar, 32, did not enter a plea during his arraignment in Alameda County Superior Court. He is being held in jail on $20,000 bail and is due back in court on Jan. 15.

He could also face citations from the California Fish and Game Commission, including possession of an exotic animal without a permit.

Mayar told deputies he got the creature to commemorate rapper Tupac Shakur's 1996 death.

"We have come across alligators before, but nobody can remember one this big and situated in such close proximity to act sort of as a sentry to the marijuana," Nelson said.

Officials at the Oakland Zoo said Mr. Teeth died Wednesday, a day after it was seized by county animal control officers.

The caiman was very sick when it arrived at the zoo's veterinary hospital, zoo spokesman Nicky Mora said Thursday.

"The veterinarian said he came in with a poor prognosis and was unresponsive when he arrived here. He passed away overnight," Mora said.

Read More

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Passengers on a flight from Australia to Papua New Guinea were shocked to look out their cabin windows to find a huge snake on the wing of the plane.

The three metre-long (9.1 foot) non-poisonous Amethystine python appeared about an hour into the Qantas flight between Cairns in northern Queensland and the Papua New Guinean capital of Port Moresby on Thursday.

"Halfway to Papua New Guinea passengers reported seeing a snake clinging to the wing," a Qantas spokesman said of the snake, which is also known as a scrub python and can grow to as much as 8.5 metres (28 ft) long.

A crew member told Australian media that the initial reaction when the python's presence was first reported was "you've got to be kidding".

The slithery stowaway was believed to have crawled onto the plane from scrubland or mangroves that surround the airport in tropical Cairns.

Qantas said there was no impact on the safe operation of the aircraft due to the snake's presence. The Bombardier Q400 was cleared to resume flying after it landed in Port Moresby.

The snake, unfortunately, was found dead on arrival.

(Reporting by Pauline Askin; Editing by Elaine Lies)

Read More

LONDON (AP) The late entertainer Jimmy Savile committed more than 200 sex crimes over more than half a century, with most victims children and teens assaulted the length and breadth of Britain, from TV studios to hospitals and even a hospice, a police report said Friday.

Detectives said the scale of Savile's sex abuse was "unprecedented in the U.K." They have recorded 214 offenses allegedly committed by Savile between 1995 and 2009, including 34 rapes, on victims aged 8 to 47. In all, 450 people have come forward with information about abuse by the late TV presenter.

The number of Savile's crimes is likely to rise further as more victims' reports are officially recorded, said Detective Superintendent David Gray, the chief investigating police officer.

The catalog of abuse is the fullest accounting yet of the allegations against Savile, a TV and radio personality who died in October 2011 at age 84. Savile's elaborate funeral reflected his career as a popular entertainer and tireless charity worker, but a documentary broadcast late last year pulled the mask away, claiming that he was a serial sex offender who traded on his celebrity to prey on vulnerable children.

"This whole sordid affair has demonstrated the tragic consequences of what happens when vulnerability collides with power," said Commander Peter Spindler, head of the police specialist crime unit.

A report summarizing the three-month police investigation said Savile's victims ranged from a 10-year-old boy who said he was sexually assaulted after he asked for an autograph to children who were groped when they attended tapings of the music show "Top of the Pops," and pupils at a school for troubled girls who were allegedly offered cigarettes and trips in Savile's car in return for sex.

Police said Savile used his celebrity status to "hide in plain sight," winning the trust of institutions and targeting vulnerable individuals unlikely to speak out against him.

The report said Savile committed 50 offenses at medical establishments, including a cancer hospice and several psychiatric hospitals, 14 at schools, and 33 at television or radio stations; 73 percent of his victims were under 18 and 82 percent were female, police said.

"The details provided by victims of his abuse paint the picture of a mainly opportunistic individual who used his celebrity status as a powerful tool to coerce or control them, preying on the vulnerable or star-struck for his sexual gratification," the report said.

Peter Watt of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said Savile was an "evil and manipulative man" who "cunningly built his entire career around gaining access to vulnerable children."

Officials said Savile's abuse might have been brought to light earlier had authorities pursued allegations against him more seriously.

Spindler said Savile's victims would be disappointed he had not faced justice in his lifetime but could take comfort from authorities' resolve not to let it happen again.

"The victims themselves will get some sense of satisfaction from being heard," he said.

Savile, he said, "groomed a nation" for sex abuse.

A parallel report drawn up by senior prosecutor Alison Levitt and also published Friday faulted officials for not pursuing allegations more vigorously. Levitt's report noted that several women had spoken to police about Savile between 2007 and 2008, but no charges were brought, in part because the women declined to testify in court.

Levitt said police could have tried harder to get them to speak out, noting in particular that the women weren't told that other victims had corroborated their accounts.

"Having spoken to the victims I have been driven to conclude that had the police and prosecutors taken a different approach a prosecution might have been possible," she wrote.

Read More

LONDON (Reuters) - The late British TV presenter Jimmy Savile physically abused hundreds of people over six decades, according to a police-led report on Friday which said he carried out attacks at the BBC and at hospitals where he did voluntary work.

Of his victims, 73 percent were under 18 and 82 percent were female. The oldest was 47 and the youngest just 8.

"Savile's offending footprint was vast, predatory and opportunistic," Commander Peter Spindler told reporters.

Savile, one of the BBC's biggest stars of the 1970s and 80s received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth for charity work. He died in 2011, aged 84, a year before allegations about his abusive behavior emerged in a TV documentary.

Friday's report said he had committed 214 criminal offences including 34 rapes or serious sexual assaults across the country.

His offending first occurred in 1955 in the northern English city of Manchester and the last attack was in 2009, the report said. He abused people at the BBC from 1965 including in 2006 at the last recording of popular weekly show Top of the Pops.

He also targeted people at hospitals over 30 years from 1965, including at the renowned Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London.

"It is now clear that Savile was hiding in plain sight and using his celebrity status and fund-raising activity to gain uncontrolled access to vulnerable people across six decades," the report said.

In all, 600 people had come forward to police with information of which 450 related to Savile.

The report, issued jointly by London police and the NSPCC children's charity, said it was likely there would be more victims who did not feel able to come forward.

Friday's report is one of 14 launched since the allegations about Savile emerged, including four at the BBC.

The revelations about Savile plunged the BBC into weeks of turmoil and led to resignation of the publicly funded broadcaster's director general just 54 days into his job.

OTHER STARS QUESTIONED

Detectives have also been looking into allegations against Savile acting with others and into related sex crimes which had no direct link to Savile.

They have since questioned 10 men, including Jim Davidson, a comedian who hosted prime time shows on the BBC in the 1990s, former BBC radio DJ Dave Lee Travis, and Max Clifford, Britain's most high-profile celebrity publicist.

They all deny any wrongdoing.

A one-time professional wrestler, Savile became famous as a pioneering DJ in the 1960s before becoming a regular fixture on TV hosting prime-time pop and children's shows until the 1990s.

He also ran about 200 marathons for charity, raising tens of millions of pounds for hospitals, leading some to give him keys to rooms where victims now allege they were abused.

While many colleagues and viewers thought the cigar-chomping Savile was weird, with his long blonde hair, penchant for garish outfits and flashy jewellery, he was considered a "national treasure", honored not just by the queen but also by the late Pope John Paul II who made him a papal knight in 1990.

Despite rumors and suspicions, his sex crimes only came to light when rival broadcaster ITV aired allegations against him.

That prompted allegations the BBC had covered up allegations of sex abuse after it was revealed it had dropped its own expose shortly after Savile's death and had run tribute shows about him instead.

A lengthy report last month cleared of the BBC of any cover-up but said it had missed numerous warnings and proved incapable of dealing with the scandal when it finally broke.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Stephen Addison)

Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) Around 40,000 revelers are expected to turn out for the two official balls that celebrate President Barack Obama's second inauguration.

That's the lowest number of inaugural balls since Dwight Eisenhower was first sworn into office in 1953. But the two official celebrations the night of Jan. 21 will be elaborate nonetheless.

The larger of the events, simply called The Inaugural Ball, is expected to draw more than 35,000 in a reflection of the quadrennial demand in Washington to toast the president in person on such a historic day.

The Inaugural Ball is being held across all 700,000 square feet of the Washington Convention Center's five exhibit halls, which four years ago held six separate balls.

The second event is the Commander In Chief's Ball, a tradition started by President George W. Bush to honor the military. Doubling in size from four years ago to about 4,000, it's being held on the third-floor ballroom of the convention hall a mile from the White House. Tickets are free for invitees, including active-duty and reserve troops, Medal of Honor recipients and wounded warriors.

Demand has been high for entry to the two official affairs. Inaugural planners offered a limited number of tickets to The Inaugural Ball for sale at $60, and they sold out quickly Sunday night when Ticketmaster accidentally sent out an email ahead of time announcing they were available. Inaugural organizers are trying to stop a swift scalping business for the tickets, which have been cropping up for sale online.

That's even though city officials are predicting a drop in attendance to 600,000 to 800,000 for the inauguration this year compared with 2009, when a record 1.8 million crowded onto the National Mall to see the first black president sworn into office.

Those who can't get into the convention hall with the Obamas can still carouse into the night at several unofficial balls across Washington. And members of the president's staff will get their own chance to celebrate with the president, with a staff ball planned for the day after the inauguration. Last year, the private affair was reportedly quite a bash, according to one attendee, with rap star Jay-Z singing a riff on one of his hit songs, "99 Problems but George Bush Ain't One," to the delight of the throngs of young staffers who worked so hard to turn the White House Democratic.

More tickets to The Inaugural Ball will be on sale, but not to the general public. They will go to campaign volunteers, community leaders, elected officials and other invitees, as well as donors being asked to contribute up to $250,000 individually or $1 million from corporations to pay for the festivities. Invitees will be sent an email in the next few days with personalized Ticketmaster account information they can use to purchase up to two tickets.

The Inaugural Ball's halls extend across two floors, so the president and first lady plan to spin on the dance floor of each level. At the Commander In Chief's Ball, the president and first lady plan to continue the tradition of dancing with members of the military.

Inaugural planners said the cut in the number of balls was to reflect tough economic times and minimize the burden on law enforcement, other security personnel and Washington residents. But could it also be an effort to give the president some relief from having to dance to the same song over and over again all across town on an already exhausting day?

President George W. Bush didn't hide his annoyance after his second inaugural at having to repeatedly sashay around to a musical medley that included "I Could Have Danced All Night." Could have, but did not: He and first lady Laura Bush danced for a cumulative total of just 8 minutes, 54 seconds across 10 galas.

___

AP music writer Mesfin Fekadu contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Presidential Inaugural Committee: http://www.2013pic.org

Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) Looking for broader remedies to gun violence, Vice President Joe Biden is reaching out to the video game industry for ideas as the White House seeks to assemble proposals in response to last month's massacre at a Connecticut elementary school.

Biden is scheduled to meet with video game representatives Friday as the White House explores cultural factors that may contribute to violent behavior.

The vice president, who is leading a task force that will present recommendations to President Barack Obama on Tuesday, met with other representatives from the entertainment industry, including Comcast Corp. and the Motion Picture Association of America, on Thursday.

Friday's meeting comes a day after the National Rifle Association rejected Obama administration proposals to limit high-capacity ammunition magazines and dug in on its opposition to an assault weapons ban, which Obama has previously said he will propose to Congress. The NRA was one of the pro-gun rights groups that met with Biden during the day.

In previewing the meeting with the video game industry, Biden recalled the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, who lamented during crime bill negotiations in the 1980s that the country was "defining deviancy down."

It's unclear what, if anything, the administration is prepared to recommend on how to address the depiction of violence in the media.

White House press secretary Jay Carney last month suggested that not all measures require government intervention.

"It is certainly the case that we in Washington have the potential, anyway, to help elevate issues that are of concern, elevate issues that contribute to the scourge of gun violence in this country, and that has been the case in the past and it certainly could be in the future," Carney said then.

On gun control, however, the Obama administration is assembling proposals to curb gun violence that would include a ban on sales of assault weapons, limits on high-capacity ammunition magazines and universal background checks for gun buyers.

"The vice president made it clear, made it explicitly clear, that the president had already made up his mind on those issues," NRA president David Keene said after the meeting. "We made it clear that we disagree with them."

Opposition from the well-funded and politically powerful NRA underscores the challenges that await the White House if it seeks congressional approval for limiting guns and ammunition. Obama can use his executive powers to act alone on some gun measures, but his options on the proposals opposed by the NRA are limited without Congress' cooperation.

Obama has pushed reducing gun violence to the top of his domestic agenda following last month's mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman slaughtered 20 children and six adults before killing himself. The president put Biden in charge of an administration task force and set a late January deadline for proposals.

"I committed to him I'd have these recommendations to him by Tuesday," Biden said Thursday, during a separate White House meeting with sportsmen and wildlife groups. "It doesn't mean it's the end of the discussion, but the public wants us to act."

The vice president later met privately with the NRA and other gun-owner groups for more than 90 minutes. Participants in the meeting described it as an open and frank discussion, but one that yielded little movement from either side on long-held positions.

Richard Feldman, the president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association, said all were in agreement on a need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill. But when the conversation turned to broad restrictions on high-capacity magazines and assault weapons, Feldman said Biden suggested the president had already made up his mind to seek a ban.

"Is there wiggle room and give?" Feldman said. "I don't know."

White House officials said the vice president didn't expect to win over the NRA and other gun groups on those key issues. But the administration was hoping to soften their opposition in order to rally support from pro-gun lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Biden's proposals are also expected to include recommendations to address mental health care and violence on television, in movies and video games. Those issues have wide support from gun-rights groups and pro-gun lawmakers.

As the meetings took place in Washington, a student was shot and wounded at a rural California high school and another student was taken into custody.

During his meeting with sporting and wildlife groups, Biden said that while no recommendations would eliminate all future shootings, "there has got to be some common ground, to not solve every problem but diminish the probability that our children are at risk in their schools and diminish the probability that firearms will be used in violent behavior in our society."

Biden also talked about holes in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that occur when states don't relay information to the database used by dealers to check purchasers. Advocates blame Congress for not fully funding a law that provides money to help states send records to the database.

Gun-control backers see plenty of room for executive action when it comes to improving background checks and other areas.

For example, advocates say Obama could order the Justice Department to prosecute more people flagged by background checks as prohibited purchasers when they try to buy guns; expand a rule that requires dealers to notify the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives when someone tries to buy multiple semiautomatic rifles, a program now confined to Mexico border states; and increase enforcement actions at gun shows.

The group Mayors Against Illegal Guns has sent the White House 40 steps it says would save lives and dramatically improve enforcement of existing laws without any action by Congress.

Several Cabinet members have also taken on an active role in Biden's gun violence task force, including Attorney General Eric Holder. He met Thursday with Wal-Mart, the nation's largest firearms seller, along with other retailers such as Bass Pro Shops and Dick's Sporting Goods.

The president hopes to announce his administration's next steps to tackle gun violence shortly after he is sworn in for a second term. He has pledged to push for new measures in his State of the Union address.

___

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Read More

ANCHORAGE, Alaska/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shell may have moved an oil rig that ran aground off Alaska last week partly to avoid millions of dollars in taxes, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey said, raising even more questions about the oil company's decision on the timing of the move.

The letter from the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee adds to the already-intense political scrutiny of Royal Dutch Shell's ambitious and troubled Arctic drilling foray last year.

Shell's 30-year-old Kulluk drillship ran aground on New Year's Eve in what were described as "near hurricane" conditions while it was being towed south for the winter.

In a letter to Shell's top U.S. executive, Marvin Odum, Markey said the decision to move the rig "may have been driven, in part, by a desire to avoid...tax liability on the rig."

In late December, a Shell spokesman told a local newspaper, the Dutch Harbor Fisherman, that it was "fair to say the current tax structure related to vessels of this type influenced the timing of our departure." But Shell said in response to Markey on Thursday that its decision was guided by safety, not taxes.

Markey, an outspoken critic of the oil and gas industry, said his office received information about Shell and taxes from Alaska's revenue department.

Shell could have been exposed to a state tax if the rig had remained in the state until January 1, as Alaska law says an annual tax of 2 percent can be assessed on drilling equipment on that date, Markey said in the letter sent on Wednesday.

The company spent $292 million on upgrades on the rig since purchasing it in 2005, so the liability could have been about $6 million, he wrote. In total, Shell has spent $4.5 billion since 2005 to develop the Arctic's vast oil reserves.

Jim Greeley, Anchorage-based petroleum property assessor for the Alaska Department of Revenue, explained that the tax applies to property used for exploration, production or transportation of oil or natural gas. He could not say whether the Kulluk would have been taxed or whether Shell's actions avoided a tax.

The issue was complicated by the fact that Shell's drilling was in federal waters.

"There's no tax precedent for that," at least in recent times, Greeley said, adding that department officials were researching the tax practices from two decades ago when there was a flurry of drilling offshore Alaska.

The decision would have to be made by the time the state publishes its tax rolls on March 1.

CONOCO LOOKS ON

Shell's Arctic work has been closely watched by many in the industry and especially by ConocoPhillips ahead of its planned Alaska offshore drilling program slated for 2014.

According to the U.S. government, the Beaufort and Chukchi seas hold an estimated 23 billion barrels of recoverable oil - equivalent to a tenth of Saudi Arabia's reserves.

A Shell spokeswoman said the plan for the Kulluk this winter was always to move it in December.

"While we are aware of the tax environment wherever we operate, the driver for operational decisions is governed by safety." She said an approved tow plan for the rig included weather considerations.

Winter transit in northern waters is not unusual for rigs. Just this month, a rig owned by contractor Seadrill was due to arrive in Norway to start work for Statoil, while another was headed to Canada for Exxon Mobil Corp.

The Kulluk accident is only Shell's latest problem in Alaska. Its 2012 Arctic drilling season was plagued by delays due to lingering ice and problems getting a mandatory oil spill containment vessel certified by the Coast Guard.

Also, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said late on Thursday it issued notices of violation for air pollution in 2012 for the Noble Corp-owned Discoverer, Shell's other Arctic rig, and for the Kulluk.

The EPA also terminated a temporary, more lenient permit granted to Shell in September for the Discoverer and said Shell's application for a less strict air permit was still under review.

The U.S. Department of the Interior said this week it would review Shell's Arctic oil drilling program to assess the challenges it faced and to guide future Arctic permitting.

Markey's committee does not have the power to stop drilling. His investigation would focus on why the rig was being towed along the coast down to Washington state in such severe weather and on Shell's safety policies, an aide to Markey said.

Any permitting changes or delays resulting from the Interior Department review could threaten Shell's 2013 drilling plans, as the company has a limited drilling window during the summer.

The Kulluk, before heading south, had previously been at a private facility in Unalaska/Dutch Harbor operated by Kirkland, Washington-based Offshore Systems Inc, which serves fishing and other vessels in Alaska. Harbormaster Jim Days said it was there for at least a month after completing its Beaufort Sea drilling.

The environmental impact of the Kulluk accident is so far limited. The incident response team has located all four survival ships and one rescue ship that were dislodged from the drillship when it ran aground. The survival ships all had 68-gallon-capacity fuel tanks and two had been breached.

None of the 155,000 gallons of fuel and other oil products aboard the Kulluk itself had leaked.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Callus in London and Braden Reddall in San Francisco; Editing by John Wallace, Jim Marshall, Tim Dobbyn, Dan Grebler, Phil Berlowitz and Matt Driskill)

Read More

MONTREAL (AP) About a dozen killer whales trapped under sea ice appeared to be free after the ice shifted, village officials in Canada's remote north said Thursday, while residents who feared they would get stuck elsewhere hired a plane to track them down.

The whales' predicament in the frigid waters of Hudson Bay made international headlines, and locals had been planning a rescue operation with chainsaws and drills before the mammals slipped away.

Tommy Palliser said two hunters from remote Inukjuak village reported that the waters had opened up around the area where the cornered whales had been bobbing frantically for air around a single, truck-sized hole in the ice. Officials said shifting winds might have pushed the ice away.

"It's certainly good news that's good news for the whales," said Palliser, a business adviser with the regional government.

But fears remained that the whales might have been trapped elsewhere by the ever-moving ice. Some villagers were skeptical the killer whales had escaped harm, so the community hired an airplane to scan the region Thursday for signs of the pod.

Mark O'Connor of the regional marine wildlife board said the aerial search did not locate the orcas, but he noted that large swaths of ice-free water were seen in the area.

"So as far as I could tell, the emergency, for sure, is averted," said O'Connor, the board's director of wildlife management.

"Whether the whales have found a passage all the way to the Hudson Strait, we probably will never know."

Locals said the whales had been trapped for at least two days. A recent, sudden drop in temperature may have caught the whales off guard, leaving them trapped The cornered animals were first seen Tuesday and appeared to have less energy by late Wednesday, Palliser said.

Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans said government icebreakers were too far from the area to smash the ice to free the whales, Inukjuak Mayor Peter Inukpuk said Wednesday.

After that, Palliser said, locals had agreed to try to enlarge the breathing hole in the ice and cut a second opening using chainsaws and drills.

"We certainly had our prayers with them last night during our meeting," he said.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans issued a statement Thursday saying two scientists were en route to gather information and will monitor the situation. Ice-trapped marine mammals are not unusual in the region.

Pete Ewins, an expert in Arctic wildlife at the World Wildlife Fund Canada, said the orca were still 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) from where they should be at this time of year.

"They got stuck (in Hudson Bay) and they're unlikely to get out," said Ewins, adding that killer whales are not accustomed to ice.

"These guys are on the edge and they might not make it through."

Read More

LOS ANGELES (AP) Britney Spears is out of "The X Factor" after a season in which the pop star failed to deliver a ratings boost for the singing contest, a person familiar with the show's plans said Thursday.

Creator Simon Cowell and fellow producers are discussing replacements for Spears and another panelist, record producer Antonio "L.A." Reid, said the person, who lacked authority to comment publicly and insisted on anonymity.

Reid previously announced he was leaving after two seasons. Demi Lovato appears likely to return, joining Cowell on the revamped panel. The show is due to return in the fall.

Fox declined comment. Jeff Raymond, a publicist for Spears, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The departures are yet another shake-up for "The X Factor," Cowell's attempt to strike magic with a U.S. version of his successful U.K. series. Cowell replaced panelists Paula Abdul and Nicole Scherzinger and host Steve Jones after a disappointing first season, and ratings dropped in the second season.

The December season finale drew 9.7 million viewers, compared to more than 12 million for the first year's season-ender. Although the series has failed to match Cowell's bold pre-debut predictions, and certainly hasn't eclipsed sister Fox show "American Idol," it's helped shore up the network's fall schedule.

Pop star Spears, however, proved less than a one-season wonder.

Combining fame and a history of erratic behavior, she was seen as a potential spark for better ratings. But reviewers faulted her for appearing inexpressive to the point of boredom and for a repetitively dull use of the word "awesome."

On Tuesday, Fox network chief Kevin Reilly defended Spears, saying she was doing "a really good job" during a Q&A with the Television Critics Association.

"She came on, people remain fascinated with her and always will be," he said. "Maybe some people were waiting for more drastic displays of some nature that never came, so for those expecting that, it didn't happen."

Asked whether Fox would be on board to bring Spears back, Reilly replied "yeah" this despite the fact producers have been talking since Christmas about substitutes for her and Reid.

Mario Lopez and Khloe Kardashian joined the show as co-hosts this season.

___

Online:

http://www.fox.com

Read More

CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) A judge ruled late Thursday that there's enough evidence for James Holmes to face trial on charges that he killed 12 people and injured 70 others in a Colorado movie theater last summer.

Judge William Sylvester said prosecutors have established probable cause to proceed with 166 felony counts, including murder and attempted murder.

Holmes is due to be arraigned Friday, but his defense attorneys filed papers Thursday afternoon saying he's not ready to enter a plea. They are likely to appear in court Friday to ask for the arraignment to be delayed.

Defense attorneys did not explain why they are not ready for arraignment. Their filing also objected to media requests to bring cameras into the courtroom. Other than during his brief initial appearance in July, cameras have been barred from court during Holmes' case.

Sylvester's ruling came after a three-day hearing earlier this week, in which prosecutors laid out their case against Holmes, 25.

A succession of police and federal agents testified that Holmes spent weeks amassing guns and ammunition, concocted explosives to booby-trap his apartment and scouted the movie theater where he would allegedly unleash a horrific attack on hundreds of terrified people.

The officers also described a hellish scene inside the theater on July 20, when 12 people were shot to death before their families and friends' eyes and scores of others were wounded amid a din of gunshots, screams and the blaring soundtrack of "The Dark Knight Rises."

Holmes' lawyers called no witnesses and cross-examined only a few of those summoned by prosecutors during the hearing. But they pointedly raised the issue of Holmes' sanity at strategic moments, possibly foreshadowing a defense that some believe is his best hope to avoid the death penalty.

"You're aware that people can be found not guilty on the grounds of insanity?" defense attorney Daniel King asked one witness.

The preliminary hearing, which ended Wednesday, was designed to determine whether prosecutors' case is strong enough to put Holmes on trial.

Holmes' lawyers haven't said if he will plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but since his arrest outside the theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora immediately after the shootings, they have portrayed him as a man with serious mental problems prone to bizarre behavior.

Many legal analysts have said they expect the case to end with a plea bargain rather than a trial.

Tom Teves, whose son Alex was among the dead, said he would rather see Holmes plead guilty to first-degree murder, avoiding a traumatic trial, bringing a life sentence and closing the door to an insanity defense.

If found not guilty by reason of insanity, Holmes could conceivably be released someday if he is deemed to have recovered.

"Don't pretend he's crazy," Teves said Wednesday. "He's not crazy. He's no more crazy than you and I."

Prosecutors developed twin themes at the hearing: the horror and devastation of the attack, and a weekslong process in which they alleged Holmes planned and prepared for the assault.

Two officers were overcome by emotion when they testified about the chaos in the theater and the race to get victims to hospitals by police cars until ambulances could arrive. Other testimony included the names and injuries of the victims, read out one by one.

Prosecution witnesses also testified that Holmes started assembling an arsenal in early May and by July 6 had two semi-automatic pistols, a shotgun, a semi-automatic rifle, 6,200 rounds of ammunition and high-capacity magazines that allow a shooter to fire more rounds without stopping to reload.

In late June he began equipping himself with a helmet, gas mask and body armor, the witnesses said.

In early July, they testified, he began buying fuses, gunpowder, chemicals and electronics to booby-trap his apartment in hopes of triggering an explosion and fire to divert police from the theater. The bombs never went off.

Also in early July, he took some interior and exterior photos of the theater, witnesses said.

"He picked the perfect venue for this crime," prosecutor Karen Pearson said.

On Wednesday, Pearson showed a series of photos that investigators said Holmes took of himself hours before the massacre. In one, he glares through black contact lenses, sticking out his tongue, as two locks of his orange-dyed hair curl out on either side of his head like horns.

Caren Teves, mother of Alex and wife of Tom Teves, said she saw Holmes smile when his self-portraits were shown in court.

"He just sat in the courtroom pretty much delighted. He was smiling. He was smirking," she said.

___

Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Catherine Tsai, Thomas Peipert and Colleen Slevin also contributed to this report from Denver.

Read More

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) Steven Spielberg had a great day at the Academy Awards nominations, where his Civil War saga "Lincoln" led with 12 nominations.

It was not so great for Kathryn Bigelow, Tom Hooper and Ben Affleck, whose films did well but surprised dare we say shocked? Hollywood by failing to score directing nominations for the three filmmakers.

"I just think they made a mistake," said Alan Arkin, a supporting-actor nominee for Affleck's Iran hostage-crisis tale "Argo."

"Lincoln," ''Argo," Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller and Hooper's Victor Hugo musical "Les Miserables" landed among the nine best-picture contenders Thursday.

Also nominated for the top honor were the old-age love story "Amour"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; and the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook."

A mostly predictable bunch. But it's baffling how Bigelow the first woman to earn the directing Oscar for her 2009 best-picture winner "The Hurt Locker" missed out on a nomination for one of last year's most-acclaimed films.

"Yes, it was a surprise," Spielberg said of Bigelow. "But I've been surprised myself through the years, so I know what it feels like."

Spielberg was snubbed for a directing slot on 1985's "The Color Purple," which earned 11 nominations, including best picture. He also was overlooked for director on 1975's "Jaws," another best-picture nominee.

"I never question the choices the academy branches make, because I've been in the same place that Kathryn and Ben find themselves today," said Spielberg, who finally got his Oscar respect in the 1990s with best-picture and director wins for "Schindler's List" and another directing trophy for "Saving Private Ryan." ''I'm grateful if I'm nominated, and I've never felt anything other than gratitude even when I'm not gratitude for at least having been able to make the movie. So I never question the choices."

Especially this time, when "Lincoln" has positioned itself as the film to beat at the Feb. 24 Oscars. Its nominations include best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis for his monumental performance as Abraham Lincoln, supporting actress for Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln and supporting actor for Tommy Lee Jones as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.

Oscar directing contenders usually are identical or at least line up closely with those for the Directors Guild of America Awards. But only Spielberg and "Life of Pi" director Ang Lee made both lists this time.

The Directors Guild also nominated Affleck, Bigelow and Hooper, but the Oscars handed its other three slots to David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook" and two real longshots: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for "Amour" and newcomer Benh Zeitlin, who made his feature debut with "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Zeitlin, whose low-budget, dream-like film about a wild child in Louisiana's flooded backwoods won the top honor at last year's Sundance Film Festival, said he never expected to be competing "alongside the greatest filmmakers alive."

"I'm completely freaking out," Zeitlin said. "Those guys taught me how to make films. The VHS pile that was on the VCR when I was born was past Spielberg movies, and that's why I started wanting to do this, was watching them thousands and thousands of times."

Other nominees were caught off guard over how the category shook out.

"I would be lying if I didn't say I was surprised," Russell, a past nominee for "The Fighter," said about Bigelow.

Lee, who won the directing Oscar for "Brokeback Mountain," agreed that there were surprises but pleasant ones, particularly for Zeitlin's inclusion.

"Newcomers, veterans, a European," Lee said. "It's great company, and it's an honor to line up with them, and encouraging because there is a newcomer."

Colleagues of snubbed filmmakers were not so happy.

"That put a damper on my enthusiasm," ''Argo" co-star Arkin said of Affleck, an A-lister who's arguably proving himself a better director than actor. "I thought his work was the work of an old master, not somebody with just two films under his belt. I thought it was an extraordinary piece of directing."

"I would have loved him to have been recognized in this," Hugh Jackman, a best-actor nominee as Hugo's tragic hero Jean Valjean for "Les Miserables," said of director Hooper. "But no one will be able to take away the achievement, nor really that the eight nominations that 'Les Miz' has are more shared with him than with anyone."

Composer Alexandre Desplat, who wrote the music for "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo" and earned a best-score nomination for the latter, said he was puzzled over Affleck and Bigelow's exclusion.

"I think they both deserved to be nominated," Desplat said. "Unfortunately, I don't decide."

"Zero Dark Thirty" has had backlash in Washington, where some lawmakers say it falsely suggests that torture produced a tip that led the U.S. military to Bin Laden. It's hard to imagine that affecting the film's Oscar nominations, though, given Hollywood's history of playing loose with facts in depicting true-life stories.

The academy's directing snubs virtually take "Argo," ''Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" out of the best-picture race, since a movie almost never wins the top prize if the filmmaker is not nominated. It can happen 1989's "Driving Miss Daisy" did it but a directing nomination usually goes hand-in-hand with a best-picture win.

The nominations held other surprises. "Amour" won the top prize at last May's Cannes Film Festival but mainly was considered a favorite for the foreign-language Oscar. It wound up with five nominations, the same number as "Zero Dark Thirty," which came in with expectations of emerging as a top contender.

Along with best-picture, director and foreign-language film, "Amour" picked up nominations for Haneke's screenplay and best actress for Emmanuelle Riva as an ailing, elderly woman tended by her husband.

"It's the last stage of my life, so this nomination is a gift to me, a dream I could never had imagined," Riva said. "Michael's talent is to make the film real. ... That's why it touched the world. We are all little, fragile people on this earth, sometimes nasty, sometimes generous."

Riva is part of a multi-generational spread: At 85, Riva is the oldest best-actress nominee ever, while 9-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis is the youngest ever for her role as the spirited bayou girl in "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Spielberg matched his personal Oscar best as "Lincoln" tied the 12 nominations that "Schindler's List" received.

Two of Spielberg's stars could join the Oscar super-elite. Both Day-Lewis and Field have won two Oscars already. A third would put them in rare company with previous triple winners Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Katharine Hepburn holds the record with four acting Oscars.

A best-picture win would be Spielberg's second, while another directing win would be his third, a feat achieved only by Frank Capra and William Wyler, who each earned three directing Oscars, and John Ford, who received four.

"Lincoln" also was the ninth best-picture nominee Spielberg has directed, moving him into a tie for second-place with Ford. Only Wyler directed more best-picture nominees, with 13.

"I think Steven is a full-fledged genius. I think he has transformed the motion-picture industry more than once, and he's constantly pushing the envelope and changing," Field said. "He stands alone. And he has the most profound respect, and he's a scholar of John Ford and William Wyler and many others. ... He's a scholar of all of this because he's so endlessly curious."

___

AP entertainment writers Christy Lemire, Sandy Cohen, Anthony McCartney and Derrik Lang in Los Angeles and AP writers Jill Lawless in London and Thomas Adamson in Paris contributed to this report.

Read More

A victim is taken from Taft Union High after a shooting at the school on Jan. 10, 2013. (AP)

UPDATED, 12:37 p.m. PT: At least one student was shot when a classmate opened fire at a high school in California on Thursday.

The shooting occurred in the science building at Taft Union High School in Taft, Calif., at approximately 9 a.m. local time, a Kern County Sheriff's official told Yahoo News.

The suspected shooter a 16-year-old male student at the school did not show up for the start of first period, police say. He entered the school with a 12-gauge shotgun and interrupted his first-period class, shooting one student police say he was targeting.

The victim, also 16, was airlifted to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, Calif., with a shotgun wound to the upper right chest. He's in critical but stable condition.

The gunman then called a second student's name in the 28-person class and fired again, but missed, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said. A teacher and a campus supervisor engaged the shooter in conversation inside the classroom, school officials said, and were able to persuade him to put down the shotgun. The shooter was then taken into police custody.

The teacher was treated at the scene for a pellet wound to the head. (It's unclear whether the wound was from birdshot, Youngblood said.) Another student who was near the shotgun when it was fired was taken to a local hospital, where she was treated for hearing loss.

[Slideshow: Shots fired at high school in California]

During a press briefing outside the school on Thursday afternoon, reporters asked police whether the suspected shooter had been suspended from school last year for carrying what parents told them was a "hit list." Police would not confirm those reports.

According to the school's website, "two campus supervisors and a Kern County Sheriff monitor the campus before, during, and after school." But officials said the armed officer who is normally on campus was "snowed in" and not on duty at the time of the shooting. About 1,000 students attend the high school.

ABC's Kero-Bakersfield affiliate said it received calls from students who were hiding in closets inside the school, located about 120 miles north of Los Angeles.

The school was evacuated while sheriff and fire personnel conducted room-to-room searches. One student told the network that he was in another building participating in an "active shooter drill" when the shooting occurred.

The school was featured in the 1986 film "The Best of Times" starring Robin Williams and Kurt Russell. Friday's classes have been canceled.

The shootings come less than a month after 26 people, including 20 children, were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in one of the worst school shootings in U.S. history. The massacre led to calls for reforms to the country's gun laws.

On Thursday, Vice President Joe Biden, appointed to lead a task force to reduce U.S. gun violence, was scheduled to meet with members of the National Rifle Association in Washington to discuss gun control.

Read More

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it hired technology entrepreneur Blake Krikorian to help run its Interactive Entertainment Business as the world's largest software company plans bigger things for its Xbox gaming console.

Krikorian will be corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business, reporting to Marc Whitten, chief product officer for the division, Microsoft added.

The appointment follows Microsoft's recent acquisition of Krikorian's company, id8 Group R2 Studios, which had developed an application that allows users to control home heating and lighting systems from smartphones.

Microsoft is trying to transform Xbox from a gaming device into a broader service that controls most aspects of home entertainment, including music, movies, TV and sports.

"We look forward to his contribution to our team as Xbox continues to evolve and transform the games and entertainment landscape," Whitten said in a statement.

Krikorian's Sling Media - which was sold to EchoStar Communications in 2007 - made the Slingbox device for watching TV over the Internet.

Krikorian resigned from Amazon.com Inc's board in late December after about a year and a half as a director at the company, the Internet's largest retailer.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Read More

BROOKFIELD, Mass. (AP) The bobcat that attacked a Massachusetts man and his nephew had rabies.

The Telegram & Gazette (http://bit.ly/11f0LY7 ) reports that state lab results on the dead animal were announced at Tuesday night's select board meeting in Brookfield.

Wildlife officials suspected that the bobcat that attacked Roger Mundell Jr. on Sunday was rabid because of its unusually aggressive behavior.

After pouncing on Mundell, sinking its teeth into his face and its claws in his back and holding him in what he described as a bear hug, the animal went outside and bit the 15-year-old boy.

Mundell shot and killed the bobcat.

He, his nephew and his wife who was not bitten but got the animal's blood on her have already started rabies treatments.

___

Information from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), http://www.telegram.com

Read More

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Clean and green Singapore is going even greener this Chinese New Year, recycling S$2 bills for red packets of money alongside the printing of new ones.

Giving out the little packets, or "lai see", with crisp new notes during the Lunar New Year, which falls on February 10 this year, is a long-standing tradition. Adults typically give them to children, older relatives and unmarried siblings to wish them good luck for the coming year.

As well as printing millions of brand new $2 notes as it has done in the past, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state's central bank, said it will issue older notes that look as good as new and encourage the public to use them.

"The accumulation of excess $2 polymer notes and their destruction before the end of their lifespan is a waste of precious resources and is not environmentally friendly," the MAS said.

Singapore only needs around 50 million $2 notes in circulation. Printing the excess notes just for the Lunar New Year consumes 10 metric tons (11.023 tons) of ink and uses enough electricity to power an entire apartment block for six months, it added.

Most of the notes find their way back into the banks soon after the New Year festivities anyway, as people put them in their savings.

(Reporting by Kevin Lim; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Read More

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Three of the top U.S. cellphone carriers signaled this week that they would support Research In Motion's BlackBerry 10 products, the first of which are due to be unveiled Jan 30, offering a hopeful sign for RIM's comeback effort.

Executives at Verizon Communications , AT&T Inc and T-Mobile USA all said they are looking forward to the devices, which will be crucial for RIM's chances of regaining lost ground from rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics .

"We're hopeful its going to be a good device," Lowell McAdam, chief executive of Verizon Communications, majority owner of the biggest U.S. mobile service Verizon Wireless.

"We'll carry it," McAdam said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

BlackBerry 10 is RIM's next-generation mobile operating platform and it is preparing to launch new smartphones later this month. Word that major carriers will offer the devices is good news for RIM.

RIM, which once commanded the lead in the smartphone market, has rapidly lost ground to Apple's iPhone and Samsung's line of Galaxy products, especially in North American and European markets, as customers abandon its aging BlackBerry devices.

It has been testing the new BlackBerry 10 devices with carriers so they can assess their compatibility with networks.

No. 4 U.S. mobile provider T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom , also plans to carry the new BlackBerry 10.

"We're extremely optimistic that it's going to be a successful product and our business customers are extremely interested in it," Chief Executive John Legere said.

AT&T has promised to support the BlackBerry 10 platform, according to Chief Marketing Officer David Christopher, but he would not discuss specific devices.

However, AT&T handset executive Jeff Bradley made it clear that the No. 2 U.S. mobile operator would carry the phone.

"It's logical to expect our current (BlackBerry) customers will have the best BlackBerry devices to choose from in the future," Bradley said.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Read More

LAS VEGAS (AP) Some of the weirdest gadgets at the International CES show are designed to solve problems you never knew you had. Are you eating too fast? A digital fork will let you know. Is your toddler having trouble sitting still on the potty? Let the iPotty come to the rescue. Are you bored driving to work in a four-wheeled vehicle? Climb inside a 1,600-pound mechanical spider for your morning commute.

Of course, not all of the prototypes introduced at the annual gadget show will succeed in the marketplace. But the innovators who shop their wares here are fearless when it comes to pitching new gizmos, be they flashy, catchy or just plain odd.

A search for this year's strangest (and perhaps least useful) electronic devices yielded an extra-loud pair of headphones from a metal band, an eye-sensing TV that didn't work as intended and more. Take a look:

MOTORHEADPHONES

Bass-heavy headphones that borrow the names of hip-hop luminaries like Dr. Dre have become extremely popular. Rock fans have been left out of the party until now. British metal band Motorhead, famous for playing gut-punchingly loud, is endorsing a line of headphones that "go to eleven" and are hitting U.S. stores now.

Says lead singer and bassist Lemmy Kilmister, explaining his creative input: "I just said make them louder than everybody else's. So that's the only criteria, and that it should reflect every part of the sound, not just the bass."

The Motorheadphone line consists of three over-the-ear headphones and six in-ear models. The initiative came from a Swedish music-industry veteran, and distribution and marketing is handled by a Swedish company, Krusell International AB.

WHO IT'S FOR: People who don't care about their hearing or of the sanity of person sitting next to them on the subway. According to Kilmister, the headphones are ideal for Motorhead fans. "Their hearing is already damaged, they better buy these."

PRICE: Prices range from $50 to $130.

EYE-SENSING TV

A prototype of an eye-sensing TV from Haier didn't quite meet viewers eye-to-eye. An on-screen cursor is supposed to appear where the viewer looks to help, say, select a show to watch. Blinking while controlling the cursor is supposed to result in a click. In our brief time with the TV, we observed may quirks and comic difficulties.

For one, the company's demonstrator Hongzhao Guo said the system doesn't work that well when viewers wear eyeglasses. (That kind of defeats the purpose of TV, no?) But it turns out, one bespectacled reporter was able to make it work. But the cursor appeared a couple inches below where the viewer was looking. This resulted in Guo snapping his fingers to attract the reporter's eye to certain spots. The reporter dutifully looked, but the cursor was always a bit low. Looking down to see the cursor only resulted in it moving further down the TV screen.

WHO IT'S FOR: People too lazy to move their arms.

"It's easy to do," Guo said, taking the reporter's place at the demonstration. He later said the device needs to be recalibrated for each person. It worked fine for him, but the TV is definitely not ready for prime-time.

PARROT FLOWER POWER

A company named after a bird wants to make life easier for your plants. A plant sensor called Flower Power from Paris-based Parrot is designed to update your mobile device with a wealth of information about the health of your plant and the environment it lives in. Just stick the y-shaped sensor in your plant's soil, download the accompanying app and hopefully watch your plant thrive.

"It basically is a Bluetooth smart low-energy sensor. It senses light, sunlight, temperature, moisture and soil as well as fertilizer in the soil. You can use it either indoors or outdoors," said Peter George, vice president of sales and marketing for the Americas at Parrot. The device will be available sometime this year, the company said.

WHOT IT'S FOR: 'Brown-thumbed' folk and plants with a will to live.

PRICE: Unknown.

HAPIFORK

If you don't watch what you put in your mouth, this fork will or at least try to. Called HAPIfork, it's a fork with a fat handle containing electronics and a battery. A motion sensor knows when you are lifting the fork to your mouth. If you're eating too fast, the fork will vibrate as a warning. The company behind it, HapiLabs, believes that using the fork 60 to 75 times during meals that last 20 to 30 minutes is ideal.

But the fork won't know how healthy or how big each bite you take will be, so shoveling a plate of arugula will likely be judged as less healthy than slowly putting away a pile of bacon. No word on spoons, yet, or chopsticks.

WHO IT'S FOR? People who eat too fast. Those who want company for their "smart" refrigerator and other kitchen gadgets.

PRICE: HapiLabs is launching a fundraising campaign for the fork in March on the group-fundraising site Kickstarter.com. Participants need to pay $99 to get a fork, which is expected to ship around April or May.

IPOTTY

Toilet training a toddler is no picnic, but iPotty from CTA Digital seeks to make it a little easier by letting parents attach an iPad to it. This way, junior can gape and paw at the iPad while taking care of business in the old-fashioned part of the plastic potty. IPotty will go on sale in March, first on Amazon.com.

There are potty training apps out there that'll reward toddlers for accomplishing the deed. The company is also examining whether the potty's attachment can be adapted for other types of tablets, beyond the iPad.

"It's novel to a lot of people but we've gotten great feedback from parents who think it'd be great for training," said CTA product specialist Camilo Gallardo.

WHO IT'S FOR: Parents at their wit's end.

PRICE: $39.99

MONDO SPIDER, TITANBOA

A pair of giant hydraulic and lithium polymer battery controlled beasts from Canadian art organization eatART caught some eyes at the show. A rideable 8-legged creature, Mondo Spider weighs 1,600 pounds and can crawl forward at about 5 miles per hour on battery power for roughly an hour. The 1,200-pound Titanoboa slithers along the ground at an as yet unmeasured speed.

Computer maker Lenovo sponsored the group to show off the inventions at CES.

Hugh Patterson, an engineer who volunteers his time to making the gizmos, said they were made in part to learn more about energy use. One lesson from the snake is that "side winding," in which the snake corkscrews its way along the ground, is one of the most efficient ways of moving along soft ground, like sand.

Titanoboa was made to match the size of a 50-foot long reptile whose fossilized remains were dated 50 million years ago, when the world was 5 to 6 degrees warmer. The creature was built "to provoke discussion about climate change," Patterson said.

The original version of Mondo Spider, meanwhile, first appeared at the Burning Man arts gathering in Nevada in 2006.

WHO IT'S FOR: Your inner child, Burning Man participants, people with extra-large living rooms.

PRICE: The spider's parts cost $26,000. The Titanoboa costs $70,000. Engineers provided their time for free and both took "thousands of hours" to build, Patterson said.

___

Ortutay contributed from New York. AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson and Luke Sheridan from AP Television contributed to this story from Las Vegas.

Read More

SEATTLE (AP) A company that teamed up with Starbucks Corp. to bid for the Tully's Coffee chain filed an objection Wednesday challenging the winning offer made by "Grey's Anatomy" star Patrick Dempsey.

AgriNurture Inc. said it's still willing to proceed with its combined bid with Starbucks of about $10.6 million. The bid from Dempsey's company, Global Baristas LLC, was for $9.2 million.

The proposed sale goes before a bankruptcy judge in Seattle on Friday.

Starbucks has said it wants to convert some of Tully's cafes to its own brand. AgriNurture, based in the Philippines, would run the rest under the Tully's name.

Cliff Burrows, who heads Starbucks' Americas business, said he's confident the company put forth the best bid with its companion bidder to give shareholders the most value.

Dempsey said he's confident the court will decide that Global Baristas submitted "the highest and best bid."

AgriNurture, which also does business in the U.S. as Earthright Holdings Inc., already operates Tully's franchises in Asia.

Another bidder has also filed an objection to the sale, saying the rules changed in the middle of the auction.

Read More

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to the Florida Everglades, where captured Burmese pythons have exceeded the length of minivans and weighed as much as grown men.

Python Challenge 2013, a month-long event sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, is open to hunters and non-hunters alike.

But the idea of luring weapon-wielding amateurs into the harsh environment of the Everglades has raised some alarms.

"I just thought it was as exciting as could be. It's a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity," said contestant Ron Polster, a retired salesman from Ohio whose closest encounter with the swamp has been from the highway heading south for the winter.

Participants pay a $25 entry fee and take an online training course, which consists mostly of looking at photographs of both the targeted pythons and protected native snakes to learn the difference.

The state wildlife agency is offering prizes of $1,500 for the most pythons captured and $1,000 for the longest python.

A Burmese python found in Florida last year set records as the largest ever captured in the state at 17-feet, 7-inches (5.4 meters). The snake weighed nearly 165 pounds (75 kg).

FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson said the number of registered contestants reached about 500 this week and was growing, with people coming from 32 states.

The stated goal of the competition is to raise awareness of the threat Burmese pythons pose to the Everglades ecosystem. The snakes are native to Southeast Asia and have no known predators in Florida.

The contest also serves as a pilot program to determine whether regular hunting competitions can cull the growing population of the invasive species, said Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife expert from the University of Florida who helped create the competition.

Python Challenge rules require contestants to kill specimens on the spot in a humane fashion, recommending shooting the snakes precisely through the brain.

"I was hoping there would be a lot of machetes and not a lot of guns," said Polster, the retired salesman. He said he worries "these idiots will be firing all over the place."

Shawn Heflick, star of the National Geographic "Wild" television show "Python Hunters," told Reuters that despite the formidable size of the snakes, he expects the swamp itself, with its alligators, crocodiles and venomous snakes, to pose a greater threat to the contestants.

"You get these people going down there, they'll get lost, they'll get dehydrated, they'll get sucked dry by mosquitoes," Heflick said.

Segelson said the wildlife agency will provide training on the use of GPS devices and on identifying venomous snakes at the kick-off event. In the meantime, she said, contestants should be familiarizing themselves with the Everglades environment, just as they should before entering any other strange territory.

Heflick said most of the contestants likely were drawn to the Python Challenge by the romantic mystique of bagging a giant predator. He expects few will last long in the hunt.

"The vast majority of them will never see a python. The vast majority of them will probably curtail their hunting very quickly when they figure out there's a lot of mosquitoes, it's hot, it's rather boring sometimes - most of the time really, and I think a lot of them will go home," Heflick said.

(Editing by Tom Brown and Dan Grebler)

Read More

LOS ANGELES (AP) Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are ready to crack each other up at the Golden Globe Awards.

The two multi-hyphenate talents offered a taste of their quick-witted banter on a conference call with reporters Wednesday, during which Fey promised, "We're going to sing the whole show."

"The whole show is going to be sung front to back and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine have written it," Fey deadpanned.

"We just called up Sondy," Poehler said. "He just said, 'Jackpot.'"

Fey, 42, and Poehler, 41, take over for three-time Globes host Ricky Gervais, who sometimes created a prickly atmosphere with his pointed barbs at individual stars and films.

"It was originally going to be the car from 'Transformers,'" Fey cracked about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's first choice for a show host this year.

The Emmy winner said she doesn't expect to "change the face of comedy" at the show.

"Because it's such a fun, kind of sloppy night, it's not really about the host giving any big comedy performance," Fey said. "We feel like our job is to keep things moving and also to try to help get the movie stars more liquored up so, hopefully, someone's boob will fall out of a dress. That's our main role."

Alcohol really does play a role in the show, with drinks at every table, Poehler said. "So it doesn't take much, you know?"

"And Somehow, no matter what time you get there, you always just missed the food," Fey said. "So you get there and there's just booze on the table and a box of candy and that's it. And the women haven't eaten for days, so they have a half a glass of wine and they're gone."

The two hosts are also competing against each other as nominees for actress in a TV comedy for starring in the shows they write and produce. Fey is up for "30 Rock," while Poehler got the nod for "Parks and Recreation."

Poehler said they have been too busy to consider acceptance speeches.

"I know that I don't need one," Fey said.

"If either one of us does win, we'll already have been talking at that point for a while anyways so people will be sick of our faces, so I'm sure we'll keep it short and sweet," Poehler said. "Or screw it. Since we're hosting, we could just go as long as we wanted and cut into other people's time."

Considering their dresses for the black-tie affair, Fey said she planned to pay sartorial tribute to the night's honorees.

"I'm going to wear one costume from each of the nominated films," she said, "beginning with 'Django' and ending with a different character from 'Django.'"

Given the Globes' boozy atmosphere, will the hostesses imbibe?

"I'm going to pub-crawl it all the way to the venue," Poehler said. "Then I'm going to try and take like a two-hour blackout nap before we start, and as soon as the show's over, I'm going to go on a 10-day juice cleanse."

Added Fey: "I'm going to start a really aggressive awards-season workout routine in the middle of the show."

The 70th annual Golden Globe Awards will be presented Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel and broadcast live on NBC.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen is on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy .

___

Online:

www.goldenglobes.org

Read More

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The body of a Chicago man who died of cyanide poisoning less than two months after winning $1 million in the Illinois Lottery will be exhumed for further examination in two to four weeks, according to the Cook County medical examiner.

An affidavit to exhume the body of Urooj Khan, 46, will be filed Friday with the Cook County Circuit Court, Mary Paleologos, a spokeswoman for the county, said on Wednesday. Once a judge approves the request, which should take one to two weeks, it will probably take another one to two weeks to arrange the exhumation with the cemetery, Paleologos said.

Khan's death on July 20 was at first determined to be caused by heart disease. No autopsy was performed, since there was no trauma present and the death appeared natural. Toxicology results indicated no drugs or carbon monoxide present.

But several days after the body was released for burial, an unidentified family member contacted the doctor in the case and asked that the medical examiner revisit it.

The medical examiner's office ordered comprehensive toxicological testing. On November 23, final test results confirmed a lethal level of cyanide in the blood, according to the medical examiner, and the death was ruled a homicide.

The medical examiner's office said exhumation of the body "is necessary to complete an investigation" into Khan's death.

Chicago Police would say only that they are investigating the case as a murder and are working closely with the medical examiner's office.

Khan had presented the ticket claiming his winnings to Illinois Lottery offices on May 31, according to Lottery spokesman Mike Lang. Khan had decided to take the lump-sum payment, which amounted to about $424,500 after taxes. A check was sent from Springfield, Illinois to Khan July 19 or July 20 -- so it is unlikely Khan ever saw it, Lang said.

The check was paid August 15, Lang said. He said it is common that when winners die before receiving their winnings, the money is paid to the estate.

Khan's estate is in Cook County probate court. The next status date in the case is January 24.

Steven Kozicki, an attorney for Khan's wife Shabana Ansari, was not immediately available for comment Wednesday. Kozicki told the Chicago Tribune that Ansari had been interviewed by Chicago police detectives and had nothing to hide.

(Reporting By Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune and Nick Zieminski)

Read More

NEW YORK (AP) The gig is almost up for one of the eight Monopoly tokens. But which will it be? Iron? Thimble? Top Hat?

Or another of their board game buddies?

Hasbro is holding a Facebook contest to eliminate one of the eight tokens that identify the players and introduce a new one. Possible new tokens include a cat, diamond ring, guitar, toy robot and helicopter

It's the latest effort by the toymaker to jazz up the game which debuted almost eight decades ago.

In recent years Hasbro introduced a version that replaces paper money with an electronic bank and another that incorporates an iPad. There is an app-only version of the game for smartphones and tablets.

Monopoly's tokens have actually changed quite a lot over the years. The original version also included a lantern, purse, cannon and a rocking horse. A horse and rider token was used in the 1950s. During World War II, metal tokens were replaced by wooden ones.

But this time, users have a say.

So if you are tired of the iron token and would rather be represented by a robot, here's your chance to make those wishes known. Beginning Tuesday, Facebook fans of monopoly can vote on which piece to eliminate and which one to add. The voting ends Feb. 5.

Up for elimination: all eight current tokens including a battleship, iron, racecar, Scottie dog, shoe, thimble, top hat and wheelbarrow. Most tokens were introduced with the first Parker Brothers iteration of the game in 1935, and the Scottie dog and wheelbarrow were added in the early 1950s.

Eric Nyman, global brand leader for Hasbro gaming, said the impetus for the contest came from chatter on Facebook, where Monopoly has over 10 million fans.

"We're constantly interacting with those fans and we're always getting suggestions from fans about what tokens they would love to see," Nyman said. They took five of the top suggestions from Facebook for the contest.

A special $17.99 limited edition of the game called Golden Ticket will be available in Target stores beginning Feb. 15 with golden versions of both the old and new tokens. It will be the last time all of the classic tokens will be available with the game.

Versions of Monopoly with the new token will come out later this year.

Monopoly's iconic tokens originated when game creator Charles Darrow's niece suggested using charms from a charm bracelet for tokens.

On the Web: Facebook.com/monopoly

Read More

LAS VEGAS (AP) LG unveiled a 55-inch TV that sports "ultrahigh-definition" resolution with four times the sharpness of regular HD television sets, kicking off what is likely to be a mini-obsession with the latest super-clear format at the annual International CES gadget show.

The model announced Monday is the smallest in a 2013 lineup that includes 65-inch and 84-inch versions. But the smaller size and smaller price tag begins the parade of TV makers that are seeking to bring ultrahigh definition to the masses.

Also known as "4K," ultrahigh-definition screens are 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 pixels tall, or more than 8 million in all. The higher resolution will let TV screens get larger without degrading picture quality, though initially the price tag will limit those sets to technology's early adopters.

LG said the 55-inch and 65-inch versions will be available later this year in the U.S. No price was announced, but it will be less than $10,000. The 84-inch version that went on sale late last year cost $20,000.

For a few years, though, there won't likely be a mainstream standard for getting native ultra-HD movies and TV shows to the screen either by disc or broadcast.

LG Electronics Inc. said these new TVs will have upscaling technology that takes images of lesser quality and renders them in high detail. The Korean electronics maker also said it has formed an ultra-HD content agreement with Korea's top broadcaster, KBS, and is seeking out deals with other global content providers. The company offered no specifics.

LG said that with an ultra-HD TV, it will be possible to play phone games with very sharp resolution and in 3-D. The company said it has been possible to hook up smartphones to the TV to play games with current sets, but the resolution isn't good.

Along with the lineup of higher-resolution TVs, LG unveiled a new Magic Remote, which acts like a wand that is sensitive to motion and is used to navigate on-screen menus. LG said the new model responds better to natural speech and can be controlled with a single finger rather than "very tiring arm gestures." It also lets you change the channels by writing numbers in the air.

The company also touted the ability to tap different devices so they can share data. With that capability, you'd be able to see what's inside your refrigerator while shopping, and you'd be able to monitor how clean your house is getting with cameras on a robotic vacuum. Washing machines will also have such capabilities.

Also at the gadget show, rival Sharp Corp. introduced two super-clear TVs and one ultra-HD computer monitor. The 32-inch monitor uses Sharp's IGZO technology, based on a semiconductor material called indium gallium zinc oxide. The monitor, planned for launch in February, responds to 10 points of contact at once one for each finger.

Read More

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics, the global leader in consumer smartphones, is planning two major thrusts in 2013: bulking up mobile content and moving faster into the corporate market dominated by Research in Motion.

The South Korean electronics company is investing in devices that enterprise users like corporations will endorse, with a higher level of security and reliability than general users need. In doing so, Samsung is capitalizing on doubts about the longevity of the BlackBerry as its Canadian maker struggles to revive growth.

Samsung's corporate market ambitions have advanced as the Galaxy SIII, its popular flagship smartphone, won the requisite security certifications from companies, said Kevin Packingham, chief product officer for Samsung Mobile USA.

As RIM prepares to launch its next-generation BlackBerry 10 this quarter, the company's future remains shaky. Corporate technology officers have begun to explore other smartphones, such as those by Apple Inc or Samsung.

"The enterprise space has suddenly become wide open. The RIM problems certainly fueled a lot of what the CIOs are going through, which is they want to get away from a lot of the proprietary solutions," Packingham said in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "They want something that integrates what they are doing with their IT systems. Samsung is investing in that area."

"It's been a focus for a long time but the products have evolved now that we can really take advantage of that," he added. "We knew we had to build more tech devices to successfully enter the enterprise market. What really turned that needle was that we had the power of the GS3."

Samsung in 2012 overtook Apple as the world's largest maker of smartphones, with a vastly larger selection of cellphones that attacked different price points and proved popular in emerging markets.

German business software maker SAP provides employees with Samsung's Galaxy S III, the larger Galaxy Note and the Galaxy Tab, SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann said in an interview.

"The one clear trend in enterprise is the shift away from one device to multiple devices," said Bussman, who makes 10 devices available to SAP employees for official use. The list includes Apple's iPhone and iPad, Nokia Lumia and RIM's Blackberry.

"Because of the fragmentation of the Android software, we decided to go with just one Android company and we went with Samsung," he added.

Now, the Korean hardware specialist is beefing up its software - an area in which it has lagged arch-enemy Apple, which revolutionized the mobile phone from 2007 with its content-rich, developer-led iPhone ecosystem.

Packingham sees an area ripe for innovation - combining the mobile phone with Samsung's strength, the TV, which has barely evolved in the past decade.

Still, the U.S.-based executive remained cagey about Samsung's plans for content and enterprise.

"You are going to see from content services, we'll start to integrate what's happening on the big screen, what's happening on the tablet," he said.

"We know now that people like to explore content that they are watching on TV while they have a tablet in their lap, and that's going to be a big theme for this year."

(Editing by Richard Chang)

Read More

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Apple Inc's Chief Executive Tim Cook is meeting with partners and government officials in China on his second visit to the firm's second-largest market in less than a year.

China is Apple's fastest-growing market, with the maker of the popular iPhone and iPad opening a raft of retail stores last year. Last month, Apple sold more than 2 million iPhone 5s in the country in just three days, the company's best ever smartphone launch in the country.

Despite the roaring success of iPhone sales in China, analysts say the company's longer-term outlook in the market may hinge on expanding its partners to include China Mobile Ltd, the country's top telecoms carrier.

"Tim is in Beijing meeting with government officials and partners. China is an important market for us and we look forward to continued customer excitement and growth here," Apple's spokeswoman in China Carolyn Wu said on Wednesday.

She declined to say whether or not Cook would be meeting with China Mobile executives.

In China, the iPhone is currently sold through Apple's seven stores, resellers and through China Unicom and China Telecom - which together have fewer than half the mobile subscribers of bigger rival China Mobile.

A deal with China's biggest carrier is seen as crucial to improving Apple's distribution in a market of 290 million users. Apple has been in talks on a tie-up with China Mobile for four years.

China Mobile and Apple initially said they were separated only by a technical issue - as the Chinese carrier runs a different 3G network from most of the world - but that has evolved into a broader and more complex issue of revenue-sharing.

On Tuesday, Cook met with the Minister of Industry and Information Technology, Miao Wei, where they discussed the development of the smartphone industry and innovation trends, according to a statement posted on the ministry's website.

China, Apple's biggest market after the United States, currently accounts for about 15 percent of its annual revenue.

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Ryan Woo)

Read More