BERLIN (AP) — Five years and 50 years. As President Barack Obama revisits Berlin, he can't escape those anniversaries and the inevitable comparisons to history and personal achievement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The obscure oversight board that President Barack Obama wants to scrutinize the National Security Agency's secret surveillance system is little known for good reason. The U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board has operated fitfully during its eight years of low-profile existence, stymied by congressional infighting and, at times, censorship by government lawyers.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Hastings, the war correspondent whose unflinching reporting from Afghanistan led to the resignation of a top U.S. army general, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, according to his employer and family.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Hastings, the war correspondent whose unflinching reporting from Afghanistan led to the resignation of a top U.S. army general, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, according to his employer and family.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Supporters of a far-reaching immigration bill in the Senate see fresh momentum from a report by the Congressional Budget Office that says the measure would boost the economy and reduce federal deficits by billions of dollars.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers have a message for those who want the party to soften its emphasis on social conservatism in hopes of reaching a wider national audience: Not so fast.

ASHLAND, Ohio (AP) — A woman told authorities she was held captive for more than a year by three people who forced her to do housework, raided her bank account and menaced her with snakes and pit bulls.

The image was stark — a silent, solitary figure standing in passive defiance to the Turkish prime minister's demand for protesters to clear Taksim Square in central Istanbul.

The claim comes hours after the group said it would hold talks with the U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Worry and speculation have consumed investors since Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke to Congress last month about the Federal Reserve's drive to keep long-term interest rates at record lows.

By Leila Abboud PARIS (Reuters) - Telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent will focus on its high-growth fixed and mobile products and slim down via 1 billion euro in cost cuts by 2015 in a bid to reverse years of losses. The new plan unveiled on Wednesday by Michel Combes, the company's new chief executive, will also include unspecified asset sales of above 1 billion and 2 billion euros in debt re-financing by 2015, followed by a further 2 billion in debt reduction that could include issuing new shares. ...

MIAMI (AP) — LeBron James saved a championship reign, canceled a celebration.

BERLIN (AP) — President Barack Obama on Wednesday will renew his call to reduce the world's nuclear stockpiles, including a proposed one-third reduction in U.S. and Russian arsenals, a senior administration official said.

(Reuters) - Rhode Island remains on track to make a $2.5 million interest payment next year on bonds that were used to finance the facilities of 38 Studios, a now-bankrupt videogame company founded by former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. The state's House Finance Committee approved a budget late Tuesday night that included making an interest payment next May on $75 million of taxable bonds that the state sold in 2010 to make a loan to the company and lure it to Rhode Island. The company's loan payments were originally supposed to secure the bonds. ...

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Acer Inc, the world's No.4 PC vendor, said on Wednesday that it expects notebook and tablet PC shipment to be flat in the second quarter from the first quarter, versus an prediction of 0-5 percent growth made in April. Acer Chairman J.T. Wang made the comment to reporters at the firm's annual shareholder meeting. ...

Welcome to the NASA Grand Challenge, where everyone from government agencies to citizen scientists will compete to figure out the best way to detect and study earth-threatening asteroids. This is a real thing that is happening, and it's all complimentary to the agency's initiative to lasso an asteroid for further study. 

AT&T has come up with a very clever way to keep New Yorkers’ mobile devices powered up throughout the day. The New York Times reports that AT&T is building 25 solar-powered charging stations throughout New York City that will give wireless users the ability to recharge their phones in places where they can’t typically find electrical outlets. AT&T plans to deploy the stations in public outdoor spaces such as parks and beaches as part of a pilot project between the carrier and the city. Marissa Shorenstein, the president of AT&T’s New York division, tells the Times that her company views the initiative “as a commitment to being a part of the New York community as a corporate citizen but also as

BOSTON (AP) — The Cape Wind offshore wind project has secured a $200 million investment from a Danish pension fund in what the wind farm's president said Tuesday is a milestone for the long-delayed project.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sweeping immigration legislation moving toward a vote in the Senate would boost the economy and reduce federal deficits, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday, at the same time it would bestow legal status on an estimated 8 million immigrants living in the United States unlawfully.

HTC One users shouldn’t have to go without the latest version of Android for too much longer. Engadget reports that HTC is still planning to upgrade its flagship smartphone to Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean at some point, although the site says that “users may need to wait a little longer before it becomes available” for download. The HTC One originally shipped with Android 4.1.2 when it launched this past spring, although HTC vowed that users would be able to upgrade to version 4.2.2 at an undetermined time. Given how quiet HTC has been about the upgrade lately, it’s good to hear that the company still plans on making it happen if we don’t have any idea of when it might

By Sinead Carew NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dish Network Corp said it would not make a new offer to buy No. 3 U.S. wireless provider Sprint Nextel in time for a Tuesday deadline and would instead focus on its tender offer for Clearwire Corp. The decision may be good news for Japan's SoftBank Corp, which is also trying to buy Sprint. A purchase by SoftBank could provide Sprint with access to more capital that it could use to beef up its network and compete better. ...

By Sruthi Ramakrishnan (Reuters) - Adobe Systems Inc, known for its Photoshop and Acrobat software, reported a higher-than-expected adjusted second-quarter profit and said demand rose for Creative Cloud, the subscription-based version of its flagship software package. The company said it expects the number of paid subscribers for Creative Cloud in the current quarter to top the 221,000 subscribers who signed up in the second quarter, increasing the total to 700,000. The company added 153,000 subscribers in the first quarter. ...

(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co on Tuesday said it will seek court approval for a $406 million rights offering that could give creditors a big equity stake in the company after it emerges from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Kodak said creditors agreed to backstop an offering that would let the Rochester, New York-based company issue 34 million common shares at $11.94 each, equal to about 85 percent of the equity of a reorganized company. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-led House on Tuesday passed a far-reaching anti-abortion bill that conservatives saw as a milestone in their 40-year campaign against legalized abortion and Democrats characterized as yet another example of a GOP war on women.

It seems like we hear more reports about BlackBerry’s revival every week, although those of us who live in the United States may not see it much in our everyday lives. It turns out there’s a good reason for this: Sales of new BlackBerry 10 devices have reportedly been middling in the U.S. while having much stronger showings in other countries. Barron’s points us to a new research note from RBC Capital analyst Mark Sue, who says that BlackBerry 10 demand “appears to be mixed by region” with “Canada, the U.K. and the Middle East… seeing the strongest BB10 sell-through.” In the U.S., however, Sue says that “BlackBerry has a diminished consumer presence” and is “seeing slower sell-through.” Adoption of

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nvidia Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said he will license graphics technology to other companies, a new model for the chipmaker that could lead to new business with Apple, Samsung and other mobile device makers. Huang told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in San Francisco on Tuesday that licensing graphics cores and visual patents would help Nvidia take greater advantage of the booming market for smartphones and tablets and tap markets it could not reach through selling its own chips. ...

By Alina Selyukh WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tom Wheeler, President Barack Obama's pick to lead the Federal Communications Commission, on Tuesday pledged to champion competition in the telecommunications industry and said an upcoming auction of airwaves is the biggest challenge facing the regulator. Acknowledging his past as a lobbyist, Wheeler told lawmakers at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on his nomination that at the FCC, he would advocate for the consumers' interest first: "My client will be the American public. ...

(Reuters) - Britain's Vodafone Group Plc has raised its preliminary offer to buy Germany's largest cable operator, Kabel Deutschland Holding AG, a day after U.S. media group Liberty Global Plc made a rival bid, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the bid. Bloomberg reported that Vodafone told Kabel Deutschland this week that it would be willing to pay 85 euros a share compared with its initial offer of 80 euros to 82 euros for the German company. Vodafone is said to be studying Kabel Duetschland's books before making an official offer, Bloomberg said. ...

Radar indicated a tornado briefly touched down over the east runways.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., the studio behind "Shrek" and "Kung Fu Panda," said Tuesday that a new deal to provide original TV shows to Netflix will help it double the revenue it gets from TV shows to $200 million by 2015.

NEW YORK (AP) — Activist investor Carl Icahn on Tuesday proposed a $16 billion share buyback in his latest effort to thwart Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell's effort to take the struggling computer maker private.

In what appears to be a desperate attempt to clear out inventory buildup, Microsoft will offer its Surface RT tablet to educational institutions at shockingly deep discounts. The tablet is available to schools and universities from now until August 31st starting at $199 for the 32GB model. The touch keyboard cover will add $50 to the price, while the type keyboard cover brings the total up to $289. The Surface RT comes bundled with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2013 RT, which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote, and the tablet runs the Windows RT operating system, of course. Critics have blamed the watered-down Windows RT operating system, the tablet’s limited storage and high price for the Surface’s lackluster sales performance,

By Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim NEW YORK (Reuters) - SunGard Data Systems Inc, the computer software maker that was taken private in 2005 for $11.4 billion, is exploring a sale of its data managing operations that could fetch up to $2 billion, several people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The business for sale, which offers data center space and technology infrastructure to clients looking to safeguard their data, has earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of around $200 million, the people said. ...

By Jim Finkle BOSTON (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said that an assault it led earlier this month on one of the world's biggest cyber crime rings has freed at least 2 million PCs infected with a virus believed to have been used to steal more than $500 million from bank accounts worldwide. "We definitely have liberated at least 2 million PCs globally. That is a conservative estimate," Richard Domingues Boscovich, assistant general counsel with Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, said in an interview on Tuesday. ...

(Reuters) - Billionaire investor Carl Icahn promised Dell Inc shareholders that the company would buy back up to $16 billion of stock if they join his campaign to stop the computer maker from going private. Time is running out for Icahn. Next month, the company's shareholders will vote on whether to accept a $24.4 billion bid from the company's founder, Michael Dell, and private equity firm Silver Lake, and so far shareholders' reaction to two of Icahn's proposals has been mixed. Icahn has said repeatedly that Michael Dell's bid undervalues the company. ...

Google has filed a motion to end the gag order on the secret FISA court requests that it gets from the government as a part of the National Security Agencies surveillance, which could work considering how recent efforts to reveal the secrets of the secret court have gone. Just the other day, right after we all learned about PRISM, the court granted the Electronic Frontier Foundation a legal victory in its battle to uncover some of the secret courts secrets. Of course, that was just one tiny step in the path toward more transparency. ...

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mississippi's attorney general said on Tuesday he would subpoena documents from Google Inc as part of a probe into allegations the Web search company facilitated the sale of drugs without a prescription and other illegal products. Google responded in a blog post that it had been vigorous in working to limit drug advertisements to legitimate companies that comply with the law and to combat what it called "rogue online pharmacies. ...

A new report suggests that LG is preparing a new smartphone that will support “always-on voice commands.” According to Gotta Be Mobile, the company will launch an Android smartphone in 2014 that will allow users to issue voice commands without being required to touch the screen first. The feature, which is built-in to Qualcomm’s quad-core Snapdragon 800 processor, can be activated by saying “hello” to the device. The chip is even capable of learning a device owners voice to prevent others from using the feature. Current voice features such as Siri require users to press a button or enter a specific application before issuing a command.  Despite the “always-on” requirement, Qualcomm has said that the feature won’t impact a device’s

PARIS (Reuters) - Telecommunications gear maker Alcatel-Lucent aims to cut a billion euros in costs and focus on the IP router business and mobile broadband as part of a strategic revamp to be unveiled by its new chief executive on Wednesday, French daily Les Echos reported. The paper said without citing its sources that the impact on jobs would be minimal while the cost cuts would come from general and commercial expenses. It also said that Alcatel-Lucent would aim to divest 1 billion euros ($1.34 billion) of assets in the next three years, without saying which ones. ...

T-Mobile on Tuesday announced the upcoming availability of Sony’s flagship Xperia Z smartphone. The handset is equipped with 5-inch full HD 1080p display, a 1.5GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and a 13-megapixel rear camera. The Xperia Z is also water and dust resistant, and includes 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The smartphone will be available from T-Mobile “in the coming weeks.” The carrier’s press release follows below. Xperia® Z from Sony to Make a Splash at T-Mobile this Summer T-Mobile is the only U.S. mobile provider of Sony’s flagship water-resistant smartphone BELLEVUE, WA — June 18, 2013 — Continuing to offer customers a wide selection

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Google Inc asked the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court on Tuesday to allow it to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests it receives separately from criminal requests, on First Amendment grounds. In its filing, Google requested the court to allow it to publish the aggregate number of national security requests it receives, including disclosures under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), claiming it as part of its First Amendment right to free speech. ...

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The online grocery start-up Webvan may have been the single most expensive flame-out of the dot-com era, blowing through more than $800 million in venture capital and IPO proceeds in just over three years before shutting its doors in 2001. Twelve years later, though, Webvan is rising from the dead - in the form of an online grocery business called AmazonFresh. Four key Amazon. ...

By Sruthi Ramakrishnan (Reuters) - Adobe Systems Inc, which makes the Photoshop and Acrobat software, reported a higher-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit as demand rose for Creative Cloud, the subscription-based version of its flagship software package. Shares of the company rose 4.4 percent in after-market trading. They closed at $43.36 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. Adobe has been shifting to web-based subscription service Creative Cloud from a licensing model since last year. ...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with Samsung president Shin Jong Kyun this week to discuss a potential partnership, Bloomberg reported. Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, is interested in working with Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone vendor, to help boost its mobile advertising sales. The two companies are also said to have spoken about investing in technology startups. Facebook previously partnered with HTC on the HTC First, a smartphone that was skinned with Facebook’s custom Home software. Facebook Home was largely panned by critics and the HTC First flopped on the market. BGR exclusively reported last month that AT&T was preparing to discontinue the HTC First after only a month on the market.

NEW YORK (AP) — It's a message busy New Yorkers hate to get: the low-battery message on your cellphone when there's no charger in sight.

Industry watchers began talking about an imminent slow-down in the high-end smartphone market back in 2011, but 2012 was still a huge year for pricy smartphones with cutting-edge specs. According to market research firm Berg Insight, sales of high-end smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung with retail prices above €400 before subsidies grew to 250 million units in 2012, up from 150 million in 2011. Of those, Berg says 40 million smartphones were flagship phones powered by cutting-edge quad-core processors. While specs will continue to get more impressive in the coming years at the top of the smartphone food chain, the firm believes we’ve already found the sweet spot: The majority of the 1.5 billion smartphones expected to be

ABUJA (Reuters) - U.S. energy firm Chevron is selling three more Nigerian oil blocks, the company said on Tuesday, taking to five the number of assets it is selling in Africa's biggest oil producer. Chevron is selling its 40 percent stake in OML 52, 53 and 55 in the Niger Delta, the company said in a statement, after announcing the sale of the same stake in OML 83 and OML 85 last week. The sale will be handled by French Bank BNP Paribas, oil and banking sources told Reuters. The bank did not immediately respond to request for comment. ...

Google's newly released Cloud Print app lets Android users send documents and photos to their Wi-Fi connected printers. It's a handy app that's usefulness propelled it to the lead position on today's Apps Worth Downloading list. Following Cloud Print is StudyBlue, an app for making study flashcards and connecting with other students to help maximize study efficiency. Finally, Beejumbled puts a new twist on Boggle-like word scramble games.

BAGHDAD (AP) — U.S. oil giant Chevron says it has signed a deal with Iraq's Kurdish regional government to expand its oil exploration territory in the northern self-rule region.

Big oil company shares showed mixed results Monday after a group of Jefferies analysts shifted their ratings on some related stocks. Analysts Iain Reid, Brendan Warn, Laura Loppacher, Matthew Lambourne ...