ATHENS, June 2 (Reuters) - Finland's Jari-Matti Latvala won the Acropolis Rally on Sunday for his first victory in the world championship since he joined Volkswagen at the end of last season.

Spain's Dani Sordo was second for Citroen, with Belgian Thierry Neuville third in a Ford.

Latvala's French team mate Sebastien Ogier, out of contention from the opening stage due to a fuel feed problem, remained championship leader after six rounds and collected three bonus points by winning the final 'power stage'.

Poland's former Formula One driver Robert Kubica was fastest in the WRC2 category, finishing 11th overall.

Latvala had made his world championship debut in the event a decade ago as an 18-year-old and said: "This is my number one with VW and it feels amazing.

"We managed to get a nice win here and it is great to see all the team smiling," added the Finn who finished the three-day, 306.53-km race one minute 50 seconds ahead of Sordo.

Latvala took control on Saturday after Friday's overnight leader Evgeny Novikov of Russia suffered a punctured rear tyre on his Ford Fiesta RS after hitting a rock early in SS4, and the Finn never looked like giving away his lead despite the tricky terrain.

In the overall standings, Ogier remains in top spot with a 52-point lead over Latvala, who leapfrogged Sebastien Loeb into second place.

Loeb, the nine-times world champion and last year's Acropolis winner, opted to sit out this year's edition but is still only six points adrift of Latvala in third place. (Reporting by Graham Wood, editing by Clare Fallon)

When most people think of PC manufacturer HP and "tablets," they probably think of a Windows 8 device. Either that, or the ill-fated TouchPad, an iPad-sized webOS gadget which sold so poorly that HP had to dump them all in a $99 fire sale just a few months in.

If you decided to wait for the price of its latest tablet to go down to $99, though, you wouldn't be saving that much. That's because HP is undercutting Google's $199 Nexus 7 with Like the Nexus 7, it runs Google's open-sourceand for the price, you get slightly lower specs, including just 8 GB of storage.

Why a 7-inch Android tablet?

While it didn't exactly help stave off the Kindle, Barnes and Noble's 7-inch Nook Color e-reader was extremely popular for awhile, as a cheap color tablet which could be easily modified to run normal Android. Then last year'sfrom Google sold millions.

Thatsold in the same time, but pretty soon even Apple had gotten in on the act with its iPad Mini tablet. And with tablets cutting into traditional PC sales, it was perhaps inevitable that someone at HP would try to make something like this.

What do you get for the money?

A 7-inch tablet "with stainless steel accents and a soft-touch back," which comes in red and silver (although the availability of different colors "may vary by region"). It has a dual-core 1.6 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage, and a microSD slot for expandable memory. The 7-inch screen has a 1024x600 resolution, and it has a VGA webcam and a 3 megapixel rear-facing shooter. It also has Beats Audio technology built in.

How does it compare to other small tablets?

Compared to the Nexus 7, you lose out on the powerful Tegra 3 processor, which is capable of running "Tegra HD exclusive" games. The Slate 7 also runs a slightly less recent version of "Jelly Bean" Android, has half the storage space (of the $199 Nexus 7 model), and has a much fuzzier screen and webcam. The Nexus 7 also has a $299 32 GB version with HSPA+ wireless Internet, although it lacks the microSD slot and rear-facing camera.

Compared to theyou'll mostly be missing Apple's sleek industrial design and high-performance processor, plus the hundreds of thousands of iPad-exclusive games and apps. Of course, it also costs about twice as much.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

"I think it's harder, there's no doubt about it," Obama told reporters on Tuesday. "It puts more of a burden on us."

The state-based exchanges, created under the 2010 healthcare law, were designed to offer individuals a centralized place to buy health insurance policies for 2014. But a number of mostly Republican-led states have opted out, pushing individuals to the back-up federally run exchange.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey; editing by Jackie Frank)

(This story was refiled to add dropped words to quote in the second paragraph.)

Each machine has a set of features designed to draw gamers away from rival consoles. There's one thing all three have in common, though: They are about more than gaming and include entertainment services such as television, movies and music.

Here's a closer look at the three systems. More details are expected at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles next month.

Wii U (Nintendo)

The Japanese gaming company launched the Wii U, the follow-up to its popular Wii, in November, making it the only new console out for last year's holiday season. The console features a tablet-like controller with a touch screen, called the GamePad, which can be used to control games on the TV set or to play games separately, as you would on a regular tablet computer. It also allows someone with a GamePad to have a different experience with a game than someone playing it at the same time with a regular Wii controller.

The GamePad also serves as a fancy remote controller to navigate a TV-watching feature called TVii. The service groups your favorite shows and sports teams together, whether it's on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.

Unlike the Wii, the Wii U features high-definition graphics. In doing so, Nintendo's system catches up to the years-old Xbox 360 from Microsoft and the PlayStation 3 from Sony.

Sales of the Wii U have been disappointing, with 3.5 million sold as of March 31, the end of Nintendo's fiscal year. Nintendo Co. had originally expected to sell 5.5 million units and later lowered the forecast to 4 million, but it still fell short.

Price: Starts at $300 but some retailers have offered it at lower prices.

PlayStation 4 (Sony)

Sony shared some details about the PlayStation 4 in February, but it didn't show what the console would look like. The company said the PS4 would essentially be a "supercharged PC," much like the Xbox. That's a big departure from the old and idiosyncratic PlayStation design and should make it easier for developers to create games.

But the adoption of PC chips also means that the new console won't be able to play games created for any of the three previous PlayStations. Players will have to stream older games over the Internet.

Other new features revolve around social networking and remote access. With one button, you can broadcast video of your game play so friends elsewhere can watch. You can also run a game on the PS4 to stream over the Internet to Sony's mobile gaming device, the PlayStation Vita, which debuted last year.

The PlayStation online network will have access to Sony's video and music services, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon as long as you have subscriptions to those services. You'll also be able to access Facebook.

The PS4 will have a Blu-ray disc drive for movies, just like the PS3. The console will go on sale this holiday season, though Sony Corp. has not disclosed an exact date.

Price: Not yet announced.

Xbox One (Microsoft)

Microsoft's new console seeks to deliver the Holy Grail of home entertainment an all-in-one device that lets you watch television, play movies, listen to music and browse the Internet as well as play video games.

The Xbox One lets you use voice commands to switch between watching TV and playing "Call of Duty," or ask "What's on HBO?" to view a TV channel guide. Simply connect your cable or satellite set-top box to the game machine with an HDMI cable.

A new version of Microsoft's camera-based Kinect controller offers better motion and voice detection than the one currently available. Unlike the Xbox 360, the Xbox One will require Kinect, which will come with the package.

Microsoft also reached a multiyear deal with the National Football League to develop new interactive viewing experiences, such as the ability 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.

Although Nintendo's Wii was the most popular of the three at first, the Xbox 360 has outsold its rivals in recent years largely because of its robust online service, Xbox Live, which allows people to play games with others online for as much as $60 a year with annual plans. Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call of Duty," has been a driving force behind Xbox Live, and Microsoft said players will be able to download new content for upcoming titles in the series on the Xbox One before any other system.

The new console will also add the ability to play Blu-ray discs, matching what Sony has in its older PlayStation 3. What it won't play are games for the Xbox 360.

Microsoft said the system will launch this year, but it did not give a date during Tuesday's unveiling.

Price: Not yet announced.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices appeared divided on Monday as they considered a challenge to a law requiring non-profit organizations to adopt an anti-prostitution policy in order to obtain federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs abroad.

Several justices voiced concerns that the law imposes unconstitutional limits on freedom of speech, but others indicated the government had a right to direct how its money should be spent.

The 2003 law bars funding for non-governmental organizations that work on HIV/AIDS prevention but do not have a policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.

The Alliance for Open Society International and Pathfinder International - NGOs that receive funding for overseas HIV/AIDS prevention - sued in 2005, citing the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

The organizations challenging the provision do not want to take a stand on prostitution. They say the law interferes with their work providing advice and counseling to prostitutes about the risks of HIV infection.

The non-profit world is divided, with 46 groups, many of which focus on women's rights, supporting the law.

The groups obtained an injunction in 2006 that has prevented the policy from being enforced ever since.

Justice Elena Kagan is recused, most likely due to her previous role as solicitor general in the Obama administration, meaning only eight justices are presiding over the case.

At least three indicated they had concerns about the law, with Justice Samuel Alito the most outspoken.

He signaled discomfort with the general concept of the government having a broad right to direct groups it is funding on what they can and cannot say.

"It seems to me like quite a dangerous proposition," he said. Alito questioned whether, for example, the government could impose similar conditions to funding for higher education.

FIRST AMENDMENT QUESTIONS

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg focused on a move made by the Bush administration, later amended by the Obama administration, to resolve some of the First Amendment questions. The government has said that NGOs could set up affiliate groups to receive the funding without the parent organization having to announce a position on prostitution.

Ginsburg said that approach may not solve the problem because it's "no simple thing" for an NGO to set up a new organization in another country. She said that requiring this extra step is "quite an arduous" burden to place on NGOs.

Taking another line of attack, Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the law restricted an NGO's ability to "stay true to its own beliefs."

Other justices, while not wholeheartedly endorsing the government's argument in defense of the law, did not appear to feel that there was a problem in general with Congress attaching conditions on funding.

Justice Stephen Breyer said there were "dozens and dozens" of examples in which the government gave funding to groups because they shared the same goals. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be in the program," he said.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the government is "just picking out who is an appropriate partner."

Under a barrage of questioning from the justices, David Bowker, the NGOs' attorney, seemed momentarily stumped by one of Roberts' questions.

The chief justice asked whether, during the period in which South Africa was racially segregated, the U.S. government could have limited funding for public health programs to NGOs that were opposed to the policy, known as apartheid.

After a lengthy pause, Bowker conceded the question was tougher than the one posed in his case, but that it would still be impermissible for the government to make decisions on that basis.

The case is Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-19.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Bill Trott)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Salesman or scammer, Jim makes and loses several fortunes in North America and the Brazilian jungle, but then loses himself as he runs over anyone who gets in his way.

Old and broke he falls in love with - or at least has serious sexual desires for - Mara, a beautiful and ambitious Israeli woman fifty years his junior. Strangely and perhaps even more unlikely, Mara falls for Jim - or perhaps what he could be if he could again rise from poverty.

"The Dream Merchant: A Novel", published by Thomas Dunne Books for St. Martin's Press in March, is a first novel for Fred Waitzkin, 69, a non-fiction author and journalist known for his critically acclaimed and bestselling 1984 memoir about his chess prodigy son, "Searching for Bobby Fischer".

Waitzkin talked to Reuters about his new book and why his first novel is only coming out as he nears his 70th birthday.

Q: What took you so long to write this book?

A: I always wanted to write a novel. When I was younger, I wanted to start writing fiction but I was not good at it. In the middle part of my career I wrote for the big magazines and I learned a lot about stories. Journalism is tremendous training ground as a novelist. It took me 10 years to write (this book). I am also a slow writer. And I did a tremendous amount of research. I wanted to smell the jungle, go to the brothels, go to the gun shops. I have to see it and feel it as a writer.

Q: You describe great and numerous sex scenes. What does that say about you?

A: Obviously, I like sex scenes. Jim is a lusty guy. There is not a lot written about old men who have love affairs with young women. But it's part of the human condition. Most old men would love to have an affair with a young woman. Men of power do have relationships with young woman. It rejuvenates them. The women who read the book like it.

Q: It's a man's book. Why would women read it?

A: For any reason a woman would read a good book, it speaks to the human condition. It tells a story about the world we live in, the people who live in it. A good book is a good book.

Q: What did your wife and daughter think of the sex scenes, that you their husband/father wrote them? How long have you been married?

A: My daughter (28) was more uncomfortable than my wife (69) but ultimately they loved it. Forty-nine years.

Q: Is this the life you wish you had lived?

A: In fantasy, sure. When I went to Brazil (to do research) I found it intoxicating. Vicariously, I feel I have lived that life. I would not replace my own with it. Writing for six months about certain characters I felt I lived those characters.

Q: Was writing the book therapy for you?

A: All my books are therapy. You live so intensely. You empty out everything that is important to you. I have felt a rape or purging of myself every time I write a book.

Q: Are you a happy man?

A: Yes, but I am a complicated guy. How can you live a life and not feel angst, sadness, nostalgia.

Q: Who was "Jim" in real life?

A: I admired my father hugely. He was a super salesman but he crossed a lot of people, he ruined people. Frankly my father has shown up in all of my books. Jim is not Abe Waitzkin but he is inspired by Abe Waitzkin.

Q: Without giving anything away, was there an alternative ending?

A: The way I write, the greatest things are the surprises. I did not have this novel blocked out. I did not have the last 30 pages at page 150 but I knew the last line 200 pages ahead.

It's not a Dick and Jane novel. There are a lot of ruined women in Jim's wake. In his attempts to remake himself, there are a lot of people ruined.

(Reporting By Nick Olivari; Editing by Elaine Lies and Paul Tait)

(Changes spelling of Abe Waitzkin in 8th answer, typographical error in final answer)

The novel coronavirus is related to SARS, which killed some 800 people in a global epidemic in 2003. Dr. Margaret Chan, head of the World Health Organization, singled out the illness in a speech on Monday in Geneva.

"We understand too little about this virus when viewed against the magnitude of its potential threat," Chan said at the annual WHO meeting. "We do not know where the virus hides in nature. We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention. These are alarm bells. And we must respond."

WHO said in an update earlier this month that 20 of the 40 confirmed cases of the disease have ended in death. Most of those infected since the virus was identified last year had traveled to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or Pakistan. There also have been cases in Britain and Germany.

The ministry said the Frenchman, whose illness was identified May 8 after he returned from a visit to the United Arab Emirates, died Tuesday. His hospital roommate also tested positive for the illness.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Health Ministry reported five new cases of the virus. All the patients were in their 70s or older.

Lebanon's sectarian divide mirrors that of Syria, and Lebanese armed factions have increasingly taken sides in the fighting next door. There was no claim of responsibility for Sunday's rocket attacks, but they struck just hours after Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to propel Syrian President Bashar Assad to victory.

In Baghdad, Syria's foreign minister offered the first direct confirmation that the Assad regime is willing to take part in talks aimed at ending the Syrian conflict. A U.N.-sponsored conference, envisioned for next month in Geneva, is to bring together representatives of the Assad regime and the Syrian opposition for talks on a political transition.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said Sunday the government is willing "in principle" to participate in the conference. He added that such talks present a "good opportunity for a political solution for the crisis in Syria," but did not say under what terms Assad would dispatch representatives.

The date, agenda and list of participants for the conference remain unclear, and wide gaps remain about its objectives.

Syrian opposition leaders have said they are willing to attend the Geneva talks, but that Assad's departure from power must top the agenda. Assad said this month that his future won't be determined by international talks and that he will only step down after elections are held.

The foreign minister's statement puts more pressure on Syria's fractured political opposition to signal acceptance as well. The main bloc, the Syrian National Coalition, was meeting in Istanbul for the fourth day Sunday to come up with a unified position on the proposed peace talks, elect new leaders and expand membership.

Louay Safi, a senior member of the coalition, said participants were bogged down in talks about the expansion, and won't be able to issue a formal statement on the Geneva talks until membership issues are settled.

The opposition's Western and Arab allies remain skeptical about the Syrian regime's commitment to negotiations. They have warned Assad that they will step up aid to Syrian rebels if the regime does not negotiate in good faith though U.S. reluctance to arm the rebels may have taken the bite out of such threats.

Meanwhile, fighting has continued unabated inside Syria.

For the past week, regime troops and its Hezbollah allies have waged an offensive against the strategic rebel-held town of Qusair in western Syria. They have gained ground amid heavy shelling, but rebels have held some positions.

The Qusair battle has laid bare Hezbollah's growing role in the Syrian conflict. The Shiite militant group, which has been fighting alongside Assad's troops, initially tried to play down its involvement, but could no longer do so after dozens of its fighters were killed in Qusair and buried in large funerals in Lebanon.

On Saturday, Hezbollah's leader firmly linked his militia's fate to the survival of the Syrian regime, raising the stakes not just in Syria, but also in Hezbollah's relations with rival groups in Lebanon.

"We will continue this road until the end, we will take the responsibility and we will make all the sacrifices," he said in a televised speech. "We will be victorious."

Hours after the speech, two rockets struck neighborhoods in south Beirut, a rare occurrence even in a country used to sectarian strife. Street fighting between rival Lebanese groups has been relatively common since the end of the country's 15-year civil war in 1990, but rocket or artillery attacks on Beirut neighborhoods are unusual.

One rocket struck a car dealership in the Mar Mikhael district on the southern edge of the capital, wounding four Syrian workers, according to Lebanese security officials.

After the attack, part of the rocket's main body was left embedded in the ground, where a Lebanese soldier measured its diameter. Two cars were badly damaged and others had windows shattered by shrapnel.

Another rocket hit the second floor of an apartment building in the Chiyah district, about two kilometers (one mile) away. It damaged a living room, but no one was hurt.

Lebanese media said security forces were searching for a third unexploded rocket.

A security official said rocket launchers were found in the woods in a predominantly Christian and Druse area in suburbs southeast of Beirut. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Earlier this week, a rebel commander threatened to strike Beirut's southern suburbs in retaliation for Hezbollah's involvement in Syria. The threat was made in a video showing Col. Abdul-Jabbar al-Aqidi, commander of the Syrian rebels' Military Council in Aleppo, while apparently en route to Qusair.

"We used to say before, 'We are coming Bashar.' Now we say, 'We are coming Bashar and we are coming Hassan Nasrallah,'" the commander says in the video.

"We will strike at your strongholds in Dahiyeh," he says, using the Lebanese name for Hezbollah's power center in south Beirut. The video was still posted online on Youtube on Sunday.

Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar said the rocket attack took aim at coexistence among Lebanon's numerous sects and claimed the U.S. and Israel want to return Lebanon to the years of civil war. "They want to throw Lebanon backward into the traps of civil wars that we left behind," he told reporters. "We will not go backward."

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel blamed "saboteurs" and said: "We hope what is happening in Syria does not move to Lebanon."

Lebanese Sunnis sympathetic to the Syrian opposition have also been fighting in Syria alongside the rebels. Nasrallah urged both sides to fight for their side in Syria "and leave Lebanon out of it."

The fighting next door has repeatedly spilled over the border. For the past week, Assad's opponents and supporters have been clashing in the Lebanese port city of Tripoli, using mortars, grenades and machine guns to attack densely populated areas.

___

Associated Press writer Sinan Salah in Baghdad, Iraq contributed reporting.

The defending Stanley Cup champions maintained the series theme of home-ice domination to seize a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven set before the teams return to San Jose for Game Six on Sunday.

After a goalless first period, Anze Kopitar opened the scoring for the Kings in the final few minutes of the second as he pounced on the rebound of a Kyle Clifford long-range shot to notch his second tally of the playoffs, first in this series.

Stirred by a fanatical home support, the Kings refused to relinquish the advantage and doubled their lead early in the third when Slava Voynov connected from distance just 53 seconds into the final period.

Jeff Carter capped a comprehensive performance for the hosts when he steered the puck into an empty net to complete the scoring.

"I think a good start (was the key to the win)," Kopitar told reporters.

"We can all agree that it was probably our best effort in the playoffs so far. We needed it and we came up big in this one."

(Reporting by Ben Everill in Los Angeles; Editing by John O'Brien)