The Q10, which comes with the tiny physical keyboard that many BlackBerry fans admire, is the second device powered by the new BlackBerry 10 operating system.

The touchscreen Z10 launched earlier this year.

The U.S. market is crucial for Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry as it seeks to win back market share ceded to Apple Inc's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and other devices powered by Google's Android operating system.

"This is a very exciting day for us, launching with all four major U.S. carriers," BlackBerry Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear said in an interview.

Tear said BlackBerry, which has long had a strong base of corporate and government users, expected the Q10 to allow it to win back customers who have been using other devices.

He believed demand for the smartphones would be helped by the fact that a majority of top U.S. companies were testing or installing the BlackBerry Enterprise Service system that would allow them to manage the new devices on their internal networks.

"Since everybody is migrating toward this, we expect it will definitely create pull for our (smartphone) products," he said.

"There are a lot of very loyal BlackBerry keyboard users out there who have been waiting for this and I think, with the Q10, we will also be able to win back prior BlackBerry customers, who are now trying other platforms."

The Q10 launched in Canada, Britain and a few other countries two months ago. The U.S. launch was delayed due to a longer carrier-testing process.

The device is already on sale through T-Mobile in the United States, while rivals Verizon and AT&T have begun to accept pre-orders for shipping later this month. Sprint plans to begin selling the devices this summer.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Janet Guttsman and Bernadette Baum)

The U.S. law that allows the collection of data under this program does not allow the targeting of any U.S. citizen or of any person located in the United States, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"This program was recently reauthorized by Congress after extensive hearings and debate," the official said. "Information collected under this program is among the most important and valuable intelligence information we collect, and is used to protect our nation from a wide variety of threats."

(Reporting by Mark Felsenthal; Editing by Eric Beech)

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The president congratulated the team for their long, up-and-down, and ultimately successful season in front of a massive press gaggle — and the entire Maryland delegation, of course. Obama was singling out players for their individual accomplishments, as he often does at these events.

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And then he arrived upon quarterback Joe Flacco, who parlayed his  into a mammoth new contract  — and then Obama warned he might be encroaching upon another Big Joe famous for his Delaware routes and made even more famous by way of the Beltway. 

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"I'd say that if you keep on playing like that, you're going to challenge Biden for the most popular person from Delaware," the president joked. Flacco was born in and raised in New Jersey, but he came up through the University of Delaware, Biden's alma matter. Between the two, a Super Bowl winning quarterback and the Vice President, they easily surpass Judge Reinhold as Delaware's most famous export.

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But, former Commissioner Douglas Shulman said Tuesday, he didn't tell higher ups in the Treasury Department and he didn't tell members of Congress.

And he wouldn't apologize for it.

"I had a partial set of facts, and I knew that the inspector general was going to be looking into it, and I knew that it was being stopped," Shulman told the Senate Finance Committee in his first public comments on the matter. "Sitting there then and sitting here today, I think I made the right decision, which is to let the inspector general get to the bottom of it, chase down all the facts and then make his findings public."

Shulman, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, left the IRS in November when his five-year term ended. His testimony makes him the top official to publicly acknowledge knowing before the presidential election that tea party groups had been targeted.

Even so, senators from both political parties said they were skeptical of the version of events portrayed by Shulman and Steven Miller, the man who later took his place as acting commissioner and was forced last week to resign.

For more than 18 months during the 2010 and 2012 election campaigns, IRS agents in a Cincinnati office singled out tea party and other conservative groups for additional scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status. They asked who the groups' donors were and the political affiliations of officers.

The additional scrutiny delayed applications for an average of nearly two years, making it difficult for many of the groups to raise money, according to a report by J. Russell George, the Treasury Department inspector general for tax administration.

George's report blamed ineffective management in Washington for allowing the practice to continue for so long. But George said he found no evidence that Washington directed the targeting.

George also testified before Senate Finance Committee Tuesday. So did acting IRS Commissioner Miller.

Several senators were less than pleased with the testimony of both Shulman and Miller.

"I found it unsatisfying," Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said after the hearing. "I think a lot of information's not getting out, a lot of questions not answered."

Shulman said he was briefed by Miller "sometime in the spring of 2012" that tea party groups were being singled out for additional scrutiny. But Shulman said he didn't realize the scope of the issue until the inspector general issued his report last week.

"What I knew was not the full set of facts in this report," Shulman said. "What I knew sometime in the spring of 2012 was that there was a list that was being used, knew that the word "tea party" was on the list, didn't know what other words were on the list, didn't know the scope and severity of this, didn't know if groups that were pulled in were groups that would have been pulled in anyway."

Shulman is now a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

Several Republican senators said it was hard to believe that Shulman could learn such a sensitive piece of information in the middle of a presidential election and not share it with Treasury officials. The IRS is an independent agency within the Treasury Department.

"It's just implausible to me," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in an interview after the hearing. "Bureaucrats don't take risks by doing things that they know will get them fired, or get them disciplined by their superiors."

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said, "It's just hard to figure that there isn't more to this than they are letting on."

"How much did the political calendar influence when they disclosed this?" Thune said. "Obviously it was a presidential election year. Disclosure of something like this would have been explosive."

About the same time Shulman was briefed in 2012, George told Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin that his office was investigating complaints from conservative groups. But, George said, he did not reveal the results of the investigation.

Last week, Obama appointed White House budget official Daniel Werfel as the acting IRS commissioner. Werfel takes over Wednesday.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said he has directed Werfel to make sure "that those who acted inappropriately are held accountable for their actions."

On Tuesday, a conservative group that says its application for tax-exempt status is being unfairly held up by the IRS, filed a federal lawsuit in Washington against the agency. True the Vote, a Houston-based group that says it focuses on restoring "integrity to the American system" of voting, is seeking damages and asking to immediately be granted the tax exemption for donors.

Tuesday's hearing was the second in a series by congressional committees looking into the IRS. The House Ways and Means Committee held a hearing last week and the House oversight committee has one scheduled for Wednesday.

Miller apologized on behalf of the IRS to the committee "for the mistakes that we made and the poor service we provided. The affected organizations and the American public deserve better."

It was the second time in a week that Miller apologized to Congress. But Shulman, who ran the agency when the problems occurred, declined several invitations to apologize.

"You know, I'm deeply, deeply saddened by this whole set of events," Shulman said in response to a question by Cornyn.

"Is that an apology?" Cornyn asked.

"I certainly am not personally responsible for creating a list that had inappropriate criteria on it," Shulman said. "With that said, this happened on my watch. And I very much regret that it happened on my watch."

"Well, I don't think that qualifies an apology," Cornyn said. "It qualifies as an expression of regret, which I think is well-deserved."

___

Associated Press writers Martin Crutsinger and Henry C. Jackson contributed to this report.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

PARIS (Reuters) - The furrowed brow was replaced with the trademark smile as Rafa Nadal began to look more like a seven-times French Open champion and the sun finally shone at Roland Garros on Saturday.

The Spaniard was again tested, this time by flamboyant but frustrating Italian Fabio Fognini, but after dropping sets in his opening two rounds and raging at his rain-hit schedule, his 7-6(5) 6-4 6-4 victory was just what the doctor ordered.

Defending women's champion Maria Sharapova and third seed Victoria Azarenka both bludgeoned their way past stubborn opponents into the last 16.

Sharapova recovered from a 4-1 second-set deficit against China's Zheng Ji to win 6-1 7-5 after the equally noisy Azarenka battled to a three-set victory over Frenchwoman Alize Cornet.

Azarenka's 4-6 6-3 6-1 victory put her on collision course with former champion Francesca Schiavone, who ended the hopes of another home favorite with a 6-2 6-1 defeat of Marion Bartoli.

Few players, Roger Federer included, can swagger on to court quite like Fognini, and at times during the opening set against Nadal the 27th seed produced strokes the Swiss great would have been proud of.

He carved out opportunities, breaking to lead 4-2 in the opening set with some scintillating tennis, but then immediately played some rash strokes to allow the third seed back in.

Nadal then failed to convert three set points on Fognini's serve in the 10th game and was broken in the following game as the opener went to a tiebreak.

The crowd were on their feet when Nadal won an incredible rally at 4-4, soaking up some heavy hitting from Fognini before curling a topspin lob on to the baseline and picking off a volley after the Italian somehow clawed it back.

Fognini hurled his racket into the sky and booted it across the clay after losing another spellbinding rally, and Nadal, despite never looking completely assured against an unpredictable opponent, began to get a grip.

PENALTY POINT

Nadal's next opponent comes in the shape of Kei Nishikori, who became the first Japanese player to reach the fourth round here since 1938 when he beat Frenchman Benoit Paire, who was docked a penalty point for receiving coaching.

Paire, who was first warned for mangling a racket frame, ranted at umpire Enric Molina after being given a penalty point on a set point in the 10th game of the second set during his 6-3 6-7(3) 6-4 6-1 defeat, and later pleaded double standards.

"I'm sure that if it was a top-five (player), they would never have done that, never taken the decision to say 'warning', 'penalty point' at that moment," the 24-year-old Paire said.

"They would never do it because they know full well that you just can't do that sort of thing."

With 15-times grand slam champion Serena Williams enjoying a day off after motoring through to the last 16 on Friday, three less-decorated American women took their chance to grab the limelight, led by Jamie Hampton.

She knocked out former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova 6-1 7-6(7), Sloane Stephens emulated her run to last year's fourth round with a three-set victory over New Zealand's Marina Erakovic, and unseeded Bethanie Mattek-Sands beat Argentine Paula Ormaechea.

It is the first time four American women have reached the last 16 at Roland Garros since 2004 and the first time at a grand slam since that year's U.S. Open.

"It's awesome," Mattek-Sands said. "I'm so happy that U.S. tennis is coming on strong."

(Editing by Clare Fallon and Stephen Wood)

ACCRA (Reuters) - Ghana's Supreme Court must decide in the coming months whether or not to overturn December elections that handed the presidency to John Mahama, in a rare case of African judicial vigour that has transfixed the country.

Proceedings in a packed courtroom, where opposition leader Nana Akufo-Addo is challenging the outcome of the 2012 poll, are broadcast live on the radio and blare from cars and buses as the population of 25 million tunes in for the latest developments.

Legal experts say the verdict, expected some time between late June and August, is too close to call, and several believe there is a genuine chance the court could invalidate the victory of Mahama's ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

"If it is proven beyond doubt this election was rigged and that the president is not supposed to be the president, the court will overturn it," said Kofi Bentil, vice-president at the Imani Center for Policy and Education in Ghana's capital Accra.

A senior banker who declined to be named said a verdict in favour of the ruling party looked likely, however, as the opposition had failed to make its argument effectively.

If the vote was nullified, it would set a precedent on a continent where losing political parties frequently go to court to contest elections but rarely get the kind of exhaustive legal review the Supreme Court in Ghana is delivering.

The opposition National Patriotic Party (NPP) claims the ruling NDC tampered with results to boost Mahama's share of the vote to 50.7 percent, handing him a first-round victory. Akufo-Addo won 47.7 percent.

GHANA GOING STRONG

The case comes as Ghana's $39 billion economy is powering ahead, growing 8 percent last year, after oil production began at Tullow's Jubilee field in 2010. It is Africa's number two gold miner and the world's second-largest cocoa producer.

Many investors, lured to the West African nation by a reputation for stable democracy in a region prone to coups, appear sanguine about uncertainties ahead, and see the court's ruling as less important than how the losing side reacts.

The prospect of violence is largely discounted, and the case has done little to dampen confidence in the Ghana stock exchange, which has jumped 55.6 percent this year.

"If those parties accept the ruling of the Supreme Court, we think it will rather strengthen the confidence of investors in our market, both local and foreign, with some kind of democratic dividend," said Daniel Tetteh, executive director at Databank.

If the court rules for the opposition, it could declare the election invalid and order a runoff vote. Some legal experts say it could even anoint Akufo-Addo winner, while others argue it does not have the power to do so.

That element of doubt is bothering some.

"We are all uncertain about the outcome of the judgment," said Accra businessman Clifford Bannerman-Lawson who runs a car rental company.

PINK POLLING SHEETS DISPUTED

Ghana's detailed legal review stands in stark contrast with Kenya's post-election challenge in March, when a court validated President Uhuru Kenyatta's victory after two weeks of hearings, and could be held up as an example to other African nations.

"When the court in Ghana rules ... it will invariably have a ripple effect on other African elections," said Christopher Fomunyoh, senior associate for Africa at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs in Washington.

Both sides say they will accept the court's judgment.

"Kenya is no example for us," Nana Ato Dadzie, a member of the NDC's legal team, said pointedly.

International electoral observers gave the December election a clean bill of health despite technical glitches with voting machines that forced voting to be extended into a second day.

At the heart of the legal case, however, lies a battle over pink sheets containing data from polling stations.

Opposition lawyers say 11,138 sheets from the total of more than 26,000 should be invalidated because of irregularities.

Those sheets represent 4 million votes which could swing the election in favour of Akufo-Addo, opposition lawyers say.

They point to evidence including duplicate sheets, over-voting at some polling stations and a failure by officials to sign some sheets correctly which could suggest fraud.

"We are praying that John Mahama is removed and Akufo-Addo is installed based on the numbers. But we would not be surprised if the court decides that there has to be a run-off," NPP spokesman Nana Akomea said in an interview.

NDC lawyers say that minor errors by local officials do not amount to an attempt to subvert the vote and that the electoral law should be applied to protect the rights of the voter.

"Even if there were (errors), they were administrative errors which cannot form the basis under which the Supreme Court should overturn the election," Abraham Amaliba, a member of the NDC's legal team, told Reuters.

Ghana has held four peaceful elections since 2000, with both main parties calmly relinquishing power. December's poll was the first in Africa using biometric data for voter registration.

Veterans, gun-owners, gun violence survivors and concerned citizens will deliver petitions to the Missoula office of Senator Max Baucus on Thursday, calling on him to stop bowing to the NRA and vote for legislation to close the "Terror Gap" in our system and keep guns away from potential terrorists. In April, Baucus voted with the Washington gun lobby and against thewho support life-saving background checks when he voted against bipartisan background check legislation sponsored by NRA A-rated Senators Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey. In doing so, Baucus' vote would do nothing to keep guns away from potential terrorists.

Under current law, suspected terrorists on the FBI's No Fly List can't board an airplane, but they can still legally purchase guns and explosives.This glaring loophole in our gun laws, called the "Terror Gap," could be fixed by ensuring the Department of Justice has the authority to bar gun sales to those onterrorwatch lists. There are currently bills pending in Congress that would close the Terror Gap, including legislation by Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Rep. Peter King (R-NY), which would give DOJ discretion, subject to judicial review, to block firearms and explosives sales to international and domestic terrorist suspects.

Since 2007, the Washington gun lobby has blocked efforts to keep guns out of the hands of suspectedterrorists, opposing numerous bills seeking to close theTerrorGap. The latest data on the Terror Gap is available , and Montanans who want to sign the petition to urge Senator Baucus to vote to close the Terror Gap can visit

Event details are below.

MissoulaWhat: Montanans to Deliver Petitions Calling on Senator Baucus to Stop Bowing to Gun Lobby, Vote to Keep Guns Away from Potential Terrorists.

Who: Sue Malek, Montana State SenatorEllie Boldman Hill, Montana State RepresentativeClaire Kelly, gun ownerMichael Owen, gun ownerLinda Eichwald, gun ownerNoreen Kozeluh, gun ownerJanet Lyon, gun violence survivor

Where: Break Espresso,432 North Higgins Ave. Missoula, MT 59802

When: Thursday, May 30, 11:30 AM

About Mayors Against Illegal GunsSince its creation in April 2006, Mayors Against Illegal Guns has grown from 15 members to more than 950 mayors from across the country. We have more than 1.5 million grassroots supporters, making us the largest gun violence prevention advocacy organization in the country. The bipartisan coalition, co-chaired by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, has united the nation's mayors around these common goals: protecting communities by holding gun offenders accountable; demanding access to crime gun trace data that is critical to law enforcement efforts to combat gun trafficking; and working with legislators to fix weaknesses and loopholes in the law that make it far too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to get guns. Learn more at

MEDIA CONTACTErika Soto Lamb:or 646-580-5281Alex Katz:or 617-721-3779

SOURCE Mayors Against Illegal Guns

All of this news would have excited me a few months ago, when I considered myself somewhat of an Android purist.But my recent purchase of an HTC One has made me rethink whether Nexus phones can truly provide a better experience.

If youre unfamiliar, devices that bear the Nexus label run Android exactly asintended, without frilly modifications from phone makers. You wont, for instance, find S-Voice or Smart Scrollhallmark features of Samsungs Galaxy S phoneson the companys Nexus 10 tablet or Galaxy Nexus phone. Techies tend to like the Nexus concept because it represents a purer, dare I say Apple-like, approach to smartphone design. There are no gimmicks, and no bloatware, and the software updates come directly from Google without any delays.

The HTC One, which runs a modified version of Android dubbed Sense, has convinced me that the benefits of non-Nexus devices outweigh the drawbacks.After spending about three weeks with the HTC One, there are a few features Id be reluctant to give up:

Killer Camera Software: On the HTC One, the camera is the killer app. I love the ability to hold down the shutter button to take photos in burst mode, and then select the best photo of the bunch to save. HDR mode is easy to access, and the ability to snap photos from a video is a nice touch. The camera software on Nexus devices isnt as advanced, nor is it designed with any particular hardware in mind. Putting stock Android on the HTC One would make the camera worse.

Lock Screen Shortcuts: On HTCs phones, you can jump directly into any of your docked apps from the lock screen by swiping up on the app icon. On my phone, I have quick access to voice search, Chrome, Gmail and the camera. Nexus devices have camera and Google shortcuts on the lock screen, but thats it.

IR Blaster: The HTC One has a built-in infrared transmitter, which allows the phone to double as a TV and stereo remote. I no longer have to juggle multiple remotes, and the TV apps built-in channel guide is a huge help for over-the-air broadcasts since we dont have cable. To date, no Nexus device includes an IR blaster, and Google doesnt offer any of its own software to take advantage.

I dont have as much experience with Samsungs Galaxy S 4, but you could make the same case based on that phones features. The S 4, for instance, has its own IR blaster and a few helpful camera modes.

Meanwhile, the things that used to irk me about non-Nexus devices arent as problematic anymore:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange may claim to be a champion of transparency, but when an Oscar-winning filmmaker wanted to shine a light on his rise to fame after publishing secret U.S. diplomatic cables on his website, Assange was none too pleased.

Alex Gibney set out to uncover the story behind Assange, 41, and the website he founded in 2006 to leak classified information submitted by anonymous sources, but received little cooperation from the former computer hacker.

In theaters Friday, "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks" explores how WikiLeaks, at its height, facilitated the publication of thousands of classified U.S. government documents, including diplomatic cables and U.S. Army logs from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To tell the story of WikiLeaks, Gibney sought to interview Assange but found the elusive Australian difficult to persuade, eventually deciding to film without him.

But the filmmaker spoke to Assange several times off camera, and said he came to form a picture of a complex character.

"If you catch him in unguarded moments, he can be terribly charming, self-deprecating and a really engaging human being," Gibney told Reuters.

However, whenever Assange felt the conversation was becoming an official interview, Gibney said he became unwilling to "give me the kind of honest reflections that would have been so important (to the film)," likening him to a "human soap box."

When Gibney decided to film the documentary without Assange's participation, he said the WikiLeaks founder did not take the news well.

"He likens himself as the puppet master, the one who's pulling the strings on the media. I think he took some offense at the idea that I was independent," Gibney said, adding that Assange had, at one point, asked to be paid for participating.

"He mentioned that the market rate for an interview with him was a million dollars. I didn't inquire what market that was," Gibney said with a laugh.

Gibney said Assange had asked him to report what other interview subjects in the documentary were saying about him, something he found to be "highly ironic."

"(WikiLeaks) was supposed to be a transparency organization, and he was asking me to engage with him as if we're now some kind of espionage outfit," he said.

'DAVID AND GOLIATH STORY'

Gibney, 59, has become a prolific documentarian over the past decade, garnering critical praise for his timely films such as 2005's "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" and 2007's Oscar-winning "Taxi to the Dark Side."

The filmmaker was drawn to WikiLeaks initially with the idea of it being a "David and Goliath story, with Julian Assange being David," but over the course of filming for two years, Gibney found the story of WikiLeaks to be as complex as its founder.

The timing of the film's release couldn't be more poignant, with U.S. Army private, Bradley Manning, 25, who is accused of leaking classified data to the WikiLeaks website, due to stand trial on June 3. He could face life imprisonment.

Unable to interview Manning for the documentary, Gibney turned to sources that included friends and former colleagues of Manning, and hacker Adrian Lamo, who gave the FBI online chatroom logs where Manning had confided that he had passed classified government information to WikiLeaks.

Gibney said he believed that while Assange had become a celebrity with WikiLeaks, Manning had become a "scapegoat."

"There's no doubt that (Manning) has been improperly scapegoated...he's pled guilty to leaking. But these larger charges, these more serious charges that the government is trying to hang him with, aiding the enemy, carries a possible death sentence. To me, that's outrageous," Gibney said.

Gibney also turned to Australian filmmaker Mark Davis for footage of Assange before he became a headline; Davis had been following the WikiLeaks founder before the Afghanistan war-log leaks, which propelled Assange and his website into the news.

Davis' footage captured a more candid Assange, and Gibney also found home movies from Iceland that showed the WikiLeaks found far less guarded, including a clip of him dancing.

During filming, Assange's own story developed alongside that of WikiLeaks, culminating in him hiding out at the Ecuadorean Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he has been accused by two women of rape and sexual assault.

Gibney was able to get one of the accusers, former WikiLeaks volunteer Anna, to participate in the documentary.

"(Assange) is the expert at holding others to account....but he's never wanted anybody to hold him to account. He can't stand anybody telling him he's wrong, and so he is refusing to be held to account for these sex allegations in Sweden," Gibney said.

"I think his downfall was hubris," said Gibney. "He became reckless. He began to imagine that the transparency agenda and Julian Assange were one and the same. And that's a very dangerous place to go."

Although Assange has not seen the film, the WikiLeaks founder and his supporters, including journalist John Pilger and filmmaker Oliver Stone, "denounced" the documentary after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, Gibney said.

"The response around criticism of Julian has been a peculiar kind of tribalism," said Gibney. "As if somehow Julian should be above criticism or beyond the law. And I find that, in itself, troubling."

(Editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Bernadette Baum)