Danny Puff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Australians Mark Bourne and Suzy Walsham were the fastest man and woman to race up the 1,576 steps of the Empire State Building on Wednesday in the run up of the iconic New York landmark.

Bourne finished in 10 minutes, 12 seconds and Walsham clocked 12:05 in the race up 86 floors that is described as a vertical marathon, the New York Road Runner (NYRR), which organizes the annual Empire State Building Run-Up, said.

About 600 runners from 18 countries took part in the race, now in its 36th year.

"Obviously I'm very happy to win and it's nice to have all the training pay off," said Bourne. "I wanted to pace myself well and fortunately it paid off."

Four-time champion Walsham was equally elated.

"I had a bear on my back after my crash in 2009 and I trained specifically for this race. It's a personal best time for me and I couldn't be happier," said Walsham who lives in Singapore.

Australian Darren Wilson came in second among the men, followed by Ricky Gates of San Francisco. Brooke Logan of Australia was the second woman to reach the top, ahead of Erika Aklufi, of Los Angeles, who placed third.

German Thomas Dold, the defending men's champion who has won the race a record seven times, did not compete because of illness.

About 30 elite men and women vertical racers, or tower runners, who storm up skyscrapers around the globe, along with fitness enthusiasts and some 200 charity runners ran from the lobby of the landmark building to the Observatory floor.

The elite stair climbers powered up the building first followed by other runners in spaced intervals, according to the organizers.

WORLD CIRCUIT RACE

Many of the top skyscraper racers compete in the Vertical World Circuit, which includes buildings races in Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Singapore and Brazil. Last month Dold was named the circuit's champion for the fourth time.

Running up tall skyscrapers requires different training and endurance than on a flat surface because of the vertical challenge against gravity, according to experts. During a marathon, runners can pace themselves but running up a building is more like sprinting.

"After about 10 flights you are in oxygen debt," said John Honerkamp, a coach with the NYRR. "For most people they are running (up) 20 to 25 minutes because that is how long it takes them."

The top men usually finish the 1,050-foot (320-meter) climb in 10 to 12 minutes and women about a minute later.

The best way to practice is to hit the stairs and head up. Runners also use the handrails on walls to pull themselves upwards.

Honerkamp explained that for many people climbing up the Empire State Building is a bucket list item to do before they die.

"It is the novelty of it," he said. "It is an extreme sport or task that gets people motivated for various reasons."

Paul Crake of Australia set the course record at 9:33 in 2003. His time was three minutes faster than the winning time of Gary Muhrcke's 12:33 in the inaugural 1978 race. Crake was paralyzed in a cycling accident in 2006.

Andrea Mayr of Austria set the women's record of 11:23.

The Empire State Building Run-up was the brainchild of New York City Marathon founder Fred Lebow.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)

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NEW YORK (AP) Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will write a book focusing on his response to the financial crisis, The Associated Press has learned.

Geithner, 51, will be represented by Washington-based attorney Robert Barnett, who confirmed Wednesday that Geithner would be meeting with publishers, but otherwise declined comment. Barnett has negotiated deals for President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and many others. Clinton said recently that she hoped to write a book.

Few treasury secretaries have attracted as much attention as Geithner, who has been praised for helping to prevent a second Great Depression, but criticized for being too sympathetic to Wall Street.

Geithner, who stepped down Jan. 25, was the last remaining original economic adviser to Obama. In an Associated Press interview given shortly before he left office, he defended such controversial actions as bailing out large banks, saying, "It is very hard to convince people or make credible to people the risks that we were living with at that time. That we could have had a much deeper collapse of not just the U.S. economy but the global economy."

Geithner has not started writing the book and no timetable has been set for a deal, but an official with knowledge of his plans says the goal is for publication in 2014. The official asked not to be identified, saying that no formal announcement would be made until an agreement is reached with a publisher.

Also Wednesday, the Council on Foreign Relations announced that Geithner will become a distinguished fellow with the organization. Geithner had previously been a senior fellow with the council in 2001 after he stepped down as Treasury undersecretary for international affairs in the administration of President Bill Clinton.

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NEW YORK (AP) The first-ever autism-friendly performance of the Broadway hit "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" will take off this spring and tickets go on sale Thursday.

The Theatre Development Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides access to live theater, said Wednesday it bought all the tickets for the matinee on April 27 at the Foxwoods Theatre and will offer them at a discount for children and adults on the autism spectrum. Tickets range in price from $35-$80.

The Spider-Man musical will be the fifth show in the fund's autism-friendly program. The first was Disney's "The Lion King" in October 2011, followed last year with performances of "Mary Poppins," a second performance of "The Lion King" and one of "Elf: The Musical." Each time, the shows got enthusiastic feedback from grateful families.

Lisa Carling, the Fund's director of accessibility programs, said surveys taken after previous autism-friendly performances showed strong interest for one of "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."

"We're grateful to the show's producers, management and creative staff and crew for accommodating the Autism Theatre Initiative and uniting with us to make the show an unforgettable experience for all," she said in a statement.

Autism disorders strike one in 100 children, according to U.S. government estimates. Children with the diagnosis are often sensitive to loud noises and harsh lights and find it difficult to sit still or remain quiet. Autism spectrum disorders include both severe and relatively mild symptoms.

The Broadway shows have been slightly altered to make those with autism more comfortable, including cutting jarring sounds and strobe lights. Quiet areas with beanbag chairs and coloring books, staffed by autism experts, also will be created inside the theater for those who might feel overwhelmed.

The Fund, which has consulted an advisory panel of experts in the field of autism, has also made itself available to consult with other theaters attempting their own autism-friendly performances. It also publishes downloadable guides telling children with autism what to expect during the show, including the plot, what ushers do and what to do during a curtain call.

"We are delighted to have the opportunity to share our production with those affected by autism," said "Spider-Man" producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris in a statement.

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Online: http://www.tdf.org/spiderman

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NEW YORK (AP) Barbara Walters isn't "scratching too much" from chickenpox, but she says she won't be back at "The View" for three more weeks.

Walters phoned into the ABC talk show Wednesday. Calling from her home, she reported that she's weak but not in any pain.

She was hospitalized on Jan. 19 after fainting and cutting her head at a party in Washington. The 83-year-old has said she had the chickenpox and a temperature at the time, but didn't realize it. She suffered a concussion and got six stitches. She was released 10 days later.

She announced Wednesday: "I'm not itching away."

Then she marveled that the best remedy for itching is an age-old one, saying: "We have Facebook, Twitter and calamine lotion."

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LAS VEGAS (AP) A newly announced "Star Wars" sequel was on everyone's mind when J.J. Abrams took the stage Wednesday at a Las Vegas video game conference, but he made only a sideways mention of the film he has been hired to direct.

The reference was a throw-away joke from his last franchise reboot.

The director played a scene from his 2009 "Star Trek" film to illustrate the importance of embroidering films with subtle details, and freeze-framed on a shot of a familiar "Star Wars" robot peeking from space junk.

"So they're looking at all the debris that's out there, and curiously, it's R2D2," he said, drawing a roar of laughter.

Gabe Newell, president of video game developer Valve, shared a stage with Abrams at the Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain Summit at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

"So now I have to go back through your movies looking at all the debris to figure out what movie you're going to direct next?" Newell asked.

Abrams has given die-hard fans few clues about his vision for the seventh live-action "Star Wars" film. He was announced as its director in January.

The Sin City appearance left fans of The Force hungering for more insight.

"I'd love to know who they'll focus on, what character, how far in the future it will be set, things like that," said Sadierose Schwartzmiller, 19, a comic-book creator who won her ticket to the event in an art contest.

Abrams has made a name for himself as a trusted steward of beloved fantasy universes, directing well-received additions to the "Star Trek" and "Mission: Impossible" franchises.

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas opened the door to the latest round of spin-offs when he sold his Lucasfilm empire to The Walt Disney Co. for $4.05 billion last fall. The company is planning three sequels and two peripheral movies focusing on characters.

"Episode VII" is tentatively scheduled for release in the summer of 2015.

Last month, Abrams told a group of reporters that he wanted to make sure the sequel was "something that touches people."

On Wednesday, he did give his audience of nerds and gamers one revelation when he announced his intention to collaborate with Newell the man behind the hit games "Portal," "Half-Life" and "Counter-Strike."

"There's an idea that we had for a game that we'd like to develop," he said.

Fans wanted more information on that, too.

"If they would reveal even the genre," said Kellen Smalley, 32, a gamer. "If they would bring what J.J. does with stories to the 'Star Wars' games, it would be very fun."

Abrams' development company, Bad Robot Interactive, has released apps related to his movies. Newell said his company would like to work with Abrams on a movie adaptation of "Portal" or "Half-Life."

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Hannah Dreier can be reached at http://twitter.com/hannahdreier

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BOSTON (Reuters) - Software makers Microsoft Corp and Symantec Corp said they disrupted a global cyber crime operation by shutting down servers that controlled hundreds of thousands of PCs without the knowledge of their users.

The move made it temporarily impossible for infected PCs around the world to search the web, though the companies offered free tools to clean machines through messages that were automatically pushed out to infected computers.

Technicians working on behalf of both companies raided data centers in Weehawken, New Jersey, and Manassas, Virginia, on Wednesday, accompanied by U.S. federal marshals, under an order issued by the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

They seized control of one server at the New Jersey facility and persuaded the operators of the Virginia data center to take down a server at their parent company in the Netherlands, according to Richard Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit.

Boscovich told Reuters that he had "a high degree of confidence" that the operation had succeeded in bringing down the cyber crime operation, known as the Bamital botnet.

"We think we got everything, but time will tell," he said.

The servers that were pulled off line on Wednesday had been used to communicate with what Microsoft and Symantec estimate are between 300,000 and 1 million PCs currently infected with malicious software that enslaved them into the botnet.

HIJACKING SEARCHES

The companies said that the Bamital operation hijacked search results and engaged in other schemes that the companies said fraudulently charge businesses for online advertisement clicks.

Bamital's organizers also had the ability to take control of infected PCs, installing other types of computer viruses that could engage in identity theft, recruit PCs into networks that attack websites and conduct other types of computer crimes.

Now that the servers have been shut down, users of infected PCs will be directed to a site informing them that their machines are infected with malicious software when they attempt to search the web.

Microsoft and Symantec are offering them free tools to fix their PCs and restore access to web searches via messages automatically pushed out to victims.

The messages warn: "You have reached this website because your computer is very likely to be infected by malware that redirects the results of your search queries. You will receive this notification until you remove the malware from your computer."

It was the sixth time that Microsoft has obtained a court order to disrupt a botnet since 2010. Previous operations have targeted bigger botnets, but this is the first where infected users have received warnings and free tools to clean up their machines.

Microsoft runs a Digital Crimes Unit out of its Redmond, Washington, headquarters that is staffed by 11 attorneys, investigators and other staff who work to help law enforcement fight financial crimes and exploitation of children over the web.

Symantec approached Microsoft about a year ago, asking the maker of Windows software to collaborate in trying to take down the Bamital operation. Last week they sought a court order to seize the Bamital servers.

The two companies said they conservatively estimate that the Bamital botnet generated at least $1 million a year in profits for the organizers of the operation. They said they will learn more about the size of the operation after they analyze information from infected machines that check in to the domains once controlled by Bamital's servers.

Their complaint identified 18 "John Doe" ringleaders, scattered from Russia and Romania to Britain, the United States and Australia, who registered websites and rented servers used in the operation under fictitious names. The complaint was filed last week with a federal court in Alexandria and unsealed on Wednesday.

The complaint alleges that the ringleaders made money through a scheme known as "click fraud" in which criminals get cash from advertisers who pay websites commissions when their users click on ads.

Bamital redirected search results from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing search engines to sites with which the authors of the botnet have financial relationships, according to the complaint.

The complaint also charges that Bamital's operators profited by forcing infected computers to generate large quantities of automated ad clicks without the knowledge of PC users.

Symantec researcher Vikram Thakur said Bamital is just one of several major botnets in a complex underground "click fraud ecosystem" that he believes generates at least tens of millions of dollars in revenue.

He said that researchers at will comb the data on the servers in order to better understand how the click fraud ecosystem works and potentially identify providers of fraudulent ads and traffic brokers.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg in the world of click fraud," said Thakur.

Boscovich said he believes the botnet originated in Russia or Ukraine because affiliated sites install a small text file known as a cookie that is written in Russian on infected computers.

The cookie file contains the Russian phrase "yatutuzebil," according to the court filing. That can loosely be translated as "I was here," he said.

Microsoft provided details on the takedown operation on its blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_blog/archive/2013/02/06/microsoft-and-symantec-take-down-bamital-botnet-that-hijacks-online-searches.aspx

(Reporting By Jim Finkle; Editing by Claudia Parsons and Leslie Gevirtz)

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NEW YORK (AP) The Wanted is trying to keep it real: The boy band has signed on to do a reality series on E!

The British fivesome announced Wednesday that their show will debut in June. A press release said the behind-the-scene series will be "unvarnished" and "nonglossy."

The Wanted broke onto the U.S. music scene with the Top 5 hit "Glad You Came." They dropped their self-titled U.S. debut EP last year, and have released two successful albums and multiple singles in the United Kingdom.

The group is planning a full-length album and international tour for the fall.

Their U.S. manager is Scooter Braun, who also manages Justin Bieber. The band members include Max George, Nathan Sykes, Jay McGuiness, Tom Parker and Siva Kaneswaran.

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Online:

http://www.thewantedmusic.com/

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WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) "Xena: Warrior Princess" actor Lucy Lawless says she's won a "great victory" after a New Zealand judge handed her a modest sentence but declined to order costs sought by oil company Shell for her role in a protest aboard an oil-drilling ship.

Lawless and seven other Greenpeace activists were each ordered Thursday to pay 651 New Zealand dollars ($547) costs to a port company and complete 120 hours of community service after earlier pleading guilty to trespass charges.

Last February, Lawless and six other activists climbed a drilling tower on the Arctic-bound vessel Noble Discoverer to protest oil exploration in the Arctic. Another protester helped from the ground. Lawless spent four days atop the 174-foot (53-meter) tower, camping and blogging about her experiences. The action briefly delayed the ship's voyage.

Shell Todd Oil Services, which had chartered the ship, sought about 650,000 New Zealand dollars ($545,000) in reparations from the protesters.

Lawyers for the activists contended that amount was excessive. In his ruling, Judge Allan Roberts said the company could pursue its claim through the civil court system.

Shell Todd declined to comment on whether it would pursue civil action. In a statement, the company said it has "always supported the efforts of law enforcement to respond to this incident and to deter such activity in the future."

Lawless is best known for her title role in "Xena" and more recently for starring in the Starz cable television series "Spartacus."

"I consider it a great victory that the court has struck down the reparation demand from Shell, which I think was absolutely ludicrous," Lawless said.

She said she was happy to clean toilets, pick up litter or do whatever else was required for her community service and that she has no regrets about taking part in the protest, which she said has helped highlight concerns about oil exploration in the Arctic.

Greenpeace says more than 2 million people have signed its petition to make the Arctic a sanctuary and off-limits for oil exploration.

Lawless said she plans to continue protesting against climate change and oil drilling.

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BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Forget about statistics for employment and industrial production, it is being claimed that the price of a hamburger is showing where Europe's economic reforms are working - and where they are not.

By studying the different prices for McDonald's Big Mac burger throughout the euro zone between July 2011 and January 2013, Guntram Wolff, an economist at think-tank Bruegel, found evidence that struggling countries like Ireland had tightened their belts and others had not.

The price of a Big Mac has been used by The Economist for decades as a partially tongue-in-cheek way of judging global currency valuations - the gist being that it costs the same to make but is charged at different prices around the world.

Wolff took the data and found that the price rise in Greece, Portugal and Spain has been less than the euro zone average, while in Ireland the price actually fell. These are the main countries undergoing deep economic reform due to the debt crisis.

This contrasts with price rises above the euro zone burger average in Germany.

Wolff concludes from this that economic adjustment is working. For example, In Ireland, which has made spending cuts after receiving international aid, the burger price has fallen from 3.80 euros to less than 3.50 euros.

There is one notable exception, however. Heavily-indebted Italy is the most expensive country in the euro area to buy a Big Mac - 3.85 euros - while it costs just 3.64 euros in Germany.

"Italy," said Wolff, "needs to apply the right policies to address high inflation."

http://www.bruegel.org/nc/blog/detail/article/1005-what-does-the-big-mac-say-about-euro-area-adjustment/

(Reporting By John O'Donnell. Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)

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VIENNA (AP) One sleepy little side street in Vienna just got sleepier.

Tucked behind a Gothic church and surrounded by Renaissance-era houses, a new studio is offering deal-makers, movers and shakers and foot-sore tourists respite at a price: a half-hour power nap for 11 euros ($15).

But Reflexia is more than just a place for shut-eye. The establishment's massive arches and thick walls built centuries ago act as if they were made specifically to protect from the outside world, and visitors who cross its threshold are offered soft mood music; a heaping plate of prosciutto with chunky bread; coffee, tea and soft drinks, and a wake-up that is personal and gentle.

"People know sleep as a need but not as a product," owner Peter Schurin says. "Our task is to change that in some ways."

Schurin describes his establishment as "a fitness center for the spirit," and his business model might be well-timed, even if the Austrian capital is anything but an edgy city that never sleeps.

Most stores here are closed on Sundays. On Fridays, the work day ends at 3 p.m., or earlier, judging from the traffic jams clogging the main arteries out of the city of 1.8 million. In fact, Vienna regularly tops Mercier surveys as the world's most livable city in part because of its outsized calm factor.

At the same time, Austria's status in Europe as an "Island of the Blessed" is being eroded by the kind of work-related stress common to other Western societies.

A study last year involving doctors, unions and employers estimated that stress-related illnesses are costing Austria's economy 7 billion euros almost $9.5 billion a year in treatment and absences of its 3.7-million strong work force. Michael Musalek, head of Vienna's Anton Proksch medical institute, says the number of burn-out victims "is steadily growing."

Enter Schurin and his establishment.

Services at Reflexia range in cost and substance. The 11-euro, half-hour cat nap takes place in a dim room where black leather loungers are separated by Japanese folding screens; a one-hour snooze in a private chamber can be purchased for 40 euros ($60).

Those who can't sleep can play computer games, grab a book off the club room's shelf or just sit back and relax with a drink and a bite for 6 euros ($8) an hour.

The only thing missing so far? Sleepy customers.

On Tuesday, a day after the grand opening, candles were burning and the Italian ham was waiting but the couches were empty except for one.

On it was Gundula Schatz, who described herself as both a client and a prospective partner looking to offer yoga courses at the establishment. Asked how her couch felt, she replied "like in seventh heaven!"

Schurin says he's patient.

"While we were still building with all the mess and dust, people passed by and saw the word 'sleep' ... and turned to me and said, 'Can I sleep here?' And I said 'Yes, but please wait until we're open.'

"Austrians are cautious people," he added. "It takes them a while to get used to new ideas."

But the concept left at least one passer-by cold Tuesday.

"I sleep on the job," said Rolf Bachler, when asked if he was in need of a power-nap.

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