NEWARK, New Jersey (Reuters) - A federal judge has temporarily blocked an auction house from selling basketball great Kobe Bryant's jerseys, championship rings and other memorabilia worth up to $1 million in a case stemming from a dispute between the Los Angeles Laker and his mother.

The All-Star guard has asked the courts to halt the sale of his belongings, which are in possession of his mother, Pamela Bryant, saying he had not been consulted and only learned of the sale in a press release issued by Goldin Auctions.

"Although Pamela Bryant maintained possession of certain of plaintiff's personal property for benefit of plaintiff, he never granted his mother ownership of that property, nor the right to co-sign such property for auction," an attorney for Bryant said in a May 6 complaint filed in a California court.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford in Santa Ana, Calif., on May 8 issued a temporary restraining order blocking the sale until a scheduled May 13 hearing.

Goldin Auctions, which has filed a suit to have the June sale move forward, said Bryant's mother contacted the company in December with an offer to sell the items, including her son's Lower Merion High School jersey and six rings, one of which is his 2000 Lakers championship ring.

Bryant's mother allegedly told the auction house that the memorabilia had been in her possession for 15 years and that her son had told her five years ago the items belonged to her, according to court papers filed by Goldin Auctions.

The auction house said it wired a $450,000 advance to Bryant's parents, Pamela and Joseph.

The items were legally obtained, Goldin Auctions's lawyers said on Friday.

Pamela Bryant "provided certificates of authenticity and attested in a sworn affidavit to their lawful ownership," said attorney Jeffrey Cohen. "Goldin Auctions has already issued a substantial monetary advance for these items and is only interested in proceeding with its legal right to conduct its business without further interference.

A lawyer for Kobe Bryant, Mark Campbell, said in a statement that, "Mr. Bryant's personal property has ended up in the possession of someone who does not lawfully own it. We look forward to resolving this legal matter through the legal system."

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Leslie Gevirtz)

The Big Ten is giving them the boot and following a more conventional route for its division names.

The conference is going with "East" and "West" instead and switching to a nine-game scheduling format after presidents and chancellors approved the moves on Sunday.

The new division alignments will begin in 2014 when Rutgers and Maryland join the conference, meaning "Legends" and "Leaders" will be a thing of the past.That will probably come as good news for fans who have criticized those names ever since the league unveiled them in 2010. To many, they were confusing and didn't help identify where teams play, but that won't be an issue any more.

Besides the new division alignment, teams will go from playing eight conference games to nine in 2016.

"Big Ten directors of athletics concluded four months of study and deliberation with unanimous approval of a future football structure that preserved rivalries and created divisions based on their primary principle of East/West geography," commissioner Jim Delany said in a statement."The directors of athletics also relied on the results of a fan survey commissioned by BTN last December to arrive at their recommendation, which is consistent with the public sentiment expressed in the poll."

Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, Penn State and Rutgers will be in the East division. The West will consist of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and Wisconsin.

Schools will play six division games plus two against teams from the other division in 2014 and 2015. In 2016, they'll play three cross-division games.

Indiana and Purdue will meet on an annual basis. But Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said each school had to make compromises.

"Fourteen athletic directors came to the table with different objectives and our goal was to compromise to the point that we could move together with one plan," he said. "Each of us had things that were extremely important and things on our wish list. I wanted us to play Michigan State and Ohio State every year and for the Michigan-Ohio State game to be the last one ever year. I'm pleased we're going to be able to do those three things.

"But it's not a perfect setup because no school got everything they wanted."

East division teams will host five conference games during even-numbered years starting in 2016, with West teams hosting five in odd-numbered seasons. Under that format, teams will be guaranteed to play each other at least once every four years, and in a statement, Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman called that "an important feature."

He also praised the changes, saying they are "the best option" and "will serve us well."

Brandon said a 10-game format was "carefully considered to even out the home-and-away problem," but that would have hindered nonconference scheduling.

"If you take away another nonconference game, it would have a detrimental impact financially for everybody in the conference, and we would've taken the biggest hit because we have the largest stadium," he said.

Nebraska coach Bo Pelini praised the division alignment and the nine-game format.

"Geography seems to be a logical way to determine the divisions, and it should allow for easier travel for our fans," he said in a statement. "The nine-game conference schedule will help improve the strength of schedules across the board in the Big Ten, and I think everyone anticipates strength of schedule being a key component for choosing teams to participate in the new playoff system."

Delany said athletic directors met in person or talked on conference calls six times from December to March to discuss the changes.

"The level of cooperation and collaboration was reflective of what we've come to expect from this group of administrators who have worked extremely well together on a number of complex matters over the past several years," he said. "We are all looking forward to ushering in this new era of Big Ten football."

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AP Sports Writer Larry Lage in Detroit contributed to this report.

A report in the New York Times takesof Twitter and Facebook's fake follower problem. Brands, celebrities, and regular ol' you can purchase hundreds — even thousands — of Twitter followers for the right price.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Why would anyone do such a thing?

"For some people, it simply feeds the ego," . "For people and brands, a large Twitter following or Facebook fan base helps increase their visibility. If followers are constantly clicking on links to a brand’s landing page, it also lifts the brand's position in Google's search results."

According to Altimeter Group, which has been tracking the activity of high-profile accounts, it's all about generating buzz. But as anyone with an inkling of marketing know-how will tell you, quantity doesn't necessarily equate quality — especially when the followers in question, well, aren't real. 

Take the Twitter account of Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), which, for two years, was gaining an average of 15 new followers every day. Then last July, his account exploded with 19,705 new Twitter users, mostly egg avatars. One day a few months later, 13,000 of his followers suddenly evaporated, likely a zap-job by the Twitter mothership.

"Many brands struggle to measure the top line value of social media," Susan Etlinger, an analyst with Altimeter Group, . "So there is a thirst to show momentum in different ways, one of which is to show that the brand has a bigger audience today than it did yesterday."

So how exactly does one build a fake online following? If you're so inclined, you can head over to websites like , which functions as a digital billboard for dubious online services. For $5, you can purchase anything from 200 Facebook "likes" to 10,500 "REAL looking Twitter followers."

As  notes, writing a script that will add thousands of bots to an account doesn't take any technological wizardry, either. As a "reputable hacker friend" explains it:

Generally they use compromised accounts or create them in batches with some kind of captcha bypassing exploits, or by simply creating a bunch of accounts, manually filling those captchas.

But yeah, mostly compromised twitter accounts acquired with botnets, they run a script to make those accounts to follow the profile in question... Nothing complicated really. []

And on Twitter, where information , credibility is the one of the rare currencies still worth valuing. Buyer beware.

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It had a prime-time conclusion, too. Shortly before 9 p.m. EDT, and three hours after the sound of gunfire indicated the end might be near, Boston police announced that the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had been taken into custody.

Cameras caught Boston residents celebrating the end of a long, tense day. They poured into the streets to cheer police cars as they passed through, with many in TV news celebrating with them. NBC's Brian Williams noted that people never want to see a police car coming behind them on the road, but they're the first thing people want to see when trouble comes to a community.

"I feel like I've been watching a bad movie that I couldn't turn off," said one resident, Rita Colella, interviewed on NBC.

Viewers woke up to the news Friday that one suspect in Monday's bombing had been killed overnight, with another still at large. ABC, CBS and NBC took the unusual step of casting aside regular programming to cover the story throughout the day, joined by the cable news networks.

The coverage mixed moments of real excitement with tedium as the search continued for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who escaped during an overnight shootout with police that killed his older brother Tamerlan.

TV was a window to the world for residents of Boston and some surrounding areas, who were asked by authorities to stay in their homes as the search went on.

"It's unbelievable, unprecedented to see a major metropolitan area essentially called to a halt," Chris Jansing said on MSNBC.

The evening action came as attention to the story was beginning to lag. After a full day of coverage, NBC switched to Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. Massachusetts authorities lifted their order that everyone in Boston and some suburbs stay at home.

The gunfire and rushing police cars around 7 p.m. EDT snapped the networks back to attention. After confirming that police had found someone hiding under a boat stored in a backyard, CBS quickly found a Google Maps image from above the yard that showed the boat stored there for the winter.

ABC's Diane Sawyer interviewed a witness who calmly said his neighbor had gone into the backyard when police eased restrictions and found blood on his boat and saw someone hiding there. He quickly called authorities. The homeowner was upset that his boat was riddled with gunfire after police arrived.

"I have a feeling around the country that there will be a lot of people who will want to help him get his boat back," Sawyer said.

During the long day of coverage, networks seemed to keep in mind Wednesday's embarrassment, when some news organizations erroneously reported that a suspect in the bombing had been arrested. The scarcity of solid information did lead to moments of confusion, though. In midmorning, MSNBC was reporting that a second suspect was being hunted. CNN flashed on its screen that police were searching for a Honda that the suspect may be driving in Connecticut.

Other networks didn't follow those reports and they were dropped as the search remained shrouded in mystery.

Pete Williams of NBC reported in midmorning that authorities believed they had the suspect cornered in a house and ABC's Pierre Thomas similarly reported that police were moving in. But hours went by without any news.

Shortly after 8 a.m., Fox News Channel reported explosions and indicated the drama might be coming to a head. Two hours later, NBC's Kerry Sanders was crouching on the ground talking on his cellphone, ordered down by police. It was pulse-quickening drama that led nowhere.

Both CNN and NBC told viewers that they were putting live pictures of the manhunt on a five-second delay to protect viewers in case the drama turned bloody.

Networks found friends and relatives of the suspects to talk about them, with Dzhokhar almost universally described as sharp and friendly. But in a news conference, an estranged uncle of the men, Ruslan Tsani, described his nephews as losers.

The suspects' Chechen background led to talk about whether the marathon bombing had something to do with Chechnya's longtime conflict with Russia. Others noted that Dzhokhar had been in the United States for many years, perhaps moving when he was only 9.

"The more we find out about him, the less we seem to know him," CBS' Bob Schieffer said.

As the day went on, networks found it harder to fill the time. Video of the overnight firefight was played over and over. NBC's Brian Williams had a fascinating interview with a couple who lived overlooking the street where the gunplay took place, describing bullets that came into their home. But it turned long-winded.

Williams later reacted with aplomb when NBC briefly cut to a simulcast of a New England cable news network, only to be greeted by a man who uttered an expletive.

"Well, that was a fortuitous time to dip into the coverage of New England Cable News," Williams said, apologizing to viewers as NBC quickly switched away.

Individual networks were able to show strengths during the coverage. ABC's Bianna Golodryga used her fluency in Russian to conduct interviews with the suspects' father. On CBS, John Miller and Bill Bratton displayed their police connections in a knowledgeable and low-key manner.

NBC's star-crossed "Today" show had sent Matt Lauer to Texas on Friday to the scene of a fertilizer plant explosion, where he was largely forgotten. Earlier in the week, Savannah Guthrie's interview with President Barack Obama was overlooked because it happened hours before the marathon bombings.

Lauer's absence gave Guthrie her greatest visibility since she joined "Today" last summer, however, as she led NBC's coverage.

Dr. Peter Nowell of the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Janet Rowley of the University of Chicago and Dr. Brian Druker of Oregon Health and Science University will receive the $500,000 annual Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research next month, the medical center announced Tuesday. The prize, one of the largest in medicine and science in the United States, is awarded to those who have changed the course of medical research.

Medical center officials called the trio "visionary scientists" whose work has given hope to cancer patients around the world. The researchers will officially receive the award May 17 at a ceremony at the medical center.

"These individuals exemplify the extraordinary impact that painstaking research can have on the lives of countless individuals," said James J. Barba, president and chief executive officer of Albany Medical Center.

Nowell's research at Penn in Philadelphia was the first to show that a genetic defect could be responsible for cancer, His work has led to numerous discoveries into the growth of cells related to cancers and other disorders.

Rowley's discoveries of chromosome abnormalities in leukemia secured a common agreement among scientists, physicians and the general public that cancer is, in fact, a genetic disease.

Druker, an oncologist in Portland, Ore., used earlier work by Nowell and Rowley to develop a lifesaving treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia that specifically targets the leukemia cells without harming healthy cells.

The Albany Medical Center Prize was established in 2000 by the late Morris "Marty" Silverman, a New York City businessman who wanted to encourage health and biomedical research.