International News

PARIS (AP) The top U.S. and Russian diplomats meet Monday to try to accelerate frustratingly slow peace efforts in Syria, where the signs point only to a worsening conflict.

Capping off an eight-day trip to the Middle East and Africa, Secretary of State John Kerry flew into the French capital to see Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and exchange updates on their respective diplomatic efforts.

The United States and its Arab allies are attempting to secure the participation of Syria's fractured opposition at an international peace conference in Geneva, planned for next month. Russia is pledging to deliver Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime to the talks.

But despite claims of progress by both, there is little evidence to suggest either side is ready to halt more than two years of violence that has killed more than 70,000 people. President Barack Obama has demanded that Assad leave power; Russia has stood by its closest ally in the Arab world.

The Paris meeting between Kerry and Lavrov, to be immediately followed by a dinner that includes French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, comes at an increasingly dangerous time for Syria.

For the past week, regime troops and allies from Lebanon's Hezbollah and even some Iranian fighters have waged an offensive in Qusair, gaining ground against the rebels behind intense bombardments of the strategic western Syria town.

Hezbollah's enhanced role poses an assortment of concerns for the Obama administration, with the group's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, vowing over the weekend that his militants would back Assad to victory.

Beyond providing powerful reinforcements to Assad's regime, Hezbollah's involvement increases the risk of spillover into Lebanon, a country as ethnically divided and fragile as Syria. Two rockets struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut on Sunday, raising fears that the country could be plunged back into civil war.

And any conflict with Hezbollah threatens to drag in Israel, which has proven with airstrikes it won't tolerate large-scale and advanced weapons transfers to its northern border. Lebanon's state-run news agency reported one missile fired from that area toward the Jewish state on Sunday night.

For Kerry and other would-be peacemakers, the confluence of developments only reaffirms the need for a serious peace process to begin.

The Americans have stressed that any talks be carried out in good faith and lead to the full transfer of power to an interim government. Logic, they say, compels that this government not include Assad or other members of his government culpable in widespread abuses.

Getting to the talks hasn't been easy. Kerry is waiting for Syria's Sunni-led opposition coalition to unearth itself from a mountain of internal divisions, from adding new representatives to determining how Islamist or how secular to define their movement.

Opposition leaders met among themselves Monday in Istanbul for the fifth straight day. And while they've grappled for unity, they haven't given a firm yes to the peace strategy outlined by Kerry and Lavrov earlier this month.

Russia has achieved, rhetorically at least, greater success. The Syrian government said Sunday it agreed "in principle" to send delegates to Geneva, strengthening Moscow's hand ahead of any direct and potentially proxy U.S.-Russian diplomatic negotiations.

With Syria's opposition scrambling politically and militarily, some European countries are looking to change the equation. However, the bloc remained divided Monday on whether to scrap its arms embargo to allow Britain and France to provide the rebels with military aid.

The Obama administration has been mulling a similar step for months. Despite Assad's military advances and evidence that his forces used chemical weapons against the rebels, the Obama administration remains wary about getting too involved.

LOS ANGELES (AP) The sixth installment in the "Fast & Furious" franchise is No. 1 at the box office.

"Fast & Furious 6" was tops with moviegoers on a record-breaking Memorial Day weekend with estimated receipts totaling $316 million.

The muscle car action romp starring Vin Diesel and Paul Walker took in $120 million from Friday to Monday, making it the biggest opening weekend for a Universal Pictures release.

"The Hangover Part III" opened in second place. The final chapter in the raunchy comedy trilogy collected $51.2 million.

Paramount Pictures' "Star Trek: Into Darkness," which opened last week, added $47 million to its domestic ticket sales, landing it at No. 3.

Fox's animated "Epic" opened in the fourth spot with $42.6 million. "Iron Man 3" rounded out the top five.

By Christiaan Hetzner and Andreas Cremer

BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed her target to bring one million electric cars on to German roads by the end of the decade, despite evidence of dwindling consumer interest.

"You have a chancellor who believes in electromobility," she told a conference to promote electric car technology, less than 24 hours after the collapse of an Israeli electric car company.

Fewer than 3,000 electric cars were sold in Germany last year out of a total market that exceeded 3 million.

The German auto industry plans to invest roughly 12 billion euros ($15.5 billion) in the next three to four years in alternative powertrains, including battery-powered electric cars, according to the president of industry association VDA.

"Driving electrically is no vision anymore, it's a reality," said VDA's Matthias Wissmann.

Yet economy Minister Philipp Roesler refused to adopt the approach of China, France and the United States, which subsidize purchases of electric cars to boost demand.

Once hyped as a technology that would crowd out conventionally-powered cars, electric auto sales have flopped due to high costs and range limitations.

A survey by Germany's motoring club ADAC said drivers are much more skeptical about the technology than two years ago and nearly half are unwilling to pay extra for an electric car.

TESLA RARE SUCCESS

"We actually lose money with each Ampera we sell, because the technology is too expensive," said Karl-Thomas Neumann, chief executive of General Motors' unprofitable unit Opel.

Last year, the GM brand sold 5,300 Amperas out of 1 million cars, making it the best-selling passenger car running on electricity in Europe, according to the company.

The low interest in Germany is echoed by problems elsewhere.

U.S. electric car battery maker A123 filed for bankruptcy and cash-strapped Fisker Automotive is in talks to sell itself to a new owner.

On Sunday, Israeli charging station provider Better Place filed a court motion to liquidate.

Renault, which partnered with Better Place to set up a battery swapping network in Israel and Denmark, said the move did not call into question its own electric vehicle strategy, one of the most aggressive.

Upstart electric car maker Tesla has been a rare success story, posting its first-ever quarterly profit.

(Reporting By Christiaan Hetzner and Andreas Cremer; Editing by Noah Barkin and David Cowell)

LAS VEGAS (AP) The junked signs that attracted throngs to old Las Vegas have for years gathered dust in a neon boneyard just a few miles from the sleek mega-casinos on the Strip.

This Memorial Day weekend, the hulking metal come-ons are once again glinting and shimmering at night.

The Neon Museum, where Sin City's most iconic signs go to retire, has begun aiming more than 100 multicolored spotlights on its outdoor collection of 150 signs. It's also extending hours for nighttime tours, and a handful of signs have been fully restored with new bulbs.

Since October, visitors have been able to meander past the Silver Slipper, Aladdin's lamp, the Stardust marquee and dozens of other signs saved from the wrecking ball. But the museum closed at 5:30 p.m., meaning that tourists had to squint through the desert sun to glimpse the old guardians of this nighttime city.

For the first time Friday, visitors were able to behold the fully restored signs in all their luminescent glory. The dozens of other markers were bathed in custom-designed spotlights, like true Vegas showgirls.

"The skyline of Las Vegas is a nighttime skyline," said executive director Danielle Kelly, moments before the first afterhours tour came through.

"We stand among the architecture of this city. The notable architecture of this city is its signage. And their illumination is when they came alive," Kelly said.

In a town known for detonating buildings that are beyond their prime, Las Vegas' Neon Museum stands apart in its zeal for salvaging the blinking, glowing memories of the past.

Kelly says time has transformed the signs from commercial emissaries into objects of art.

The hour-long guided tours bend through the artfully cluttered 1.5-acre lot. The excursion offers an alternative to the mega-mall homogeny along the desert metropolis' revamped main drag.

Worn by the beating sun and twisted by desert winds, most of the marquees have lost their flash, some of their bulbs and much of their paint. They tilt toward each other like tombstones in an ancient cemetery. But taken together, they tell a story about the town's glitziest days.

There's the nouveau graveyard's oldest sign: a green and white 1930s relic that marked a restaurant where Hoover Dam construction workers bought fried chicken and bootleg whiskey.

One of the signs with working bulbs a vintage arrow pointing lovebirds to "Marriage Information" alludes to the town's role as the nation's elopement, and divorce, capital.

And the giant marquee that once sat astride the Stardust casino featuring a space-age, deep-red font and cascade of stylized diamonds recalls Nevada's embrace of its role as a test site for nuclear weapons

While only four of the kitschy relics are illuminated, the spotlights play up each sign's attributes and create a feel of pulsating energy.

On Friday, the flashing red lights and blue and purple shadows along with the errant stray cat gave the attraction the surreal, slightly creepy feel of a shuttered theme park.

The museum plans to turn on a few more signs, but facilities director Sam Reza said full wattage would be too dazzling.

"The purpose of the museum is never to have all of the signs fully illumined. We wanted to keep them in the state that they were taken down. To have all of these signs fully lighted up would be overwhelming," she said.

Funding is also a factor; it can cost $100,000 to bring back a single sign.

Art lovers founded the museum in 1996 in a sandy lot outside downtown Las Vegas a few miles north of the Strip as a way to rescue old signs when buildings were demolished or remodeled.

In 2012, curators had the bright idea to open it to the public and began working on a plan to light up the night once again.

Casino bosses began abandoning curlicues of neon in the desert several decades ago, beginning with Steve Wynn's remodel of the Golden Nugget.

Today, major hotel-casinos are built to advertise themselves. The facades and exterior entertainment do the heavy lifting, from the glossy, brown obelisk that is the Wynn Las Vegas, to the fountains that dance outside the Bellagio, to the condensed New York City skyline that frames New York New York.

When signs do crop up, neon has all but surrendered to computerized LED signs.

But most visitors still feel a connection to the town's glittery glory. Most anyone can visualize Vegas Vic, with his checked shirt, perpetually lit cigarette and extended thumb, in their mind's eye.

Sandra Chervinsky, who snapped dozens of pictures during the Neon Museum's inaugural twilight tour, demonstrated her love of vintage Vegas signage by getting full-color tattoo of the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign on her calf.

"When I saw the night tours, I was like, 'I got to do it,'" said Chervinsky, of Montreal. "The light is so perfect, and you're surrounded by all these different eras."

The new tours will run every half hour through 10 p.m., leaving visitors enough time to catch a late show or hit up one of the town's 24-hour bars before heading hotelward.

With the changes and expanded tour capacity, the museum hopes to welcome more than 50,000 visitors this year.

The lot can feel a bit macabre in this youth and novelty-obsessed town, but Kelly said the museum's latest iteration shows that the signs have become key players in a new kind of escapist vision.

"It's not a graveyard," Kelly said. "The signs haven't died. They're just in a new space. And they perform a new function. It's still a fantasy they're selling: the idea of a place."

___

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

TORONTO (Reuters) - SNC Lavalin Group is offering amnesty to employees who report corrupt activity to the Canadian construction and engineering company, which is engulfed in a far-reaching scandal that includes allegations of bribery and fraud.

The program, which excludes top executives and anyone who directly profited from misconduct, marks a bigger push for information from staff at SNC, which hired a compliance officer in February as it attempts to restore its tarnished reputation.

The scandal-mired company is trying to get out from under a series of cases in which former top executives have been charged with bribery and corruption for activities in Canada, Libya and Bangladesh.

Current employees will have 90 days between June and August to request amnesty for information on potential corruption or anti-competition matters said SNC, which said it believes the program marks a first for a Canadian company. Amnesty does not extend to executives in the office of the president or management committee groups.

The Montreal-based company guarantees that it will not fire or make claims for damages against any staff who voluntarily report violations of its code of ethics.

"While the vast majority of SNC Lavalin's employees will have nothing to report, this offer of amnesty will allow us to uncover and quickly deal with any remaining issues," said chief compliance officer Andreas Pohlmann in a statement.

"Our goal is to turn the page on a challenging chapter in the company's history, so we can focus all of our attention on creating value for our stakeholders."

Last week, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services cut its long-term corporate credit and senior unsecured ratings on SNC to BBB from BBB-plus. The agency said it expects high administration costs from SNC's ethics scandal will hurt profitability.

Last May, SNC vowed to get to the bottom of any misconduct, saying it encouraged employees to come forward with any information that would help with police investigations.

Shares of SNC were up 46 Canadian cents, or 1.1 percent, at C$41.25 on the Toronto Stock Exchange in early trade on Monday.

(Reporting By Susan Taylor; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

GENEVA (AP) The U.S., Turkey and Qatar persuaded the U.N.'s top human rights body to hold another urgent debate on the civil war in Syria, the first such session in more than a year, as diplomats pushed Monday for more international pressure to hold accountable those responsible for killing thousands of civilians.

U.N. Human Rights Council President Remigiusz Henczel said the debate will be held on Wednesday, and officials said negotiations have already begun on a resolution focused on the violence in the Syrian town of Qusair, near Lebanon.

It would be the council's second urgent debate since March 2012, but the council also held four special sessions focused on Syria between the start of the crisis in March 2011 and June 2012.

In addition, there has been talk of another resolution that could be taken up toward the end of the council's three-week session involving a possible attempt to curtail Syria's participation in meetings of the 47-nation council, where it is not a formal member.

The council has passed nine previous resolutions on Syria seeking to bring an end to, and impose accountability for, the waves of killings, rapes, torture, shelling of civilians and other horrific abuses from Syria's escalating catastrophe.

Diplomats exchanged sharp words moments after the opening of the council's latest three-week session, which immediately focused on the more than 70,000 people killed in Syria and millions displaced since the uprising against its president, Bashar Assad, began in March 2011 and became a civil war.

Ambassador Oguz Demiralp of Turkey said the Assad regime is "attacking its own citizens with heavy weapons" in Qusair, which has been under attack by government forces and members of Lebanon's Hezbollah group since last week.

"This time the Syrian regime is blatantly hand-in-hand with foreign culprits," he said. "Those who cling to power in Syria seem to have lost sense of reality and humanity."

Syrian Ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui lashed back, saying the council's focus on his nation violates principles of impartiality because it comes from nations that support the rebels battling the government troops.

He took particular aim at the U.N.'s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, and the office she oversees after she said that both sides in Syria's conflict are blatantly disregarding international law.

"We challenge them to provide one single proof of these allegations," Hamoui told the council. Her office has shown an "irresponsible and biased attitude," he added, and singled out Turkey and Qatar for sharing in that bias.

But many others, such as British Ambassador Karen Pierce, supported Pillay and what Pierce called her "vital words."

Pillay, the U.N.'s high commissioner for human rights, said civilians are bearing the brunt of a crisis "in which human rights violations have reached horrific dimensions."

Pillay said she is concerned at reports suggesting hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded, and thousands trapped, by indiscriminate shelling and aerial attacks by government forces in Qusair.

Refugees streaming into neighboring countries from the war, she said, are suggesting that "the Syrian government continues to use indiscriminate and disproportionate force in residential areas, and that the Syrian armed forces have directly targeted schools and hospitals."

"Wanton human rights violations are also being committed by anti-government groups," Pillay said. She urged the Security Council, the U.N.'s most powerful arm, to refer the Syrian crisis for prosecution before the International Criminal Court, based in the Netherlands.

Though it cannot make such a referral itself, the Human Rights Council has what officials call an ever-growing body of evidence of appalling violations of basic human rights that should lead to mounting calls for action to end the civil war that is also threatening the region.

Next week, officials say, a U.N. panel investigating war crimes in Syria is due to deliver its latest report including an update on the suspected use of chemical weapons to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

The U.N. General Assembly approved an Arab-backed resolution two weeks ago calling for a political transition in Syria. But many nations refused to vote "yes" to the non-legally binding, U.S.-backed resolution because of its support for the main opposition group.

Key Syrian ally Russia urged a "no" vote, saying a transition would promote a one-sided resolution that could sink a new U.S.-Russia effort to end the escalating conflict.

The Assad regime has agreed in principle to participate in peace talks in Geneva next month. The United States and Russia hope to bring together the government and opposition for direct talks, but the exact date, agenda and list of participants for the conference remains unclear.

The new resolution demands that all parties work with U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to rapidly implement a roadmap for a Syrian political transition adopted on June 30, 2012, in Geneva, by key nations including the five Security Council powers the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France.

CANNES, France (AP) Tilda Swinton injects her own brand of otherworldly-cool into Jim Jarmusch's latest movie "Only Lovers Left Alive," an unusual comedy that puts a spin on the age-old vampire genre.

The film, the last English-language entry competing for the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, sees Swinton play Eve, a grungy but erudite vampire who's married to a forlorn vampire musician, Adam, played by Tom Hiddlestone. Several-hundred-year-old Adam of Biblical fame has been living quite happily ever since being expelled from the Garden of Eden.

That is, until the 21st century came along with its excesses and greed and pushed him into a full-flung existential crisis. He cracks, and orders a wooden bullet to kill himself.

With such a wacky plot, it's no surprise the film nearly didn't get made. It took seven years to find a backer which Jarmusch says is because producers won't take creative risks anymore.

"I wanted to make a vampire love-story...The reason it took so long was that no one wanted to give us the money. It's getting more and more and more difficult for films that are maybe a little unusual or not predictable or not satisfying the expectations of everybody which is the beauty of cinema, discovering new films of all forms."

He added: "But look, now we're here at Cannes."

Lovers of independent cinema and vampire fans should certainly be pleased the film saw the light of day, or perhaps, night. It quirkily spruces up vampire lore. Adam and Eve are not about blood-sucking and murder but refined lovers of literature, science, music and learning in general.

When Eve's estranged sister "drinks Ian," a friend, to death, Eve tells her off, saying that in the 21st century people just won't understand such barbarity. (The verb "drink," instead of "blood-sucking," was one of the many moments that provoked raucous laughter from spectators.)

It's not like they can just dump the bodies in the Thames with the tuberculosis sufferers like in old times, she says. Now, in the 21st century, they get their blood from the blood-transfusion section of a hospital. Alongside this, John Hurt plays a vampire Christopher Marlowe, who's still bitter that Shakespeare became more famous.

Swinton said the film provided a unique opportunity to reinvent the vampire genre.

"There's a feeling of beautiful luxury about approaching this kind of portrait, because you can come with a Martian's-eye view... We were able to create our own lexicon," she said. For instance, in the film the vampires elegantly cover their mouths and have a strange ritual with gloves that goes unexplained.

At heart, the film is the love story between Adam and Eve, who try to rekindle their love despite living in different places, he in Detroit and she in Tangiers. It is as touching as it is odd.

"We knew we needed to show a long love story ... that was so evolved that what they actually say to each other is the tip of the iceberg of a conversation they've been having for 500 years," Swinton said. "That was very interesting. We wanted to show a couple who are trying to stay together. Trying to live obviously, but also trying to live together."

In one comic moment, Eve looks at a grainy photo where they're both dressed in 19th century clothing. "Our third wedding," she sighs.

The love story between immortal beings also raised philosophical questions for leading man Hiddlestone, who said playing Adam was a "fascinating prospect" a chance of breaking away from the more conventional superhero roles, such as the villain Loki in 2011's Marvel Studios film "Thor," for which he is the most famous.

"The idea of exploring love in the context of immortality is (it) a blessing because it recurs, and what does that do to your commitments?" he said.

When news originally got out that Jarmusch, the director of 1999's dark samurai film "Ghostdog," which was also nominated for the Palme d'Or, was going to do a love film on vampires, many were left unconvinced. But Swinton was not one of them and backed the project from the start.

"I was never surprised," she said. "I felt like saying (Jim) you've been making vampire films for years."

___

Thomas Adamson can be followed at Twitter.com/ThomasAdamsonAP

CANNES, France (AP) Steven Spielberg will close out the 66th Cannes Film Festival with a nail-biter of a finale.

The festival's top award, the prestigious Palme d'Or, will be handed out to one of 20 films in competition Sunday night in Cannes. Unlike in recent years, there's no obvious frontrunner for the Palme. Spielberg is presiding over the nine-member jury that will choose the winner of one of cinema's highest honors.

Critical polls have ranked Abdellatif Kechiche's lesbian coming-of-age tale "Blue is the Warmest Color" the highest. Prognosticators have also predicted Asghar Farhadi's domestic drama "The Past" will take the Palme. And others believe it will go to the Coen brothers' 1960s folk tale, "Inside Llewyn Davis." (The Coens won the Palme in 1991 for "Barton Fink.")

Other films are in the mix, too, including Paolo Sorrentino's rollicking Roman party "The Great Beauty," James Gray's 1920s Ellis Island melodrama "The Immigrant," and Kore-eda Hirokazu's switched-at-birth drama "Like Father, Like Son."

But it will ultimately come down to what Spielberg and his jury which includes Nicole Kidman and Ang Lee think was the top film at Cannes.

Last year, Michael Haneke's "Amour" was the far-and-away favorite, and went on to win best foreign language film at the Oscars and earn the rare best picture nomination for a non-English film. In 2011, Terrence Malick's cosmic rumination "The Tree of Life" won the Palme d'Or.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

BERLIN (AP) German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday she would use her country's economic clout to prevent the European Union from imposing punitive tariffs on some Chinese products to avoid a trade war.

Germany will push for "very intense talks" between the EU and China to seek a negotiated solution as swiftly as possible, the leader of Europe's biggest economy told visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang.

The EU Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive arm, accuses China of pricing its solar panels and some mobile telecom devices too cheaply, thereby flooding the European market, distorting competition and hurting European manufacturers. Brussels has therefore proposed imposing an average 47 percent special duty on Chinese solar panels, and it is continuing to look into the telecommunication sector.

Li sharply criticized the EU's approach, saying through a translator that "it sends a wrong signal because we want to fight protectionism together."

"We strongly oppose this decision," he insisted, referring to the proposed solar panel tariffs. "We hope that the EU won't use protectionist trade measures for such small a cause," he said.

The EU, the world's largest economy, is China's second-biggest business partner after the U.S., with a trade volume of about 430 billion euros in 2012. The solar panel exports stand for about 7 percent of China's total exports to the EU.

The EU Commission is expected to make a decision on the anti-dumping investigation after consulting all interested parties by the end of the year.

"Germany will work for this to be resolved as quickly as possible because we don't believe (tariffs) would help us very much," said Merkel. "And that's why we should very intensely use the next six months, and Germany will do everything to ensure that the talks will really advance," she added.

Li thanked Merkel, adding that China also hopes that talks between Beijing and Brussels will be able to avoid a trade standoff and yield "an amicable solution."

Germany was the only stop in an EU member nation on Li's inaugural trip abroad, in a sign that China seeks Berlin's clout to influence the EU's at times cumbersome decision making progress. Li, who took office in March, at one point even said during the news conference with Merkel that he was aware that German cannot replace the EU Commission.

China is the world's largest producer of solar panels, exporting more than half of its output to Europe, totaling 21 billion euros in 2011.

The global solar panel market is suffering from overcapacity, which has led to stiff competition that has forced several European manufacturers out of business.

Still, Germany's powerful industrial lobby groups oppose the discussed EU anti-dumping measures against China because they fear an escalating trade war that would dent the countries' buoying business ties.

Li said the EU's decision wouldn't serve its interests and would harm China and others. "It will put the (solar) sector's development in Europe in danger, harm the interest of the European companies, the European consumers and the European industry," he said.

China rejects the EU's price-dumping allegations, but the problem is no novelty for Beijing. The U.S. last year imposed punitive tariffs on solar panel imports after finding that China's government was subsidizing companies that were flooding the U.S. market.

Following Li's arrival at Berlin's Chancellery, he and Merkel met with students from both countries before overseeing the signing of a series of economic cooperation agreements. They also held closed-door talks and were set to have a dinner at a government guest house outside the capital later Sunday.

As part of his trip, Li visited Switzerland on Friday. In Zurich, he signed China's first free-trade agreement with a major Western economy. It had been negotiated for several years. .

On Monday, he will meet other officials and business leaders in Berlin. He also is scheduled to meet Merkel's challenger in September's national elections, the Social Democrats' candidate Peer Steinbrueck.

___

Follow Juergen Baetz on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz

By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Mirwais Harooni

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban militants launched a coordinated attack on a U.N. compound in the center of the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Friday setting off explosions and battling the security forces.

A plume of smoke hung over the city center after the attack was launched, eight days after six Americans, soldiers and civilians, and nine Afghans were killed in a suicide car bombing in Kabul.

The Taliban, fighting to expel Western forces and establish Islamist rule, claimed responsibility, saying a compound used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), had been attacked.

Concern is mounting about how the 352,000 members of the Afghan security forces will cope with the militants after most foreign NATO-led combat troops leave by the end of next year.

Kabul police chief Ayoub Salangi said four attackers had entered a U.N. compound.

"Our security forces have already killed two of them and two are still on the second floor and fighting with Afghan security forces," Salangi said.

There was no information about anyone who had been inside the compound at the time of the attack.

There were at least four large blasts and exchanges of fire were going on between the attackers and Afghan forces, supported by Norwegian special forces, at 6.20 p.m. (1350 GMT), witness said.

The first blast was a suicide car-bomb blast at about 4 p.m. (1130 GMT) near a main intersection, said Kabul police chief spokesman Hashmatullah Stanikzai.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking to Reuters by telephone, claimed responsibility.

He said the fighters were targeting a compound used "mostly by members of the CIA", adding that they had gained access to the compound after the first bomb.

The Taliban routinely overstate the results of their attacks.

Shooting erupted after the first bomb, with more blasts beginning about 30 minutes later.

Insurgent attacks against civilians, government workers and Afghan security forces have increased in recent weeks as the Taliban, toppled by a U.S-led force in 2001, exert increasing pressure on the Afghan government.

Fifteen people, including six Americans, were killed on May 16 in a suicide bombing by the Hezb-i Islami insurgent group, which is allied with the Taliban.

Last year, more than a dozen people were killed during a Taliban attack in Kabul which started with coordinated suicide attacks and led to an 18-hour long siege.

(Writing by Dylan Welch; Editing by Robert Birsel)

COALCOMAN, Mexico (AP) Mexico's top security officials promised Tuesday that a new federal offensive to rescue towns besieged by the Knights Templar drug cartel in western Michoacan state would stay "until there is security and peace for all state residents."

Interior Secretary Miguel Osorio Chong and his national security team met with local officials in the state capital of Morelia at a time of escalating tensions in Michoacan, where communities mistrustful of state authorities have been creating their own vigilante forces for protection against the cartels.

But Osorio Chong provided few details or an explanation of how sending troops to Michoacan would work any better than it had in the past. Then President Felipe Calderon made the same move when he launched a nationwide offensive against drug cartels in late 2006.

"The difference is the strategy," Osorio Chong said. "There will be a central command, close coordination between state and federal security ... and a system of intelligence that will permit us to move forward."

He did not answer when a reporter asked for specific dollar amounts or new programs behind the effort.

Michoacan is the Mexican state most visibly dominated by a drug cartel.

Gunmen in vehicles marked only with the Knights Templar symbol, a red cross, roam the countryside, burning businesses and homes of anyone who refuses to pay them protection money.

The cartel has boldly marked its territory by building small roadside chapels to "Saint Nazario," a fallen leader of the quasi-religious drug cartel who was killed in a battle with police in 2010.

As convoys of soldiers rode into the steamy territory known as Tierra Caliente late Monday, they passed the remains of chapels destroyed by local self-defense groups that sprang up in February to fight the cartel.

In the town of Coalcoman, soldiers sped past the still-smoldering remains of at least three sawmills torched by the cartel's gunmen last week after that town rose up against them. They also passed burned-out hulks of two trucks and a passenger bus set afire by gunmen on the highway outside town as a warning to anyone who tried to bring supplies or reinforcements in.

Coalcoman was the latest of several communities to form an armed self-defense group to kick out the Knights Templar cartel and end their extortion racket.

"They demanded we pay 120 pesos (about $10) for every square meter of wood we sold," said one of the sawmill owners whose business was burned. Gunmen torched the mills that didn't pay, said the owner, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals.

Local avocado growers were charged 2,000 pesos (about $175) for every hectare of orchards they owned.

"The man who charged you would say it was money for 'the company.' They didn't say the name of the cartel," recalled one resident of the town of Buenavista, who later battled the cartel. "But if you didn't pay, the trucks with the red crosses would show up and start killing people."

Like most cartel opponents, the man wouldn't give his name for fear of reprisals.

Government intervention until now has been against the community patrols. Some 40 members of vigilante patrols were arrested in April after the government accused them of having links to a rival drug cartel, Jalisco Nueva Generation. Townspeople deny that.

Still, residents of La Ruana lined up on the town's main street Monday to cheer the arrival of the soldiers.

Hipolito Mora, the leader of the self-defense forces in La Ruana, agreed to stop community patrols and let the army take over patrolling.

"We reached an agreement that we are going to return to our homes and work," Mora told the crowd of cheering townspeople. "But I told them (the army) that if they leave us alone for one day, we are going to return to duty again."

The secretary of defense, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, said the vigilante groups had disappeared when troops arrived.

"It's a very complex problem, because there are some who are taking up arms to protect their communities and others who are not, who are financed by other groups," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Gustavo Ruiz in Morelia contributed to this report.

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov ordered a dozen local reporters to be barred from covering government meetings after they staged a protest on Wednesday over attacks on journalists at a rally.

When reporters at the cabinet meeting stepped in front of television cameras and turned their backs, emblazoned with slogans, on Azarov and his colleagues, the prime minister reacted sharply. "What kind of show is this?" he said.

The reporters, members of a journalists' pool allowed to attend weekly cabinet meetings, bore signs pinned to their backs reading: "Today it's a female journalist (beaten up), tomorrow - your wife, sister, daughter. Do something!"

Azarov said they should be expelled from the journalists' pool. "Write down their names and revoke their accreditation," he instructed his aides. "We respect journalists' work but please do not turn government meetings into a circus."

The two journalists who say they were attacked were covering clashes between supporters and opponents of President Viktor Yanukovich during rallies in Kiev on Saturday.

They say they were beaten by Yanukovich's supporters while police simply stood by. Police are investigating the allegations but opposition politicians have questioned their willingness to do it thoroughly.

Condemning the attacks, the U.S. embassy in Ukraine said on Wednesday: "Such violent acts have no place where people are exercising their rights to peaceful assembly."

"We call on the Ukrainian authorities to conduct a thorough investigation and urge them to take appropriate action to bring the perpetrators to justice. We also urge the authorities to investigate the apparent inaction by the police during the incident."

Protests by reporters have become frequent under Yanukovich, who came to power in 2010 and quickly consolidated power by installing his allies in key positions and reversing constitutional changes that had strengthened parliament.

Last March several reporters wore paper masks of Yanukovich when they attended his news conference. And last year a dozen journalists stood up and raised anti-censorship banners when Yanukovich hailed Ukraine's march to media freedom at the World Newspaper Congress in Kiev.

Some journalists say the government is cracking down on media freedom and the media, most of them controlled by influential businessmen, are censoring themselves so that their owners maintain good standing with the authorities.

Azarov's spokesman Vitaly Lukyanenko said the government's press department would review Wednesday's incident and decide whether to strip the reporters of accreditation.

"How is the prime minister to blame (for the beating of reporters)? Why was he subjected to this slap in the face?" he said.

(Reporting by Sergei Karazy and Natalia Zinets; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Alison Williams)

CANNES, France (AP) The Cannes Film Festival is missing one of its biggest stars of this year's festival: Ryan Gosling.

The actor was unable to attend the premiere Wednesday of Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives." Gosling stars in the Bangkok noir about a brother pressured by his mother to his avenge is his sibling's murder.

Cannes director Thierry Fremaux read a letter from Gosling apologizing for his absence. The actor is currently in Detroit shooting his directorial debut, "How to Catch a Monster."

His absence is a blow to the festival, which depends on stars to walk its red carpet and draw the world's media attention to the annual French Riviera extravaganza.

ROME (Reuters) - The captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which capsized off Italy's west coast last year killing 32 people, will face trial for manslaughter as well as other charges, an Italian judge ruled on Wednesday.

The giant Costa Concordia flipped on its side outside the Tuscan port of Giglio in January last year after it struck rocks during a maneuver that brought it too close to the shore.

The accident triggered a chaotic night-time evacuation of more than 4,000 passengers and crew from the 290-metre-long ship (951-ft), which still rests on a rock shelf outside the port.

Captain Francesco Schettino left the ship before all the ship's crew and passengers had been taken ashore.

A judge in the Tuscan city of Grosseto ordered Schettino to be tried for multiple manslaughter, abandoning ship and other charges, with the first hearing set for July 9, Schettino's lawyer Francesco Pepe told Reuters.

If found guilty, Schettino could face up to 20 years in jail, according to Pepe.

Prosecutors rejected a plea bargain offer from Schettino last month but accepted those of five other officials, including four ship's officers and the crisis coordinator of the vessel's owners, Costa Cruises.

Costa Cruises, a unit of Carnival Corp, agreed to pay a 1-million-euro ($1.29 million) fine to settle potential criminal charges in April. That means that Schettino will be the only person tried for the maritime disaster.

"We expected from the beginning that he would be put on trial," Schettino's lawyer Pepe said. He argues that his client has been made a scapegoat for the accident.

The judge on Wednesday also rejected Schettino's request to use new evidence in the case that Pepe said would "clarify" that there were other factors in the accident beyond the captain's control.

A recording of a coastguard officer ordering Schettino to "get back aboard, damn it!" in a furious telephone call spawned a popular catchphrase that was printed on T-shirts in Italy.

($1 = 0.7769 euros)

(Reporting by Steve Scherer in Rome and Silvia Ognibene in Florence; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels fighting for control of the Syrian town of Qusair called for reinforcements on Wednesday to repel forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war which is spreading violence through an already volatile region.

Opposition fighters said air strikes and shelling rocked the small town on the Syrian-Lebanese border that has seen some of the fiercest fighting in months in the two-year-old war that has so far cost at least 80,000 lives.

The fighting has drawn in fighters from Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, the latest sign of outside involvement in the war and evidence, according to Britain, that Iran and its allies in the militant group are lending increasing support to Assad.

After months of warnings from regional and international experts, violence is now spilling over Syria's borders, with clashes between pro- and anti-Assad factions in the Lebanese city of Tripoli and exchanges of fire between Syrian and Israeli forces in the Golan Heights.

Alarmed by the prospect of a wider conflict, the United States and Russia have agreed to back international peace talks intended to bring the rebels and Syrian government back to the table, although expectations of a breakthrough are low.

Security fears following bombings that killed 51 people in the Turkish town of Reyhanli earlier this month prompted Turkey on Wednesday to close a nearby border crossing with Syria. Turkey has accused Syria of involvement in the attacks. Damascus has denied any role.

While rebels are reinforced by foreign Islamists loyal to al Qaeda, the high-profile involvement of Iranian-backed Hezbollah on the government side has been accompanied by a report from a senior U.S. official of the presence of Iranians in Qusair.

SENATE BOOST

In a boost to the rebels, a U.S. Senate panel voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to send them weapons, but it was not clear who would get the arms even if the bill succeeds.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 15-3 for legislation that would send arms to "vetted" moderate members of the Syrian opposition, the first time U.S. lawmakers have approved such military action in Syria.

The measure will now be considered by the full Senate, where a vocal group of legislators has been pushing for President Barack Obama to do more to help the rebels.

There is less enthusiasm for arming the rebels in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, so it is not clear whether a Senate bill would ever get through Congress and reach Obama and be signed into law.

The outcome in Qusair will determine the status of important rebel supply routes into Syria and whether Assad can ensure access to important northern areas. It could also mean devastation for areas of nearby Lebanon.

Sunni rebel leaders have warned of sectarian revenge attacks against Shi'ites and Alawites on either side of the Syrian-Lebanese border if rebels lose Qusair. Fighters speak of a tacit agreement among their units to launch village by village attacks should they lose the town of 30,000.

George Sabra, acting head of the opposition National Coalition, called on fighters to send arms and men to the Qusair area, citing concern over sectarian violence and "foreign invaders" from Hezbollah and Iran.

WEAPONS APPEAL

"Everyone who has weapons or ammunition should send them to Qusair and Homs to strengthen its resistance. Every bullet sent to Qusair and Homs will block the invasion that is trying to drag Syria back to the era of fear," Sabra said in a statement.

Assad's forces are intent on seizing Qusair in order to cement their hold on a belt of territory that connects the capital Damascus to Assad's stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, home to his minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam that has largely supported him.

Seizing Qusair would also allow Assad to sever links between rebel-held areas in the north and south of Syria.

With Shi'ite Hezbollah prominent in the fight in Qusair, its involvement could drag Syria's civil war - which already pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels, including radical Islamists and foreign fighters, against an Alawite-led army - into a more regional sectarian conflict.

Sabra warned that Hezbollah forces in Qusair could enflame Sunni-Shi'ite tensions across the Middle East.

"The invasion will light a sectarian fire that will destroy relationships between countries in the region and their people. No one will benefit other than Israel."

Pro-Assad media have reported major advances for Hezbollah and state forces. Rebels deny they have lost ground.

Some opposition sources privately said they believed that the army, lead by Hezbollah ground units, has seized about 60 percent of the town. But they say rebels are fighting back hard, as they consider it a battle that could determine the fate of the uprising.

EXPLOSIONS

"If we lose Qusair, we lose Homs, and if we lose Homs, we lose the heart of the country," said Ahmed, a rebel speaking by Skype from the nearby town of Homs as explosions and gunfire crackled in the background.

One rebel source, who asked not to be named, said Assad and Hezbollah forces had cut most of the opposition's overland supply lines into Qusair. But he said the rebels were still able to bring some supplies and fighters in through secret tunnels.

An analyst close to Qatari officials said the Sunni Gulf state, which has funneled money and weapons to the opposition, was looking for new routes to send in supplies to Qusair.

Rebel forces from other parts of Syria appear to have taken the call for support seriously.

The large Islamist Tawheed Brigade in the northern province of Aleppo published a video of a 30-car convoy it said was heading to Qusair.

Sedans and pickup trucks loaded with artillery and fighters sped down the highway, with rebels waving black Islamist banners shouting "God is Great."

As countries in the anti-Assad "Friends of Syria" alliance gathered for talks in Jordan, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Iran and Hezbollah were "propping up" Assad.

"It is very clear that the Syrian regime is receiving a great deal of support, increasing support in recent months from outside Syria from Hezbollah and Iran. This is a regime that is increasingly dependent on external support," Hague said at a news conference in Amman.

Hague said Britain would urge international powers to set a date in the next few days for an international conference to try to end the Syrian conflict.

The talks are expected to be held in Geneva next month.

(Writing by Giles Elgood; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

NEW YORK (AP) Anthony Weiner's run for a renaissance is officially on.

The ex-congressman whose career imploded in a rash of raunchy tweets two years ago said in a YouTube video announcement late Tuesday that he's in the New York City mayoral race. He'd said last month he was considering it.

"I made some big mistakes and I know I let a lot of people down, but I also learned some tough lessons," he said in the video. "I'm running for mayor because I've been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance."

With that, Weiner is embarking on an audacious comeback quest, hoping to go from punch line pol whose tweeted crotch shot was emblazoned on the nation's consciousness to leader of America's biggest city.

The video appeared late Tuesday, then disappeared for a few hours but was back online by 5 a.m. Wednesday. A call to Weiner was not immediately returned Wednesday.

A Quinnipiac University poll, conducted May 14-20 and released Wednesday, places Weiner second in the pack for the Democratic nomination. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has 25 percent, followed by Weiner, with 15 percent.

The Democrat is jumping into a crowded field for September's primary. He's arriving with some significant advantages, including a $4.8 million campaign war chest, the possibility of more than $1 million more in public matching money, polls showing him ahead of all but one other Democrat and no end of name recognition.

His participation makes a runoff more likely, and many political observers feel he could at least get to the second round.

But Weiner also has continued to contend with questions about his character and the scandal that sank his career just two years ago.

After a photo of a man's bulging, underwear-clad groin appeared on his Twitter account in 2011, he initially claimed his account had been hacked. After more photos emerged including one of him bare-chested in his congressional office the married congressman eventually owned up to exchanging racy messages with several women, saying he'd never met any of them. He soon resigned.

In recent interviews, he has said he shouldn't have lied but did it because he wanted to keep the truth from his then-pregnant wife, Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. She told The New York Times Magazine that she has forgiven him.

Weiner has taken a series of steps recently to rehab his image and reintroduce himself, including the lengthy magazine profile and a series of local TV interviews. He hasn't responded to interview requests from The Associated Press.

He also has released a platform of sorts, a list of ideas styled as a blueprint for helping the city's middle class thrive. He's made a point of highlighting one or more of the concepts on most days, via his newly revived Twitter presence.

The suggestions, some of them updates from a mayoral run he nearly made in 2009, range from giving every public school student a Kindle reader to using Medicaid money to create a city-run, single-payer health system for the uninsured.

Some seem to draw on his Washington experience, such as making more use of a federal cigarette-smuggling law. But others fall squarely within City Hall, including suggestions to create a "nonprofit czar" in city government and eliminate paid positions for parent coordinators in schools.

The document also opens a window on a vision of the city a place with "a can-do attitude, competitive spirit and aggressive nature" that sounds not unlike Weiner himself. He was known during his seven terms in Washington as a vigorous defender of Democratic viewpoints, unafraid to get combative whether it was on cable TV or the House floor, and as a tireless and instinctive politician.

"Anybody who underestimates Anthony Weiner's ambition is a fool. And anybody who underestimates his ability as a candidate is a fool," retired Hunter College political science professor Kenneth Sherrill said. But "we're going to see, basically, if Weiner can take hits as well as he can dish them out."

In seeking a second chance from the public, Weiner will have to overcome some voters' misgivings. In a recent NBC New York-Marist Poll, half said they wouldn't even consider him, though the survey also showed that more registered Democrats now have a favorable than unfavorable impression of him.

Weiner can expect opponents to hammer at his prior prevaricating, and he said in a recent interview on the RNN cable network that he couldn't guarantee that no more pictures or people would emerge.

And while he might welcome attention to his policies rather than his past, they also have attracted some criticism. About a dozen young people recently demonstrated outside his Manhattan apartment building to denounce his proposal to make it easier to suspend disruptive public school students; "(hash)Weiner: You ask for a second chance in (hash)NYC2013 but deny students a second chance," read one sign, using Twitter's beloved hashtag marks.

Since leaving office, Weiner has put his government experience to work as a consultant for various companies.

His Democratic opponents include City Councilman Sal Albanese; Public Advocate Bill de Blasio; Comptroller John Liu; City Council Speaker Christine Quinn; the Rev. Erick Salgado, a pastor; and former Comptroller Bill Thompson.

Republican contenders include billionaire businessman John Catsimatidis, former Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota and homelessness-aid organization head George McDonald. Former White House housing official Aldolfo Carrion Jr., a Democrat who recently dropped his party affiliation, is running on the Independence Party line and also interested in the Republican nomination.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) Microsoft thinks it has the one.

The company unveiled the Xbox One, an entertainment console that wants to be the one system households will need for games, television, movies, sports and other entertainment. It will go on sale later this year, for an undisclosed price.

For the past two years, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has outsold its rivals. But it's been eight years since that machine came out, and Microsoft is the last of the three major console makers to unveil a new system. In those eight years, Apple launched the iPhone and the iPad, "FarmVille" rose and fell and tablets began to threaten desktop computers, changing how people interact with games and beyond.

Now, the stakes are high as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo are all using their latest machines not only to draw gamers but also to command the living room. The goal is to extend their reach beyond loyal legions of hardcore gamers and to become as important to our lives at home as smartphones have become to our lives on the go.

Don Mattrick, Microsoft's president of interactive entertainment business, said the company has spent the past four years working on an "all-in-one home entertainment system."

At an hour-long unveiling at the company's Redmond, Wash., headquarters on Tuesday, Microsoft executives used voice controls to switch back and forth seamlessly between watching live TV, listening to music, playing a movie and browsing the Internet all while running apps for stuff like fantasy football and Skype chats on the side of the screen.

"It really extends the home entertainment experience," Gartner analyst Brian Blau said.

He said the console seems to appeal to "more than just a core gamer in the family" and should be of interest to all types of audiences, from sports players to TV viewers to those who are "social and want to share things."

The Xbox One unveiling follows Nintendo Co.'s launch of the Wii U in November and Sony Corp.'s tease in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4. Each of the new consoles has shifted away from simply serving as gaming machines, as they incorporate streaming media apps and social networking features.

People will be able to connect their cable or satellite set-top box and watch TV through the Xbox One. It will have its own channel guide and allow viewers to change channels by voice command.

Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi demonstrated how the console switched quickly between channels after saying show names such as "Mary and Martha" or commands like "watch MTV." His voice command of "What's on HBO?" brought up the channel guide for HBO.

"No more memorizing channels or hunting for the remote control," Mehdi said.

The interface for the TV goes well beyond the functionality in the Wii U, which still requires users to press buttons to change the input source on the TV. Xbox One seamlessly flipped between games, movies and TV shows with voice commands.

In addition to the console, Microsoft unveiled a new version of its camera-based Kinect system with better motion and voice detection, including the ability to recognize faces, tell if you're smiling or talking and gauge your heart rate. In a demonstration, the new sensor detected up to seven people in front of it. Microsoft said the new Kinect will be included with the Xbox One and is deeply integrated into the system, but it won't necessarily always be watching users in their living rooms.

"There's the ability for you to manage the privacy settings so you can turn it off," Marc Whitten, Microsoft's chief product officer of interactive entertainment business, said in an interview in his office after Tuesday's presentation. "Just like the 360, the biggest thing for us is that you are in control of your privacy."

The company also introduced a more ergonomic Xbox controller, with a slightly different layout from the Xbox 360 controller and trigger buttons that vibrate. The new console will also add the ability to play Blu-ray discs, matching what Sony has in its older PlayStation 3.

The Xbox One won't require a constant connection to the Internet, but having it will be useful for many of the gaming and entertainment features. The Xbox has been popular largely because of its Xbox Live service, which lets users play games online with other players with annual plans that cost as much as $60 a year.

"The box wants to connect to the Internet," Whitten said. "That said, we understand the Internet is flakey. It doesn't always work. We want to make sure you can still play your games, watch movies and watch TV if the Internet is down."

Despite talk that Microsoft might restrict the use of games previously owned by others, the company confirmed that the Xbox One will indeed play used games, but it didn't provide details on how that would work. It said games for the Xbox 360 won't work on the new system because the underlying technology is different, though the company said it will continue to make games for the older machine. Whitten said the Xbox 360 "is going to be incredibly vibrant for some time to come."

Among the games previewed for Xbox One were the military shooter "Call of Duty: Ghosts" from Activision Blizzard Inc., soccer extravaganza "FIFA 14" from Electronic Arts Inc. and racing simulator "Forza Motorsport 5" and time bender "Quantum Break," both from Microsoft Game Studios. Microsoft said more games will be shown at next month's E3 video game conference in Los Angeles.

The company said there will be more than 15 games available exclusively on the Xbox One in its first year, eight of them new franchises. In recent years, the Xbox has been the exclusive home to such popular gaming franchises as sci-fi shooter "Halo" and alien shoot-'em-up "Gears of War."

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said Tuesday's presentation was more general than what Microsoft will likely give at E3, where games will be central as thousands of game industry insiders, bloggers and journalists gather for the annual industry conference.

"They didn't focus on games," he said. "They focused on everything else."

That everything else includes a multiyear agreement between Microsoft and the National Football League to develop new interactive viewing experiences for pro football games through such products as the Xbox One and Microsoft's Surface tablet computer. Fans will be able to watch games, chat with other fans, view statistics, access highlights in real time and gather fantasy information about players and teams all on a single screen. For those who prefer multiple screens, fans can get an even deeper experience on mobile devices such as tablets.

Microsoft is also branching into creating original content beyond games, following the trend of other technology companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. Director Steven Spielberg will produce a TV series based on the "Halo" games.

The original Xbox debuted in 2001, and its high-definition successor premiered in 2005. The Xbox represents a small fraction of Microsoft's overall revenue, but it is an important consumer-facing business for Microsoft and offers a way to direct traffic to other Microsoft-owned services, including Skype. Microsoft's stock fell 23 cents, or less than 1 percent, to close Tuesday at $34.85.

Nintendo kicked off the next generation of gaming in November with the launch of the Wii U, the successor to the popular Wii system. The Wii U features an innovative tablet-like controller, though its graphics is on par with the previous-generation Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo said the console sold just 3.45 million units by the end of March, well below expectations.

Sony was next, teasing plans for its upcoming PlayStation 4 without showing the actual box at a February event in New York. The reaction to that console, which featured richer graphics and more social features, was mixed. The PS4 is expected by the holidays.

Microsoft didn't waste any time showing off the Xbox One console, new Kinect sensor and Xbox controller at the beginning of Tuesday's presentation.

___

Barbara Ortutay reported from New York. AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles and AP Pro Football Writer Barry Wilner in Boston contributed to this story.

___

Online:

http://www.xbox.com

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang

WASHINGTON (AP) The Treasury Department's No. 2 official told Congress on Wednesday that his agency played no role in the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups.

Deputy Secretary Neal Wolin made the statement in testimony he prepared to deliver to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. At the same hearing, the star witness IRS official Lois Lerner was ready to invoke her constitutional right to not answer questions.

In his prepared remarks, Wolin said it was "absolutely unacceptable and inexcusable" that the IRS subjected tea party and other conservative groups seeking non-profit status to extra scrutiny from 2010 to 2012.

He said J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general who focuses on taxes, told him last year that he was investigating IRS's targeting of the groups.

"I told him that he should follow the facts wherever they lead. I told him that our job is to stay out of the way and let him do his work," Wolin said.

"There is no indication that Treasury was involved in the inexcusable behavior at the IRS," he added.

Lawmakers are trying to learn whether the IRS targeting was politically motivated. The inspector general and IRS officials have said there is no evidence of that.

As the hearing began, Oversight panel Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., repeated a frequent complaint from lawmakers in the IRS episode that IRS officials who knew earlier about the tartgeting didn't tell Congress about it.

"Congress was misled. The American people were misled," Issa said.

Lerner triggered the recent IRS uproar at a legal conference nearly two weeks ago, when she revealed that the agency's targeting of conservative groups and apologized for the actions.

Lerner, 62, an attorney who joined the IRS in 2001, heads the unit that decides whether groups qualify for the status. She has come under fire from members of both parties, including Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, who said in an interview Tuesday that she should lose her job.

George, the Treasury inspector general, has said he told Wolin in mid-2012 that he was investigating the IRS' targeting of conservative groups, a report that was released last week. That means Wolin was the highest-ranking Treasury official to have known about the probe during last year's elections, making him a focus of interest for lawmakers.

"What did you know and when? Who did you tell?" Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a senior member of the Oversight Committee, said Tuesday of what he hopes to learn from Wolin.

Lerner's attorney, William W. Taylor III, has requested that she be excused from Wednesday's hearing, writing in the letter that forcing her to appear "would have no purpose other than to embarrass or burden her." But the committee has subpoenaed her and panel members say they expect her to attend.

"She better be there. We're planning on it," Chaffetz said.

In writing that Lerner would use her Fifth Amendment right to not incriminate herself, Taylor noted that the Justice Department has started an investigation into the IRS controversy. He also referred to a letter she received last week from Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., saying she "provided false or misleading information on four separate occasions last year" to committee queries.

Staff of the Oversight Committee questioned Lerner and other IRS officials last year after receiving complaints from Ohio tea party groups that they were being mistreated by the IRS, said Meghan Snyder, spokesman for Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a member of the committee.

In responses to the committee, Lerner didn't mention that tea party groups had ever been targeted, according to documents. Her responses included 45-page letters in May 2012 to Issa and Jordan.

Lerner also met twice in early 2012 with staff from the House Ways and Means oversight subcommittee to discuss the issue, according to a timeline constructed by committee staff. The timeline said she didn't mention at either meeting that conservative groups had been targeted.

Lerner's revelation and apology at the May 10 legal conference came in response to a question that IRS officials later acknowledged they had planted with an audience member. Lerner's disclosure came days before George, the inspector general, released his report detailing the IRS' actions.

George's report found that in June 2011, Lerner discovered that her unit was searching for organizations with words like "tea party" or "patriots" in their applications and subjecting them to tougher questions. She ordered the initial tea party criteria to be scrapped, but it later evolved to include groups that promoted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the report said. Lawmakers are curious about why the practice didn't stop entirely.

A career civil servant who has run the division since late 2005, Lerner has not been disciplined for her role, IRS officials said. But with President Barack Obama demanding that IRS officials be held accountable for the problem, Acting Commissioner Steven Miller and another top agency official have announced their departures in recent days and many lawmakers believe more heads should roll.

George and Douglas Shulman, the former IRS commissioner who headed the agency while it was targeting conservative groups, are also scheduled to testify Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee that he learned in the spring of 2012 about his agency's targeting of conservatives and George's probe. He said he didn't tell lawmakers or officials at Treasury of which the IRS is part because he only had sketchy information about the situation, was told it was being handled and believed it proper to let George's office conduct its investigation.

ROME (AP) An Italian judge has ordered the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise ship to stand trial for manslaughter in the vessel's shipwreck off the coast of Tuscany, which killed 32 people.

Judge Pietro Molino, at a closed-door hearing Wednesday in the town of Grosseto, agreed to prosecutors' request that Capt. Francesco Schettino of Italy be tried on charges of manslaughter, causing the shipwreck and abandoning the vessel while many of its 4,200 passengers and crew were still aboard.

On the night of Jan. 13, 2012, the Concordia hit a jagged reef, which gashed its hull on one side, causing the ship to rapidly take on water just off the island of Giglio in the Mediterranean Sea.

Passengers said the ship's evacuation was delayed and chaotic. The cruise ship listed so badly to one side that some life boats couldn't be launched, and many people aboard had to jump into the sea and swim to the tiny island in the dark.

Schettino will be the only defendant in the trial, which begins on July 9. The five other defendants successfully sought plea bargains, which are now being handled separately.

Schettino risks up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He contends he is innocent and is being made a scapegoat, insisting that the reef wasn't marked on the ship's navigational charts. He has also depicted himself as a hero in the tragedy, saying that he skillfully steered the stricken ship closer to Giglio's harbor, thus facilitating the rescue of the survivors.

His lawyer, Francesco Pepe, told reporters the judge rejected the defense's request at Wednesday's hearing to throw out the charge of abandoning the ship. The judge last week rejected Schettino's plea-bargain bid, which would have drastically reduced his sentence in case of a conviction.

The disgraced captain attended the hearing Wednesday but made no comment afterward to reporters.

"Schettino is calm," the Italian news agency LaPresse quoted Pepe, his lawyer, as saying. "The decision today isn't a judgment on merits. The judge only evaluated whether the appropriate place for all the charges to be decided is a trial."

Prosecutors have alleged that Schettino steered the ship too dangerously close to the island in a publicity stunt for Costa Concordia SpA, the Italian cruise ship company.

Court-appointed experts have pinned the blame for the shipwreck on Schettino, but they also concluded that the crew and Costa Crociere SpA, a unit of Miami-based Carnival Corp., committed blunders and safety breaches that contributed to the disaster.

The experts concluded that crew members didn't have proper training or certification in safety and emergency drills, and that Costa had delayed alerting coastal authorities about the accident, an accusation Costa has denied.

The findings by the experts, along with descriptions by survivors, are expected to be at the heart of the prosecution's case. Prosecutors made no immediate comment Wednesday about the judge's decision to grant a trial.

The Concordia still lies in the water on its side outside Giglio's harbor as a sophistical removal plan has fallen far behind schedule. Experts had promised to have the wreck out of there before the start of the island's summer tourist season. But a date for its removal has been postponed by at least months.

The bodies of two of the 32 victims were never found.

___

Follow Frances D'Emilio at http://twitter.com./fdemilio

PARIS (Reuters) - France will invest about 20 million euros ($25 million) to increase security for diplomats and embassies in the Middle East and Africa after its mission in Libya was targeted by a car bomb in April, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Spokesman Philippe Lalliot confirmed an email sent by Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to staff on Tuesday saying the measure had to be taken following the rising number of serious international crises and threats emanating from them.

"This plan takes into consideration the change in threats," Lalliot told a daily news briefing.

"As the minister indicated, a general program to improve security of our missions has now been established, which will concern primarily Africa and the Middle East."

France sent troops into Mali in January after Bamako asked for help in driving back Islamist rebels who controlled parts of the north and were moving south.

The military operation in the former French colony cranked up tensions in North Africa, with Islamist radicals threatening to strike back at French and Western interests.

Although nobody claimed last month's bombing at France's embassy in Tripoli, it was the first attack to directly target France since the Mali intervention.

Lalliot said the funds would be used to buy security equipment, vehicles as well as increasing the budget for guards and reinforcement missions.

It will be financed in part by the sale of overseas real estate assets owned by France, he said.

France spends more than 500 million euros a year on managing almost 2 million square meters of property and land outside the country. The Foreign Ministry has increasingly been selling property in an effort to beef up its budget as the government looks to slash ministerial spending to meet deficit targets.

It raised more than 120 million euros through sales in 2011, including its consular building in Hong Kong for about 50 million euros. ($1 = 0.7769 euros)

(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Alison Williams)