Deutsche Bank Italia, which for some 15 years had provided the Vatican with electronic payment services, said Thursday that the Bank of Italy had pulled its authorization after Dec. 31.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the Italian central bank took the action because the Holy See has not yet fully complied with European Union safeguards against money laundering. That means Italian banks are not authorized to operate within the Vatican, which is in the process of improving its mechanisms to combat laundering.

The Vatican says it is scrambling to solve the problem for thousands of visitors who flock to its very popular Vatican Museums, which include highlights like the Sistine Chapel. The Holy See had no immediate comment on the Bank of Italy's reported reasons.

Tourists in the long lines Thursday that snaked around Vatican City walls were not happy about the inconvenience.

"It's certainly a disadvantage," said Giuseppe Amoruso, an Italian. "Credit cards provide a useful service, which needs to be accessible to everybody, everywhere."

"A lot of tourists don't have cash on them, so they have to get euros and don't know where to get them," said Fluger William Hunter, an American tourist.

The central bank said a routine inspection found that Deutsche Bank Italia hadn't sought authorization when it first started providing services at the Vatican. When it finally did, the Bank of Italy turned it down because the Vatican's banking norms, including measures to combat money laundering, didn't meet Italy's more stringent criteria of recent years, a central bank official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because there was no official statement on the case.

The Vatican has been striving to upgrade its measures to detect and discourage money laundering, hiring a Swiss expert just a few months ago. Last summer, the Holy See passed a key European financial transparency test but received failing grades for its financial watchdog agency and its bank, formally called the Institute for Religious Works.

The museums, with their entrance fees and popular souvenir shops, are a big money-maker for the Vatican. Other Vatican attractions, such as tours of the Vatican's ancient underground spaces, also charge admission.

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Giulia Saudelli from Rome contributed.

Kaymer, who holed the putt that ensured Europe retained the Ryder Cup against the United States in Illinois in September, has a good record in the Middle East having won the Abu Dhabi Championship three times.

"I'm playing well after a slow start to last season and it was great to finish the year with a trophy in South Africa," the German said about his win in last month's Sun City Challenge.

"The excitement of the Ryder Cup was amazing. I may never experience a moment like that again. I'm still proud I was able to come through for my team mates," Kaymer told the official tournament website (www.qatar-masters.com).

Scot Lawrie will be defending the Qatar Masters title he won 12 months ago.

The Jan. 23-26 tournament is part of the European Tour's Middle East swing which also includes next week's Abu Dhabi event featuring world number one Rory McIlroy and 14-times major winner Tiger Woods and the Jan. 31-Feb. 3 Dubai Desert Classic.(Writing by Tony Jimenez; Editing by Alastair Himmer)

Griffin only left Sunday's 24-14 loss to the Seahawks when he injured himself while trying to grab a bad shotgun snap in the fourth quarter, but critics are suggesting the face of the Redskins should have been taken out of the game earlier.

"Robert is our franchise quarterback. I am not going to take a chance on his career to win a game," Shanahan told reporters at a news conference on Monday.

"But I also know that when you have got the belief in the guy and you feel that he can play at a certain level and the doctor is telling you that he is OK to go in - then you have got to do what you think is right.

"If I didn't think he was right then he wouldn't have been in, its just that simple," added Shanahan, who said he spoke to team doctors on the sidelines on four occasions during the game.

Griffin, who led the Redskins to their first NFC East title since 1999, will head to Florida on Tuesday to see Dr James Andrews and have further tests after an MRI proved inconclusive.

Speaking after Sunday's loss, Griffin said he clearly told the coach he was able to play but conceded he had put himself at risk by playing with the injury.

"I think I did put myself at more risk by being out there but every time you step on the field, you're putting your life, your career and every single ligament in your body in jeopardy," said Griffin.

The Redskins had led the wild-card playoff game 14-0 in the first quarter but Griffin struggled through the rest of the game until walking off the field under his own power.

Shanahan said he was well used to criticism but it was clear he was stung by some of the commentary in the hours following the Redskins' home loss.

"As a head football coach, used to criticism, you make decisions based on what you think is the right thing to do. You listen to a lot of different people, you get their opinions," said Shanahan.

"Then you make the call and you have to do what you think is right. If people got a chance to be in your shoes, to be around the scenario then maybe they would understand the decisions you make.

"To think we are going to question (risk) a guy's career to win a game is crazy."

Shanahan said he had no indication about the seriousness of Griffin's knee injury but said the need for new scans was based on clarifying whether he had a recurrence of previous anterior and lateral ligament injuries.

"Anytime you have a former ACL or LLC and you take a look at the MRI, sometimes it is old injuries, that is why he is going to fly down to see Dr Andrews and get some new MRIs get a physical examination.

"Right now, everything is total speculation," he said.

Andrews caused controversy on Sunday when he contradicted Shanahan by saying he had not authorized Griffin's return to the game after being injured in an earlier game - the December 9 regular season win against the Baltimore Ravens.

Shanahan repeated his stance that Griffin had been given clearance by Andrews and when asked if the doctor's comment put him in a bad spot he said "Sure does, sure does."

(Reporting by Simon Evans in Miami; Editing by Frank Pingue)

circling a star with a far-flung stellar companion worlds that are part of "wide binary" systems are susceptible to violent and dramatic orbital disruptions, including outright ejection, the study found.

Such effects are generally limited to sprawling planetary systems with at least one distantly orbiting world, while more compact systems are relatively immune. This finding, which observational evidence supports, should help astronomers better understand the structure and evolution of across the galaxy, researchers said.

"The fact that planets observed within wide binaries tend to have more eccentric (or 'excited') orbits than those around isolated stars tells us that wide binaries do often disrupt planetary systems," lead author Nathan Kaib, of Northwestern University and the University of Toronto, told SPACE.com via email. []

"Thus, we believe most planetary systems are extended, with outer planets orbiting at tens of AU from their host stars," Kaib added. (One AU, or , equals the distance from Earth to the sun about 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.)

The study was published today (Jan. 6) in the journal Nature and will be presented by Kaib at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif., on Monday (Jan. 7).

Shifting stellar orbits

Two-star systems occur commonly throughout our galaxy; indeed, astronomers think the Milky Way harbors about as many binary systems as single stars. Recently, astronomers have begun discovering planets in binary systems, some of them with two suns in their skies, like Luke Skywalker's home planent in the "Star Wars" films.

Many double-star systems throughout the galaxy are , in which 1,000 AU or more separate the stellar companions on average.

The distance between stars in a wide binary often changes dramatically over time, however, since their orbits around a common center of mass can be far from circular.

"The stellar orbits of wide binaries are very sensitive to disturbances from other passing stars as well as the tidal field of the," Kaib said in a statement. "This causes their stellar orbits to constantly change their eccentricity, their degree of circularity. If a wide binary lasts long enough, it eventually will find itself with a very high orbital eccentricity at some point in its life.

Eccentric orbits bring the two stars quite close together from time to time, even if the wide binary has a large average separation distance. And these close encounters can wreak havoc on planetary systems, the researchers found after performing about 3,000 computer simulations.

In one set of runs, for example, the team added a wide-binary companion to our own solar system. In nearly half of the simulations, at least one giant planet Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune got booted out into space.

Signficant orbital disruption generally takes hundreds of millions or billions of years to manifest, Kaib and his colleagues calculated.

"Consequently, planets in these systems initially form and evolve as if they orbited an isolated star," Kaib said. "It is only much later that they begin to feel the effects of their companion star, which often times leads to disruption of the planetary system."

Shedding light on extrasolar systems

Such destabilization, which is more dramatic in wide binaries than in more tightly orbiting two-star systems, does not always take the form of planetary ejection. Often, exoplanets just get tugged from their orginal, near-circular orbits into more eccentric ones, the simulations showed.

The researchers also looked at orbital eccentricities of actual exoplanets. The team found that planets in wide binaries have more eccentric orbits than worlds that circle single stars, suggesting the computer models are on the money.

"The eccentric planetary orbits seen in these systems are essentially scars from past disruptions caused by the companion star," co-author Sean Raymond, of the University of Bordeaux and the National Center for Scientific Research in France, said in a statement.

The team's computer simulations further suggest that these disruptions generally happen only in planetary systems that extend at least 10 AU or so from the host star.

Taken together, the observational and modeling results imply that many extrasolar systems harbor distantly orbiting worlds, though such planets are tough for astronomers to detect at the moment, researchers said.

"Given that most planet-detection campaigns cannot detect planets beyond 5-10 AU from their host stars, our results provide new clues about the characteristics of planetary systems in a regime that is poorly constrained by current observations," Kaib told SPACE.com. "We believe that planets orbiting at distances of 10 AU or further from their host stars are common."

Follow SPACE.com senior writer Mike Wall on Twitter or SPACE.com . We're also on and.

Boeing and Bell Helicopter, partners in the V-22 Osprey, plan to enter into the competition the tilt-rotor aircraft that can fly like a plane, but also hover like a helicopter.

In an unusually candid statement, company officials expressed concern that the aircraft's "full-value" for search-and-rescue might not be appreciated under the government's approach to the program.

Robert Dompka, a senior executive at Bell Helicopter, says the firm would like to see extra criteria added to the planned procurement.

He says the program is weighted toward replacing legacy aircraft, the 50-year-old C-115 Buffalos and nearly four decade-old C-130 Hercules, rather than looking to the future.

Dompka says Bell would like to see defence planners take a "broader perspective" and consider alternative ways of conducting missions, such as using an aircraft that can search, arrive at a scene, hover and conduct a rescue.

Deutsche Bank Italia, which for some 15 years had provided the Vatican with electronic payment services, said Thursday that the Bank of Italy had pulled its authorization after Dec. 31.

The Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the Italian central bank took the action because the Holy See has not yet fully complied with European Union safeguards against money laundering. That means Italian banks are not authorized to operate within the Vatican, which is in the process of improving its mechanisms to combat laundering.

The Vatican says it is scrambling to solve the problem for thousands of visitors who flock to its very popular Vatican Museums, which include highlights like the Sistine Chapel. The Holy See had no immediate comment on the Bank of Italy's reported reasons.

Tourists in the long lines Thursday that snaked around Vatican City walls were not happy about the inconvenience.

"It's certainly a disadvantage," said Giuseppe Amoruso, an Italian. "Credit cards provide a useful service, which needs to be accessible to everybody, everywhere."

"A lot of tourists don't have cash on them, so they have to get euros and don't know where to get them," said Fluger William Hunter, an American tourist.

The central bank said a routine inspection found that Deutsche Bank Italia hadn't sought authorization when it first started providing services at the Vatican. When it finally did, the Bank of Italy turned it down because the Vatican's banking norms, including measures to combat money laundering, didn't meet Italy's more stringent criteria of recent years, a central bank official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because there was no official statement on the case.

The Vatican has been striving to upgrade its measures to detect and discourage money laundering, hiring a Swiss expert just a few months ago. Last summer, the Holy See passed a key European financial transparency test but received failing grades for its financial watchdog agency and its bank, formally called the Institute for Religious Works.

The museums, with their entrance fees and popular souvenir shops, are a big money-maker for the Vatican. Other Vatican attractions, such as tours of the Vatican's ancient underground spaces, also charge admission.

___

Giulia Saudelli from Rome contributed.

Kessler, who won the title for the third time, knocked Magee down in the second round with a right to the stomach and floored his opponent again with another body shot in the third.

The referee stopped the fight 24 seconds into the third round of Magee's first title defense leaving Kessler to aim for a showdown with American Andre Ward or Britain's Carl Froch.

The 37-year-old Magee told Sky Sports: "The first shot he hit me to the body really stung me badly. I just couldn't recover. It took all my might to get up from that shot."

"Mikkel is a great champion and all through the fight and the build-up he's treated me with respect ... I always knew he was a champion. I trained like a champion, I gave it my all but a body shot like that is hard to recover from."

The 33-year-old Kessler, now a five-time world champion with a 46-2 record, returned to the ring last year after an eye injury, sustained in a Super Six defeat to Ward in 2009, forced him to withdraw from the tournament in 2010.

His only other loss was to Britain's retired Joe Calzaghe.

(Writing by Ken Ferris; Editing by Ian Ransom)

Ana Ivanovic evened the tie by overwhelming Australian teenager Ashleigh Barty 6-2, 6-3. Barty made a positive start, but once Ivanovic made the first break to lead 4-2 she took almost total control to ensure the tie would be decided in the mixed doubles.

Tomic put Djokovic under pressure right from the start, holding five break points in the opening game. Djokovic survived that threat and held a break point of his own to lead 5-3 but netted a backhand. Tomic then broke serve in the next game with a crosscourt forehand winner and served out the set.

He kept up the pressure in the second set, failing to convert a break point to lead 4-3 but won his sixth break point at 5-4 which left him serving for the match, and his first win over Djokovic in four tries.

"I played a very, very good match and I'm just happy after the training the last few months, that it's all coming good and the training's paying off," Tomic said.

"Hard work does pay off. I'm still improving but I feel this today was a very good sign. I've got to continue playing like this."

Playing in front of more than 13,000 in the sold-out arena, Tomic admitted to feeling nervous at the start.

"Very difficult to play the first few games," he said. "It's very hard playing against a player like Novak and come out relaxed. But I'm happy the way I came out. I was serving really good and the whole match was on my side because my serve was working really well."

Djokovic was generous in defeat and conceded that Tomic deserved his victory.

"He played really well. He deserved to win," Djokovic said. "I knew I was coming here to Australia really late and it still takes time for me to get used to it.

"But I'm not taking anything from his win. He played terrific. He's in great form. I was always on the back foot and he was the better player."

Earlier, Italy came from behind to beat Germany 2-1.

Francesca Schiavone staged a fightback to defeat Tatjana Malek 3-6, 6-3, 6-3 and level the tie for Italy after Tommy Haas resisted a solid challenge and defeated Andreas Seppi 7-6 (3), 7-6 (7). Italy then won the doubles 6-4, 7-5.

On Thursday, the United States team of John Isner and Venus Williams plays the Spanish pairing of Fernando Verdasco and Anabel Medina Garrigues for a place in Saturday's final. Australia also face Italy.

With rumors swirling that Chavez had taken a turn for the worse, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised interview in Cuba that he had met with the president twice, spoken with him and planned to return to Venezuela on Wednesday.

Maduro said Chavez faces "a complex and delicate situation." But Maduro also said that when he talked with the president and looked at his face, he seemed to have "the same strength as always."

"All the time we've been hoping for his positive evolution. Sometimes he has had light improvements, sometimes stationary situations," Maduro said in the prerecorded interview, which was broadcast Tuesday night by the Caracas-based television network Telesur.

"I was able to see him twice, converse with him. He's totally conscious of the complexity of his post-operative state and he expressly asked us ... to keep the nation informed always, always with the truth, as hard as it may be in certain circumstances," Maduro said.

Chavez has not been seen or heard from since the Dec. 11 operation, and officials have reported a series of ups and downs in his recovery the most recent, on Sunday, announcing that new complications from a respiratory infection had put the president in a "delicate" state.

Speculation has grown since Maduro announced those latest troubles, which were a sharp shift from his remark nearly a week earlier that the president had been up and walking.

In Tuesday's interview, Maduro did not provide any new details about Chavez's complications. But he joined other Chavez allies in urging Venezuelans to ignore gossip, saying rumors are being spread due to "the hatred of the enemies of Venezuela."

He didn't refer to any rumors in particular, though one of them circulating online had described Chavez as being in a coma.

Political opponents of Chavez have complained that the government hasn't told the country nearly enough about his health.

Maduro's remarks about the president came at the end of an interview in which he praised his government's programs at length, recalled the history of the Cuban revolution and touched on what he called the long-term strength of Chavez's socialist Bolivian Revolution movement.

He mentioned that former Cuban President Fidel Castro had been in the hospital, and praised Cuba's government effusively. "Today we're together on a single path," Maduro said.

Critics in Venezuela sounded off on Twitter while the interview was aired, some saying Maduro sounded like a mouthpiece for the Cuban government. In their online messages, many Chavez opponents criticized a dearth of information provided by Maduro, accusing him of withholding key details about Chavez's condition. Opposition politicians have demanded that the government provide the country with a full medical report.

Even some of his supporters said on Tuesday that they wished they knew more.

"We're distressed by El Comandante's health," said Francisca Fuentes, who was walking through a downtown square with her grandchildren. "I think they aren't telling us the whole truth. It's time for them to speak clearly. It's like when you have a sick relative and the doctor lies to you every once in a while."

Chavez has been fighting an undisclosed type of pelvic cancer since June 2011. He has declined to reveal the precise location of the tumors that have been surgically removed. The president announced on Dec. 8, two month after winning re-election, that his cancer had come back despite previous surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

"There's nothing we can do except wait for the government to deign to say how he is really," said Daniel Jimenez, an opposition supporter who was in a square in an affluent Caracas neighborhood.

Jimenez and many other Venezuelans say it seems increasingly unlikely that Chavez can be sworn in as scheduled Jan. 10 for his new term.

Venezuelans rang in 2013 as usual with fireworks raining down all over the capital of Caracas. But some of Chavez's supporters had long faces as they gathered in Bolivar Plaza on Monday night holding pictures of the president. A government-sponsored New Year's Eve celebration there had been called off, and instead his supporters strummed guitars and read poetry in Chavez's honor.

Maduro didn't discuss the upcoming inauguration plans, saying only that he's hopeful Chavez will improve.

Chavez has been in office since 1999 and was re-elected in October, three months after he announced that his latest tests showed him to be cancer-free. If he dies or is unable to continue in office, the Venezuelan Constitution says a new election should be held within 30 days.

Before his operation, Chavez acknowledged he faced risks and designated Maduro as his successor, telling supporters they should vote for the vice president if a new presidential election was necessary.

The vice president said that Chavez "has faced an illness with courage and dignity, and he's there fighting, fighting."

"Someone asked me yesterday by text message: How is the president? And I said, 'With giant strength,'" Maduro said. He recalled taking Chavez by the hand, saying "he squeezed me with gigantic strength as we talked."

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Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

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Ian James on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ianjamesap

Rousseff's health was "within normal levels," according to a statement released by her office following the check-up at the Sirio-Libanes Hospital in Sao Paulo, one of South America's leading cancer treatment centers.

Rousseff underwent chemotherapy in 2009 and briefly wore a wig, but the cancer went into remission and she appeared to be in good health by the time she staged her winning campaign for the presidency in 2010.

Concerns over her health have faded since then, although a bout with pneumonia and a lengthy recovery in 2011 have kept the issue on some investors' radar screens.

(Reporting by Ana Flor, Writing by Brian Winter; Editing by Doina Chiacu)