Why Rice took her name off the list

Ambassador Susan Rice stunned Washington Thursday afternoon by withdrawing her name for consideration as secretary of State. President Obama accepted her decision.

Currently the US envoy to the United Nations, Ambassador Rice was widely seen as a top prospect to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is retiring at the end of Mr. Obama’s first term. But her star was tarnished in September after she made erroneous statements on TV about the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

High-profile Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, had promised a major fight if Obama had sent her name to the Senate for confirmation. By accepting her withdrawal, Obama has avoided expending political capital in trying to get her through the Senate, and also avoided refocusing the national spotlight on what went wrong in Benghazi.

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“If nominated, I am now convinced that the confirmation process would be lengthy, disruptive, and costly – to you and to our most pressing national and international priorities,” Rice wrote in a letter to Obama and obtained by NBC News. “That trade-off is simply not worth it to our country…. Therefore, I respectfully request that you no longer consider my candidacy at this time.”

The White House released a statement from the president indicating that he had spoken with Rice, and accepted her request to remove her name from consideration. He lauded her service as “an extraordinarily capable, patriotic, and passionate public servant.”

“While I deeply regret the unfair and misleading attacks on Susan Rice in recent weeks, her decision demonstrates the strength of her character, and an admirable commitment to rise above the politics of the moment to put our national interests first,” the president’s statement said.

At issue were her statements over what had precipitated the attack on the US mission in Benghazi. In a round of Sunday morning TV interviews five days after the Sept. 11 incident, she said it had resulted from spontaneous protests over an anti-Islamic video and was not a coordinated terrorist attack, possibly linked to Al Qaeda affiliates.

In late November, Rice acknowledged that her initial explanation was partially inaccurate, but that did not mollify her critics. She met on Capitol Hill with Senator McCain and Sens. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte (R) of New Hampshire, but they did not back down in their opposition to her potential nomination as secretary of State.

McCain slammed the handling of Benghazi as either a coverup or incompetence. Fox News also kept up the drumbeat of pressure with in-depth coverage. The suggestion was that the Obama administration did not want to acknowledge a successful terrorist attack – one that led to the first killing of a US ambassador since 1979 – at the height of the presidential campaign.

In his statement, Obama indicated that Rice will remain as UN ambassador, and lauded her service.

“Already, she has secured international support for sanctions against Iran and North Korea, worked to protect the people of Libya, helped achieve an independent South Sudan, stood up for Israel’s security and legitimacy, and served as an advocate for UN reform and the human rights of all people,” Obama said.

“I am grateful that Susan will continue to serve as our ambassador at the United Nations and a key member of my cabinet and national security team, carrying her work forward on all of these and other issues.”

Now all eyes turn to Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts, another top prospect for secretary of State. Senator Kerry is an experienced foreign-policy hand, and has long been thought to want the job. But having him leave the Senate could cost the Democrats his seat.

Massachusetts’s other senator, Scott Brown (R), just lost reelection to Democratic firebrand Elizabeth Warren. But he remains popular in the Bay State and would be a strong candidate in a special election to replace Kerry. The Democrats don’t have an obvious choice – unless Gov. Deval Patrick (D) were to jump in.

Obama also must soon decide his nominee for another about-to-be-vacant post: secretary of Defense. News reports Thursday indicated that former US Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican, may have the edge to replace Leon Panetta, who has made clear his intention to step down.

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Official: Syria fires Scud missiles at rebels

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Syrian government forces have fired Scud missiles at insurgents in recent days, escalating the 2-year-old conflict against rebels seeking to overthrow the regime, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, two officials said forces of President Bashar Assad have fired the missiles from the Damascus area into northern Syria. These officials asked not to be named because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

News of the missiles came on the same day that more than 100 countries, including the United States, recognized a new Syrian opposition coalition. That has further isolated Assad's regime and opened a way for greater humanitarian assistance to the forces battling to oust him.

One official said there was no indication that chemical weapons were aboard the missiles. Officials have said over the past week that they feared rebel advances were prompting Assad to consider using chemical weapons.

This official estimated that the number of Scuds fired was more than a half dozen, confirming details first reported by The New York Times.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Assad has fired missiles, but wouldn't specify what kind.

"As the regime becomes more and more desperate, we see it resorting to increased lethality and more vicious weapons moving forward and we have in recent days seen missiles deployed," she said.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, speaking to reporters, said he could not confirm the report, but said if true it would be a sign of desperation.

"The idea that the Syrian regime would launch missiles, within its borders, at its own people, is stunning, desperate and a completely disproportionate military escalation," Carney said.

The new development happened as officials planned an international conference to further assist opposition to Assad.

"This is the usual pattern of behavior that whenever there is an important decision that is anti-Assad taken by the international community, the Assad regime escalates the degree of violence to show its degree of displeasure," said Murhaf Jouejati, a specialist on Syrian affairs at the National Defense University. "Like saying, 'Oh, yeah? I'll show you!' "

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Associated Press writers Julie Pace, Matthew Lee, Pauline Jelinek and Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report from Washington.

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‘The Hobbit’: Like One Bad Video Game

Perhaps the most exciting thing about Peter Jackson‘s landmark, blockbuster Lord of the Rings films was that they made fans, through a combination of stunning landscapes and intricate special effects and soaring music and dramatic spectacle, feel as though we were seeing an almost impossible elevation of the potential size and scope of movies. Here was a rich, dense, sprawling series of films that thundered like myths, that were breathtaking in their realization of some pretty huge ambitions. Sure, they were massive corporate projects that earned lots of people millions of dollars, but to the regular moviegoer they were feats that proved the majesty of the movies, the potential to tell enthralling stories that also played like art. And so it’s hugely disappointing, if not all that surprising, that Jackson’s first foray back into the land of Middle Earth, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, is such a sullenly, basely commercial and junky affair, a movie that feels not crafted with Jackson’s seemingly divine inspiration but by the hands of studio executives. Perhaps the reason that Warner Bros. is forgoing the usual console video-game tie-ins for simple mobile games is because the damn movie already looks like a video game, and not a very fun one at that.

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The Lord of the Rings series succeeded aesthetically because it was such an elegant, painting-like wonder to behold. The textures and palettes all had the look of a particularly vibrant illustrated story book, the kind of immersive vision that exists somewhere between imagination and the real world. For The Hobbit, though, Jackson chose to film at a high frame rate and with Real 3D technology in mind — because 3D movies are doing well these days and, hell, doesn’t hurt that the tickets cost more — but the results are frequently hideous. Those among us who have bought shiny new flatscreen TVs over the past few years are likely familiar with the dreaded “Soap Opera Effect,” which turns what should be stunning, glossy images into cheap-looking messes, all strange movement and lighting, like any network soap or cheap British show. (Think Children of Men looking like Torchwood.) It’s the problem of technology over-thinking or over-performing, and it is on startling, gruesome display in The Hobbit. When you’re wearing the 3D glasses (and admittedly sitting a little off to the side), this hugely expensive movie looks like it was shot on a nice handheld digital camera on the cheap. Actors stand in strange contrast to the digital backgrounds behind them, motion looks too slick or unnatural. Gone are the somber vistas and rugged terrain, replaced by eye-aching shine and plastic-y smoothness. The most special effects-heavy sequences look very much like the non-playable parts of modern video games — the exposition bits that can amp up the graphics a bit because they don’t have to worry about the randomness of play, the stuff you see in the commercials, right before the “rated T for teen” part. I don’t know if I just had a bad projector or what, but I spent the bulk of this long movie distracted by how dreadful everything looked. With a few small exceptions — The Shire glows with lovely green, a mountain cave fight/chase sequence is bracingly rich — this is a dismally unattractive movie, featuring too many shots that I’m sure were lovely at some point but are too often ruined and chintzified by the terrible technology monster.

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So on its aesthetic merits, The Hobbit comes up more than short. The trouble is, it’s not rescued by many narrative successes. Jackson has taken largely from the first third of J.R.R. Tolkien‘s novel — about an expedition to reclaim a lost dwarf kingdom from a dragon — but he’s also added in some elements found in appendices detailing an expanded universe that Tolkien included in an edition of The Lord of the Rings. This is partly to flesh out the story as Jackson believes Tolkien meant it to be, but it’s also meant to satisfy the needs of a supersize film trilogy based on one mere book. And so we get several pointless and uninteresting diversions, mostly about dwarves and their bitter enemies the orcs, that read exactly like the filler they are. Jackson is trying to flesh out dwarf mythology, because we spend so much of our time with these little guys, but it feels tediously synthetic, as if there are two movies competing for attention with neither one getting its due. We go to the goblin caves of The Hobbit and then, upon deliverance from that dark place, are thrust right into some kind of honor-and-revenge-based conflict with a snarling, giant, one-armed orc. It’s all very crowded and strangely hurried for a movie that, all told, takes its sweet time.

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I suspect that another of Jackson’s reasons for including all this extra dramatic battling is that, on its own, The Hobbit is something of a children’s book. We’ve got wacky, food-crazed dwarves, a mean old dragon, and a funny little guy to take us along on the journey. Jackson doesn’t deny his movie the kiddie flourishes — there’s snot humor and butt jokes and lots of other goofy stuff involving some trolls, plus two little musical numbers involving all the dwarves — but he then tries to complement them with the big, booming faith and honor stuff and it never properly congeals. One moment we’re on a sprightly children’s adventure, the next we’re talking in big fashion about all that warlike serious business. It’s a discordant mix, and I’d imagine it will leave both kids and adults out in the cold.

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The film is not without its bright spots, rare as they may be. Ian McKellen is a feisty, spirited, mysterious Gandalf as ever before, and Martin Freeman nicely and genially projects everyday hobbit-ness, even if he’s a tad underused in the film. (Yeah, in the movie called The Hobbit, there’s barely any time to focus on the darn Hobbit.) Cate Blanchett turns up once more as the ethereal elf Galadriel, lending the movie a cool classiness and a welcome dose of feminine energy. And, of course, we’re back, for one mesmerizing scene, with our beloved Gollum, so winningly and creepily played by Andy Serkis, and here yet another marvel of computer innovation. In some ways Gollum’s innate cartoonishness works better now than it did in the original trilogy, which is probably the only time that can be said of this movie. There are one or two moments in Gollum’s pivotal scene where he’s given a bit too much modern humor to play, but all told he’s the most welcome sight in the film. Maybe that’s just the newfound purist in me, yearning for the old days, but I suspect it has more to do with Gollum being the only genuinely realized character we’ve so far encountered in this new trio of films. Everyone else is a snoozy lesser version of someone else, especially the ridiculous bloodthirsty orc leader, who snarls and growls like something out of the Underworld movies. Sometimes, in the jumble of the The Hobbit‘s many cluttered and dull action scenes, the frantic blur looks like any sequence from one of those schlocky ’00s B-movies; all roughly hewn CGI clashing around nonsensically, with this orc fellow leading the charge.

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Despite all the technical advancements, if we can call them that, most moments in The Hobbit feel like Peter Jackson is sadly trying to make all those familiar LOTR elements work for him once more, without ever really being able to reignite the old flame. The supposedly awe-inducing visit to the elf city of Rivendell is a ho-hum experience in this new frame-rate-ruined world. A silly battle sequence involving a wizard, a silly Radagast the Brown, riding around pell-mell on a rabbit-drawn sled looks like an interstitial from late-era Super Mario. Even Elijah Wood, appearing briefly as Frodo, looks strange — a pale ghost of himself, as if stitched in from another movie by some forlorn and desperate hand. The film is inevitably resonant with memories of the original trilogy, and little about it can hold up to the comparison. There’s too much effort in the wrong places — action instead of story, technical tricks instead of actual design — and the constant rhythm of arbitrary event after arbitrary event becomes tiresome well before the film’s two hours and forty minutes have lurched to a halt. I’m sure there are kids who will like this wan, distracted effort — they might not yet have anything else to compare it to, depending on their age — but as a human who remembers what came before, I’m afraid The Hobbit left me nothing but frustrated, sad, and tired. Frustrated that these big-budget visionaries seem to consistently feel they have to taint their earlier masterpieces with techno-junk followups, sad that once magical lands now flicker cheap and garish in my head, and tired at the prospect of two more of these things. I exited the theater trying to remind myself that Attack of the Clones was way better than Phantom Menace and that Revenge of the Sith was better still. I then realized how depressing it was that I was making that comparison. Oh, Middle Earth. What has become of you?

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Shhhh! A new law says TV ads can't blare anymore

NEW YORK (AP) — TV viewing could soon sound a little calmer. The CALM Act, which limits the volume of TV commercials, goes into effect on Thursday.

CALM stands for Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation. The act is designed to prevent TV commercials from blaring at louder volumes than the program content they accompany. The rules govern broadcasters as well as cable and satellite operators.

The rules are meant to protect viewers from excessively loud commercials.

The Federal Communications Commission adopted the rules a year ago, but gave the industry a one-year grace period to adopt them.

Suspected violations can be reported by the public to the FCC on its website.

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Online: www.fcc.gov

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

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

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

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

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

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Public's response saved lives in rampage

Citizens' coolheadedness and individual preparation for coping with gunfire in public settings may have curtailed the casualty count from Tuesday's shooting at a Portland, Ore., shopping mall, law officers suggested on the day after the tragedy.

Two people died and one was critically wounded before the shooter, 22-year-old Jacob Tyler Roberts of Portland, killed himself a few minutes after running into the food court at the Clackamas Town Center mall. Officials say Mr. Roberts, wearing camouflage and a white hockey mask, had methodically fired "multiple" rounds from an assault-style rifle at random shoppers.

Most of the 10,000 Christmas shoppers at the mall appeared nearly as ready and able as police to deal with a gunman appearing suddenly in their midst, Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said on Wednesday.

"Many people have asked me why there were so few victims during this incident," said Sheriff Roberts. He listed the fact that Mr. Roberts's AR-15 semiautomatic rifle intermittently jammed and noted a well-practiced mall lockdown procedure. But he also credited "10,000 people in the mall who at one time kept a level head, got themselves out of the mall, helped others get out, secured themselves in stores.… It was really about a whole group of people coming together to make a difference."

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Law officers said during a Wednesday press conference that they did not know whether any member of the public carrying a concealed weapon had counterattacked Roberts. But they said they are certain that Roberts died by his own hand after fleeing down a stairwell from the mall's upper level.

The death rate from mass shootings has ticked up slightly in recent years, even as deaths in single-victim incidents have decreased, according to a recent analysis of FBI crime data by the Huffington Post. The worst recent mass shooting came in July in Aurora, Colo., where a gunman killed 12 people and injured 58 during a midnight screening of a new "Batman" movie.

Gun-control advocates seized on the mall shooting as a possible result of the expiration in 2004 of a national ban on assault weapons.

"Santa Claus could have been shot in the mall," said Penny Okamoto, executive director of Ceasefire Oregon, in an interview with the Portland Tribune. "If you're sick of this, you should call your legislators to tell them to fix the laws so that assault weapons don't end up in the hands of felons."

Many versions of the AR-15 were banned under the assault weapons law, but it's not known if the gun used in the Clackamas mall shooting was one of them.

Police said Roberts had no criminal record and had stolen the AR-15 from "someone he knew."

Does the collected response by shoppers at the Clackamas Town Center indicate that Americans are becoming less daunted by senseless violence and, perhaps, better ready to react? Those who back broad gun rights under the Constitution's Second Amendment suggest a shift may be under way in people's readiness to respond.

In blocking Illinois's ban on concealed weapons, the last such law in the nation, Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner on Tuesday implied that self-defense readiness in public is not only protected by the US Constitution, but may be good social policy. An awareness "that many law-abiding citizens are walking the streets armed may make criminals timid," he wrote in his ruling.

"As far as a social shift, I think people are getting more intelligent and appropriate in their reactions to shooters," says Dave Kopel, research director at the Independence Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank in Golden, Colo. "Police training has changed in significant ways since the Columbine [High School] shooting [in 1999], where they no longer wait for the SWAT team to arrive but go in immediately with … the army they have. There's also an awareness [among police and the public] that if you're trying to stop a gangster from robbing a liquor store, you may have a [heck] of a fight on your hands, but that these publicity-seeking guys with mental illness, they basically crumble at first opposition."

The upshot, says Mr. Kopel: "Lying down and cowering doesn't seem to work very well, so law enforcement has gotten smarter and civilians have gotten smarter."

In Clackamas County, Sheriff Roberts said local law-enforcement personnel had trained earlier this year for a shooting scenario at Clackamas Town Center, an exercise that involved both police and retailers. On Tuesday, arriving police, in keeping with evolving police tactics nationwide, formed small teams and quickly entered the mall to pursue the shooter. Police could not say Wednesday whether any officers saw the shooter before he killed himself.

Dennis Curtis, the mall's general manager, noted that police officers told him that they were amazed "how many stores were secured and people were locked in place" upon entering the mall to look for the shooter.

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Taliban popular where US fought biggest battle

MARJAH, Afghanistan (AP) — Nearly three years after U.S.-led forces launched the biggest operation of the war to clear insurgents, foster economic growth and set a model for the rest of Afghanistan, angry residents of Helmand province say they are too afraid to go out after dark because of marauding bands of thieves.

And during the day, they say corrupt police and government officials bully them into paying bribes. After 11 years of war, many here long for a return of the Taliban. They say that under the Taliban, who routinely punished thieves by cutting off a hand, they were at least safe from crime and corruption.

"If you had a box of cash on your head, you could go to the farthest part of Marjah and no one would take it from you, even at night," said Maulvi Daoud, who runs a cubbyhole sized-shop in the town of Marjah. "Today you bring your motorcycle in front of your shop and it will be gone. Now the situation is that you go on the road and they are standing in police and army uniform with weapons and they can take your money."

It was in the town of Marjah in early 2010 that some 15,000 NATO and Afghan forces waged the war's biggest battle. They not only fought the Taliban with weapons, they promised to bring good governance to Marjah and the rest of the southern province of Helmand — and demonstrate to the residents the advantages of shunning the militants.

But it appears the flaw in the plan was with the quality of Afghans chosen by President Hamid Karzai to govern and police the area after most of the fighting ended. And that adds to growing doubts about the entire country's future after foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014.

Despite military claims of gains across the province and an overall drop in violence, Marjah residents told The Associated Press that NATO's counterinsurgency experiment has failed. A bleak picture also emerges from anecdotal evidence collected from dozens of interviews with residents elsewhere in the province, some from the most violent districts.

Many claim the U.S.-funded local police, a type of locally sanctioned militia, routinely demand bribes and threaten to accuse those who do not comply of being members of the Taliban. Good governance never came to Marjah, they say.

In villages of sun-baked mud homes, at crowded bus stops and in local tea houses where residents sit cross-legged on plastic-covered tables drinking tea and eating off communal plates, people scoffed at claims of security and development. They heaped criticism on the Afghan government and officials, accusing them of stealing billions of dollars in aid money meant for the people and on an international community that they said ignored their needs and pandered to a corrupt administration.

Daoud, the Marjah shop owner, said there was more security under the country's Taliban regime that was ousted by the U.S.-led invasion in late 2001.

"They were never cruel to us and the one difference was security. It was better during the Taliban," he said.

His partner in the rickety shop along Marjah's chaotic one-street bazaar, Mohammed Haider, said poppy farmers who planted substitute crops such as cotton are losing money because they cannot sell their harvests. He predicted poppy production would double when foreign soldiers leave in 2014.

At a bus stop in Helmand's provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, residents scrambled for dilapidated old buses and cars to go to parts of Helmand. Hamidullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, was waiting for a bus to Sangin district — the scene of some of the most violent fighting between the Taliban and British and U.S. forces.

Like the majority of those at the stop, he wanted foreign forces to leave Afghanistan.

"All these foreign soldiers are here and it is totally insecure everywhere in Helmand," Hamidullah said. "For the time that they are in Afghanistan we will always have war."

Several of the men scrambling on top the packed buses and jamming themselves into the back of cars seemed to growl at the presence of foreigners in their midst. A single question: "What is the situation like in Helmand today?" brought a cacophony of answers. Many of the voices sounded angry, some sounded weary and a few angry-looking men walked away.

"We are completely destroyed today," said Hamidullah.

"The situation is getting worse and worse," shouted a voice in the crowd. Another yelled: "There is no security because of the foreigners." And from a deeply wrinkled elderly man whose voice seemed both angry and sad: "If the foreigners are out of Afghanistan, all the problems will be solved. Are our lives any better?"

Analysts who know Helmand say a corrupt government poses one of the biggest hurdles to stability, alienating the local population and driving them into the hands of the Taliban.

The province is strategically important because of a massive poppy production that is financing the insurgency and fueling criminal activity. While some success has been achieved at getting farmers to plant substitute crops, Helmand is still one of Afghanistan's largest opium-producing provinces, often blamed on anti-government sentiment and collusion between corrupt government officials and the Taliban.

The NATO-led coalition, known as the International Security Assistance Force, claims there are tangible gains against the Taliban in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.

"While insurgent activity remains problematic in several districts, primarily in northern Helmand and western Kandahar, data from the battle space shows a marked decrease in overall enemy activity," ISAF spokesman Jamie Graybeal said recently.

Despite a drop of 8 percent in militant attacks from January to October compared to the same period last year, Helmand and neighboring Nimroz province accounted for 32 percent of all such attacks reported across the country from October 2011 to October this year, according to ISAF.

Ryan Evans, a research fellow at the U.S.-based Center for National Policy, called Helmand the "most dangerous and violent" of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.

"From 2010 to early 2012, one of five ISAF soldiers was killed in this one province — Helmand. And the province has since taken more lives and limbs than any other province," said Evans, who worked with U.S. and British troops in Helmand during 2010 and 2011.

The larger question, of course, is whether what's happening in Helmand is a harbinger of what the rest of Afghanistan will look like after the departure of the international troops.

A report released last month by the British Parliament's International Development Committee offered grim statistics.

Afghanistan continues to be one of the poorest countries in the world, with the average person earning less than one dollar a day despite $32 billion in foreign investment.

The country has also tumbled in corruption ratings assembled by Transparency International. Afghanistan was ranked 117 out of 158 countries in 2005, then slid to 180 out of 183 nations last year. The scandal-ridden Kabul Bank milked millions of dollars from Afghans' savings.

Some Afghans believe their countrymen are responsible for the current state of affairs.

Haji Khalil who moved his family from Marjah to Lashkar Gah during the 2010 offensive, blamed Afghans for the spike in thefts and lawlessness since the defeat of the Taliban.

"During the Taliban no one would steal because we knew the punishment, but when they left everyone began to steal," Khalil said.

"We became worse after the Taliban," he said. "The problem is with us."

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Kathy Gannon is AP's Special Regional Correspondent for Afghanistan and Pakistan. She can be followed on www.twitter.com/kathygannon

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Microsoft ups Surface production, to sell in more stores

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp has stepped up manufacturing of the Surface tablet, its new device designed to counter Apple Inc‘s iPad, and will introduce it to third-party retailers this week.

The moves suggest Microsoft is seeing some demand for its first own-brand computer in the crucial holiday shopping season, although it has yet to divulge any sales figures.

“The public reaction to Surface has been exciting to see,” said Panos Panay, general manager of Microsoft’s Surface project, which forms part of the company’s Windows unit.

“We’ve increased production and are expanding the ways in which customers can interact with, experience and purchase Surface,” said Panay, but gave no details of how many extra units were being produced.

Panay did not mention names of retailers that will sell the Surface, but separately office equipment retailer Staples Inc said it would stock the tablet from Wednesday.

He said the Surface would also be on sale at retailers in Australia from mid-December, with more countries to follow in the next few months.

Since launch in late October, the Surface has only been sold by Microsoft itself, in its own brick and mortar stores in the United States and Canada and online in Australia, China, France, the UK and Germany.

The only Surface model available now – officially called Surface with Windows RT – runs a version of Windows created to work on the low-power chips designed by ARM Holdings, which dominate smartphones and tablets but are incompatible with old Windows applications.

It starts at $ 499 for the 32 gigabyte version plus $ 120 for a thin cover that doubles as a keyboard.

A larger, heavier tablet – called Surface with Windows 8 Pro – will be introduced in January, running on an Intel Corp chip that works with all Microsoft’s Windows and Office applications. Microsoft plans to price the new Surface from $ 899 for a 64 gigabyte version.

The world’s largest software company also said it would keep its chain of ‘pop-up’ holiday stores open into the new year and will convert them into permanent retail outlets or what it called “specialty store locations”.

Microsoft’s recent push into physical retail – following Apple’s great success – has resulted in 31 permanent stores plus 34 holiday ‘pop-up’ stores in the U.S. and Canada.

If Microsoft converted each of the temporary stores into permanent outlets it would have 65 stores, still well below Apple with almost 400 worldwide.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby in Seattle, Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bangalore)

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'Evita' to close in January when Big 3 leave

NEW YORK (AP) — The Broadway revival of "Evita" — faced with trying to replace Ricky Martin, Elena Roger and Michael Cerveris — will instead close when the Big Three leave early next year.

Producers of the Tony Award-nominated revival of Tim Rice's and Andrew Lloyd Webber's landmark musical said Tuesday night they have decided against plans for an open-ended run after Martin, Roger and Cerveris leave after the Jan. 26 performance.

"Our extensive search for a new cast presented the significant challenges of not only replacing a high-caliber trio of stars but also synchronizing the schedules of potential replacements with that of the production," producer Hal Luftig said in a statement. "Despite going down the road with a variety of artists, the planets have simply not aligned for us to engage the right talent at the right time."

When it closes, the musical will have played 26 previews and 337 performances, far less than the original's more than 1,580 shows played between 1979 and 1983.

A national tour will launch in September 2013 at the Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence, R.I., and a cast album has been released, including the songs "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "High Flying Adored." The cast for the tour has not been announced.

The revival opened March 12 at the Marquis Theatre, directed by Michael Grandage and choreographed by Rob Ashford. It has broken the theater's box office record seven times, though has seen the box office slump at times.

Last week, it pulled in $920,994, or a little more than half its $1,666,936 potential. The average ticket price was $111.73 and the top premium went for $275.

The musical tells the story of Argentina's Eva Peron, who rose from the slums to the presidential mansion. Roger plays Eva, Cerveris her husband and Martin is Che.

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Online: http://evitaonbroadway.com

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DA investigating Texas' troubled $3B cancer agency

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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