RECIFE, June 15 (Reuters) - Iker Casillas, relegated to the substitutes bench at Real Madrid in the second half of the season, faces a nervous wait to discover whether he will be Spain's first-choice goalkeeper at the Confederations Cup.

Spain coach Vicente del Bosque said he had still not decided whether Casillas, Victor Valdes or Pepe Reyna would face Uruguay in Sunday's Group B match, though he added that whoever it was would keep their place for the following two games.

"It is more difficult because of the last four months, waiting for the line up is hard," Casillas told reporters

"I have become used to not being a regular first choice at my club but the fact that I was called up to the national team made me aware that my team mates were happy with me."

"I've tried to train and take advantage of the opportunity to show my team mates and coach that I am in form and prepared."

Del Bosque appeared sympathetic.

"He has just been through what was an unusual situation for him over the last months," he said. "It has not been easy for him to adjust so it is not a surprise that he feels a bit nervous."

"The same goalkeeper that plays tomorrow will play in the first three games of the first round."

Casillas, at 32 still relatively young for a keeper, is hoping to add to his Spanish-record 145 caps at the warm-up tournament for next year's World Cup.

He came on for Barcelona's Victor Valdes with just over half an hour left in Tuesday's friendly against Ireland and conjured up two trademark reflex saves to deny the Irish an equaliser. Spain went on to win 2-0. (Editing by Brian Homewood)

The announcements Friday night come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders.

Those actions came after Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American who works as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, revealed to The Guardian newspaper the existence of secret surveillance programs that gathered Americans' phone records and other data. The companies did not link their actions to Snowden's leaks.

Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a statement that Facebook is only allowed to talk about total numbers and must give no specifics. But he said the permission it has received is still unprecedented, and the company was lobbying to reveal more.

Using the new guidelines, Ullyot said Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 government requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012, on topics including missing children investigations, fugitive tracking and terrorist threats. The requests involved the accounts of between 18,000 and 19,000 Facebook users.

The companies were not allowed to make public how many orders they received from a particular agency or on a particular subject. But the numbers do include all national security related requests including those submitted via national security letters and under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which companies had not previously been allowed to reveal.

The companies remain barred from revealing whether they've actually received FISA requests, and can only say that any they've received are included in the total reported figures.

Microsoft released similar numbers for the same period, but downplayed how much they revealed.

"We continue to believe that what we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues," John Frank, Microsoft's vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement.

Frank said Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts.

Both attorneys emphasized in their statements that those affected by the orders represent a "tiny fraction" of their huge user bases.

Google did not release its own numbers, saying late Friday that it was waiting to be able to reveal more specific and meaningful information.

"We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests," Google said in a statement. "We already publish criminal requests separately from national security letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately."

Facebook repeated recent assurances that the company scrutinizes every government request, and works aggressively to protect users' data. Facebook said it has a compliance rate of 79 percent on government requests.

"We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested," Ullyot said." And we respond only as required by law."

launched in May at the University of California, San Diego, which will operate the center in conjunction with the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation, an organization dedicated to .

A series of skyward-looking events kicked off the center's activities last month, culminating in a symposium oncalled . There, sci-fi heavyweights such as Gregory Benford and Neal Stephenson traded ideas about interstellar journeys with scientists Freeman Dyson, Paul Davies and others. []

Scientific imagination

The center will be dedicated "to finding out how imagination happens and to whom it happens," said Clarke Foundation executive director Monica Morgan. To do so, the center will collaborate with organizations such as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Science Foundation on research projects, seek grants to study imagination in science and the arts, and host public lectures and symposia, among other activities, she said.

"We're looking at imagination as a multi-disciplinary phenomenon," said Sheldon Brown, a U.C. San Diego professor of visual arts who will head the new center. That means the center's work will include "people from a wide range of fields, neuroscientists to astrophysicists to social scientists to artists and writers We're looking to find ways to find intersections between these different disciplines."

In Brown's own work, for example, he creates virtual works of art, then measures participants' neurophysiological reactions to them. He hopes to analyze, at the neuronal level, how his creations engage people's imaginations.

Science meets art

Clarke, one of the giants of science fiction and a visionary futurist, similarly spanned the hard sciences and speculative arts.

Perhaps most famously, Clarke wrote the book "2001: A Space Odyssey," and co-authored the film of the same name with director Stanley Kubrick, as well as penning classic sci-fi novels like "Childhood's End" and "Rendezvous with Rama." Heat the age of 90.

Thanks to his training in engineering, Clarke made contributions to the real world of science and innovation, too. In a 1945 paper, he outlined the principles behind what would become geosynchronous today, part of the reason everyone can keep a telephone in their pocket.

The idea for an imagination center originated in a conversation between Clarke Foundation chairman Tedson Meyers and Clarke himself 12 years ago about the best way to commemorate the author's varied legacy. Imagination emerged as the common theme, Morgan said.

Sci-fi greats

The foundation's leaders eventually realized they needed the resources of a major research university to fully investigate the topic. U.C. San Diego won the resulting competition based on its researchers' expertise in a variety of science, engineering and medical fields, along with allied creative arenas, Morgan said. Most notably, the school's Clarion science fiction writing program boasts a distinguished group of alumni authors, including Octavia Butler and Bruce Sterling.

Thosealums reflect the future-facing attitude of the university, said Brown. "There's this atmosphere of speculation about the future that is deeply ingrained at U.C. San Diego," he said. He also noted the school's recently launched Center for Brain Activity Mapping, and the university's collaborations with the nearby Salk Institute, Scripps Research Institute and others.

Next year, the imagination center will again host a big-tent event, this time investigating how knowledge is created and disseminated in the changing culture of online publishing and crowdfunding. In the meantime, the organization will work to rapidly build up its infrastructure and labs to better study the kind of imagination that Clarke exemplified, Brown said.

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Kidd retired at the conclusion of the New York Knicks' season, where he played the last of a decorated 19-season career that is likely to land him in the Hall of Fame.

The 40-year-old had a successful stint with the Nets from 2001-2008, which featured successive appearances in the NBA Finals in 2002 and 2003.

"Jason Kidd has a long and legendary history with the Nets," team owner Mikhail Prokhorov said in a statement. "He has the fire in the belly we need and has achieved as a player everything the Brooklyn Nets are striving to achieve."

Brooklyn fired coach Avery Johnson in December and did not offer his replacement PJ Carlesimo a contract extension despite the fact he led them to the playoffs for the first time since 2007. They lost in the first round to Chicago.

A 10-time All Star, Kidd has career averages of 12.6 points, 8.7 assists and 6.3 rebounds while recording 107 triple doubles. He won the NBA title with Dallas in 2011.

Kidd was renowned for his intelligence, game management and leadership, qualities the Nets hope will serve them well.

"This is a tremendous opportunity," Kidd said.

"It's a role I have been studying over the course of my playing days. I am truly excited."

(Writing by Jahmal Corner in Los Angeles; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)

Joan of Arc (AP)

Joan of Arc martyredConsidered a heroine of France, the 18-year-old claimed to hear thethat told her to lead the French army to several victories in the 100 Years War. She was eventually captured by the British who burned her at the stake as a heretic on May 30, 1431. Five hundred years later the pious war hero was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

Edmund Hillary, Col. John Hunt and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953 (AP)

First people to summit Mount EverestEdmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first people to summit Mount Everest, the world's highest peak, 60 years ago. The amazing feat has been followed by about 3,500 other climbers. The legacy seems to be a dirty onethe mountain is .

Big Ben clock in London (Getty Images)Big Ben goes into operationOn May 31, 1859, the clock tower at the Palace of Westminster, commonly known as Big Ben, began operation. The nickname, referring to the bell inside the tower, was officially named theto celebrate the queen's diamond jubilee in 2012.

Composer Igor Stravinsky (Getty Images)

'Rite of Spring' causes riotBallet is not normally associated with outrage, but this dance, provocatively choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky with music composed by Igor Stravinsky and performed on May 29, 1913, in Paris, was too modern for some ears and eyes.

As Slate , "As the music became more brutal and rhythmically complex and Nijinskys provocative choreographing of the sacrifice of a young virgin unfolded, laughter and catcalls devolved into an outright riot, with the audience becoming so loud at points that the orchestra could not even be heard." One hundred years later, the piece is "indisputably one of the most important and influential compositions of the 20th century."

In an impromptu hearing, Shoffner acknowledged taking a series of $6,000 cash payments at times delivered in a pie box from a broker who is cooperating with federal investigators. She told U.S. District Judge Leon Holmes, however, that she didn't deliberately direct an increasing share of the state's bond business to the broker.

Shoffner, 68, faced charges of attempt and conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right under the Hobbs Act, a federal law often used to prosecute public officials for accepting bribes. Those charges carry maximum penalties of 20 years in prison and up to a $250,000 fine.

She was set to plead guilty Friday to a similar charge until Holmes asked her what she had done.

"There were just some questions asked that I had problems with. I'm just so sorry this is all happening," Shoffner told reporters after the hearing. "I want to tell the people of Arkansas that I apologize. But there were some questions asked that I wasn't comfortable with."

When Holmes asked Shoffner if she accepted payments from the broker, she responded: "Yes, but it was offered. I didn't demand it." Shoffner also told the judge the payments were not related to her decisions as treasurer.

Under plea bargains, defendants are required to admit key elements of crimes. Holmes cautioned Shoffner to be truthful.

"Before I would accept it, I would have to know you're admitting to all of the elements the government would have to prove in order to convict you," Holmes told Shoffner. "I believe one of those elements is that you intended to be influenced by this money, that it had something to do with the decisions you were making as treasurer. If you deny that, which you have now under oath, then I cannot accept your guilty plea."

Prosecutors had said after her May 18 arrest that Shoffner steered more business to the broker because of the payments the ex-treasurer received.

After the hearing, U.S. Attorney Chris Thyer said he was surprised the plea deal fell through. Thyer said he will seek an indictment against the former treasurer with additional charges.

"At one level I'm certainly disappointed the plea didn't go through because I certainly anticipated that it would," Thyer said. "On another level, I'm not disappointed. I truly believe that everyone is entitled to a trial. If that's what this case calls for, that's what we intend to do and that's have a trial."

Shoffner's attorney, Chuck Banks, also said he didn't expect the plea to fall apart.

"I know she's very embarrassed about all this, but this is an opportunity for her to continue to exercise her constitutional right to test the proof," Banks said.

An FBI affidavit filed in federal court alleges that a broker unidentified in court documents would roll up cash in $6,000 increments and have it delivered to Shoffner's office every six months. At least two of the payments were delivered in a pie box with a pie. The broker "recognized his/her bond business with the state grew because of the payments," the affidavit said.

The payments were made after Shoffner asked the broker for $1,000 a month to pay her rent in Little Rock, according to the affidavit. The document said the broker was granted immunity in exchange for his or her cooperation.

Legislative auditors last year questioned Shoffner's selling of bonds before they matured, a practice that they said cost the state more than $434,000 worth of earnings.

Shoffner was arrested at her home in Newport after the broker agreed to record the meeting and bring $6,000 in a pie box, according to the affidavit. FBI agents executed a search warrant and found the cash inside a cigarette package in Shoffner's kitchen. Shoffner admitted that she accepted the payments from the broker, the FBI said in its affidavit.

Shoffner, a Democrat, was first elected treasurer in 2006 and won a second term in 2010. Facing pressure from fellow Democrats as well as Republicans who threatened impeachment proceedings if she didn't resign, Shoffner stepped down last week.

Beebe on Wednesday appointed former Legislative Auditor Charles Robinson to serve the remainder of Shoffner's term, which ends in January 2015. Robinson is barred from running for the post next year since he was appointed to it.

LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar climbed off a three-week low and share markets were volatile on Friday, as unexpectedly weak U.S. economic data dampened expectations of an early scale-back of Federal Reserve stimulus.

The dollar was just off a three-week low against a basket of six key currencies although a surprise fall in German retail sales put pressure on the euro as it dipped 0.3 percent to $1.3016.

European sharesdropped as much as 1 percent. Month-end factors and low volumes added to the data disappointment, but shares remained on course for their 12th straight month of gains having outperformed other parts of the world in recent weeks.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkeihad bounced 1.7 percent at the end of its worst week in over a year.

"I still think if we look in the medium term, the momentum in equities is still intact," said Peter Garnry, strategist at Saxo Bank. "For this momentum to stop it would require some kind of a political or market hiccup in Europe," he added.

In the debt market, German Bund futures edged up and peripheral euro zone bonds weakened.

Euro zone inflation ticked up to 1.4 percent in May from 1.2 percent in April, according to data on Friday that may dampen the chances of an ECB rate cut next week although unemployment in the currency bloc hit a new record of 12.2 percent in April.

The latest grim euro zone jobless figures came a day after France and Germany agreed to draw up plans to have a full-time euro zone president, hold more frequent meetings and speed the disbursement of 6 billion euros in EU funds to fight youth unemployment.

Troubles also continue for those bordering the euro zone. Lending to Britain's businesses fell sharply in April, data from the Bank of England showed, dropping by the biggest margin so far in 2013, even as mortgage approvals edged higher.

Commodity markets remained squarely focused on the Federal Reserve's stimulus strategy which has been supporting global markets since the start of the financial crisis.

Copper, which has fallen 9 percent this year, was on track for its first monthly gain since January despite some profit-taking by traders, while oil dipped back below $101.75 as it bobbled along the bottom of its recent range and headed for its second week in the red.

"Given where the inventories are, given where the economies are, oil is very expensive at these levels," said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of BarrattBulletin, a Sydney-based commodity research firm.

(Additional reporting by Toni Vorobyova; editing by Stephen Nisbet)

The U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said that although delinquency rates are low, the tax agency should beef up the penalties against IRS workers who misuse individually billed travel cards.

"As its mission includes requiring taxpayers to pay taxes owed on time and voluntarily, the IRS should take further steps to address employees who do not voluntarily pay their travel card bills on time," said J. Russell George, the inspector general. "Identified misuse should be met with appropriate disciplinary action."

Under federal law, misuse of government-issued credit cards to pay for travel includes using the card for personal expenses, purchase from an unauthorized merchant, and failure to pay the bill on time, among other infractions.

It said the IRS identified about 1,000 cardholders who "misused" their travel cards in fiscal years 2010 and 2011, but they didn't detail the misuse. In all, the IRS travel card program had about 52,000 individual billed accounts with $121 million in charges for fiscal year 2011, the report said.

The agency has about 90,000 employees.

The inspector general's audit this month detailing a "be on the lookout" list for conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status has fueled a furor in Washington, with congressional hearings and an FBI probe. The fracas led President Barack Obama to force the acting IRS commissioner to resign, with another IRS official retiring early and a third put on administrative leave.

The travel card report said that when the IRS disciplines employees for card misuse, they generally impose less severe penalties than their internal guidelines suggest.

It said the delinquency rate was low at less than 1 percent but current processes "do not include any steps designed to detect inappropriate or personal use while employees are on official travel."

The report said "hundreds of cardholders" with evidence of significant financial problems, were not referred to re-evaluation for national security clearance or background checks.

The IRS said in its response it was already implementing the recommendations to correct the problems.

(Reporting by Kim Dixon; Editing by Howard Goller and Doina Chiacu)

For the fourth year in a row, membership has increased in the American Bookseller Association, the independent stores' trade group. According to CEO Oren Teicher, the association now includes 1,632 members some operating in multiple locations up 65 from last year. In 2009, there were 1,401 members and strong pessimism in the face of superstore chains, the online power of Amazon.com and the recent financial crisis.

Teicher notes the liquidation of Borders in 2011, but also credits the ongoing "buy local" movement and independents' growing comfort with modern technology, whether for more efficient inventory systems or more effective online promotion. Another positive sign: Established stores, such as the Book Stall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, Ill., have made successful transitions to younger ownership.

"There was a time when people were ready to retire and couldn't sell their stores, so they closed them," Teicher says. "The fact that these stores are now remaining bodes well for the future."

Teicher and others see a reversal from the peak days of Barnes & Noble and Borders, when nonstop superstore expansion often forced out the smaller stores. Now, the problem has shifted from saturated neighborhoods to underserved neighborhoods. Industry analyst Mike Shatzkin cites not just the fall of Borders, but also the "sharp reduction in shelf space for books at B&N." Shatzkin says demand for physical books is declining, but that physical stores have been shrinking even faster.

"So the incumbents benefit and that means independents," says Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of Idea Logical, a consultant to publishers.

Independent sellers and superstores will gather this week along with thousands of publishers, writers, agents and librarians for the industry's annual national convention, BookExpo America. The event runs Thursday-Saturday at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Featured speakers will include historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, "Bridget Jones" novelist Helen Fielding and a star among teens, "Divergent" author Veronica Roth.

The book world meets at a moment of relative calm during an age of revolutionary change. Overall sales are steady and the e-book market is growing at a slower pace a helpful trend for physical stores. "The years of spectacular share growth for e-books are over. The rise will be steady for a long time, but it won't be explosive," says Shatzkin, who adds that art books and other illustrated works are simply not "e-bookable."

At this time last year, the industry was wondering about the impact of a U.S. Justice Department lawsuit filed in April 2012 against Apple and five leading publishers alleging price fixing for e-books. Apple's iBookstore, launched in 2010, established an "agency model" for selling e-books. With Apple, Amazon and other retailers, publishers were able to set their own prices, a response to Amazon's charging just $9.99 for best-sellers. Publishers, writers and rival bookstores had feared that Amazon's discounts would lead to its domination of the e-market.

The trial is set to begin June 3, just days after the convention. But all five publishers have settled and Amazon.com has neither radically dropped prices nor, publishers say, taken away a significant number of customers from competitors.

"I don't think the benefit to Amazon has been that great," said Michael Norris, a senior analyst for Simba Information, a research and consultancy company. "I think that's because the e-book market has not been growing as rapidly as it had been before and that Amazon probably realized there is a limit to how much it can cut prices."

At BookExpo, the digital presence has increased steadily. Event director Steven Rosato says a record 80 e-companies are expected this year, located near the center of the convention floor. Day-long programs in the conference rooms will feature speeches, interviews and panel discussions about the present and future of the electronic market.

Meanwhile, Penguin Group USA will launch an old-fashioned, print-only Book Truck and Pushcart, a 27-foot mobile store "inspired by the design of the classic New York City hot dog cart." After the convention, the truck will travel nationwide selling Penguin releases, following the famed Route 66 journey in one of the publisher's most celebrated novels: John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath."

Not all attendees will be industry insiders. A "Publishing Hackathon" will feature teams of entrepreneurs and digital designers presenting ideas for how books can be discovered online, with the winning team receiving $10,000. Venture capitalists and others from the financial world will be looking for possible deals in an industry that has never been a dependable profit maker. Robin Warner, managing director at DeSilva & Phillips LLC, said she first went to BookExpo a few years ago but found the pre-digital environment "staid." Now, she says the rise of e-companies makes book publishing more interesting to investors.

"That's what people are looking for," she said.

BookExpo also has expanded last year's "Power Readers" program, when some 500 members of the general public were allowed in with the sole credential of loving books. This year, around 2,000 are expected, including some attending for a second time.

"I learned about the work it takes to get the book from the publishers and into the hands of readers," says returning "Power Reader" Sherae Allen, a teacher and New York City resident who learned about the convention through a promotion at Brooklyn's Greenlight Bookstore. "Many people don't realize the print, social and online media effort it takes to get the book visible to the public."

"It was an interesting opportunity to mingle with people at all steps of the publishing process, from authors to distributors," adds Power Reader Rachel Auclair, an Internet sales representative who works in Raynham, Mass. "Of course, free books are never a bad thing!"

It could also cut unemployment by almost two-thirds, and average wages could jump 40 percent, he said. But Kerry said it all depends on parallel progress on peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Kerry has been working with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and global business leaders to devise economic plans to revitalize the Palestinian economy. He offered few specific details and acknowledged that his vision might easily be taken as fantasy in a part of the world that has suffered through decades of conflict, and where peace prospects remain dim.

"We know it can be done," he insisted. "This is a plan for the Palestinian economy that is bigger, bolder and more ambitious than anything proposed" in the last two decades.

Kerry, outlining his hopes at a business conference on the Dead Sea in Jordan, was unsparing in his bold economic predictions:

Palestinian agriculture production could double or triple.

Tourism could triple.

100,000 new homes, many of them energy efficient, could be built in the next three years.

The former Massachusetts senator, who has been trying as well to restart direct Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, was to meet later Sunday in Amman with Blair, American hedge fund investor Tim Collins and the foreign ministers of Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

He said he has been coordinating with leading business experts around the world and that the plan would explore new opportunities in tourism, construction, light manufacturing, agriculture, energy and communications.

"Is this a fantasy?" Kerry asked the crowd. "I don't think so, because there are already great examples of investment and entrepreneurship that are working in the West Bank. We know it can be done, but we've never experienced the kind of concentrated effort that this group is talking about bringing to the table."

He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas support the plan, but he added that it won't truly take hold unless both sides make headway on restarting peace talks.

Abbas also attended the conference in Jordan, as did Israeli President Shimon Peres, though they offered two starkly different messages on the peace impasse. The Palestinian leader spent much of the time criticizing Israeli intransigence, while the Israeli Nobel Peace Prize laureate pressed his government's view that negotiations should begin immediately without preconditions.

Kerry allowed that barriers to commerce would have to be removed to spur economic growth. The Palestinians have long complained about limitations on movement and investment that have hampered its economic potential.

Kerry has made four trips to Israel and the Palestinian territories over the last two months in an effort to rejuvenate the peace process. He hasn't made any tangible success so far but insists he is engaged in productive talks with both sides.