Romney Reax to Obama's Afghanistan Address (TIME)

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Gov't might be given more leeway in Clemens trial

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, right, leaves the Federal Court in Washington as the perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher entered its third week Monday, April 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, right, leaves the Federal Court in Washington as the perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher entered its third week Monday, April 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, right, autographs a baseball ball for Juan Albarracin, left, as he leaves the Federal Court in Washington as a perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher entered its third week Monday, April 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, right, leaves the Federal Court in Washington as a perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher entered its third week Monday, April 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Former Major League Baseball pitcher Roger Clemens, right, leaves the Federal Court in Washington as the perjury retrial of the seven-time Cy Young Award winning pitcher entered its third week Monday, April 30, 2012. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The judge in the Roger Clemens perjury trial may be on the verge of letting the government show the former pitcher's jury just how widespread steroids and human growth hormone were in the sport. It's a move Clemens' lawyers would like to avoid but may have brought on themselves.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said Monday that if the Clemens defense team continues its attack on a 2008 congressional hearing in which Clemens is alleged to have lied, government prosecutors should be allowed to present a "larger picture" of why the hearing took place.

Walton asked the government to show him the kind of information it wants to present. A prosecutor gave a hint at the end of Monday's session ? with the jury out of the room ? dropping the names of admitted drug users among major league players, such as Chuck Knoblauch and Jose Canseco. The defense fears this could taint Clemens with guilt-by-association.

Prosecutors said it's a necessary rebuttal to questions raised by Clemens' lawyer about the motive for the hearing.

"They can't have their cake and eat it, too," prosecutor Steven Durham said. "This simply isn't fair."

Clemens is on trial for allegedly lying in a 2008 congressional deposition and hearing when he said he never used steroids or HGH.

Clemens' lawyer Rusty Hardin opened up the possibility of a wider trial into steroid use with his questioning of the government's first witness, Phil Barnett. He was majority staff director for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee when that panel held the 2008 hearing. Barnett said the hearing was a legitimate use of congressional power because it could have led to legislation.

How, Hardin asked in an incredulous tone, could asking Clemens whether he ever discussed HGH with strength coach Brian McNamee possibly lead to legislation?

After the government objected, Walton said he'd allow that line of questioning, but cautioned Hardin that he was opening the door to the wider government case.

That was one of a barrage of no fewer than 16 objections from the government. Walton handled some of them quickly, but on others he either cleared the jury from the room, or put on a sound machine to block jurors from hearing, while he huddled with lawyers from both sides. During one of those breaks, two of the jurors could be seen with their eyes closed.

Prosecutors used Barnett to try to establish that Congress was within its bounds in holding the hearing two months after Clemens was named in a 2007 report to the Commissioner of Baseball on drug use in the sport. The government has maintained that it was important for Congress to learn whether the report was accurate, in part because of concerns about steroids and HGH as a public health issue.

Hardin complained that the congressional hearing was "nothing more than a show trial." Determining whether Clemens was telling the truth when he denied the report's claims, he said, "is not a legitimate role for Congress."

Hardin raised the issue of whether Clemens' testimony at the hearing was truly voluntary ? suggesting that Clemens might have been subpoenaed had he not agreed to appear. But Barnett wouldn't concede that the pitcher would have been subpoenaed had he declined the committee's invitation; he said such a move was not automatic.

With Barnett on the stand, the government played portions of Clemens' televised testimony at the February 2008 hearing as well as an audiotape of the deposition that preceded it.

"Let me be clear: I have never used steroids or HGH," Clemens said confidently in the videotape of the hearing.

___

AP Sports Writer Joseph White contributed to this report.

___

Follow Fred Frommer at http://twitter.com/ffrommer

Follow Joseph White at http://twitter.com/JGWhiteAP

Associated Press

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US, China tap-dance around blind activist, seek resolution ahead of talks on broader themes

WASHINGTON - The blind Chinese lawyer at the centre of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing is a taboo topic in each capital. Neither side wants the biggest human-rights issue between the two since Tiananmen Square to disrupt high-level strategic and economic talks set to begin Thursday.

President Barack Obama's administration and China's officials have signalled that the global economy, North Korea, Iran and Sudan ? issues in which millions of lives are at stake ? have become far more important in U.S.-Chinese relations. Thus, both refuse to admit anything is amiss as a high-profile dissident is believed to be sheltering with U.S. diplomats in China.

To listen to officials in both countries, Chen Guangcheng is an invisible man.

Obama himself refused to address the issue Monday, declining to confirm that the blind lawyer is under U.S. protection in China or that American diplomats are attempting to negotiate an agreement for him to receive asylum.

"Obviously, I'm aware of the press reports on the situation in China, but I'm not going to make a statement on the issue," the president said at a joint White House news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.

He added obliquely, "What I would like to emphasize is that every time we meet with China the issue of human rights comes up."

Speaking later, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton similarly declined to talk about Chen but said she would raise human rights issues at the upcoming meetings in Beijing. She said she and Obama had worked hard to have "an effective, constructive and comprehensive" relationship with the Chinese.

"A constructive relationship includes talking very frankly about those areas where we do not agree, including human rights," she said. "That is the spirit that is guiding me as I take off for Beijing tonight. And I can certainly guarantee that we will be discussing every matter, including human rights, that is pending between us."

Clinton added that "the freedom and free movement of people inside China" were "issues of great concern to us."

Neither Obama nor Clinton offered information as the administration and the Chinese government sought to prevent the biggest human-rights issue with China since the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations from disrupting this week's high-level strategic and economic talks in Beijing. Clinton left Washington for Beijing late Monday night.

Earlier, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was also tight-lipped, refusing to answer any questions about Chen. She confirmed that the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, Kurt Campbell, is in Beijing to prepare for the fourth round of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, but would not say if he was discussing Chen and pointedly did not utter the dissident's name.

Campbell arrived in Beijing early Sunday, at least a day ahead of schedule, and, according to activists, is in intensive discussions with the Chinese to strike a deal over where Chen should go ? to asylum in the United States or somewhere in China or a third location ? before Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner get there. But Nuland said the meetings will go on as planned.

"Both sides want to solve this in a low-key manner and they do not want this to dominate other issues in the (strategic and economic) dialogue so that's why they are working hard to find a speedy solution," said Bob Fu of the Texas-based rights group ChinaAid, which was involved in Chen's escape from house arrest last week and his subsequent arrival into the protection of U.S. diplomats in Beijing.

Despite the silence, the handling of his case ? the most serious issue between the two nations since an American spy plane was forced to land on China's Hainan Island in 2001 ? will have profound ramifications on both sides of the Pacific.

Obama's options are limited. Facing a tough fight for re-election in November, he cannot afford to ignore the situation. Doing nothing to help a visually impaired, self-taught lawyer who has fought against forced abortions and corruption in China would open Obama up to attacks from his presumed Republican opponent, Mitt Romney. It would also draw intense criticism from the human rights community in the United States, one of his core constituencies.

But at the same time, pressing the issue too hard may prompt a backlash from China, on which the U.S. is increasingly reliant for foreign capital and support as it seeks to lead the global economic recovery, deal with North Korea and Iran's nuclear programs, and prevent a potential war between Sudan and South Sudan.

The key to resolving the situation may well rest with an aging cadre at the top of China's Communist Party, who could either promise protection for Chen and his family in China or allow him to leave the country, possibly even to Hong Kong or Macao, as they prepare for their own leadership transition later this year.

"Mr. Chen prefers to stay in China if he and his family's safety can be guaranteed. In the current environment in China that might not be possible, so a viable solution is to have him and his family come to the U.S.," said Fu. He said a face-saving option may be to let Chen and his family come to the U.S. for medical treatment.

The ouster of powerful politician Bo Xilai following a deputy's visit to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in February has already laid bare some of the party's dirty laundry and the Chinese will be loath to lose more face over Chen, whose case was raised repeatedly by American officials, including Clinton herself, until the information blackout began last week.

Human rights has been a distasteful issue for Beijing for decades and it has criticized the U.S. approach as lecturing. Clinton made waves on her first trip abroad as secretary of state when she said human rights could not dominate the entire agenda with China at the expense of other pressing issues.

Her comments drew fire at the time, but the relationship has clearly evolved as global priorities have shifted.

While China in the 1990s was in need of foreign investment and diplomatic partners and was willing to send jailed dissidents into exile to get them, Beijing sees little need for such concessions now, with its diplomatic clout and coffers bulging with foreign exchange. As the first and second largest economies, the U.S. and China have intertwining interests, and as the reigning superpower and burgeoning world power, they are frequently jostling for advantage across the globe.

___

Associated Press writers Matthew Pennington in Washington and Charles Hutzler in Beijing contributed to this report.

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PlaySay: Social Language Learning App Launches With $820k And A HarperCollins Deal In Its Pocket

The education market -- as Apple and others have noticed -- represents a huge mobile opportunity, and today sees the launch of an app that plays on that potential, with added gamification and social twists. PlaySay, a "social language learning" startup, today debuts a free, new Spanish/English iPhone app -- along with a licensing deal with HarperCollins and an additional $250,000 in funding, taking total backing in the company up to $820,000. We first heard about PlaySay last year, when it launched at the TC Disrupt conference as a Facebook app that let users learn languages through Facebook's own content translated into your foreign language of choice: "Your Facebook friends are your new classmates. Check ins, status updates and pictures are your course materials," founder Ryan Meinzer said at the time. The new iPhone app plays on a similar idea, except that it uses PlaySay's own platform as the basis of the language learning.

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Motorola Mobility loses $86 million in Q1, device shipments way down

Well, the first quarter of 2012 is officially over Motorola Mobility, and the financial news is rather sobering for the company. While revenues were up, the climb was modest, to just $3.1 billion. And that small bump in incoming cash was not enough to stave off another quarter of loses. In fact, after losing $80 million in Q4 of 2011, Moto lost $86 million in Q1 of 2012. The company continued to bleed cash in large part because shipments of mobile devices dropped off dramatically. Only 8.9 million devices were shipped in the quarter, down from 10.5 million in the last part of 2011. With 5.1 million of those being smartphones however, the phone division did manage to increase revenues by three percent. The one bright spot was the home segment which, thanks to its home gateways and broadcast goods, managed to make (that's right, not lose) $68 million, up from $53 million a year ago. For more numbers and charts check out the source link.

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It's not a BlackBerry World anymore

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - When Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie were running Research In Motion, BlackBerry World was a chest-thumping celebration of RIM's successes and a showcase for the innovations that would assure its continued dominance.

Their successor Thorsten Heins will preside over a very different event.

Three months after replacing the longstanding co-CEOs, Heins desperately needs more time to right the now-struggling company and he likely has next to nothing concrete to offer his restless audience in terms of new products and services.

In late March, Heins embarked on a strategic review of the Canadian smartphone maker's direction in an effort to reverse the growing power of Apple Inc and Google Inc's Android, and to thwart a budding Microsoft/Nokia resurgence.

The company is working furiously to get a next-generation lineup of smartphones on sale, while also seeking licensing deals, partnerships and cost savings of $1 billion this year.

Unless Heins has a big surprise up his sleeve at this year's BlackBerry World, held next week in Orlando, Florida, analysts expect him to focus on products and services already in market. Most of them have so far failed to capture the imagination of investors or consumers.

"It's too early in RIM's strategic review process to announce one particular strategy," IDC analyst Kevin Restivo said. "However, Heins would be wise to provide any kind of news to help staunch the bleeding."

Restivo expects RIM to tout any progress it's made in attracting developers and possibly announce a PlayBook that connects to cellular networks. That would make the 7-inch tablet more portable and give carriers an incentive to promote the device.

PRESENTATION DELAYED

BlackBerry World - which brings together several thousand RIM partners and customers - was once a must for financial analysts. But this year few are making the trip, in part because RIM has broken with tradition by cancelling a specific presentation for them. Instead it delayed the briefing until the next-generation BlackBerry 10s are on sale, sometime later this year.

In the year since RIM's last Orlando conference, the company has issued a string of disappointing financial results, suffered an embarrassing global network outage and watched its share price tumble by 75 percent.

Lazaridis and Balsillie quit under pressure in late January, replaced by Heins, a former Siemens AG executive who ran RIM's hardware business for several years.

"Expectations are so low I don't think it's possible to disappoint investors," said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson. "The conference isn't for investors anyway; it's for customers, developers and partners."

Thompson said RIM may use the event to introduce a marketing chief, which he said was long overdue. RIM is also seeking a chief operating officer.

"The company needs to display confidence and staying power at the show to keep this constituency loyal until the BlackBerry 10 smartphones are launched," he said.

Other RIM watchers privately pointed to subdued comments from a major investor and new board member last week as a hint not to expect much. Prem Watsa, who joined RIM's board in January's reshuffle, said that a turnaround could take three to five years.

LOOKING AHEAD

The BlackBerry 10 devices will be RIM's first smartphones to make use of a hardy operating platform from QNX Software, an Ottawa, Ontario-based company that RIM acquired in 2010.

RIM's first test of QNX was its PlayBook tablet, which has languished on store shelves since its launch a year ago. The company is eager to get software developers to build PlayBook applications that could then populate an app store for the new phones.

On the sidelines of BlackBerry World, the company will hand out a prototype BlackBerry 10 device for developers to test their software applications. RIM has stressed that the device's hardware bears no relation to the finished product.

The BlackBerry was once seen as an indispensable business tool but has been eclipsed by more consumer-focused iPhones and Android devices which boast large, vivid touchscreens and hundreds of thousands more applications and games.

RIM had an 8.8 percent slice of the global smartphone market in the fourth quarter, according to research firm Gartner, down from 14.6 percent a year ago. Apple and Android smartphones accounted for almost three-quarters of the market, up from less than half a year earlier.

Meanwhile, a partnership between Microsoft Corp and Nokia Oyj threatens both RIM's corporate heartland and its recent growth markets internationally.

By the time RIM launches its first BlackBerry 10s, its global share could slip to 6 percent, analysts at Canaccord Genuity said in February. They said the small base would make it difficult for RIM to create an ecosystem of applications and content for its new platform.

Recognizing it is powerless to stop iPhones and Android devices from invading its once-impenetrable corporate and government business, RIM launched its Mobile Fusion software to enable IT managers to control those devices through RIM's servers. But it has so far failed to go further.

Sources told Reuters last month that former co-chief executive Balsillie had worked for months on a radical shift in RIM's strategy that would have offered use of its proprietary network, including its popular BlackBerry Messenger chat program, for rival devices such as the iPhone.

Heins has since said he believes in RIM's integrated model - in which it runs its own software on its own devices connected exclusively to its global peer-to-peer network - but that he would consider offering that via partnership.

(This version of the story has been corrected in the third paragraph to change period to three months from five months)

(Editing by Frank McGurty)

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NBC to keep Golden Globes for years, judge rules

FILE- In this Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010, file photo, a publicist walks down the red carpet as it rains before the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. A federal judge ruled on April 30, 2012, that a $150 million agreement keeping the Globes on NBC is valid, siding with the show?s longtime producers and against the organization that organizes the glitzy awards gala each year. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

FILE- In this Sunday, Jan. 17, 2010, file photo, a publicist walks down the red carpet as it rains before the 67th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif. A federal judge ruled on April 30, 2012, that a $150 million agreement keeping the Globes on NBC is valid, siding with the show?s longtime producers and against the organization that organizes the glitzy awards gala each year. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? A federal judge ruled Monday that producers of the Golden Globe Awards acted properly when they negotiated a deal keeping the glitzy gala on NBC through 2018.

U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz's 89-page ruling states that the production company, dick clark productions, has a right to negotiate the deal and work on the show as long as it airs on NBC. That right was a key part of a long-running dispute between the company, known as dcp, and the Globes' organizers, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

The association sued over the broadcast deal in November 2010, but the two sides have worked together on the past two awards shows. The production company has claimed it has a perpetual right to work on the show as long as it airs on NBC, but the association argued that it never agreed to those terms and it was facing the loss of its creation.

The Globes have become big business, with Hollywood A-listers appearing each year. The journalists' group and producer split the multimillion-dollar annual profits evenly.

There was no immediate comment from the HFPA. Matz has said he doesn't expect his ruling will end the dispute, but that it will likely lead to an appeal.

Matz's ruling states the dcp only has a right to work with NBC, but that it does not need to receive approval for its broadcast deal directly from the HFPA anymore because of a 1993 amendment to their working relationship.

"We are pleased the court affirmed our contract and look forward to working with the HFPA and NBC to nurture and expand the Golden Globes franchise for years to come," dcp wrote in a statement.

The company's CEO, Mark Shapiro, said he wished Dick Clark, who died April 18, had lived to see the ruling.

"My only sadness is that Dick wasn't here to see the win," Shapiro said. "This was the brainchild of Dick Clark. It was his idea to do a long-term deal."

The judge stated the unusual agreement came about largely because of HFPA's own leadership problems. "HFPA suffered from the absence of sound, business-like practices," Matz wrote.

He noted the group's complicated internal politics and frequent elections, some of which "triggered bitter feelings."

"HFPA members have always been dedicated to the success of the Golden Globes Award Show," Matz wrote. "But often they succumbed to bouts of pronounced turmoil and personal feuds."

The judge's ruling came after he heard nine days of testimony earlier this year over the deal negotiated by dcp. Clark sold the last of his interest in the company in 2007, but the dispute focused heavily on events that took place while he still owned it in 1993.

The judge had to determine whether a 1993 agreement between the HFPA and dcp gave the production company the right to work on the show perpetually, provided it airs on NBC. The association contended it never agreed to the perpetuity clause, and that if it were upheld it would the HFPA control over its signature property, the Globes.

Attorneys for dcp argued that the clause was to ensure continuity and protect the production company, which had just negotiated a multi-year deal to return the Globes to broadcast airwaves for the first time since a scandal knocked them from CBS in the early 1980s.

Matz noted the contrast between the production company and the journalists' group in his ruling.

"In contrast, dcp acted in a consistently business-like fashion, and for almost all of the 27 year relationship it had with HFPA before this suit was filed dcp was represented by one experienced executive who was adept at dealing fairly and effectively with the often amateurish conduct of HFPA," he wrote.

The disputed deal is worth $150 million, but the association contends the broadcast rights are worth much more now. The show, while not a reliable predictor of Oscar night glory, attracts the top stars from both television and film and attracts millions of viewers each year. The booze-filled gala is more unpredictable and less staid than other major reality shows, which has only been amplified by host Ricky Gervais in recent years.

Matz noted that the agreement between the HFPA and dcp ? and his ruling ? tie the two groups together as long as the show remains on NBC. If the network drops the show, the production company's rights to work on the gala would also end.

Shapiro said that despite the trial and the cloud of uncertainty it has cast over the Globes, dcp has a strong relationship with NBC that includes several other shows.

___

Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

Associated Press

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