With Rice withdrawing, Kerry may get call

WASHINGTON (AP) — Susan Rice, the embattled U.N. ambassador, abruptly withdrew from consideration to be the next secretary of state on Thursday after a bitter, weekslong standoff with Republican senators who declared they would fight to defeat her nomination.

The reluctant announcement makes Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry the likely choice to be the nation's next top diplomat when Hillary Rodham Clinton departs soon. Rice withdrew when it became clear her political troubles were not going away, and support inside the White House for her potential nomination had been waning in recent days, administration officials said.

In another major part of the upcoming Cabinet shake-up for President Barack Obama's second term, former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska now is seen as the front-runner to be defense secretary, with official word expected as soon as next week.

For the newly re-elected president, Rice's withdrawal was a sharp political setback and a sign of the difficulties Obama faces in a time of divided and divisive government. Already, he had been privately weighing whether picking Rice would cost him political capital he would need on later votes.

When Rice ended the embarrassment by stepping aside, Obama used the occasion to criticize Republicans who were adamantly opposed to her possible nomination.

"While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character," he said.

"I am saddened we have reached this point," Rice said.

Obama made clear she would remain in his inner circle, saying he was grateful she would stay as "our ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my Cabinet and national security team." Rice, too, said in her letter she would be staying.

Clinton, in a brief statement, said that Rice had "been an indispensable partner over the past four years" and that she was confident "that she will continue to represent the United States with strength and skill."

Rice had become the face of the bungled administration account of what happened in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012 when four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya, were killed in what is now known to have been a terrorist attack.

Obama had defiantly declared he would chose her for secretary of state regardless of the political criticism, if he wanted, but such a choice could have gotten his second term off to a turbulent start with Capitol Hill.

In a letter to Obama, Rice said she was convinced the confirmation process would be "lengthy, disruptive and costly." The letter was part of a media rollout aimed at upholding her reputation. It included an NBC News interview in which she said her withdrawal "was the best thing for our country."

"Those of you who know me know that I'm a fighter, but not at the cost of what's right for our country," she tweeted later.

Rice may end up close to Obama's side in another way, as his national security adviser should Tom Donilon move on to another position, though that is not expected imminently. The security adviser position would not require Senate confirmation.

Rice would have faced strong opposition from Senate Republicans who challenged her much-maligned televised comments about the cause of the deadly raid on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Her efforts to satisfy Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte and Susan Collins in unusual, private sessions on Capitol Hill fell short. The Republicans emerged from the meetings still expressing doubts about her qualifications.

"The position of secretary of state should never be politicized," Rice said. "As someone who grew up in an era of comparative bipartisanship and as a sitting U.S national security official who has served in two U.S. administrations, I am saddened that we have reached this point."

Attention now shifts to Kerry, who came close to winning the presidency in 2004 and has been seen as desiring the State job. In a statement, he made no mention of his own candidacy but praised Rice, who was an adviser to him his in his presidential bid.

Kerry was an early backer of Obama and was under consideration to become his first secretary of state. Obama has dispatched Kerry to foreign hot spots on his behalf. Kerry played the role of Republican Mitt Romney during Obama's presidential debate preparations this year.

The longtime senator would be almost certain to be easily confirmed by his colleagues on Capitol Hill.

If Obama taps Kerry for State, the president will create a potential problem for Democrats by opening a Senate seat — one that recently defeated Republican Sen. Scott Brown is eyeing. Brown had been elected as Massachusetts' other senator in January 2010 after Democrat Ted Kennedy died, stunning the political world as he took the seat held by Kennedy for decades. Brown lost that seat in the November election.

House Democratic women had cast the criticism of Rice as sexist and racist — she is African-American — and some expressed disappointment with the news.

"If judged fairly based solely on her qualifications for the job, she would've made an extraordinary secretary of state," said Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rice did not have a strong relationship with members of the Senate. Graham, who is the top Republican on the Appropriations subcommittee that handles foreign aid and the State Department, said he barely knew her.

In a brief statement, a spokesman for McCain said the senator "thanks Ambassador Rice for her service to the country and wishes her well. He will continue to seek all the facts surrounding the attack on our consulate in Benghazi."

Rice's decision comes ahead of the anticipated release next week of a report by an Accountability Review Board into the attack on the Benghazi mission. The report ordered by Clinton, focuses on the run-up to and the actual attack and is not expected to mention Rice's role in its aftermath.

Clinton is to testify about the report before Congress next Thursday.

At issue is the explanation Rice offered in a series of talk show appearances five days after the attack in Libya.

Rice has conceded in private meetings with lawmakers that her initial account — that a spontaneous demonstration over an anti-Muslim video produced in the U.S. triggered the attack — was wrong, but she has insisted she was not trying to mislead the American people. Information for her account was provided by intelligence officials.

She reasserted that position in an opinion piece published late Thursday on The Washington Post's website, adding, "In recent weeks, new lines of attack have been raised to malign my character and my career. Even before I was nominated for any new position, a steady drip of manufactured charges painted a wholly false picture of me. This has interfered increasingly with my work on behalf of the United States at the United Nations and with America's agenda."

Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, is a Vietnam veteran, served two terms in the Senate and was a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. Obama and Hagel became close while they served in the Senate and traveled overseas together. Hagel has been critical of his party since leaving the Senate in 2008, saying the GOP had moved too far right.

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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata, Ken Thomas, Matthew Lee and Matthew Daly contributed to this story.

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NKorea policy in Seoul to soften despite rocket

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — It is not too early to predict one sure winner of South Korea's presidential election next week: North Korea. President Lee Myung-bak's hardline approach to Pyongyang is going away, no matter who replaces him.

The question is: Just how soft will Seoul go?

Not even Pyongyang's successful launch of a long-range rocket Wednesday has changed the determination of both the liberal and conservative candidates in South Korea to pursue policies of engagement, aid and reconciliation with the North.

This matters because whoever wins the presidential Blue House on Dec. 19 will set the initial tone for new North Korea policy not just in Seoul but in Washington, Beijing and Tokyo. Those countries are undergoing political changes and have been waiting for a new South Korean leader before making any big decisions on North Korea policy.

Washington, especially, is keen to see who will take over when Lee leaves in February. U.S. policy toughened after the embarrassing collapse of an aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with Pyongyang following a failed April rocket launch attempt by North Korea. However, barring more rocket or nuclear tests from Pyongyang or other acts Washington considers provocative, a new thaw on the Korean Peninsula could eventually provide Barack Obama with a cover to pursue more talks meant to encourage North Korean nuclear disarmament.

The need for more dialogue and aid for Pyongyang is one of the few things the South Korean candidates — conservative Park Geun-hye and liberal Moon Jae-in — agree on.

Many South Koreans are frustrated with Lee's efforts on North Korea. His policy links large-scale government aid to North Korea making progress on past commitments to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Instead of disarmament progress, though, the last five years have seen nuclear and missile tests — including Wednesday's rocket launch — deadly skirmishes and all-around simmering nastiness between the rival Koreas.

Park and Lee are members of the same conservative political party, so her comments on greater engagement and aid have been striking. They also stand out because Park is the daughter of Park Chung-hee, South Korea's late anti-communist dictator.

While Park's rhetoric on North Korea has hardened after Wednesday's launch, there's no plan to change her underlying policy, her aides say: She still envisions aid shipments, talks meant to spur reconciliation and the restart of some large-scale economic initiatives as progress occurs on the nuclear issue. The aid would be goods that can't be used for military purposes.

Park has also held out the possibility of a meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but only if it's "an honest dialogue on issues of mutual concern." She'll also push for progress on nuclear disarmament, human rights and other sensitive issues and says North Korea will pay the price for any provocations.

Her North Korea policy is seen as thin on specifics, however, and there could be limits to her outreach. Many in Park's political party and conservative base have strong anti-North Korea feelings that could be an impediment if she pushes ahead with serious talks.

Moon, on the other hand, intends to quickly resume shipments of government-level food aid to North Korea, though details of how much aid would be worked out if he wins, aides say. He also wants an early summit with North Korea's Kim. His policy isn't influenced by the latest rocket launch, his aides say.

Moon is a protege of the late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, a champion of the so-called "sunshine policy" of no-strings-attached aid to Pyongyang. Lee replaced Roh in early 2008.

For Moon, aggressive engagement isn't a reward for North Korean nuclear movement; it's the means to transforming the relationship so that "North Korea has an economic stake in a more moderate foreign policy and eventually has even an economic stake in denuclearization," said John Delury, a North Korea analyst at Seoul's Yonsei University.

Moon's candidacy has some in Washington worried about the return of the tension and anti-U.S. feelings that marked Roh's term — that "the ghosts of the anti-Americanism of the South Korean left will rise again," according to Delury.

The North's rocket launch was magnified because of its timing. Obama will be inaugurated in January to his second term, Japan and South Korea both have national elections this month, and China has just formed a new leadership. But the test is probably not going to "blunt South Korea's desire for renewed inter-Korean dialogue as a necessary step toward stabilizing peninsular relations," Scott Snyder, a Koreas specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently.

The Obama administration has consistently emphasized its solidarity with Seoul, and that rhetoric is unlikely to change, whoever is elected.

A rocket launch could actually "solve any alliance split problems" between Washington and either of the South Korean candidates by forcing a more unified stance, said Victor Cha, a former senior Asia adviser in President George W. Bush's administration.

Washington could also be willing to give either Park or Moon some leeway in reaching out to North Korea if it leads to movement on nuclear disarmament, the issue the United States cares most about. During a November visit to Myanmar, Obama said a decision by North Korea to give up its nuclear aspirations would result in "an extended hand" from the United States.

"A more flexible policy from Seoul also gives the Obama administration more political cover to try another overture toward the North," said Ralph Cossa, president of Pacific Forum CSIS, a Hawaii-based think tank.

Much will come down to the way North Korea treats the new South Korean leader. Pyongyang may expect, for instance, Moon to deliver everything his liberal predecessors promised, something seen as impossible in the current political environment. Pyongyang could also dismiss Park's attempts at engagement, dooming talks before they begin. North Korean media routinely criticize Park's North Korea policy as insincere and confrontational.

North Korea considers the United States, against which it fought during the 1950-53 Korean War, a major enemy. Seoul, on the other hand, is labeled a puppet of Washington, which has more than 28,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea.

"At the end of the day," Cossa said, "it will be the North's willingness, or not, to treat the South as a sovereign equal that will make meaningful dialogue possible, regardless of who is elected."

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Associated Press writer Hyung-jin Kim contributed to this report.

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Fandango launches Oscar-themed web series with Dave Karger

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Fandango is elbowing into the Oscar horse race.

The movie-ticket seller launched its first original digital video series Wednesday, “The Frontrunners,” which will cover the major contenders for the top awards. The show will feature conversations with a star-studded group of Oscar hunters that includes Richard Gere (“Arbitrage”), Amy Adams (“The Master”), Hugh Jackman (“Les Miserables”) and Ben Affleck (“Argo”).

During the broadcasts, actors and directors will deconstruct key scenes from their movies, explaining how they crafted a moment of domestic conflict, in the case of Gere, or decided to intercut between a Hollywood script reading and the Iranian Hostage Crisis, as with Affleck.

However, commerce will be mixed in along with the art. Fandango will offer ticketing information along with the digital videos, with the hopes that the clips will inspire users to check out the movie being discussed.

The show, shot at Soho House in Los Angeles, will be hosted by Fandango’s Chief Correspondent Dave Karger, the movie guru the company lured over from Entertainment Weekly in September. It’s part of a bold bet that Fandango is making on original content.

To that in end, the company tapped former Disney digital executive Paul Yanover to serve in the newly created role of president and tasked him with creating a suite of programming for Fandango and its 41 million unique visitors.

“Our goal with Fandango is to make it the definitive movie-going brand across all platforms,” Nick Lehman, the president of digital for NBC Universal Entertainment Networks & Interactive Media, told TheWrap in October. “We want to continue expanding in ways that entertain and inform and video is key to that strategy. Advertisers are clamoring for it because there is a dearth of high quality original video content on the web.”

As TheWrap reported exclusively in October, Karger is also planning programs that will center on box office contenders and one program that will boast both A-List actors and below-the-line talent.

New episodes of “The Frontrunners” will air weekly through the Academy Awards on February 24, 2013. The first three installments will be available Wednesday

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Music, comedy strike defiant tone at Sandy concert

NEW YORK (AP) — Music and comedy royalty struck a defiant tone in a benefit concert for Superstorm Sandy that started Wednesday and stretched into Thursday morning, asking for help to rebuild a New York metropolitan area most of them know well.

The sold-out Madison Square Garden show was televised, streamed online and aired on radio all over the world. Producers said up to 2 billion people could experience the concert live.

"When are you going to learn," comic and New Jersey native Jon Stewart said. "You can throw anything at us — terrorists, hurricanes. You can take away our giant sodas. It doesn't matter. We're coming back stronger every time."

Jersey shore hero Bruce Springsteen set a roaring tone, opening the concert with "Land of Hope and Dreams" and "Wrecking Ball." He addressed the rebuilding process in introducing his song "My City of Ruins," noting it was written about the decline of Asbury Park, N.J., before that city's renaissance over the past decade. What made the Jersey shore special was its inclusiveness, a place where people of all incomes and backgrounds could find a place, he said.

"I pray that that characteristic remains along the Jersey shore because that's what makes it special," Springsteen said.

He mixed a verse of Tom Waits' "Jersey Girl" into the song before calling New Jersey neighbor Jon Bon Jovi to join him in a rousing "Born to Run." Springsteen later returned the favor by joining Bon Jovi on "Who Says You Can't Go Home."

Adam Sandler hearkened back to his "Saturday Night Live" days with a ribald rewrite of the oft-sung "Hallelujah" that composer Leonard Cohen never would have dreamed. The rewritten chorus says, "Sandy, screw ya, we'll get through ya, because we're New Yawkers."

Sandler wore a New York Jets T-shirt and mined Donald Trump, Michael Bloomberg, the New York Knicks, Times Square porn and Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez for laugh lines.

The music lineup was heavily weighted toward classic rock, which has the type of fans able to afford a show for which ticket prices ranged from $150 to $2,500. Even with those prices, people with tickets have been offering them for more on broker sites such as StubHub, an attempt at profiteering that producers fumed was "despicable."

"This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden," Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger said. "If it rains in London, you've got to come and help us."

In fighting trim for a series of 50th anniversary concerts in the New York area, the Stones ripped through "You've Got Me Rockin" and "Jumping Jack Flash" before beating a quick retreat — perhaps not to upstage their own upcoming Pay-Per-View show. Actor Steve Buscemi later made light of that, saying producers made room for him by cutting the Stones short. "I said, 'if they play more than two songs, I'm out of here.'"

Jagger wasn't in New York City for Sandy, but he said in an interview before the concert that his apartment was flooded with 2 feet of water.

The Who weaved Sandy into their set, showing pictures of storm devastation on video screens during "Pinball Wizard." Pete Townshend made a quick revision to the lyrics of "Baba O'Riley," changing "teenage wasteland" to "Sandy wasteland."

New York native Alicia Keys asked the audience to hold their cell phones high for her song, "No One," triggering a sea of light that is the modern version of an earlier generation's holding cigarette lighters in the air. "We love you," Keys said, "and we'll make it through this."

She didn't perform "Empire State of Mind," however, leaving untouched this century's most indelible song about her hometown. Billy Joel did his signature "New York State of Mind," however. Joel's "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" sounded prescient, with new Sandy-fueled lyrics smoothly fitting in.

By the time Joel worked in "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," the concert was already testing the patience of viewers. Long sets by The Who and Kanye West stretched beyond the point of endurance, and Seth Meyers' "drunk uncle" comedy set fell flat.

An energetic West worked up a sweat in a hoodie, black leather pants and a black skirt. He told the audience that he had friends displaced by Sandy who were staying at his house, before getting the crowd swaying with a version of "Gold Digger." He ended his set by shouting, "I need you right now!" tossing his microphone and stalking off stage.

Besides the Garden, people gathered in theaters across the region and country to watch the show. In Toms River, N.J., mail carrier Jerry Frasco said he was in awe of a lineup that included many of his favorites from 40 years ago.

"We didn't want to go through a hurricane to have it," he said.

Eric Clapton switched from acoustic to electric guitar and sang "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" and "Crossroads." New York was a backdrop for Clapton's personal tragedy, when his young son died after falling out of a window.

Roger Waters played a set of Pink Floyd's spacey rock, joined by Eddie Vedder for "Comfortably Numb." Waters stuck to the music and left the fundraising to others.

"Can't chat," he said, "because we only have 30 minutes."

The sold-out "12-12-12" concert was being shown on 37 television stations in the United States and more than 200 others worldwide. It was to be streamed on 30 websites, including YouTube and Yahoo, and played on radio stations. Theaters, including 27 in the New York region and dozens more elsewhere, were showing it live.

Proceeds from the show will be distributed through the Robin Hood Foundation. More than $30 million was raised through ticket sales alone.

The powerful storm left parts of New York City underwater and left millions of people in several states without heat or electricity for weeks. It's blamed for at least 125 deaths, including 104 in New York and New Jersey, and it destroyed or damaged 305,000 housing units in New York alone.

Many of the artists told personal stories of friends or family affected by the storm, like Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi.

"I had to hold back the tears really," he said about visiting the devastation in New Jersey. "My mom's house (in Point Pleasant, N.J.) got trashed. They had to evacuate her. She's living with me until we fix it up."

E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt said backstage that musicians are often quick to help when they can.

"Yes, it's more personal because literally the Jersey shore is where we grew up," he said. "But we'd be here anyway."

The concert came a day after the death of sitar master Ravi Shankar, a performer at the 1971 "Concert for Bangladesh" considered the grandfather of music benefits. That concert also was in Madison Square Garden.

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AP Music Writer Mesfin Fekadu in New York and Geoff Mulvihill in Toms River, N.J., contributed to this report.

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

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Mall shooter quit job, was going to Hawaii

In the days before he stole a semiautomatic weapon and stormed into an Oregon shopping mall, killing two people in a shooting spree, Jacob Roberts quit his job, sold his belongings and began to seem "numb" to those closest to him.

Roberts' ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, 20, told ABC News today that the man who donned a hockey mask and opened fire on Christmas shoppers was typically happy and liked to joke around, but abruptly changed in the week before the shooting.

Roberts unleashed a murderous volley of gunfire on the second floor of the Clackamas Town Center on Tuesday while wearing the mask and black clothing, and carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon and "several" magazines full of ammunition. He ended his barrage by walking down to the first floor of the mall and committing suicide.

READ: Why Mass Shooters Wear Masks

"I don't understand," Sansburn said. "I was just with him. I just talked to him. I didn't believe it was him at all. Not one part of me believed it."

She said that in recent weeks, Roberts quit his job at a gyro shop in downtown Portland and sold all of his belongings, telling her that he was moving to Hawaii. He had even purchased a ticket.

She now wonders if he was really planning to move.

"He was supposed to catch a flight Saturday and I texted him, and asked how his flight went, and he told me, 'oh, I got drunk and didn't make the flight,'" she said. "And then this happens... It makes me think, was he even planning on going to Hawaii? He quit his job, sold all of his things."

Roberts described himself on his Facebook page as an "adrenaline junkie," and said he is the kind of person who thinks, "I'm going to do what I want."

Roberts, who attended Clackamas Community college, posted a picture of himself on his Facebook page firing a gun at a target. His Facebook photo showed graffiti in which the words "Follow Your Dreams" were painted over with the word "Cancelled."

Sansburn said the pair had dated for nearly a year but had broke up over the summer. Throughout their relationship, she had never seen him act violently or get angry.

"Jake was never the violent type. He didn't go out of his way to try to hurt people or upset people. His main goal was to make you laugh, smile, make you feel comfortable. I never would have guessed him to do anything like this ever," she said.

"You can't reconcile the differences. I hate him for what he did, but I can't hate the person I knew because it was nothing like the person who would go into a mall and go on a rampage. I would never associate the two at all."

The last time she saw him, which was last week, he "seemed numb," and she didn't understand why, she said.

"I just talked to him, stayed the night with him, and he just seemed numb if anything. He's usually very bubbly and happy, and I asked him why, what had changed, and said 'nothing.' He just had so much he had to do before he went to Hawaii that he was trying to distance himself from Portland," Sansburn said.

Sansburn said the last message she sent Roberts was a text, asking him to stay, and saying she didn't want him to leave. He replied "I'm sorry," with a sad face emoticon.

Police are still seeking information about what Roberts was doing in the days leading up to the shooting. They said today they believe Roberts stole the gun he used in the rampage from someone he knew. They have searched his home and his car for other clues into his motive.

Read ABC News' full coverage of the Oregon Mall Shooting

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said earlier today on "Good Morning America" that he believes Roberts went into the mall with the goal of killing as many people as he could.

"I believe, at least from the information that's been provided to me at this point in time, it really was a killing of total strangers. To my knowledge at this point in time he was really trying, I think, to kill as many people as possible."

Sansburn said she has not talked to police.

Mall Shooter Told Ex-Girlfriend He Was Moving to Hawaii

Roberts' mother, Tami Roberts, released a statement through a friend today saying she had no explanation of her son's behavior.

"Tami Roberts wishes to express her shock and grief at the events at Clackamas Town Center Tuesday," the friend said, reading from a statement outside of Tami Roberts' home.

The friend noted that Tami raised Roberts, but was not his biological mother. Sansburn said that Roberts' biological mother had died when he was very young.

"She has no understanding or explanation for her son's behavior...It's so out of his character," the friend said.

Officials from the Oregon City School District, where Roberts graduated from Oregon City High School, were also surprised at the news.

"This news is very shocking to those who knew Jacob while at OCHS. He was known as a soft spoken and polite young man who was often eager to be helpful. The motive for such a horrific act is likely to remain a mystery to us all," the district said in a statement.

Roberts had attended the school for only his senior year. He spent three years at Milwaukie High School, where officials described him as an "average student with average grades."

He had no disciplinary record at the school, but chose to transfer for his senior year to Oregon City High School, according to Joe Krumm, an administrator at the North Clackamas School District. Krumm did not know why he transferred, and said that in all, Roberts did not stand out in memory for anything in particular.

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NKorea defies warnings, launches long-range rocket

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea successfully fired a long-range rocket on Wednesday, defying international warnings as the regime of Kim Jong Un took a giant step forward in its quest to develop the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead.

The United States, South Korea and Japan quickly condemned the morning launch, which came as something of a surprise after Pyongyang had indicated technical problems might delay it. That it succeeded after several failed attempts was an even greater surprise.

The regime's stated purpose for firing its long-range Unha-3 rocket was to put a peaceful satellite into orbit, but the United Nations, as well as the U.S. and its allies see it as cover for a test of technology for missiles.

About two hours after the launch, North Korea's state media proclaimed it a success, prompting customers in the coffee shop at Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel to break into applause during a special television broadcast. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, later confirmed that North Korea did appear to have put an object into space.

Wednesday's launch is likely to bring fresh sanctions on the North, and the White House called it a "highly provocative act that threatens regional security."

NORAD said the rocket traveled south with the first stage falling into the Yellow Sea and a second stage falling into the Philippine Sea hundreds of kilometers (miles) farther south. "Initial indications are that the missile deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit," NORAD said in a statement.

Japan protested the launch and said one part of the rocket landed west of the Korean Peninsula, and the Philippines said another part landed 300 kilometers (186 miles) east of its shores. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak held an emergency national security council meeting Wednesday, and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan warned that North Korea will face grave consequences.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said Tokyo immediately requested consultations on the launch within the U.N. Security Council. The council will hold closed-door consultations on the launch Wednesday at the request of one council member and two other countries, according to the U.N. Mission for Morocco, which holds the rotating council presidency.

A similar North Korean launch in April broke apart shortly after liftoff.

"Clearly this is much more successful than their last attempt," said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "It's at least as good as they've ever done. They've proved the basic design of it."

He said success would be defined as "something that completes at least one orbit of the Earth."

Rocket tests are seen as crucial to advancing North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions. North Korea is thought to have only a handful of rudimentary nuclear bombs. But Pyongyang is not yet believed capable of building warheads small enough to mount on a missile that could threaten the United States.

North Korea has spent decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range rocket. Experts say that ballistic missiles and rockets in satellite launches share similar bodies, engines and other technology. This is the fifth attempt at a long-range launch since 1998, when Pyongyang sent a rocket hurtling over Japan. Previous launches of three-stage rockets weren't considered successful.

North Korea under new leader Kim has pledged to bolster its nuclear arsenal unless Washington scraps what Pyongyang calls a hostile policy.

Kim took power after his father Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17 last year, and the launch is seen by some as an attempt to commemorate that. It also comes less than a week before presidential elections in South Korea and about a month before President Barack Obama is inaugurated for his second term.

The launches Wednesday and in April came from a site on the west coast, in the village of Tongchang-ri, about 56 kilometers (35 miles) from the Chinese border city of Dandong, across the Yalu River from North Korea. The site is 70 kilometers (45 miles) from the North's main Yongbyon nuclear complex, and is said to have better roads and facilities than previous sites and to allow a southerly flight path meant to keep the rocket from flying over other countries.

Tensions are high between the rival Koreas. The Korean Peninsula remains technically at war, as the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, and Washington stations nearly 30,000 troops in South Korea as a buttress against any North Korean aggression. Tens of thousands more are in nearby Japan.

This year is the centennial of the birth of national founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un. According to North Korean propaganda, 2012 is meant to put the North on a path toward a "strong, prosperous and great nation."

The launch also follows South Korea's recent cancellation, because of technical problems, of an attempt to launch its first satellite from its own territory. Two previous attempts in 2009 and 2010 failed.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions on North Korea following its nuclear tests, and a 2009 resolution orders the North not to conduct any launch using ballistic missile technology.

The council condemned the failed North Korean launch in April and ordered seizure of assets of three North Korean state companies linked to financing, exporting and procuring weapons and missile technology.

Under Security Council resolutions, nations are also barred from buying or selling weapons with North Korea, a key source of revenue for its authoritarian government.

North Korea has capable short- and medium-range missiles, but long-range launches in 1998, 2006, 2009 and in April of this year ended in failure. North Korea is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least half a dozen bombs, according to U.S. experts. In 2010 it revealed a uranium enrichment program that could provide a second source of material for nuclear weapons.

Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.

A February deal for the United States to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid in exchange for a freeze in nuclear and missile activities collapsed after the North's April launch.

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Associated Press writers Peter Enav in Taipei, Taiwan, and Mari Yamaguchi and Elaine Kurtenbach in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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Panasonic may sell Sanyo digital camera business: source

TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp may sell its Sanyo digital camera business to Japanese private equity fund Advantage Partners by the end of March, a source familiar with the plan said.

A final decision on the sale will be made by the end of the year, the source said on condition he was not identified.

Advantage Partners will pay several hundreds of millions of yen for the business, which makes digital cameras for other companies, including Olympus Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported earlier.

Panasonic declined to comment saying it had not announced the plan.

The Japanese company aims to sell 110 billion yen ($ 1.34 billion) of assets, including buildings and land by the end of March to boost free cashflow to 200 billion yen for the business year. The company expects an annual net loss of close to $ 10 billion as it writes off billions in deferred tax assets and goodwill.

Panasonic acquired rival Sanyo, a leading maker of lithium ion batteries and solar panels, in 2010. Sales of compact digital cameras are under pressure from increasingly powerful smartphones.

Panasonic’s shares gained as much as 4 percent in early trading in Tokyo, compared with a 0.5 percent rise in the benchmark Nikkei 225 index. ($ 1 = 82.3900 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Reiji Murai; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Indian sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar dies at 92

NEW DELHI (AP) — Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso who became a hippie musical icon of the 1960s after hobnobbing with the Beatles and who introduced traditional Indian ragas to Western audiences over a 10-decade career, died Tuesday. He was 92.

A statement on the musician's website said he died in San Diego, near his Southern California home. The musician's foundation issued a statement saying that he had suffered upper respiratory and heart problems and had undergone heart-valve replacement surgery last week.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also confirmed his death and called Shankar a "national treasure."

Labeled "the godfather of world music" by George Harrison, Shankar helped millions of classical, jazz and rock lovers discover the centuries-old traditions of Indian music.

He also pioneered the concept of the rock benefit with the 1971 Concert For Bangladesh. To later generations, he was known as the estranged father of popular American singer Norah Jones.

His last musical performance was with his other daughter, sitarist Anoushka Shankar Wright, on Nov. 4 in Long Beach, California; his foundation said it was to celebrate his 10th decade of creating music. The multiple Grammy winner learned that he had again been nominated for the award the night before his surgery.

As early as the 1950s, Shankar began collaborating with and teaching some of the greats of Western music, including violinist Yehudi Menuhin and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane. He played well-received shows in concert halls in Europe and the United States, but faced a constant struggle to bridge the musical gap between the West and the East.

Describing an early Shankar tour in 1957, Time magazine said. "U.S. audiences were receptive but occasionally puzzled."

His close relationship with Harrison, the Beatles lead guitarist, shot Shankar to global stardom in the 1960s.

Harrison had grown fascinated with the sitar, a long necked, string instrument that uses a bulbous gourd for its resonating chamber and resembles a giant lute. He played the instrument, with a Western tuning, on the song "Norwegian Wood," but soon sought out Shankar, already a musical icon in India, to teach him to play it properly.

The pair spent weeks together, starting the lessons at Harrison's house in England and then moving to a houseboat in Kashmir and later to California.

Gaining confidence with the complex instrument, Harrison recorded the Indian-inspired song "Within You Without You" on the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," helping spark the raga-rock phase of 60s music and drawing increasing attention to Shankar and his work.

Shankar's popularity exploded, and he soon found himself playing on bills with some of the top rock musicians of the era. He played a four-hour set at the Monterey Pop Festival and the opening day of Woodstock.

Though the audience for his music had hugely expanded, Shankar, a serious, disciplined traditionalist who had played Carnegie Hall, chafed against the drug use and rebelliousness of the hippie culture.

"I was shocked to see people dressing so flamboyantly. They were all stoned. To me, it was a new world," Shankar told Rolling Stone of the Monterey festival.

While he enjoyed Otis Redding and the Mamas and the Papas at the festival, he was horrified when Jimi Hendrix lit his guitar on fire.

"That was too much for me. In our culture, we have such respect for musical instruments, they are like part of God," he said.

In 1971, moved by the plight of millions of refugees fleeing into India to escape the war in Bangladesh, Shankar reached out to Harrison to see what they could do to help.

In what Shankar later described as "one of the most moving and intense musical experiences of the century," the pair organized two benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden that included Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Ringo Starr.

The concert, which spawned an album and a film, raised millions of dollars for UNICEF and inspired other rock benefits, including the 1985 Live Aid concert to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia and the 2010 Hope For Haiti Now telethon.

Ravindra Shankar Chowdhury was born April 7, 1920, in the Indian city of Varanasi.

At the age of 10, he moved to Paris to join the world famous dance troupe of his brother Uday. Over the next eight years, Shankar traveled with the troupe across Europe, America and Asia, and later credited his early immersion in foreign cultures with making him such an effective ambassador for Indian music.

During one tour, renowned musician Baba Allaudin Khan joined the troupe, took Shankar under his wing and eventually became his teacher through 7 1/2 years of isolated, rigorous study of the sitar.

"Khan told me you have to leave everything else and do one thing properly," Shankar told The Associated Press.

In the 1950s, Shankar began gaining fame throughout India. He held the influential position of music director for All India Radio in New Delhi and wrote the scores for several popular films. He began writing compositions for orchestras, blending clarinets and other foreign instruments into traditional Indian music.

And he became a de facto tutor for Westerners fascinated by India's musical traditions.

He gave lessons to Coltrane, who named his son Ravi in Shankar's honor, and became close friends with Menuhin, recording the acclaimed "West Meets East" album with him. He also collaborated with flutist Jean Pierre Rampal, composer Philip Glass and conductors Andre Previn and Zubin Mehta.

"Any player on any instrument with any ears would be deeply moved by Ravi Shankar. If you love music, it would be impossible not to be," singer David Crosby, whose band The Byrds was inspired by Shankar's music, said in the book "The Dawn of Indian Music in the West: Bhairavi."

Shankar's personal life, however, was more complex.

His 1941 marriage to Baba Allaudin Khan's daughter, Annapurna Devi, ended in divorce. Though he had a decades-long relationship with dancer Kamala Shastri that ended in 1981, he had relationships with several other women in the 1970s.

In 1979, he fathered Norah Jones with New York concert promoter Sue Jones, and in 1981, Sukanya Rajan, who played the tanpura at his concerts, gave birth to his daughter Anoushka.

He grew estranged from Sue Jones in the 80s and didn't see Norah for a decade, though they later re-established contact.

He married Rajan in 1989 and trained young Anoushka as his heir on the sitar. In recent years, father and daughter toured the world together.

When Jones shot to stardom and won five Grammy awards in 2003, Anoushka Shankar was nominated for a Grammy of her own.

Shankar, himself, has won three Grammy awards and was nominated for an Oscar for his musical score for the movie "Gandhi." His album "The Living Room Sessions, Part 1" earned him his latest Grammy nomination, for best world music album.

Despite his fame, numerous albums and decades of world tours, Shankar's music remained a riddle to many Western ears.

Shankar was amused after he and colleague Ustad Ali Akbar Khan were greeted with admiring applause when they opened the Concert for Bangladesh by twanging their sitar and sarod for a minute and a half.

"If you like our tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more," he told the confused crowd, and then launched into his set.

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Ravi Nessman reported from Bangkok.

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Turmoil surrounding an unprecedented $3 billion cancer-fighting effort in Texas worsened Tuesday when its executive director offered his resignation and the state's chief public corruption prosecutor announced an investigation into the beleaguered agency.

No specific criminal allegations are driving the latest probe into the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, said Gregg Cox, director of the Travis County district attorney's public integrity unit. But his influential office opened a case only weeks after the embattled agency disclosed that an $11 million grant to a private company bypassed review.

That award is the latest trouble in a tumultuous year for CPRIT, which controls the nation's second-largest pot of cancer research dollars. Amid the mounting problems, the agency announced Tuesday that Executive Director Bill Gimson had submitted his letter of resignation.

"Unfortunately, I have also been placed in a situation where I feel I can no longer be effective," Gimson wrote in a letter dated Monday.

Gimson said the troubles have resulted in "wasted efforts expended in low value activities" at the agency, instead of a focused fight against cancer. Gimson offered to stay on until January, and the agency's board must still approve his request to step down.

His departure would complete a remarkable house-cleaning at CPRIT in a span of just eight months. It began in May, when Dr. Alfred Gilman resigned as chief science officer in protest over a different grant that the Nobel laureate wanted approved by a panel of scientists. He warned it would be "the bomb that destroys CPRIT."

Gilman was followed by Chief Commercialization Officer Jerry Cobbs, whose resignation in November came after an internal audit showed Cobbs included an $11 million proposal in a funding slate without a required outside review of the project's merits. The lucrative grant was given to Dallas-based Peloton Therapeutics, a biomedical startup.

Gimson chalked up Peloton's award to an honest mistake and has said that, to his knowledge, no one associated with CPRIT stood to benefit financially from the company receiving the taxpayer funds. That hasn't satisfied some members of the agency's governing board, who called last week for more assurances that no one personally profited.

Cox said he has been following the agency's problems and his office received a number of concerned phone calls. His department in Austin is charged with prosecuting crimes related to government officials; his most famous cases include winning a conviction against former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay in 2010 on money laundering charges.

"We have to gather the facts and figure what, if any, crime occurred so that (the investigation) can be focused more," Cox said.

Gimson's resignation letter was dated the same day the Texas attorney general's office also announced its investigation of the agency. Cox said his department would work cooperatively with state investigators, but he made clear the probes would be separate.

Peloton's award marks the second time this year that a lucrative taxpayer-funded grant authorized by CPRIT instigated backlash and raised questions about oversight. The first involved the $20 million grant to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston that Gilman described as a thin proposal that should have first been scrutinized by an outside panel of scientific peer-reviewers, even though none was required under the agency's rules.

Dozens of the nation's top scientists agreed. They resigned en masse from the agency's peer-review panels along with Gilman. Some accused the agency of "hucksterism" and charting a politically-driven path that was putting commercial product-development above science.

The latest shake-up at CPRIT caught Gilman's successor off-guard. Dr. Margaret Kripke, who was introduced to reporters Tuesday, acknowledged that she wasn't even sure who she would be answering to now that Gimson was stepping down. She said that although she wasn't with the agency when her predecessor announced his resignation, she was aware of the concerns and allegations.

"I don't think people would resign frivolously, so there must be some substance to those concerns," Kripke said.

Kripke also acknowledged the challenge of restocking the peer-review panels after the agency's credibility was so publicly smeared by some of the country's top scientists. She said she took the job because she felt the agency's mission and potential was too important to lose.

Only the National Institutes of Health doles out more cancer research dollars than CPRIT, which has awarded more than $700 million so far.

Gov. Rick Perry told reporters in Houston on Tuesday that he wasn't previously aware of the resignation but said Gimson's decision to step down was his own.

Joining the mounting criticism of CPRIT is the woman credited with brainstorming the idea for the agency in the first place. Cathy Bonner, who served under former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, teamed with cancer survivor Lance Armstrong in selling Texas voters in 2007 on a constitutional amendment to create an unprecedented state-run effort to finance a war on disease.

Now Bonner says politics have sullied an agency that she said was built to fund research, not subsidize private companies.

"There appears to be a cover-up going on," Bonner said.

Peloton has declined comment about its award and has referred questions to CPRIT. The agency has said the company wasn't aware that its application was never scrutinized by an outside panel, as required under agency rules.

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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber

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