Janus Films

Kichiemon Nakamura, left, and Nobuko Otowa in Kaneto Shindo’s 1968 film “Kuroneko.’

Kaneto Shindo, a venerable filmmaker whose work was haunted by the wartime devastation of his native Hiroshima, died on Tuesday at his home in Tokyo. He was 100.

His office confirmed the death to Agence France-Presse.

The director of nearly 50 pictures — his most recent, the World War II melodrama “Postcard,” was released in 2010 — Mr. Shindo was the oldest active filmmaker in Japan. He was believed to have been the second-oldest in the world, after Manoel de Oliveira of Portugal, now 103.

Mr. Shindo’s body of work was known for its vast stylistic diversity: over six decades it ranged across social realism, horror, sex comedy and documentary. What unified his output was its obsessive quality; its concern with people — peasants, prostitutes, the poor — on the margins of society; the use of isolated, often claustrophobic spaces; the damaging interference of ghosts (of the psychological sort, though sometimes also the literal kind); and the presence of strong women.

But for all their darkness, Mr. Shindo’s films were ultimately pervaded by an essential humanism, even hopefulness. The net effect left some Western critics enraptured and others bewildered. As a result of his mixed reception in the West, Mr. Shindo never attained the global reputation of countrymen like Akira Kurosawa and Kenji Mizoguchi.

Mr. Shindo came to international prominence early in his career with two features, “Children of Hiroshima” and “The Naked Island.”

Released in 1952, the year after the American occupation ended, “Children of Hiroshima” was the first Japanese film to treat the atomic bombing of the country by United States forces in 1945. It starred Nobuko Otowa as a schoolteacher who returns to the city several years after the war to search for her former students — those who have survived.

The film was released in the United States only last year, in a retrospective of Mr. Shindo’s work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Reviewing the picture in The New York Times, A. O. Scott called Mr. Shindo “a distinctive and protean visual storyteller” whose films “balance ethical seriousness with an almost voluptuous appetite for natural beauty and pictorial elegance.”

“The Naked Island,” released in 1960, is a stark, wordless drama, filmed in quasi-documentary style, about an impoverished farming family scraping out a living on a barren outcropping devoid of fresh water. The film, which has no dialogue, follows its characters’ lives of crushing toil on their daily pilgrimage to haul water by hand from the mainland.

The picture shared the Grand Prix at the Moscow Film Festival in 1961.

Mr. Shindo was also known for two critically praised horror films, “Onibaba” (1964) and “Black Cat” (1968). Both are set in the Middle Ages, a time of war, famine and lawlessness.

In “Onibaba,” a woman and her daughter-in-law, desperate to survive, murder roaming samurai and sell their weapons and armor. In “The Black Cat,” two peasant women, raped and killed by samurai, return as seductive, vengeful demons.

Mr. Shindo also wrote the screenplays for well over 100 films, both his own and those of prominent directors including Kozaburo Yoshimura, with whom he long collaborated.

Kaneto Shindo was born in Hiroshima in April 1912. His family, once prosperous landowners, had lost their money and, as he later wrote, he watched his parents engage in “the backbreaking labor of wheat-harvesting” and “the grueling job of threshing by hand with primitive implements.”

Drafted into the Japanese Imperial Navy, Mr. Shindo was one of only six members of his 100-man unit to survive the war.

After beginning his cinematic career in the 1930s as a film developer for a small Japanese studio, Mr. Shindo was later an assistant to Mr. Mizoguchi. A feature-length documentary portrait, “Kenji Mizoguchi: The Life of a Film Director,” written and directed by Mr. Shindo, was released in 1975.

Mr. Shindo’s first wife died in the early 1940s; his first film as a director, the drama “Story of a Beloved Wife” (1951), starring Ms. Otowa, was based partly on their marriage. After Mr. Shindo’s second marriage ended, Ms. Otowa, who appeared in nearly all his films, became his third wife.

Ms. Otowa died in 1994. Mr. Shindo’s survivors include a son, Jiro, and a granddaughter.

Mr. Shindo returned to the theme of atomic devastation in several other films. These include “Lucky Dragon No. 5” (1959), which dramatized the true story of Japanese fishermen contaminated in 1954 by fallout from United States nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll.

If Mr. Shindo’s work was informed inevitably by the war, it was informed in particular by his acute awareness that the vagaries of fate — and nothing else — had let him survive where most of his unit had not.

As he said in an interview quoted in his obituary in the British newspaper The Guardian, “I have always had the souls of the 94 with me and have made them the theme of my existence.”

PARIS — Sloane Stephens is a character, a mixture of philosopher and comedian, caught somewhere between teenager and adult. She is 19 years old and practically grown up now, and with each victory, each step forward in development, she looks more like a potential star.

There is a burden that comes with that, of course, for whichever player eventually assumes the mantel of best female American tennis player from Serena Williams, next year or five years or however many years hence. But Stephens seemed unaffected by the additional attention here, by the questions about her deceased father and her race.

She stepped onto Court Philippe Chatrier, center court at the French Open, on Friday morning and bludgeoned another opponent in straight sets to advance to the fourth round. Her 6-3, 6-2 victory over Mathilde Johansson of France for the most part seemed inevitable, and while the opponents will get tougher, the magnitude of the matches greater, Stephens hardly even smiled afterward. She walked off the court as if this was the outcome she had expected all along.

Inside the interview room, Stephens entertained. She noted the two biggest perks of her advancement: a first-class plane ticket back to the United States and a certain bump in Twitter followers (she started the day under 6,000). She talked about how he she recently kicked her two-a-day orange Fanta habit. She showed off her necklace and called out her mother, Sybil Smith, who sat in the back.

“She’s an interesting girl,” said Smith, who is among her daughter’s continually entertained Twitter followers. “That’s my Sloane. She came out this way.”

In victory, Stephens became the fourth American woman to reach the fourth round here since 2005, joining the Williams sisters and Lindsay Davenport. Stephens also became the first unseeded American woman to survive the first week here in a decade.

Her fellow American players Christina McHale and Varvara Lepchenko also advanced to the third round, which was interesting, both because none of the trio was named Williams and because competition for Olympic berths among the American women remains too close to call.

Stephens preferred not to think about the selection criteria.

“It’s too stressful,” she said. “It’s like, O.K., whatever.”

Smith said her daughter had always taken this unruffled approach to tennis and life beyond it. In her day, Smith was an all-American swimmer at Boston University in the late 1980s, a sprint freestyler whose daughter now only sometimes takes her mom’s advice.

Mother and daughter share the same facial expressions; the same calm, measured tone; the same graceful athleticism, albeit in different sports. Stephens knew less about her father, John, a running back for the New England Patriots and three other N.F.L. teams. They rekindled their relationship six years ago, mostly on the telephone, after the elder Stephens came down with a degenerative bone disease.

And then, while Sloane Stephens played in the junior tournament at the United States Open in 2009, her father died. Looking back, Smith noted her daughter’s “mental fortitude,” same as now, and added: “She’s resilient. She’s incredibly resilient.”

While Stephens moved into the fourth round as an unfamiliar face, a familiar one, that of Maria Sharapova, won her second-round match, delayed by a day, with similar ease. She defeated Ayumi Morita of Japan 6-1, 6-1. To that end, in matches, Sharapova has lost two games in this entire tournament.

Third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska had a similarly quick match, but not with the same result. She routed by the 2009 champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, 6-1, 6-2.

Ana Ivanovic, the No. 13 seed, also lost, falling to Sara Errani, 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. Sixth-seeded Sam Stosur defeated Nadia Petrova, 6-3, 6-3.

In the men’s draw, fifth-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and No. 7 Tomas Berdych advanced to the third round.

HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka (Reuters) – Sri Lanka produced an exceptional bowling and fielding display to beat Pakistan by 37 runs on Friday in the first of two Twenty20 internationals.

The home team elected to bat after winning the toss but struggled to a total of 132 for seven.

Left-arm seamer Sohail Tanvir was the chief destroyer as he removed captain Mahela Jayawardene (two), Tillakaratne Dilshan (five) and Kumar Sangakkara (19) to pick up three for 12.

However, the man of the match award went to Sri Lanka’s Thisara Perera for hitting two sixes and two fours in an unbeaten 32 off 16 balls.

Perera was also outstanding in the field, claiming a remarkable full-length catch at third man to dismiss Shoaib Malik for nine and finishing off the Pakistan innings by having Saeed Ajmal caught behind for five.

The visitors had made a dreadful start to their reply, losing Mohammad Hafeez and Shakeel Ansar to the first two balls of the innings from Nuwan Kulasekara.

Opener Ahmed Shehzad led a partial recovery with 36 in 42 balls but Pakistan were eventually bowled out for 95 in 17.4 overs.

The second match is at the same venue on Sunday.

(Editing by Tony Jimenez)

BEIJING — Google has quietly upped the ante in a long-running dispute with Chinese authorities over censorship, adding a software twist to its search page that warns users when they type a search term whose results are likely to be blocked in China.

The change, unveiled without publicity Thursday on one of Google’s corporate blogs, is described as an improvement in the search experience for mainland Chinese users, who can be disconnected from Google without explanation when they try to open a Web page that was found using a censored search term.

But it also seems likely to irritate Chinese officials, who already have employed an array of techniques to punish the company since a clash over censorship led Google to move its servers to Hong Kong in January 2010.

Google’s market share in mainland China has plunged to about 17 percent from 35.6 percent, according to Analysys International, an Internet consulting firm specializing in China, as users grew weary of blocked Web sites and timeouts that can bar them from conducting new searches for more than a minute.

The announcement deftly sidestepped any allusion to censorship, saying only that users had been frustrated by error messages and disconnections and that Google engineers had “taken a long, hard look at our systems and have not found any problems.”

“However, after digging into user reports, we’ve noticed that these interruptions are closely correlated with searches for a particular subset of terms,” it stated. “So starting today we’ll notify users in mainland China when they enter a keyword that may cause connection issues.”

The blog post, by Alan Eustace, a senior vice president who oversees search services, stated that the company had analyzed 350,000 popular search terms to find words that were “disruptive queries.” Now, when users enters one of those terms and try to begin a search, they are presented with a yellow box stating that searching for the term “may temporarily break your connection to Google. This interruption is outside Google’s control.” Users are then given a chance to enter a different search term.

Censorship often spills over from sensitive topics to searches that would ordinarily be bland. The blog cites the example of the Chinese character for river, or jiang, which causes an error message or a timeout on Google.

The reason is that it is also the surname of the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin — whose name, like those of many other leaders, is banned from Google searches in China.

Users of Chinese search services like the popular Baidu, on the other hand, can search for “jiang” without difficulty, but only because government censors have already sanitized the results of a search to delete any sensitive Web pages. The result is a list of pages that gives no indication of censorship.

Chinese censors are unable to fine-tune Google’s search results because they are produced by servers outside mainland China, and thus out of the censors’ reach. So the government resorts instead to blocking any search or page that includes an offending term.

Mr. Eustace said that users could often get around censorship by entering the banned term in English or Pinyin, the romanized Chinese writing system.

A Google spokesman who asked not to be identified declined to elaborate on Google’s decision to warn users of blocked terms. But there is an approximate precedent: Before 2010, when Google maintained its servers in mainland China and its search results were sanitized, it included a note at the bottom of Web pages noting that some results had been blocked.

The spokesman also declined to address the prospect that the Chinese authorities might retaliate for Google’s action. Among other issues, the company has experienced unexplained problems with its popular Gmail service in recent years, and its Google+ social networking service has been blocked.

As the economy recorded the slowest growth in nine years, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Friday attacked the Centre for an alleged state of “policy paralysis” and said the it had “no inkling” of the upcoming problem.

“The Prime Minister (Manmohan Singh) had boasted of 7 per cent growth at the Pravasi Bhartiya Divas function in Jaipur a few months ago. He reiterated the same in the Rajya Sabha in March,” he said.

“But the government did not have any inkling of the upcoming problems. It only got to know yesterday how steep the fall was,” Modi said when asked to comment on GDP growth slipping to 6.5 per cent in 2011-12, the worst in nine years.

He also attacked the Centre for what he claimed was a state of “policy paralysis” as 20 sectors of the economy were badly hit for “lack of direction” from the government.

Union Minister for Planning Ashwani Kumar dismissed Modi’s charge of policy paralysis but admitted coalition compulsions had held up second generation reforms.

“As far as the charge of policy paralysis is concerned, I don’t think it is correct,” Kumar said.

“The compulsion of coalition politics has delayed second generation economic reforms. I think the country needs to take bold decisions because good economy is good politics,” he said.

Modi said the effects of slow growth rate would be felt over a long period.

“There is a fall in the GDP. The rupee has weakened. Inflation is on the rise. These are the three indicators that show that the entire economy is in a shambles,” Modi said.

… contd.

Tags: Narendra Modi, economic problems, policy paralysis, nation news

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WASHINGTON | Fri Jun 1, 2012 1:50pm EDT

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BOSTON –  The Red Sox have told other teams they definitely intend to trade veteran infielder Kevin Youkilis, CBS Sports reported Friday.

Youkilis, 33, has struggled to stay healthy in recent years and is making $ 12 million this season. In 2013, the first and third baseman’s contract has a team option for $ 13 million, with a $ 1 million buyout.

Youkilis, a three-time All-Star who finished third in the American League MVP vote in 2008, is hitting .250 this season in 96 at-bats after missing three weeks with a back injury.

Will Middlebrooks filled in capably at third base while Youkilis was out, and is hitting .316 with six home runs and 21 RBIs this season.

According to CBS Sports, the Dodgers are interested in Youkilis as a third base upgrade, while The Boston Globe reports the Diamondbacks and Giants could also get involved.

The Major League Baseball non-waiver trade deadline is July 31.

Mobile phones made by Nokia are pictured in this photo illustration taken in Warsaw May 8, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Kacper Pempel

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Nokia said Google’s claim that it was colluding with Microsoft on intellectual property was wrong and countered that devices using Google’s Android software had problems with patents.

“Though we have not yet seen the complaint, Google’s suggestion that Nokia and Microsoft are colluding on intellectual property rights is wrong. Both companies have their own IPR portfolios and strategies and operate independently,” Nokia spokesman Mark Durrant said in an email on Friday.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki)

RAKOVSKI, Bulgaria (Reuters) – Iosif Komninakidis smokes nervously behind his desk in the sleepy Bulgarian town of Rakovski and contemplates plunging sales of his Greek company‘s trendy jeans.

Business in Komninakidis’s main market Greece was already in freefall when an election left Bulgaria’s neighbor rudderless and further threatened its solvency and euro membership.

“Sales to Greece went down 30-35 percent. After the vote, they completely stopped. People just stand and wait,” said the energetic 57-year-old manager of Staff Jeans & Co’s sewing factory.

But his business can’t wait. Staff Jeans & Co already has 800 people in Rakovski – some 180 km (110 miles) north of the border with Greece. It now plans to move more operations to Bulgaria to cut costs and ease shipping to markets in Germany and Italy.

Several of Greece’s top companies spotted the Balkans’ growth potential back in the 1990s, when names like Coca-Cola Hellenic and snack maker Chipita moved in to grab opportunities in quickly developing post-communist economies.

Now hundreds of small firms are following as Greek entrepreneurs abandon their shrinking home market with its uncertainty and high costs for lower taxes and cheaper labor in neighbors like Bulgaria, Romania and Albania.

In a reversal of recent history, these countries – communist until just over 20 years ago – now offer stability compared to Greece.

“Here you have security – you have a fixed tax rate of 10 percent, so that you know how much you can earn and how much you will have to pay – something that is not happening in Greece,” said Komninakidis, who moved to Rakovski in 1999.

Cyprus, which offers European Union membership, strong cultural ties and is richer than Greece’s Balkan neighbors, may also be benefiting most from the trend thanks to its low taxes, though labor costs are higher. Local press reported 1,500 companies moved headquarters there in the 20 months leading up to August 2011.

More than a quarter of the 2,800 Greek-owned companies now operating in Bulgaria were registered last year, according to the national revenue agency.

At the same time, the number of Greek-owned companies in Romania has risen 12 percent since 2009 to more than 5,200 and nearly 200 Greek-owned businesses registered in Albania in 2010-2011, a jump of nearly a third from the previous two years.

“The interest of Greek businessmen from different sectors – from IT companies to plastics, glass and food, as well as timber, has doubled in the past two years,” said Dimitrios Tourikis, managing partner at Callamus, a consultancy offering services to foreign companies in Sofia and Athens.

GREEK PLAYGROUND

The fall of communism opened up a wealth of opportunities for Greeks in the Balkans, shown in the firms which have a major presence in Bulgaria’s economy: from telecoms companies OTE and Intracom , to construction firm GEK Terna and steelmaker Sidenor and cement maker Titan .

Greek-owned banks, led by National Bank of Greece‘s UBB and EFG Eurobank’s Postbank, control a quarter of Bulgaria’s financial system and also have a major presence in Romania, Macedonia, Albania and Serbia.

These big companies and others tapped the region’s rapid growth, investing 3 billion euros in Bulgaria since 1996, creating over 80,000 jobs and preparing the ground for the current influx of smaller businesses.

These will create more income and jobs in Bulgaria and the region but economists say the impact will be gradual and is unlikely to give a major short-term boost to economies which have boomed and bust and are only slowly recovering.

The wider concern is that the Greek investment that has underpinned these emerging economies now makes them highly vulnerable to any Greek default or exit from the euro zone, which has knocked their stock markets and currencies in the last month.

Some observers see potential in that scenario as well because it will make Greek companies even more likely to find countries like Bulgaria attractive.

“The coin has two sides, however, as I see several positives of the possible Greek exit from the euro zone,” said Yassen Ivanov, a fund manager at the Sofia-based DSK Asset Management.

“The most straightforward one being … (More) Greek enterprises moving to Bulgaria, thus bringing employment for the people and tax revenues for the country.”

LIFESTYLE CHOICE

In Bulgaria and Greece, consultancies and law firms offering registration, legal and accountancy services to foreigners have mushroomed.

Flexi Hellas started only five months ago and already has 30 clients. One is looking for a way to bottle its high-quality olive oil in Bulgaria and ship from there to clients in western Europe to cut costs and avoid potentially delayed payments in Greece. Another wants to move his GPS system business after sales at home dropped 60 percent.

“Some of them cannot meet their basic needs already, while the state is breathing down their necks. The insecurity makes them look for other solutions. They choose Cyprus or Bulgaria,” said Flexi Hellas executive director Stefi Della.

Bulgaria, along with Cyprus, boasts the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU at 10 percent and starting a new business is easy and cheap. Romania has a flat tax of 16 percent.

Corporate tax in Greece ranges between 20 to 25 percent and the minimum monthly wage is 586 euros, significantly higher than even the average of 350 euros in Bulgaria and Romania.

Of course, setting up shop in southeast Europe is not perfect. Bureaucracy can be mind-numbing, infrastructure creaky, professional skills in short supply and graft is perceived as widespread throughout the region – perhaps even more so than in Greece itself, ranked the second most corrupt EU member after Bulgaria. Transparency International puts Albania, which is not an EU member, as even worse for corruption.

“It is remarkable that even Greek businessmen who had never before thought of doing business in Albania express a certain interest these days,” said Spiros Economou of the Greek Embassy in Albania’s capital Tirana.

As and when Greece shows signs of recovery, a return to what is still a richer country – even after five years of recession – may prove attractive.

“Then probably some of the capital and companies will go back,” said Georgi Ganev, an economist with the Sofia-based Centre for Liberal Strategies. “But some of them will stay.”

For Greeks used to a relaxed Mediterranean lifestyle, spending time with friends and family and enjoying the climate, the Balkans offer one attraction that trumps other countries.

“Why did I choose Bulgaria instead of the Netherlands or England?” asked Meletios Melentis, 30, who set up IQ Electronics – selling automation systems for garage doors and remote controls and satellite locator units – in Sofia this year.

“Simple. It’s easier to do business in England, people there just go for the better deal. But I did not like to live there,” he said. “The lifestyle here is very close to the Greek one. People go out, they have fun and when you make friends.”

(Additional reporting by Ioana Patran in Bucharest and Benet Koleka in Tirana; Writing by Sam Cage; Editing by Sophie Walker)

Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks at the former Solyndra headquarters and factory in Fremont, California, May 31, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Beck Diefenbach

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to deliver his latest personal financial disclosure statement to federal elections authorities on Friday, government and campaign sources said.

The financial statement, which last year ran to 28 pages, is expected to show that Romney sold “nearly all” his holdings in individual stocks since last year. Instead, he moved substantial wealth into cash, according to an analysis posted earlier this month on the Forbes.com website.

Government officials said that although Romney legally was required to submit his financial disclosure to the Federal Election Commission by Friday, it was unclear whether officials there would immediately make it public.

Before releasing the document, FEC lawyers will examine it for completeness and, if required information is missing, will work with the Romney campaign to fill holes. One official said that the FEC may take up to 30 days to review the document or could decide to release it immediately.

The Romney campaign also has the option of publicly releasing the material.

Forbes estimated Romney’s current net worth at $ 230 million, split between nine different asset classes. This suggests that his wealth is roughly the same as it was a year ago, when news organizations published estimates of between $ 190 million and $ 250 million.

Forbes said its latest wealth estimate was based not only on his 2011 financial disclosure but also on “discussions with high-level Romney officials familiar with specific changes to his holdings since that report.”

Romney’s campaign did not respond to questions about Forbes’ account of Romney’s current wealth and holdings.

Forbes said Romney has the “biggest chunk” of his money – $ 91 million or more – invested in debt securities, including $ 36 million worth of Federal Home Loan Bank securities and $ 10 million in notes from Goldman Sachs and BNP Paribas. The website said that in recent months Romney “dumped” some foreign equities but bought debt issued by the governments of Canada, Australia and Sweden. He also holds a $ 400,000 note from the family’s horse trainer.

Forbes said that Romney currently holds an estimated $ 52 million or more in investments related to Bain Capital, the private equity firm he launched in the 1980s and left in the late 1990s. He still holds stakes in what Forbes described as “dozens” of Bain investment funds.

Forbes said that Romney holds another $ 29 million in “alternative investments.” This includes more than $ 1 million invested with hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer. Forbes said the account delivered Romney a net return of 4 percent in 2011, a year in which the average hedge fund return was -5 percent.

Forbes said that Romney’s holdings include another $ 23 million or more in exchange-traded and mutual funds, real property worth $ 18 million or more and gold worth around $ 260,000. Since last August, the amount of cash held by the Romneys has jumped from around $ 1 million to around $ 16 million, it said.

While most of his cash is in US dollars, Romney also holds small amounts of Australian, Canadian and British currency, it said.

SHED MOST INDIVIDUAL STOCKS

Forbes quoted “sources” saying that since last August, Romney shed what it described as shares in 71 individual companies, including McDonalds, Google, Apple, JPMorgan and Walmex.

The website said that Romney still holds only three individual stocks: Ford Motor, Marriott International and Marriott Vacations Worldwide. Forbes noted that Romney has deep ties to the Marriott family, who are fellow Mormons.

Romney’s 2011 financial disclosure included equity holdings in several publicly traded Chinese companies, among them Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Hang Lung PPTYS Ltd and Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing. All of these were held by Romney through Thornburg Investment Management in an account for which, Romney said, “all investment decisions are made by Thornburg, as manager, and not by Mr. Romney…”

Forbes said that Romney had “in recent months…dumped foreign equities held through Thornburg Investment Management.” In campaign appearances, Romney has sometimes taken a hard line on China, saying that on Day One of a Romney presidency he would label China a “currency manipulator.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last February, Romney expressed concern that “a China that is a prosperous tyranny will increasingly pose problems for us, for its neighbors, and for the entire world.”

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Cynthia Osterman)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla –  Federal authorities are demanding that Florida halt its push to remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls.

In a move that comes just months before the state could play a pivotal role in the 2012 presidential election, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that the state is violating federal law in its effort to identify and remove ineligible voters.

The state’s effort has already come under fire from local election supervisors who belong to both political parties, as well as Democratic members of Congress and voting rights groups.

Chris Cate, a spokesman for the Florida Department of State, said state officials were still reviewing the letter, but hinted Florida may fight federal authorities.

“Bottom line is we are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot,” Cate said.

Florida, at the urging of Republican Gov. Rick Scott, began looking for non-U.S. citizens on its voter rolls last year. An initial search turned up as many as 182,000 registered voters who may not be U.S. citizens.

Earlier this year state officials sent to local election officials a much smaller list of more than 2,600 voters and asked supervisors to start the process to remove them from the rolls.

Supervisors, however, have loudly questioned the accuracy of the list, with one GOP supervisor going on Twitter to show the picture of a U.S. passport of one voter found on the list. Earlier this week two Democratic members of Congress held a press conference with a World War II veteran whose citizenship had been questioned.

Federal officials said that the procedures the state is using to identify non-U.S. citizens has not been reviewed to make sure they are not discriminatory. Florida must get approval for changes in voting procedures because five counties are still covered by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

T. Christian Herren, chief of the voting section of the civil rights division, also said that removing voters from the rolls less than 90 days before a federal election also appears to violate federal law. Florida’s primary election is Aug. 14.

Herren’s letter gives Florida until June 6 to tell federal authorities whether they plan to halt the purge.

Voting rights groups who had called on the U.S. Department of Justice to intervene praised the decision.

“We commend the attorney general of the United States Eric Holder for ensuring that the right to vote, the fundamental pillar of our democracy is protected for all American citizens,” said Advancement Project co-director Penda Hair in a statement.

The intervention of the U.S. Department of Justice came the same day that Florida officials were trying to get another federal agency to help the state verify the citizenship status of thousands of voters.

Secretary of State Kent Detzner wants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to let Florida have access to an immigration database maintained by the federal government.

“I hope you will understand the importance of making sure the vote of an eligible voter is not diminished by the vote of ineligible voter and provide my department the access it needs,” Detzner wrote to Secretary Janet Napolitano.

A Department of Homeland Security official said Thursday that the federal agency is aware of Florida’s request but that there a “number of legal and operational challenges” to granting the state access.

Detzner in his letter said that while Florida’s initial list was “credible and reliable” he acknowledged that his department’s ability to “validate a person’s legal status as up to date was limited.” The first list was drawn by comparing driver’s licenses to voter registration lists. The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles initially planned to double-check its information with the federal database but has since been told that is not permitted.

Even without access to the federal database Cate had said the state is likely to circulate additional names to election supervisors in the weeks ahead.

But some election supervisors are already saying that they will ignore any additional names given to them by the Florida Department of State.

“It’s illegal under federal law and I’m going to follow the law,” said Leon County Supervisor of Elections Ion Sancho.

MADRID (Reuters) – A scan on Cesc Fabregas‘s hamstring injury has shown “very satisfactory results” although he will miss Spain‘s final Euro 2012 warm-up match against China on Sunday, the Spanish soccer federation (RFEF) said on Friday.

Fabregas picked up the injury when he came on for the last 10 minutes of Barca‘s 3-0 King’s Cup final win over Athletic Bilbao last week before he was named in Spain’s final 23-man squad to defend their title in Poland and Ukraine next month.

“Medical tests have been successful, very happy with the evolution,” Fabregas wrote on his Twitter feed.

The former Arsenal captain would train away from the rest of the team as he bids to regain fitness in time for Spain’s opening Group C match against Italy on June 10, the RFEF said in a statement on their website (www.rfef.es).

Fabregas began his first season back at Barcelona with a bang but his form deteriorated in the final months of the campaign and coach Pep Guardiola left him out of some key matches in La Liga and the Champions League.

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has a slew of talented midfielders to choose from and may prefer to start with Manchester City playmaker David Silva alongside Xavi and Andres Iniesta.

Fabregas and his Barca team mates Xavi, Iniesta, Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique, Pedro and Victor Valdes, as well as Bilbao pair Fernando Llorente and Javi Martinez, joined up with the squad at Spain’s training base outside Madrid on Friday.

Iniesta told reporters he believed Spain’s task of retaining their continental title would be harder than winning the World Cup in South Africa two years ago but said the team were ready for the challenge.

“I like to live in the present and to focus on what we have ahead of us,” Iniesta said.

“We have a very attractive goal which will be a much greater challenge than the previous one.”

(Reporting by Iain Rogers, editing by Mark Meadows)

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Fern Saitowitz of Los Angeles switched to an experimental treatment for her breast cancer, and her side effects diminished.

Fern Saitowitz’s advanced breast cancer was controlled for about a year by the drug Herceptin and a toxic chemotherapy agent. But her hair fell out, her fingernails turned black and she was constantly fatigued.

She switched to an experimental treatment, which also consisted of Herceptin and a chemotherapy agent. Only this time, the two drugs were attached to each other, keeping the toxic agent inactive until the Herceptin carried it to the tumor. Side effects, other than temporary nausea and some muscle cramps, vanished.

“I’m able to live a normal life,” said Ms. Saitowitz, 47, a mother of two young children in Los Angeles. “I haven’t lost any of my hair.”

The experimental treatment, called T-DM1, is a harbinger of a new class of cancer drugs that may be more effective and less toxic than many existing treatments. By harnessing antibodies to deliver toxic payloads to cancer cells, while largely sparing healthy cells, the drugs are a step toward the “magic bullets” against cancer first envisioned by Paul Ehrlich, a German Nobel laureate, about 100 years ago.

“It’s almost like we’re masking the chemotherapy,” said Dr. Edith Perez, a breast cancer specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.

One such drug, Adcetris, developed by Seattle Genetics, was approved last August to treat Hodgkin’s lymphoma and another rare cancer. TDM-1, developed by Genentech, could reach the market next year. Data from a large clinical trial of T-DM1 is expected to attract attention at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology this weekend in Chicago.

Numerous other companies, from pharmaceutical giants to tiny start-ups, are pursuing the treatments, which are known variously as antibody-drug conjugates, armed antibodies or empowered antibodies. “I don’t think there is a major pharma or a midsized pharma with interest in cancer that doesn’t have a program or isn’t scrambling to put one together,” said Stephen Evans-Freke, a managing general partner at Celtic Therapeutics, an investment firm that recently committed $ 50 million to create a new company, ADC Therapeutics, to develop antibody-drug conjugates.

About 25 such drugs from a variety of companies are in clinical trials, according to Alain Beck, a French pharmaceutical researcher who closely tracks the field. Genentech alone has eight in clinical trials besides T-DM1, and another 17 in earlier stages of development.

Many of the drugs use technology from either Seattle Genetics, based in Bothell, Wash., or ImmunoGen of Waltham, Mass., which supplied the toxin and linker used in T-DM1.

The armed antibodies do not work for all patients and they are not totally free of side effects. T-DM1, for instance, can lower blood platelet levels. The drugs are also likely to be expensive. Adcetris costs more than $ 100,000 for a typical course of treatment.

Biotechnology drugs called monoclonal antibodies, like Herceptin, Rituxan and Erbitux, are already mainstays of what is called targeted cancer therapy. These laboratory-produced molecules mimic the antibodies made by a person’s immune system to fight infection. But instead of attacking pathogens these antibodies attach to specific proteins on the surface of cancer cells.

But antibodies by themselves have a limited ability to kill tumors. So the antibodies are usually given with more conventional cell-killing chemotherapy drugs, which cause side effects because they can also attack healthy cells.

The new approach chemically attaches a toxin to the antibody, increasing its killing power while reducing the need to give toxic drugs separately. After the antibody binds to a cancer cell, it is taken inside the cell like a Trojan horse, and the toxin is released.

While armed antibodies are sometimes likened to guided missiles with toxic warheads, they actually cannot guide themselves to tumors.

Rather, they float through the bloodstream, bumping against various cells. But they stick only to the cells bearing the target protein.

“These are like floating sea mines,” said K. Dane Wittrup, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But when they end up in a particular harbor, they blow up.” Less than 1 percent of the drug actually makes it to the tumor, he estimated.

The antibody used in Adcetris, which binds to a protein on malignant cells called CD30, had little effect on cancer when tested alone, even at doses 20 times as high as used now. But when linked to a toxin, it shrank tumors in 75 percent of those with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Aimee Blaine, a petroleum engineer from Bakersfield, Calif., who has had Hodgkin’s lymphoma since 2004, was virtually out of options after traditional chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant failed to cure her disease.

But four days after taking Adcetris in a clinical trial, the unbearable itching that accompanied her disease vanished, she said.

Eventually, so did the cancer. Ms. Blaine, 40, has been in remission since her last dose in January 2011 and recently returned to work for the first time in seven years.

Like Herceptin, T-DM1 binds to what is known as the HER2 protein and is meant to treat only the roughly 20 percent of breast cancer cases characterized by an abundance of that protein.

BOSTON –  Authorities have dropped rape charges against a former Boston University hockey player.

Prosecutors said during a brief court hearing Friday they are no longer pursuing the case against Max Nicastro, but did not specify their reasons.

The 22-year-old Nicastro told the Boston Herald outside court that he was relieved and wanted to move on.

Nicastro, of Thousand Oaks, Calif., was arrested Feb. 19 after he was accused of assaulting a female student on campus. He pleaded not guilty, was suspended from the team and withdrew from school.

His lawyer says prosecutors conducted a “thorough investigation” and “declined to prosecute, which speaks volumes.”

The prosecutor had no comment outside court.

The defenseman was a 2008 Detroit Red Wings draft pick.

James Hill for The New York Times

Amantle Montsho, a 28-year-old track athlete from rural Botswana, at the Dakar training center. She is a likely medal contender at this summer’s London Olympics.

DAKAR, Senegal — Amantle Montsho’s room, about 100 square feet, has no window to the outside. When she flipped on the light switch one day after practice, a flickering bulb did little to illuminate the space.

Montsho plopped onto the pink blanket covering her twin-size bed. She was 3,600 miles from home, living in an austere dormitory among 19 elite athletes from throughout Africa who have come to train at a more sophisticated facility. The local languages are Wolof and French; she is fluent in neither.

Each day, her routine is the same. She eats, sleeps and trains her body to run one lap around a track as fast as possible. There are little to no social activities, no corporate functions with sponsors, almost no visitors. In this bustling city on mainland Africa’s westernmost tip, she is as anonymous as she is Spartan in her existence.

Montsho, a 28-year-old track athlete from rural Botswana, is the world champion in the 400 meters and a likely medal contender at this summer’s London Olympics. In many ways, she embodies the state of the modern international sports industry: a woman from a poor village in a country where female athletes are rarely encouraged, she is the beneficiary of programs designed to support such athletes. With the Olympics offering an ever bigger and more lucrative global stage, Montsho willingly lives in near isolation in her quest for gold.

“I think it’s an advantage for me because when I’m here, I’m not doing anything,” she said. “Here, I am just concentrating on my training.

“I’m here to do my business.”

For every country that lavishes money and fame on its Olympic hopefuls, there are many more, like Botswana, that have precious little in the way of a sports development system. To combat the disparity — and with the hope of expanding its audience into more corners of the globe — the governing body for track and field, known by its acronym, I.A.A.F., established eight training centers, including the one here, to give promising athletes like Montsho access to better resources.

For Montsho, who won her world title last year by three-hundredths of a second, the opportunity may be priceless. Government and sports officials in Botswana hope that she will become the first person from their country to win an Olympic medal. She already has an endorsement deal with Nike that provides her with running gear and appearance fees.

Since she entered the training program in Dakar in 2006, Montsho has shaved three seconds off her 400-meter time, advanced to the finals in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and won several international titles. A gold medal in London, she said, “would mean everything to me.”

“It’s what I have left to do.”

The Coach, the Program

At any time, 16 to 25 athletes are based at the Dakar training center, housed in a stadium shared with a soccer team and a cast of locals who roam unobstructed past a security guard. Anthony Koffi, a middle-aged native of Ivory Coast, coaches the 400-meter runners and hurdlers. With a shaved head, wire-frame glasses and a rotund belly, he is a jovial presence on the track, communicating in high-fives, rubbery facial expressions and yelps in French and English. “Too heavy!” “Push!” “Alle!”

Koffi’s group of seven athletes includes runners from Senegal, Sudan, Gambia and Botswana. He has coached for more than 20 years, the last decade at the Dakar facility. He has yet to have an athlete win a medal at the Olympics. Montsho is his best hope.

Amantle Montsho (pronounced ah-MAHNT-lay MONT-sho) says Koffi is “like a father,” and he talks about her like family, too. Montsho shares a birthday with one of Koffi’s sons. “When I see Amantle, I think it’s my son, you know?” he said. “Naturally, we have a relationship like that.”

Koffi’s training sessions, usually six days a week, are a rotation of workouts on the beach, in the nearby hills, on an outdoor track and in a weight room adjacent to the track. The runners are always on time, spending 10 minutes or more before practice stretching on the track as crows caw overhead. One morning, a Senegalese boy with a scab on his right knee and a torn T-shirt perched behind them, fiddling with an empty Coke bottle.

“Why aren’t you in school?” Koffi said in French. The boy did not look up from the plastic bottle.

Koffi, with the wave of a hand, shooed him away. “The kids,” he said, “they come here instead of school.”

By LORETTA CHAO

BEIJING—Google Inc. has begun notifying Chinese users when they are using search terms that can trigger China’s Internet blocks, in its boldest challenge in two years to Beijing’s efforts to restrict online content.

The Internet search giant unveiled on its Chinese search site this week a new mechanism that identifies political and other sensitive terms that are censored by Chinese authorities. For example, when users search for keywords like “carrot”—which contains the character for Chinese President Hu Jintao’s surname—a yellow dropdown message says: “We’ve observed that searching for ‘hu’ in mainland China may temporarily break your connection to Google. This interruption is outside Google’s control.”

The Internet giant acknowledged on its official blog Thursday that users in China are having trouble accessing its services, saying failed searches can impair performance on the site. “Users are regularly getting error messages like ‘This webpage is not available’ or ‘The connection was reset,’ ” the post said.

Google says it hopes the alerts “will help improve the search experience in mainland China,” where Google’s search and other services have been unstable since it entered a public spat with Chinese authorities over censorship over two years ago. A Google spokesman declined to comment further.

Chinese officials don’t discuss their Internet restrictions, and its search terms are treated as state secrets. In its post, Google said the trigger terms were identified based on reviews of the outcomes of the 350,000 most popular search queries in China, not an official list. The post doesn’t mention censorship or explicitly say Chinese authorities are the cause of the blocks.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a regular press briefing Friday that “there are more than 500 million Internet users in China, and they have access to plenty of information…Like other countries, China also administers its Internet according to law.”

China’s restrictions include the names of top leaders as well as high-profile dissidents like blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng and references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown.

The move is the most significant Google has made related to China’s Internet restrictions since early 2010, when it publicly said it wouldn’t adhere to China’s censorship policies and said it might have to shut down its Google.cn China site as well as its offices there. Google ultimately kept its China offices but moved its Web search and other services to Hong Kong, where it doesn’t have to comply with regulations in mainland China.

But the move has led to occasionally spotty service. As a result, Google has been losing market share in China, according to research firm Analysys International, which estimates the company had a 17% share of search revenue in the country in the first quarter, down from 36% in the fourth quarter of 2009, though company executives have said their revenue is still growing. In comparison, Google’s largest Chinese rival, Baidu Inc., had a 79% share in the first quarter.

Still, Google has expanded its operations within the country, adding engineers and sales staff to work on other products, including its Android mobile operating system and services that don’t require official censorship, such as e-commerce.

Analysts say Google’s latest move could jeopardize some of Google’s recent efforts.

“It does seem like a move that would be perceived as antagonistic by Chinese Internet authorities,” said Jeremy Goldkorn, director of Danwei.com, which researches Chinese media and Internet.

Currently, companies such as Baidu and the Web portal operated by Sina Corp. offer users a note saying some search results can’t be displayed because of local rules and other issues, but they don’t specify which terms might have fallen afoul of censors.

On Friday, a number of Chinese Internet users appeared confused by Google’s move.

“Has Google also started to ‘harmonize’ sensitive words?” wrote a user on Sina Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like microblogging site, going by the name Chester_Hahn, using a term often used in China to mock censorship.

Others joked about it. “Google, you are trying to flip someone’s miniskirt up again! You bad boy,” wrote one user by the name Xi Gang. Another called Jiu Xian said, “Poor carrot. You are shot even when you have nothing to do with anything sensitive. You are so unlucky to share the same surname, Hu, with our beloved president.”

Write to Loretta Chao at loretta.chao@wsj.com

It’s crisis communications 101 for Corporate America: when a company bungles an event as big as the Facebook IPO, alienates customers, and spawns lawsuits and regulatory inquiries, the CEO apologizes and agrees to provide compensation to make things right. Everyone can then move on.

Not so at Nasdaq OMX Group, where technology glitches and a communications breakdown marred Facebook’s $ 16 billion initial public offering on May 18.

Since then, the exchange has done little to conciliate market making clients—a number of which lost tens of millions of dollars each due to the trading problems. There has been no outright apology. And as angry as some customers may be, experts say they have little alternative but to keep trading on the exchange.

And they have. Nasdaq’s trading volume this week is above the monthly average, and its share price is nearly unchanged two weeks after the trading glitch.

Nasdaq, one of only two US exchanges on which companies can list their shares, is home to a raft of heavily traded household technology names such as Apple and Google, and has challenged the New York Stock Exchange for marquee listings. The Facebook IPO was seen as a major coup.

With so few options for traders, Nasdaq’s strong position is giving confidence to investors and analysts.

“We expect this to blow over with time,” said Chris Allen, an analyst at Evercore Partners, in a note to clients.

Many of Nasdaq’s customers sing a different tune, however. During the first day of Facebook trading, technical glitches left the market makers—who facilitate trades for brokers and are crucial to the smooth operation of stock trading—in the dark for hours as to which trades had gone through.

The result was up to $ 115 million in losses for the Nasdaq’s top four market makers alone. Two senior executives in the financial industry have said they expect Nasdaq member claims to total $ 150 million to $ 200 million.

Nasdaq’s response amounted to a members-only call with one of its executive vice presidents, a statement that the exchange would set aside a pool of $ 13.7 million to accommodate losses, and a brief mention of Facebook during the company’s shareholders meeting. Greifeld also hosted Nasdaq’s party at a technology conference this week in California.

A source close to the exchange said it is reaching out to affected clients. Yet some big clients are still unhappy.

“Communication has been about as good as it was on the day of the IPO – minimal,” said Mark Turner, head of trading at New York-based agency broker Instinet.

Turner declined to say how much his firm lost but said it paled in comparison with losses suffered by larger counterparts like UBS, Citigroup, Knight Capital, and Citadel Securities, which lost between $ 20 million and $ 35 million.

THROWING OUT THE CRISIS PR PLAYBOOK
In most corners of Corporate America, such a situation would have driven executives into crisis communications overload.

Regular communication, not necessarily more, is the best way to handle a crisis situation, said John McInerney, a global vice president at public relations firm Makovsky and Co.

“Just saying ‘we are going to talk to you at 4:00 or at a certain point and we are going to tell you where things are right now,’ I think people can live with that kind of uncertainty as long as they know they are going to hear something,” he said. “And that didn’t happen.”

On a call with select reporters the Sunday after the Facebook IPO, Greifeld said Nasdaq was “humbly embarrassed” over the trading glitch, but he stopped short of a public apology.

“They have failed in executing a comprehensive or cohesive communications strategy,” said Michael Robinson, a former US Securities and Exchange Commission public affairs and policy chief who also spent three years in media relations at Nasdaq.

“Here we are a couple of weeks later and I’m still not entirely sure what it is they said went wrong,” said Robinson, who is now an executive vice president at Levick Strategic Communications.

It’s a sharp contrast to the way rival exchange BATS Global Markets handled a major crisis – the withdrawal of its own IPO on its own exchange in March after a technological glitch disrupted trading. Joe Ratterman, chief executive of BATS, was on television the next day taking the blame and explaining why the company pulled the plug.

The incident was an embarrassment at the time, but now market participants say BATS’ swift response looks like a brilliant move compared with Nasdaq’s inaction.

“Although they were highly criticized, guess what, no one lost any money, other than maybe the BATS guys. But … investors didn’t lose,” said a financial industry executive who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“MODUS OPERANDI”
A lack of public communication is partly protective—lawsuits against Nasdaq by disgruntled investors are stacking up. But many people who deal with Nasdaq regularly, or are familiar with how it has handled its customer relationships, say even if there were no legal issues, the silence and lack of contrition expressed to market makers is par for the course.

“This is their modus operandi,” said independent trading and market structure consultant William Karsh, a former chief operating officer of rival electronic exchange Direct Edge. “They screw the wholesalers because they can. At the end of the day, the wholesalers have no choice but to use them – they are still a huge liquidity pool.”

Nasdaq declined to comment for this article.

Nasdaq’s liabilities for a trading glitch are limited through regulation and a contract with its customers to $ 3 million per month. The exchange has applied to the SEC to increase the amount to $ 13.7 million to include a gain of $ 10.7 million it made from the Facebook IPO through the sale of shares it was left holding due to the technology glitches.

“They are certainly facing the specter of some significant lawsuits if this pool is not enough,” said an attorney who is familiar with the situation.

The customers are arguing that the limit on liabilities should not apply because the Facebook problems were the result of gross negligence.

While its trading customers have little option but to stick with Nasdaq to do their business, the longer-term risk for the exchange is not landing the next Facebook.

“The Nasdaq has just handed the New York Stock Exchange the best marketing bonanza they could ever hope for,” said Robinson.

WASHINGTON — With the latest economic data flashing warning signs that the economy is cooling, the immediate reaction from Congressional leaders signaled little movement toward breaking the long, partisan deadlock over fiscal policy.

Both sides know that if Congress does nothing, a fiscal cliff lies ahead at the turn of the year, in the form of automatic and widespread spending cuts and tax increases, a course that would satisfy nobody and would, many economists fear, make a weak economy worse.

On Friday morning, both sides in Congress blamed each other for the impasse.

“Economic uncertainty continues to hold back private sector growth and new hiring,” said Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican whip, after a remarkably weak jobs report on Friday followed a downward revision on Thursday of the first quarter’s economic growth.

Republicans were quick to attribute the weak economy to what Mr. McCarthy called “a complete lack of leadership from the president and Senate Democrats.”

But the Democrats threw the blame right back.

“This morning’s jobs report shows that Congressional Republicans’ do-nothing, confrontation-over-compromise approach to jobs isn’t working,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the Democratic whip.

“Republicans continue to avoid addressing serious job creation in favor of ideological bills,” he said. “This is deeply disappointing, as we were able to work together in May to pass a bipartisan reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner said that the Republicans would barrel ahead with the kind of legislation that the House has been passing but that has gone nowhere in the Senate, where Democrats are in the majority.

“The House has passed more than 30 jobs bills to expand energy production and approve popular projects like Keystone XL, eliminate excessive federal red tape, repeal laws like Obamacare that are making it harder for small businesses to hire new workers, and more,” he said.

In the weeks ahead, Mr. Boehner said, Republicans in the House would repeal a medical device tax in the health care overhaul, impose a moratorium on new federal regulations and, as he put it, “stop the tax hike on small businesses that is scheduled to hit on Jan. 1, 2013.”

But that way of describing the scheduled expiration of Bush-era tax cuts, which the Republicans want to extend, demonstrates that both sides are continuing to cast matters in the light that they feel plays to their political advantage.

The Republicans are taking the same agenda on the election trail, as their House campaign committee’s message focused on characterizing the Democratic approach as “reckless spending habits” and a “hyper-regulatory regime.”

For their part, President Obama and his partisans in Congress, who want the Bush-era tax cuts to end for taxpayers in the upper-income brackets, have their own favorite tax cuts that they would like to extend, like those that favor wind energy and other “green” projects.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. –  A jury’s refusal to convict John Edwards was less a redemption of the former White House hopeful than a rejection of the Justice Department’s boldest attempt to make an example of someone in the name of enforcing campaign finance laws.

Thursday’s verdict of not guilty on one count and a mistrial on five others bore out criticism from the earliest stages of the case that it was a reach, that prosecutors went after the ex-U.S. senator without the kind of evidence that justified the charges that he masterminded a scheme to use campaign donations to hide his pregnant mistress from the public and his terminally ill wife.

“As noted by nearly every campaign finance lawyer who considered the matter, this was a lousy case,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director for the campaign finance watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “All the salacious details prosecutors offered up to prove that Edwards is, indeed, despicable, were not enough to persuade the jury to convict him.”

Several jurors said there just wasn’t enough evidence. On network talk shows Friday, even jurors who thought Edwards was guilty on at least some counts said the prosecution wasn’t able to prove it.

“We tried to put our feelings aside and what we were doing was just looking at the facts to come up with a verdict,” juror Cindy Aquaro said on NBC’s “Today” show.

Edwards faced six felony charges involving nearly $ 1 million provided by two wealthy political donors that was used to help hide the Democrat’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, as he sought the White House in 2008. He faced a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

To convict Edwards, prosecutors needed to show not only that the candidate knew about the secret payments, which he denied, but that he knew he was violating federal law by accepting them. But the government was unable to produce any witness who said Edwards knowingly violated the law. Even former Edwards aide Andrew Young testified that Edwards told him he had consulted campaign finance lawyers who assured him the money was legal.

A former trial lawyer, Edwards was so unimpressed with the testimony against him that when the government rested, he turned to a member of his defense team and asked dismissively, “That’s their case?”

When it was their turn, his lawyers presented just two days of evidence. Edwards elected not to take the stand in his own defense.

“This is a case that should define the difference between a wrong and a crime … between a sin and a felony,” Edwards’ lead attorney Abbe Lowell told the jury during closing arguments. “John Edwards has confessed his sins. He will serve a life sentence for those.”

Presented with no damning evidence and no obvious victim beyond the public’s trust, jurors couldn’t see their way to convicting the charismatic ex-candidate. Prosecutors are unlikely to retry the case, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the decision will undergo review in the coming days.

Kieran Shanahan, a former federal prosecutor and Raleigh defense attorney who attended the trial, said he thought the prosecutors took their best shot with what was ultimately a very weak case.

“They got their best witnesses, their best evidence and the judge ruled in their favor on all major evidentiary issues,” Shanahan said. “In the end, the jury just didn’t believe them.”

Steve Friedland, another former federal prosecutor who watched the case from inside the courtroom, said the jury’s verdict was not surprising, considering the government had no smoking gun to prove Edwards guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

But, he predicted, Edwards won’t fare as well in the court of public opinion.

“Regardless of the decision, he still is Exhibit A for how we do not want our leaders to behave,” said Friedland, now a professor at Elon University School of Law. “This is a huge victory for him, and big burden off his shoulders, but a hollow one given his astounding fall from grace.”

From the start, lawyers for Edwards painted the prosecution as politically motivated. The investigation was originally spearheaded by George Holding, the then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

Appointed by President George W. Bush, Holding made a name for himself with criminal probes of high profile Democrats, including the state’s former governor. When President Barack Obama came into office, Holding managed to forestall being replaced by a Democrat for years while the Edwards investigation was ongoing. He eventually resigned in 2011 as Edwards was indicted and soon announced his candidacy for Congress, winning in the GOP primary last month.

The final decision to prosecute Edwards was made by the Obama administration and the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section. Once highly admired, the section’s reputation suffered after a corruption conviction against former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was overturned in 2009 after it was found prosecutors knowingly concealed exculpatory evidence and allowed false testimony to be presented at trial.

The case against Edwards was tried by three prosecutors sent down from Washington and one prosecutor from Raleigh who had served as Holding’s second-in-command. They presented 14 days of testimony and evidence, with Young their star witness.

An aide once so loyal he falsely claimed paternity of Edwards’ baby and helped hide his mistress from the media for nearly a year, Young turned against his former boss and testified for the prosecution under an immunity agreement. Though the government’s case recounted how Edwards repeatedly lied about his affair to both the American people and his cancer-stricken wife, the defense countered by shredding Young’s credibility on the witness stand and using financial records to show the former aide and his wife kept most of the money at issue in the case, funneling it into the construction of the couple’s $ 1.6 million dream home.

Before Edwards’ prosecution, no federal candidate had been tried over payments from a third party that flowed to a mistress. Sloan said the lack of resolution in the case will likely leave candidates and regulators confused about what is and is not a legitimate campaign expense.

“The U.S. criminal justice system requires fair notice of what is and is not against the law,” Sloan said. “Sadly, the Justice Department seems to have forgotten this fundamental American precept. Luckily, the jury remembered.”

___

Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report from Washington.

___

Follow AP writer Michael Biesecker at www.twitter.com/mbieseck

BY WILLIAM BOSTON

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to press Russian President Vladimir Putin during talks in Berlin on Friday to side with Western leaders and back further measures against Syria to stem a widening conflict in the embattled country.

The U.S. and European leaders have been pressing for more decisive sanctions and tougher action against Damascus in the United Nations Security Council but have been blocked by Russia and China. Moscow traditionally has close ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has been sharply criticized by U.S. and European leaders for recent shipments of heavy arms to Damascus, despite continued reports …

BY WILLIAM BOSTON

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to press Russian President Vladimir Putin during talks in Berlin on Friday to side with Western leaders and back further measures against Syria to stem a widening conflict in the embattled country.

The U.S. and European leaders have been pressing for more decisive sanctions and tougher action against Damascus in the United Nations Security Council but have been blocked by Russia and China. Moscow traditionally has close ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has been sharply criticized by U.S. and European leaders for recent shipments of heavy arms to Damascus, despite continued reports …