Smith won a Super Bowl with the New York Giants in 2008 as part of a career that also included stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and the St. Louis Rams. The Buccaneers signed him as a free agent last month.

Drafted by New York in the second round in 2007, Smith had his best season in 2009, setting a Giants single-season record with 107 receptions, second-most in the NFL that year.

During the past three years, knee injuries limited Smith to playing in only 27 of 48 games.

(Reporting by Larry Fine in New York; Editing by Frank Pingue)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private equity firms KKR & Co LP, Warburg Pincus LLC and Cinven Ltd are weighing bids for PRA International, a clinical research group, which is for sale and could fetch as much as $1.3 billion, several people familiar with the matter said.

The buyout firms are among the parties preparing to submit second-round bids later in June for Raleigh, North Carolina-based PRA, the sources said this week, asking not to be identified because the auction is not public.

Private equity firm Genstar Capital LLC, which acquired PRA in 2007 for $797 million, put the company on the auction block earlier this year, two years after its earlier effort to sell PRA failed over price, the sources said.

Genstar is also considering an initial public offering for PRA and could pursue that route should private equity bidders fail to meet its price expectations, the people said. PRA could be valued at as much as $1.3 billion based on annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of around $130 million, they added.

Genstar is working with Jefferies Group LLC to find a buyer for PRA, the people said. Genstar declined to comment, while PRA and Jefferies did not respond to requests for comment.

Cinven declined to comment, and KKR and Warburg Pincus did not respond to requests for comment.

PRA, which provides clinical trial services and other research for pharmaceutical companies in over 80 countries to help them win regulatory approval for drugs, was founded in 1976.

Genstar worked with Credit Suisse Group AG in 2011 in an attempt to sell PRA amid a wave of private equity deals in the contract research space, but could not find a buyer that would meet its price expectations, people familiar with the matter said at the time.

The market is now more generous toward such companies. Last month, Bain Capital LLC and TPG Capital LP raised $947 million by taking Quintiles Transnational Holdings, the world's largest provider of contract research services, public.

Other private equity deals in this space include the $3.9 billion acquisition of Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc by Carlyle Group LP and Hellman & Friedman LLC in 2011, and the $1.1 billion takeover of inVentiv Health Inc by an investor group led by Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, also in 2011.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim and Greg Roumeliotis in New York; additional reporting by Jessica Toonkel; Editing by Leslie Adler)

MIAMI (Reuters) - The Indiana Pacers fell just short in the Eastern Conference finals opener but their gritty display pumped life into the NBA playoffs and let the defending champion Miami Heat know they have a battle on their hands.

The ease with which the top-seeded Heat have brushed aside opponents during the regular season and playoffs has given an air of inevitability to this year's postseason, resulting in falling television ratings and plummeting interest.

But those hoping for tighter games with the chance of an upset would have been encouraged by the way the Pacers gave a timely warning to the Heat that they will need to draw on all their talent to reach a third straight final.

"It doesn't matter if you win by one or if you win by 30 or whatever the case may be. You just want to win. We have to be better Friday if we want to win again," LeBron James said after powering Miami to a 103-102 overtime victory on Wednesday.

Indiana have struggled on the road this year, losing 21 of 40 games in the regular season, but in a scrappy, foul-ridden game that came alive spectacularly in the closing stages, the Pacers showed their mettle.

"It was a terrific basketball game. Two great teams throwing punch for punch. Our spirit is very high and very confident. And we know we can play with this basketball team," said Indiana coach Frank Vogel.

A layup from James as time expired gave Miami the win after Paul George's heroics looked to have earned the Pacers a shock victory in the opening game of the best-of-seven series that will send the winner to the NBA Finals.

George drained a long-range three-pointer to force overtime and then, in the final stages of the extra period, kept calm to put away three free throws after he was fouled by Dwyane Wade.

But, with just 2.2 seconds left on the clock, it was George who allowed James the space to drive the left of the lane and grab the win for a relieved Heat.

"We have got to feel good about how we played," said George, who nonetheless engaged in some self-criticism.

"At this point every possession counts and that's what we've got to understand. Myself included. We had a couple of turnovers that I wish we could take back I could take back. But the margin of error is so small at this level, so going into Game Two, we have just got to improve off that."

The Heat will look to recapture the intelligent and fast ball movement that has characterized their best displays this year but, after a six-day layoff following their 4-1 series win over Chicago, was not quite there on Wednesday.

But it was significant there was little discussion of style or flow from the Heat after the game with the overarching feeling being one simply of relief.

"In the end it just came down to finding a way, even if it wasn't pretty. And it took an overtime to get it done. We're glad to get that one," said Heat coach Erik Spoelstra.

The Eastern Conference representative will face the winner of the Western Conference finals, which the San Antonio Spurs lead 2-0 over the Memphis Grizzlies, to determine the National Basketball Association (NBA) champion.

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

"Our backs are against the wall," Bosh said.

He's absolutely correct. Advantage, Indiana.

Over the first two games of these Eastern Conference finals in Miami, it was Indiana that primarily had control, never allowing the reigning NBA champions to hold anything more than a five-point lead. The Pacers got a split for their efforts, and now head home to Indianapolis for Game 3 on Sunday night, surely aware that they've already taken a huge step toward pulling off what would undoubtedly be called a huge upset.

"It's even. It's 1-1," Pacers star Paul George said. "They have the possibility of a split as well and taking home-court advantage back. So it's even. We don't feel like they've got the upper hand on us. We don't feel like we've got the upper hand on them."

If they were inclined, the Pacers could be justified to feel otherwise.

Other than letting Game 1 slip away when LeBron James was allowed basically unfettered access to the rim for an easy score on the final play of overtime, Indiana couldn't have asked for more out of its few days in South Florida. The Pacers handed the Heat what became their fourth loss in 50 games. They grabbed home-court advantage. They had the Heat juggling rotations more than at any point so far in this postseason.

Maybe most importantly, they get a sports rarity: A do-over.

A year ago, the Pacers split two games in Miami, took the series back to Indianapolis and couldn't ultimately finish the job. Losing to the Heat last season has haunted the Pacers to some extent ever since, so perhaps it's fitting that a year later albeit one round deeper into the playoffs the same scenario has presented itself again.

"This whole team is showing great desire and great heart and great belief," Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. "And that's the only way to put what these guys are doing right now, is they believe we can win this series, and they're giving it all their might. All their might. And they're playing with confidence and they are rising to the challenge. I'm very, very proud of them. We still have a lot of work to do. We all understand that."

So far in this postseason, work has seemed easy for the Pacers in Indianapolis.

Indiana is 6-0 at home in these playoffs, winning by an average of 14 points. The Heat are 4-0 on the road this postseason, also winning those games by an average of 14 points.

Welcome to the "something's got to give" scenario.

"We just stay even-keeled," James said. "We don't get too high, we don't get too low in the series. We know we're going to go into a hostile environment against a very good team, and we look forward to the challenge."

It wouldn't be surprising if James spent the 45 hours spanning the end of Game 2 to the start of Game 3 replaying two passes in his mind, over and over again.

With the Heat down two, James twice tried to get passes to Ray Allen in the final 45 seconds. Both were broken up by West for turnovers that doomed Miami's comeback hopes, and it was just the second time in James' last 442 games where he was charged with two turnovers in the final minute of a fourth quarter, according to STATS.

Indiana's defensive brilliance in this series goes beyond making passing lanes disappear late in Game 2.

The Pacers defended the 3-pointer better than anyone in the league during the regular season, while Miami had the second-best percentage from beyond the arc. That matchup has been all Indiana so far, with the Pacers keeping the Heat to a 30 percent clip. Ray Allen, the most prolific 3-point shooter in league history, is 1 for 6 from that distance. Shane Battier is 0 for 6. Norris Cole, who came up big in the Chicago series, is 1 for 4.

"We're a growing and evolving team," Pacers center Roy Hibbert said. "I think our defense really won us the game for us. ... A lot of times teams just start buckling, and we've been through the wringer before. We're young guys, but we know what we're doing."

Hibbert a matchup nightmare for Miami has made 19 of 33 shots in the series, averaging 24 points and 9.5 rebounds. George has scored 49 points in the two games. West has scored 39, got to the foul line more than anyone else in the first two games, and made the two huge defensive plays late in Game 2 while being asked to guard a sharpshooter like Allen, no less.

"Take nothing away from their 'Big Three' and what they have going," George said, referring to James, Dwyane Wade and Bosh. "But we'll take a 'Big Five' any day. And that's what we have. We have a 'Big Five' where we have guys who can make plays and we don't lean on one guy. It's a team contribution and that's how we play the game."

James has scored 66 points in the series, one less than what Wade and Bosh have combined for against the Pacers. He also leads the Heat in free throws made and attempted, offensive rebounds, total rebounds and assists in the series.

Even the Pacers' George Hill compared James to God after Game 2. And it was James who, with a brilliant effort in Indianapolis last year, found a way to save Miami in that series. He sounds eager to try and make it happen again.

"I am very disappointed in my judgment and my plays down the stretch," James said. "But I'll make up for them."

By Brent Lang

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Ryan Gosling must be feeling pretty happy about his decision to skip the red carpet at Cannes this year. Critics at the Riviera film festival vivisected "Only God Forgives," his ultra-violent collaboration with Nicolas Winding Refn, leaving it as bruised and battered as the hunky star appears in promotional art for the film.

Winding Refn, the enfant terrible of Danish film, previously teamed with Gosling on "Drive," earning a Best Director award at Cannes in 2011 for his hallucinatory crime story. Once again, the screen pulsates with all manner of blood-letting - from beheadings to mutilations with ice picks. The film finds a street-fighting Gosling punching, kicking and maiming his way through Bangkok to avenge his brother's death. It opens stateside on July 19.

Sasha Stone of TheWrap was left reaching for the steel wool in the hopes of scrubbing the film from her senses. Stone found Winding Refn's violent excesses soulless and despicable.

"What his film amounts to, in the end, is the careful work of a serial killer," Stone writes. "Refn isn't literally killing women, but he's indulging in one bloody killing after another, and practically licking the knife afterwards."

And likening Winding Refn to a mass murderer stands as one of the gentler critical allusions the film and its maker received.

When "Only God Forgives" finally hits these shores, Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere may be there to welcome it with lighter fluid. Rarely do pans get more vitriolic than his screed against Winding Refn's style and the film's substance. Indeed, Wells' brutal assessment calls to mind Roger Ebert's legendary excoriation of Rob Reiner's "North."

"Movies really don't get much worse than Nicholas Winding Refns 'Only God Forgives.'" Wells rails. "It's a shit macho fantasy - hyper violent, ethically repulsive, sad, nonsensical, deathly dull, snail-paced, idiotic, possibly woman-hating, visually suffocating, pretentious. I realize I sound like Rex Reed on one of his rants, but trust me, please - this is a defecation by an over-praised, over-indulged director who thinks anything he craps out is worthy of your time. I felt violated, shat upon, sedated, narcotized, appalled and bored stiff."

In case you missed the point that he hated the movie, Wells helpfully entitles his review "Stink Spreads All Over."

Peter Debruge of Variety upbraids Gosling for giving a "near catatonic" performance, jabbing the actor by claiming the wall paper does more emoting. Debruge is willing to concede that Winding Refn has a mastery of film technique and an ability, like Quentin Tarantino, to repurpose the Grind House for the Art House, but he faults the director for favoring artifice over emotion.

"Watching Gosling withhold, one can practically hear the director behind the camera, demanding take after take, as he shouts, 'Let's try it again, only this time, more impassive!,'" Debruge writes.

Matt Patches of Hollywood.com gripes that "Only God Forgives" is pretentious and devoid of the little things that make films worth watching, like narrative and character development. Oh, and dialogue, as Gosling gets to deliver fewer than twenty lines, he writes.

"The movie has tunnel vision, and while it occasionally breaks - there's a cheeky recurring gag of the cop singing karaoke - that sense of humor and personality never round out 'Only God Forgives,'" Patches writes. "Instead, Gosling is given his 17 lines and the camera starts rolling. If there were subtext underneath the silence, the brevity may have worked."

In Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman predicted that "Only God Forgives" will fail to generate the critical excitement that "Drive" experienced and suggested Winding Refn should ditch the lurid crime dramas and apply his passion for blood splatter to the horror genre. Barring that, he should perhaps invest more time in script development.

"'Only God Forgives' doesn't have a script so much as it has a body count," Gleiberman writes. "Its characters, even the one played by Gosling (his name is Julian), don't pretend to be anything more than one-note abstractions."

Of course, there are always one or two reviewers with the stones to break away from the critical pack. In this case, the producers of "Only God Forgives" owe The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw an overstuffed gift basket for his five-star rave. Bradshaw notes that the film will have some running for the exits, but praised Winding Refn's flare for crafting nightmare celluloid visions.

"It is very violent, but Winding Refn's bizarre infernal creation, an entire created world of fear, really is gripping," Bradshaw writes. "Every scene, every frame, is executed with pure formal brilliance. I'm afraid it's going to be even nastier the next time I watch it."

When Bradshaw goes back for that second viewing he may have the theater to himself.

In the years before the May, 17, 1954, ruling, husband-and-wife psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark presented children with a black doll and a white doll as part of a series of social science experiments. The black couple then asked the children which doll was the nicest, smartest and prettiest. The Clarks said the system of racial segregation at the time was the reason most chose the white doll.

The doll, which was donated to the historic site last year, will be on display from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday. Eventually, the National Park Service plans to place the doll on permanent display after securing funding for an exhibit that will safeguard it and educate the public about the research, superintendent David Smith said.

The Clarks testified about their research in a South Carolina school desegregation case. That case was combined with other desegregation cases from Topeka, Virginia, Delaware and Washington, D.C., which were argued collectively before the Supreme Court.

The doll research influenced the court, with Chief Justice Earl Warren writing that separating children "solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to ever be undone."

Even today, the doll studies have remained relevant. In 2005, teen filmmaker Kiri Davis recreated the experiment in Harlem, N.Y., as part of the short documentary "A Girl Like Me," finding the preference for the white doll persisted. After Barack Obama became the nation's first black president, ABC's "Good Morning America" tried another version of the experiment.

"If we could pick one object to symbolize the essence of Brown v. Board of Education, we would choose this doll," Smith said in a news release. "Tangible artifacts such as this doll make the story real and believable."

Also Friday, the Brown site will highlight several initiatives it's undertaking to teach the public about the case and the civil rights movement. Those efforts include bus tours of Topeka sites tied to the Bleeding Kansas era and the civil rights movement.

The Brown site is located in the former all-black Topeka school where the lead plaintiff's daughter and another plaintiff's child were students.

OKLAHOMA CITY (Reuters) - Blood tests conducted on patients treated at an Oklahoma oral surgery practice that has been closed over health concerns show that 57 have hepatitis C, three have hepatitis B and as many as three have HIV, the virus than can lead to AIDS, officials said on Thursday.

Health officials said it will take more investigation - including interviews with each patient and blood tests of the remaining patients - before they can determine whether the viruses were contracted at the dental offices, an extremely rare occurrence.

"Now the real disease detective work goes into effect," state health department spokeswoman Leslea Bennet-Webb said.

Officials cannot be more specific about the number of patients who tested positive for HIV because of the state's confidentiality policy that restricts public disclosure of HIV cases involving fewer than three people, Bennet-Webb said.

Health officials so far have screened 3,122 people who underwent oral surgery procedures at clinics operated by Dr Scott Harrington, a Tulsa oral surgeon who is accused of using improper sterilization techniques that may have exposed his patients to blood-borne viruses.

Harrington agreed to close his Tulsa practice and a nearby satellite clinic last month. Health officials want 7,000 of his patients to have their blood tested.

Harrington's attorney has said his client has an impeccable record with the state dentistry board, which has filed a 17-count complaint against the oral surgeon that accuses him of being a "menace to the public health" because of his unsanitary procedures.

There are only three known cases in the United States of viruses being transmitted during dental procedures, according to Centers for Disease Control.

(Reporting by Steve Olafson; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and Jackie Frank)

"Trimming a few branches will not solve the problem when the roots of the tree have gone rotten," House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp told a Capitol Hill hearing on the IRS's targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny.

"That is exactly what has happened with our entire tax system. It is rotten at the core, and it must be ripped out so we can start fresh," the Republican congressman said.

(Reporting By Susan Heavey and Laura MacInnis; Editing by Eric Beech)

With an Argentine on the throne of St. Peter, the South American country's capital city has launched a series of guided tours to give visitors a glimpse of the places that formed Francis, even if the bus and walking tours are just a modest, and so far non-commercial first stab at papal tourism.

The tour bus is a single-story cruiser with sealed windows above a huge image on each side of Francis and the words "Pope Circuit" in papal yellow, which also happens to be the official color of the metropolitan government that began offering the tours last weekend.

For three hours, the bus winds through Buenos Aires twice each Saturday and Sunday and can carry about 40 passengers, rolling past 24 sites linked to the new pope, but stopping only twice and leaving little opportunity for snapshots. There's no charge for the trip, or for more limited walking tours of downtown and neighborhood sites offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

"I loved the tour ... It's to live the history of Bergoglio, of his family, and I also visited his neighborhood, which I had never seen," said Alicia Perez, a 71-year-old Argentine who was one of the few non-journalists on inaugural bus tour.

The house at 531 Membrillar where the pope and four siblings grew up with his mother and father, Regina Maria Sivori and Mario Bergoglio, in the 1930s and 40s is gone now, but the bus cruises down the tree-shaded middle-class street past the property, where another dwelling was later built.

Nearby there's the little plaza where he played soccer as a boy, and the narrow, neo-classical San Jose de Flores church where he worshipped as a teenager and felt called to devote his life to God.

Visitors also see the seminary in the leafy neighborhood of Villa Devoto where Bergoglio decided to become a Jesuit priest, and the Metropolitan Cathedral, which looks more like a classical Greek temple than a typical Catholic church. Bergoglio eventually presided as the capital's archbishop in the imposing structure, which also houses the tomb of South American independence hero Jose de San Martin.

The tour also passes the Jesuit College of El Salvador, where Bergoglio taught literature and psychology in the 1960s, and the Salvador University he later oversaw.

The tour leaves out the gritty slums where Bergoglio's church was a frequent benefactor, but there's a nod to his reputation for ministering to society's outcasts: a swing past the Devoto prison where he often said Mass on the Thursday before Easter.

The bus finally stops at the parish of San Jose del Talar, where visitors can pray at a sanctuary that features a painting of the Virgin untying knots and passing them to angels. Bergoglio had the painting brought from Germany in the 1980s, and ever since, attendance at the church has soared.

Less sacred ground is covered as well. The bus stops downtown at the historic Roverano passageway, where Bergoglio had a monthly haircut for 20 years at Romano's barber shop, a high-ceilinged place that seems to have been frozen in time since the early 20th Century. But the barbers would rather not be bothered: Tourists are advised to gawk from outside as the artisans with scissors and razors work on their mostly elderly clientele.

"It's a pride to have had Monsignor Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, as a client every month for 20 years," says a poster stuck to the shop window.

Owner Nicolas Romano, 72, is only four years younger than the pope. He told an Associated Press team that returned for a post-tour interview that Bergoglio came to the barbershop until about a decade ago, when one of the barbers began going to give him a personal trim at the archbishop's office. An assistant also gave him a monthly pedicure.

"He was a man of few words. He spoke just what was needed, sometimes of politics or current affairs," said one of the barbers, 71-year-old Mario Saliche.

The tour ends at the Plaza de Mayo, which is fronted by the cathedral and the office building where Bergoglio lived alone in a humble room, shunning an ornate diocesan mansion in a northern suburb. The church has not provided outsiders with access to this bedroom, despite the curiosity of the faithful.

Across the plaza is the newsstand where Bergoglio bought his La Nacion paper on Saturdays and Sundays.

"He paid me with coins and we chatted about soccer and how things were," said Nicolas Schandor, who owns the weekend stand. He also said Bergoglio would stop to chat with war veterans occupying the plaza, and give food to the poor who slept on the cathedral's steps. "He's a very simple person. Nobody expected he would become pope."

Schandor's kiosk is one of the few attractions on the trip that shows any evidence of papal commerce: A plastic key holder with the pope's image goes for about $1.90, and a calendar costs $2.30. Schandor said some tourists even have themselves photographed with him.

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AP Video available at https://vimeo.com/66256578