WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government has sold another piece of its stake in General Motors Co.

The Treasury Department said Friday in its April report to Congress that so far this year it has sold 58.4 million shares of GM stock and earned net proceeds of $1.6 billion.

At the end of April, Treasury had recovered about $30.7 billion of the $49.5 billion bailout it gave the Detroit automaker. That means that taxpayers are still $18.8 billion in the hole.

GM stock sold in April in a range of $27.52 to $30.84 per share. For the government to break even on its investment, the remaining stock would have to sell for more than double the April high.

On Friday GM shares closed at $31.42, down 23 cents.

In January, Treasury began selling its remaining shares of GM stock and announced it planned to complete those sales by early 2014.

And on Monday, Treasury said it would proceed with the next phase of its sales plan with the goal of selling its remaining 241.7 million shares of GM stock. That stock would have to sell for about $78 per share for the government to recoup its total costs in the GM bailout.

GM nearly ran out of cash in 2008 and needed government money to survive a trip through bankruptcy reorganization.

Last year the company bought 200 million of its shares from the government for $5.5 billion. GM's shares sold for $33 when they began publicly trading again in November 2010.

Sky clocked 22 minutes five seconds along the picturesque 17.4-kilometreroute on the island of Ischia. Movistar was second, nine seconds behind, and Astana featuring Wiggins' expected rival for the title, Vincenzo Nibali of Italy was third, 14 seconds back.

Garmin-Sharp, featuring defending Giro champion Ryder Hesjedal of Victoria, was seventh, 25 seconds behind Sky.

Italy's Dario Cataldo was the first Sky rider to cross the line but Puccio took the pink jersey courtesy of his better placement in Saturday's opening stage.

"It's a bit unexpected but I'm happy to have it," Puccio said. "I've got to thank the team. It was a great team effort."

The Omega Pharma-Quick Step team featuring stage 1 winner Mark Cavendish finished 17th, 48 seconds behind Sky.

Omega sorely missed its time trial specialist Tony Martin, who is not riding the Giro.

Wiggins, the Briton who followed his Tour title with a gold medal in the time trial at last year's London Olympics, has the same time as Puccio in the overall standings. Another Sky rider, Sergio Henao Montoya of Colombia, is third overall, also with the same time.

Wiggins gained 14 seconds on Nibali and 25 seconds on Hesjedal.

"It was a good performance for our team," Nibali said. "We're not time trial specialists most of us are climbers so this is OK."

Hesjedal was in 35th place after two stages, while Christian Meier of Sussex, N.B., was in 44th, 28 seconds back.

Other contenders such as 2011 Tour winner Cadel Evans and 2008 Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez lost even more time with their teams, BMC and Euskaltel, respectively.

The stage was held in perfect conditions on a technical course featuring two difficult climbs in the second half of the stage.

Cyclists arrived on the island off Naples by ferry Sunday morning and were returning to the mainland by boat immediately after the stage.

The Giro remains in the Naples region for Monday's third stage, a hilly and lengthy 222-kilometre leg from Sorrento to Marina di Ascea that follows the breathtaking Amalfi coast.

No more constant questions about his uncertain role with the Jets. No more criticism of the mostly non-existent wildcat offense. No more shirtless jogs in the rain after practice.

Now, the popular but polarizing quarterback is left to wonder what's left of his NFL career.

Tebow was waived by the Jets on Monday morning when he showed up at the team's facility ready to work out, the end of an embarrassingly unsuccessful one-season experiment in New York that produced more hype and headlines than production on the field.

"Unfortunately," coach Rex Ryan said in a three-paragraph news release issued by the team, "things did not work out the way we all had hoped."

It also left Tebow's football future very much in doubt.

"If he were to happen to call me, I would say, 'Look, you're starting over,'" former NFL GM Ted Sundquist said. "Tim Tebow needs to redefine who Tim Tebow is, in my opinion. He's no longer a first-round quarterback."

That's quite a fall for a player who came to New York in March 2012 as perhaps the biggest thing to hit Broadway since Joe Namath himself.

There were billboards outside the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey welcoming Tebow, and sandwiches named after him at Manhattan delis. He also had a legion of fans who followed him because of his strong Christian beliefs, and in New York, he would be able to take advantage of countless media and marketing opportunities.

And then, it all went terribly wrong.

Or, more like it, the whole idea was completely flawed from the start. For Tebow. And for the Jets.

"I think it's fair to say," Tebow said at the end of last season, "that I'm a little disappointed."

A year after he threw a TD pass to win a playoff game in overtime for Denver, the Heisman Trophy winner with two championships at Florida and a nationwide following may have suited up for the last time.

"I don't see any team giving him a chance because teams don't want to deal with the following that comes with Tebow," ESPN analyst and former NFL offensive lineman Damien Woody said. "Maybe Canada."

No NFL team has made a pitch to get him. The only nibble so far came from the Montreal Alouettes. They hold his rights in the Canadian Football League and said he could come compete for a job as a backup.

Tebow took to Twitter a few hours after being waived, citing a bible verse: "Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding," Tebow wrote, "in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."

The Jacksonville Jaguars have already ruled themselves out of giving Tebow a happy homecoming. But maybe the Chicago Bears, whose new head coach Marc Trestman tutored Tebow before the NFL draft in 2010, could give him a look as their backup.

Perhaps the San Diego Chargers would take a chance on him, adding to the circus-like atmosphere they'll likely endure after drafting Manti Te'o. New coach Mike McCoy was Tebow's offensive coordinator in Denver during the 2011 season, when the quarterback took over the offense and led the Broncos to comeback after comeback.

What about Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots? It would certainly give Belichick another chance to tweak the Jets.

As far as the CFL, it's anyone's guess as to whether Tebow would even be open to a move north of the border.

"If you can find a club that's mature enough to handle it as an organization, then you're going to find the right spot for him," Sundquist said. "What I mean by that is all the media mania and that sort of thing."

Tebow was brought to New York to be a dynamic addition to the offense, a complement to Mark Sanchez and a merchandising touchdown for the Jets. Instead, he attempted just eight passes for 39 yards and rushed 32 times for 102 yards and stunningly had no touchdowns.

The move to part ways had been expected for months, and the decision was sealed when new general manager John Idzik took former West Virginia star Geno Smith in the second round of the NFL draft Friday, giving New York six quarterbacks on its roster at the time and creating uncertainty about Sanchez's future, as well.

"Had this happened back in February, Tim might have had a chance to at least participate in free agency," said 2002 NFL MVP quarterback Rich Gannon, now an analyst for CBS Sports and SiriusXM NFL Radio. "I don't think there would have been a strong market for him, but at least he would've had that opportunity."

Gannon added that it's an even tougher situation for Tebow now because more than 20 quarterbacks were either drafted or signed as undrafted free agents in the last few days.

"Look, it's a two-way street, though," Gannon said. "It's a business. The Jets were trying to find somebody, a dance partner. Sometimes that goes into the draft and teams are calling around. I'm sure the Jets were trying to shop Tebow, and I'm sure they kept getting denied."

This is the same guy who led the Broncos to the postseason in 2011, but became expendable when Denver signed Peyton Manning as a free agent. Tebow was acquired by the Jets for a fourth-round draft pick and $1.5 million in salary. He was introduced at the Jets' facility to plenty of fanfare at a lavish news conference, with Tebow repeatedly saying he was "excited" to be in New York.

It turned out to be one of the few high points in Tebow's stay with the Jets. Along with that shirtless jog from the practice field in the rain during training camp, of course.

The Jets never figured out a way to use Tebow effectively, and he never forced the issue by being a good enough player in practice to make Ryan and his coaches put him on the field more in games.

"He seems like a great kid," Sundquist said, "and it seems like he could bring some positives to a club if he can just bury this whole thing about him being in your quarterback mix and just let him be No. 39 on your roster, one of your back-end guys who can go somewhere and help you win."

Army Lt. Col. Samuel House says 100 of the 166 men held at the U.S. base in Cuba are classified as hunger strikers as of Friday. Of those on strike, 23 are being force-fed liquid nutrients to prevent starvation. Four are in the detainee hospital for observation.

The military classifies a prisoner as a hunger striker based on criteria that include weight and the number of meals refused. Lawyers for prisoners have disputed the military's tally since the strike began in February as a protest of conditions and indefinite confinement at Guantanamo.

The official figure had been climbing until April 27 when it hit 100 for the first time.

The House approved the measure on a 361-41 vote, a day after the Senate agreed to the bill. Friday's vote came as lawmakers prepared to leave town for a weeklong spring recess, a break that would have been less pleasant if they were confronted by constituents upset over travel delays.

Republicans accused the Obama administration of purposely furloughing controllers to pressure Congress to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester that took effect last month at government agencies.

"The administration has played shameful politics with the sequester at the cost of hard-working American families," said Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa.

The White House and Democrats have argued that by law, the administration has little room to decide where the cuts fall. They want Congress to work on legislation lifting all of the cuts, which lawmakers noted have also caused reductions in Head Start preschool programs, benefits for the long-term unemployed and medical research.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said the president would sign the new bill, but he added, "The problem is this is just a Band-Aid solution."

During House debate, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had a similar complaint.

"How can we sit there and say, 'Four million Meals on Wheels for seniors, gone, but that's not important. Over 70,000 children off Head Start, but that's not important," Pelosi said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has furloughed the controllers as part of the government-wide reductions. The bill would let the FAA use up to $253 million from airport improvement and other accounts to end the furloughs through the Sept. 30 end of the federal fiscal year.

In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, the available funds can be used for other FAA operations, including preventing the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA had said it would shut the facilities to meet its share of the spending cuts.

The FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."

Administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."

Senate approval Thursday night followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.

For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.

The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.

In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.

The airlines, too, had pressed Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.

In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, said, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."

In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.

Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.

Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and an additional $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.

___

Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.

The shows are highlighting the work of 16 Peruvian designers of clothes, jewelry and accessories as well as the collection of Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, who was invited as a special participant.

One dress presented by designer Sitka Semsh gave a contemporary spin to an Inca princess, while Ani Alvarez Calderon showed designs based on styles from the Puno and Lake Titicaca region. Amaro Casanova showed off a designed playing on the celebration of the Feast of Candlemas in the same area.

Ruiz de la Prada, meanwhile, flooded the catwalks with bold color and patterns.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, mentioned the security breach at the beginning of a hearing Wednesday on cybersecurity. The incident involves at least 22 celebrities and politicians, including pro golfer Tiger Woods and first lady Michelle Obama.

Goodlatte said the U.S. has billions of dollars at stake, as foreign hackers try to steal sensitive information from businesses. A Justice Department official testifying at the hearing said the agency is, quote, "in a position to aggressively investigate and prosecute cybercrime wherever it occurs."

FDA reviewers said in briefing documents, posted on the regulator's website on Monday, that approval of the device would not be appropriate at the time as major questions of safety, efficacy and overall benefit-risk profile remained unanswered.

The device is being tested to treat mitral valve insufficiency - a disorder where a heart valve does not close properly when the heart pumps blood, causing blood to flow back into the heart - in patients considered high risk for open surgery.

The device is inserted into the blood stream using a catheter.

"The FDA staff is asking for more information. Abbott is conducting multiple trials on MitraClip, including the COAPT study, and the staff would want to look at that data," BMO Capital Markets analyst Joanne Wuensch said.

The COAPT trial is testing the device in high-risk inoperable and high-risk mitral valve patients. Abbott has also recently developed a European trial for the patient population.

Abbott had changed the proposed use for the device after the FDA expressed concerns that there was a lack of evidence to support its approval for a broader use in patients with significant mitral valve insufficiency, the reviewers said in the documents. (http://link.reuters.com/kyf76t)

"FDA firmly believes that the currently enrolling COAPT and European trials are well-designed trials that will help to answer the many important questions posed by the very limited data analyses presented in this (approval application)," the reviewers said.

However, the reviewers recommended that MitraClip continue to remain available to high-risk patients as an investigational device so that Abbott can conduct its trials in an optimal manner.

"The MitraClip device represents a true advance for (high-risk) patients and we look forward to discussing the totality of the clinical evidence with the advisory committee members and hearing their recommendations on Wednesday," Abbott said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

An advisory panel of independent experts will discuss the data submitted by Abbott on the device and will vote on its safety, efficacy and risk profile.

BMO's Wuensch said her earnings estimate on Abbott did not include any expected revenue from MitraClip, adding that she believed the Street consensus also excluded any potential sales from the device.

Abbott shares were down 1.2 percent at $33.72 on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday.

(Reporting by Esha Dey in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel and Roshni Menon)

(Reuters) - "I'm a compulsive laundry room thief," says one Facebook confession. "I'm the reason the 'Public Urination is Illegal' signs were put up at Coyote Village," says another.

"I sold books for the semester to go to South Padre for spring break ... Gotta pay for the booze somehow," reveals yet another poster.

By turns rueful and raunchy, these anonymous admissions pop up on 'campus confession' pages unofficially linked to scores of high schools and universities.

Like many social media trends, the confession craze captivates teenagers and 20-somethings - but alarms teachers, law enforcement officers and counselors.

"It's another creative venue where kids are able to say hurtful things, and that's frustrating," said Sameer Hinduja, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center at Florida Atlantic University.

At the same time, the pages can sometimes offer a catharsis of sorts, attracting heartfelt disclosures from students struggling with depression, alcoholism or eating disorders. Classmates often respond with links to counseling sites and offers to talk.

The anonymity of confession pages is at the core of their appeal, and they use a simple workaround to Facebook's general insistence that people use their real identity on the social network.

Students who set up confessional pages must do so under their real names, as per Facebook policy. But they can choose to cloak their identity as page administrators. To keep posts anonymous, they use free online survey tools such as SurveyMonkey or Google Forms. Confessors simply click on a link to open up a blank box where they can type their tell-all.

The page administrator doesn't see identifying information - just the latest confession.

The pages then prompt visitors to show admiration for the juiciest confessions by "liking" them and posting comments - often smart-aleck remarks that can draw fan bases of their own.

"The more outrageous comments attract more attention ... so there's little incentive to exercise restraint," Hinduja said.

Alisen Lafaive found that out quickly when she began reading the Facebook confession page for Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. "At first, I thought, 'Ooh, Clarkson Confessions! This ought to be juicy!'" said Lafaive, a junior. Then she began scrolling through posts filled with crude invective toward women.

"These things are mean," she said. "My feelings are hurt even though none of its directed toward me." She posted a plea for courtesy but was ignored.

The confessions pages do not violate Facebook rules so long as the content remains within the bounds of civility, said a spokeswoman for the social network. But the pages have drawn complaints from some from principals, college administrators and police.

Dismayed by the content on two high-school confession pages in Kalispell, Montana last month, police asked Facebook to shut them down. Facebook closed one and removed offensive comments from another - but the student instigators simply started a third page, said Jason Parce, a police officer in Kalispell.

Parce threatened to charge participants with defamation and they quickly pulled down their posts. Though some posts were anonymous, many comments came in through Facebook accounts so the writers could easily be identified.

"There was a lot of sexually explicit content directed at specific individuals and a lot of hateful language being used," said Parce. "Absolutely, kids are more willing to be crude when they don't have to face anyone. They hide behind the computer."

High-school pages in Idaho and Arizona have also been shut down after school officials moved to investigate offensive posts.

SAFEGUARDS

Administrators of several confession sites told Reuters that they review each submission and refuse to post any that seem inappropriate.

Facebook also routinely reviews pages on its site and responds to any complaints about content. If its reviewers deem a post objectionable, the social network will remove it or shut down the site entirely, the Facebook spokeswoman said.

None of these safeguards can determine whether those posting and commenting on confessions are bona fide students of a particular school.

At the college level, the concern isn't bullying so much as brand protection. Universities including San Francisco State have asked confession sites to stop using school logos and photographs of iconic buildings for fear that outsiders might mistake the many tales of alcohol-fueled sexual conquests for an official depiction of campus life.

Despite, or perhaps because of, official disapproval, the fad continues to gain steam - and may be helping Facebook regain some of its allure among teens and college students. A recent poll by an online survey tool, Survata, found teens and young adults aged 13 to 25 used micro-blogging platform Tumblr more than Facebook.

Scores of Facebook confession pages have popped up in recent months, at small private colleges and huge state universities. Princeton, Harvard and Yale have pages. So does Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.

Some campuses have Twitter confession accounts as well but Facebook remains the most popular medium. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's confessions page has racked up more than 21,000 Facebook "likes." The University of Hawaii at Manoa has nearly 12,000. College students in India, New Zealand and Great Britain are baring their secrets online, too.

"It just makes me laugh," said Matt Miller, a biology major at the University of Hawaii who checks out his classmates' confessions several times a day. Among the recent posts: a lament about the difficulty of conversing with beautiful brunettes, an admission about a romantic relationship with a teaching assistant, and a cryptic, "Majoring in mathematics. Judge me."

The campus confessionals teem with references to specific dorms, classes, fraternities and traditions, giving them an intimate, gossip-over-coffee feel. Many have also become forums for posting secret crushes: "To the boy in Art History with the long hair and blue shoes. You're so cute!!"

The pages can also offer a lifeline to struggling students.

"I want to pass on hope to people who feel like they don't have any," said Stephanie Suchecki, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay who makes a point of responding to the most wrenching posts.

Moments of compassion, however, are often swamped by the lewd and the crude - just how some confession junkies like it.

An administrator of the Arizona State University confessions site recently goaded readers to ramp up their revelations: "What happened to your crazy stories!?!? Hook ups gone bad?! Party gone crazy?! Come on guys! This is ASU!"

(Reporting by Stephanie Simon in Boston; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Tiffany Wu and Tim Dobbyn)

WELLINGTON, March 17 (Reuters) - Relatively low, slow pitches in the first two tests of the series against New Zealand have taken away a lot of the spectacle of test cricket, England bowling coach David Saker has said.

The second test between the two sides is heading for a damp draw on Monday after rain washed out virtually all of the two afternoon sessions at the Basin Reserve on Sunday with New Zealand on 162 for two, still 49 runs from making England bat again, though heavy rain is forecast for much of the final day.

The first test at University Oval in Dunedin, which was also effected by rain, ended in a draw with both sides producing scores in excess of 400 runs, with England batting 170 overs to save the game in their second innings.

Saker, however, said he felt frustrated as a bowling coach and for the fans watching the matches that the bowlers from both sides were being taken out of the game by the benign wicket.

"It's not a great spectacle for test cricket when you're playing on lowish, slowish wickets and it makes it hard for batsmen to score and bowlers to prise their wickets out," the Australian told reporters after play was abandoned.

"From where I'm sitting, I always like to see the ball get through and see batsmen playing off front and back foot and seeing catches behind the wicket always excites me.

"These wickets you mainly have to prepare for batsmen error and you have to be really patient so that you can build enough pressure up so the batsmen make mistakes.

"Unfortunately that doesn't really go so much for the bowlers' skills, it's waiting for the batter to make a mistake."

England's pace bowlers, who were seen as key to the test series after James Anderson and Steven Finn exploited pace and bounce in the limited over series, have been mostly nullified so far in the test series.

In the three innings so far, Anderson has bowled 70 overs and taken seven wickets for 232 runs while Finn has bowled 57-odd overs and taken three wickets for 210 runs.

While Saker felt both were one decent bowling spell away from changing the course of a match, England needed all three of their bowlers working together as a unit to put pressure on New Zealand.

"When you're trying to get teams out on pitches like this you need all three of your quicks all working really well together," he added.

"We've worked well together in patches but we know as a team when we put it together as a three quick and spinner combination we're pretty hard to handle no matter what surface we get."

The final test of the series is on a drop-in pitch at Eden Park next week, and Saker was hoping there would be more in it than they had seen so far.

"Hopefully we get a wicket that produces a good contest."

"Anyone watching the game wants to see the ball bounce through, they want to see the batsmen play off the back foot more.

"Sometimes it's a bit frustrating for the spectators."(Editing by Amlan Chakraborty)