NHL representatives and international hockey and Olympic officials met in Stockholm on Friday in a new round of talks aimed at securing an agreement for the league's participation in the Sochi Games.

While no final deal was reached, the International Ice Hockey Federation said "all signs pointed" to NHL players going to the Olympics for a fifth straight time.

IIHF President Rene Fasel says "we have some issues left, but I, as always, remain optimistic."

Even so, the payments processing company's latest results trumped Wall Street's estimates. It also raised its fiscal 2013 earnings-growth forecast from high-teens to around 20 percent, citing a more certain revenue outlook and earlier-than-planned share buybacks.

Investors responded favorably, lifting Visa's shares 2 percent in after-hours trading.

Visa doesn't issue cards. It makes money from processing charge card transactions, so it benefits from heightened consumer spending.

Steady job growth, a sustained stock market rally and rising home values have helped boost consumers' confidence this year, even though Americans' paychecks got smaller due to an increase in Social Security payroll taxes that went into effect in January.

Sales at U.S. retailers a key indicator of consumer spending declined a seasonally adjusted 0.4 percent in March. That followed a 1 percent gain in February and a 0.1 percent decline in January.

Still, more consumers turned to Visa-branded debit and credit cards in the quarter.

The company, based in Forest City, Calif., said Americans rang up $255 billion using Visa-branded credit cards, an increase of 9 percent from a year earlier. But debit card use was essentially flat.

Transactions processed over Visa's network totaled $13.9 billion, an increase of 6 percent from a year earlier. The U.S. accounted for a 3 percent gain, while international transactions climbed 21 percent.

"Economic uncertainty does remain, but our business model continues to prove itself through all environments, and growth rates," Visa CEO Charlie Scharf said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts.

Scharf noted that the growth trend continued through April.

The growth in spending by cardholders echoed the results reported earlier in the day by rival MasterCard Inc.

To distance itself from MasterCard, Visa has been taking steps to make its payment-processing business more accessible to mobile device users, who increasingly shop online on tablets and smartphones, rather than PCs.

In February, the company reached a deal with mobile commerce provider ROAM aimed at enabling merchants to accept electronic payments via mobile devices. Visa also launched a mobile money platform meant to streamline how financial institutions can offer financial services to consumers via mobile devices.

Also during the quarter, Visa disclosed it had agreed to partner with JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a deal that calls for Chase to launch a payments processing platform powered by Visa. Through that platform, Chase will offer discounts to its cardholders when they go to ring up a purchase from merchants who have signed up to join the Chase Merchant Network.

Scharf noted that the companies finalized the deal last month, and said it was a 10-year renewable partnership.

For the fiscal second-quarter, Visa reported net income of $1.27 billion, or $1.92 per share. That compares with net income of $1.29 billion, or $1.91 per share, in the same period last year.

The prior-year results included a one-time non-cash adjustment of $208 million related to the company's income tax provision.

Revenue in the latest quarter rose nearly 15 percent to $2.96 billion from $2.58 billion a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, forecast earnings of $1.81 per share, on revenue of $2.85 billion, according to FactSet.

Visa noted that its service revenue increased 10 percent to $1.4 billion, while data processing revenue climbed 25 percent to $1.2 billion.

International transaction revenues grew 13 percent to $831 million.

Visa's client incentives declined to $567 million.

Shares ended regular trading down $2.44 at $166.02. The stock added $3.48 to $169.50 in after-market trading.

For now, all eyes are on an 844-page Senate proposal with the you-said-a-mouthful title of the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013."

Look for the Senate Judiciary Committee to take its first votes on the legislation on Thursday.

What's in that bill? Is there a Plan B? And who are all these immigrants, once you get past the big round numbers?

A big dose of facts, figures and other information to help understand the current debate:

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WHY NOW?

Major problems with U.S. immigration have been around for decades.

President George W. Bush tried to change the system and failed. President Barack Obama promised to overhaul it in his first term but never did.

In Obama's second term, he's making immigration a priority, and Republicans also appear ready to deal.

Why the new commitment?

Obama won 71 percent of Hispanic voters in his 2012 re-election campaign, and he owes them. Last year's election also sent a loud message to Republicans that they can't ignore this pivotal voting bloc.

It's been the kind of breathtaking turnaround you rarely see in politics. Plus, there's growing pressure from business leaders, who want to make it easier for the U.S. to attract highly educated immigrants and to legally bring in more lower-skilled workers such as farm laborers.

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WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Talk about "comprehensive immigration reform" generally centers on four main questions:

What to do about the 11 million-plus immigrants who live in the U.S. without legal permission.

How to tighten border security.

How to keep businesses from employing people who are in the U.S. illegally.

How to improve the legal immigration system, now so convoluted that the adjective "Byzantine" pops up all too frequently.

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WHAT'S THE GANG OF EIGHT?

A group of four Democrats and four Republicans in the Senate that crafted a bill to address all four questions. In a nutshell, this proposal would tighten border controls, allow more high- and low-skilled workers to legally immigrate, require employers to verify their workers have legal status, and create an opportunity for those who are in the U.S. illegally to eventually become citizens.

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IS THERE A PLAN B?

And C and D.

Obama has his own backup plan in case congressional talks fail, but he's given his support to the Senate bill as a worthy compromise.

In the House, Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the head of the House Judiciary Committee, says his committee will tackle the main immigration issues one by one, instead of starting with a single sweeping bill.

Separately, there's a bipartisan House group working on legislation.

Obama says he will keep an open mind about the various proposals, but the final deal has to address all the big issues.

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COMING TO AMERICA

A record 40.4 million immigrants live in the U.S., representing 13 percent of the population. More than 18 million are naturalized citizens, 11 million are legal permanent or temporary residents, and more than 11 million are in the country without legal permission, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research organization.

Those in the U.S. illegally made up about 3.7 percent of the U.S. population in 2010. While overall immigration has steadily grown, the number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally peaked at 12 million in 2007.

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WHERE FROM?

Twenty-nine percent of the foreign-born in the U.S., or about 11.7 million people, came from Mexico. About 25 percent came from South and East Asia, 9 percent from the Caribbean, 8 percent from Central America, 7 percent South America, 4 percent the Middle East and the rest from elsewhere.

The figures are more lopsided for immigrants living here illegally: An estimated 58 percent are from Mexico. The next closest figure is 6 percent from El Salvador, says the government.

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WHERE TO?

California has the largest share of the U.S. immigrant population, 27 percent, followed by New York, New Jersey, Florida, Nevada, Hawaii and Texas, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a private group focused on global immigration issues.

California has the largest share of immigrants in the U.S. illegally, at 25 percent, followed by Texas with 16 percent. Florida and New York each has 6 percent, and Georgia has 5 percent, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

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GETTING IN

Here's one way to think about the ways immigrants arrive in the U.S: Some come in the front door, others the side door and still others the back door, as laid out in a report from the private Population Reference Bureau.

Arriving through the front door: people legally sponsored by their families or employers. Also refugees and asylum-seekers, and immigrants who win visas in an annual "diversity" lottery.

Side door: legal temporary arrivals, including those who get visas to visit, work or study. There are dozens of types of nonimmigrant visas, available to people ranging from business visitors to foreign athletes and entertainers. Visitors from dozens of countries don't even need visas.

Back door: Somewhat more than half of those in the U.S. illegally have come in the back door, evading border controls, Pew estimates. The rest legally entered, but didn't leave when they were supposed to or otherwise violated terms of their visas.

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IS IT A CRIME?

Simply being in the United States in violation of immigration laws isn't, by itself, a crime; it's a civil violation.

Entering the country without permission is a misdemeanor criminal offense. Re-entering the country without authorization after being formally removed can be felony.

Pew estimates that a little less than half of immigrants who lack legal permission to live in the U.S. didn't enter the country illegally. They overstayed their visas, worked without authorization, dropped out of school or otherwise violated the conditions of their visas.

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WHAT'S IN A NAME?

There are varying and strong opinions about how best to refer to the 11 million-plus people who are in the U.S. without legal permission.

Illegal immigrants?

Undocumented workers?

Unauthorized population?

Illegal aliens?

The last has generally fallen out of favor. Some immigrant advocates are pressing a "Drop the I-Word" campaign, arguing that it is dehumanizing to refer to people as "illegal."

"Undocumented worker" often isn't accurate because many aren't workers, and some have documents from other countries. Homeland Security reports refer to "unauthorized immigrants," but the agency also reports statistics on "aliens apprehended."

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DEFINITIONS, PLEASE:

Legal permanent residents (LPRs): people who have permission to live in the U.S. permanently but aren't citizens. They're also known as "green card" holders. Most of them can apply for citizenship within five years of getting green cards. In 2011, 1.06 million people got the cards.

Refugees and asylees: people who come to the U.S. to avoid persecution in their home countries. What's the difference between the two terms? Refugees are people who apply for protective status before they get to the U.S. Asylees are people who apply upon arrival in the U.S. or later.

Naturalization: The process by which immigrants become U.S. citizens.

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GOING GREEN

Is there an actual green card? Indeed there is.

It's the Permanent Resident Card issued to people who are authorized to live and work in the U.S. on a permanent basis. In 2010, the government redesigned them to add new security features and make them green again.

The cards had been a variety of colors over the years. New green cards are good for 10 years for lawful permanent residents and two years for conditional residents.

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PATH TO CITIZENSHIP

There's a lot of talk about creating a "path to citizenship" for immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal status.

But there's vigorous debate over what conditions these immigrants should have to satisfy to get citizenship among them are paying taxes, fines and fees, and passing background checks.

Some legislators want to set additional conditions, such as improvements in border security and in tracking whether legal immigrants leave the country when required. Others want to limit immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally to some sort of legal status that stops short of citizenship.

But more than 60 percent of Americans think those who are here illegally should have a way to become citizens, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in April.

The Senate bill would allow those in the country illegally to obtain "registered provisional immigrant" status six months after the bill was enacted if they met certain conditions.

Additional border security improvements would have to go into place before anyone obtained green cards or citizenship.

It would take immigrants living here illegally at least 13 years to get all the way to citizenship. They'd have to pay taxes, fees and $2,000 in fines. No one who entered the country after Dec. 31, 2011, or had a felony conviction or more than three misdemeanors would be eligible.

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THE A-WORD

Nothing stirs up a hornet's nest like talk of amnesty for immigrants who are in the country illegally, although there's a lot of disagreement over how to define the term.

A 2007 effort to overhaul the immigration system, led by Bush, failed in part because Republicans were dismayed that it included a process to give otherwise law-abiding immigrants who were in the country illegally a chance to become citizens. Critics complained that would be offering amnesty.

All sides know it's not practical to talk about sending 11 million-plus people back to their countries of origin. So one big challenge this time is finding an acceptable way to resolve the status of those who are in the country illegally.

Backers of the Senate bill stress that those who are in the country illegally would have a longer and more difficult path to citizenship under their plan than would immigrants who followed all the rules.

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GETTING A REPRIEVE

While the larger immigration debate goes on, the government already is offering as many as 1.76 million immigrants who are in the country illegally a way to avoid deportation, at least for now.

Obama announced a program in June that puts off deportation for many people brought here as children. Applicants for the reprieve must have arrived before they turned 16, be younger than 31 now, be high school graduates or in school, or have served in the military. They can't have a serious criminal record or pose a threat to public safety or national security.

Applications for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program are averaging more than 3,000 a day. By mid-April, nearly 489,000 people had applied and more than 268,000 had been approved, with most of the rest still under consideration.

Applications have come from all 50 states, with the largest number coming from California and Texas. Nearly 75 percent of the applicants are originally from Mexico.

In some ways, the program closely tracks the failed DREAM Act, which would have given many young illegal immigrants a path to legal status. Obama's program doesn't give them legal status but it at least protects them from deportation for two years.

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HISTORY: DOING THE WAVE

The U.S. is in its fourth and largest immigration wave.

First came the Colonial era, then an 1820-1870 influx of newcomers mostly from Northern and Western Europe. Most were Germans and Irish, but the gold rush and jobs on the transcontinental railroad also attracted Chinese immigrants.

In the 1870s, immigration declined due to economic problems and restrictive legislation.

The third wave, between 1881 and 1920, brought more than 23 million people to the U.S., mostly from Southern and Eastern Europe, aided by cheaper trans-Atlantic travel and lured by employers seeking workers.

Then came the Great Depression and more restrictive immigration laws, and immigration went into decline for decades.

The fourth wave, still underway, began in 1965 with the end of immigration limits based on nationality. Foreign-born people made up 1 in 20 residents of the U.S. in 1960; today, the figure is about 1 in 8.

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HISTORY: HERE A LAW, THERE A LAW

Until the late 1800s, immigration was largely a free for all. Then came country-by-country limits. Since then, big changes in U.S. immigration law have helped produce big shifts in migration patterns.

Among the more notable laws:

1965 Immigration and Nationality Act: Abolished country-by-country limits, established a new system that determined immigration preference based on family relationships and needed skills, and expanded the categories of family members who could enter without numerical limits.

1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act: Legalized about 2.7 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, 84 percent of them from Mexico and Central America.

1990 Immigration Act: Increased worldwide immigration limit to a "flexible cap" of 675,000 a year. The number can go higher in some years if there are unused visas available from the previous year.

1996 Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Expanded possible reasons for deporting people or ruling them ineligible to enter the U.S., expedited removal procedures, gave state and local police power to enforce immigration laws.

Post-2001: In 2001, talk percolated about a new immigration plan to deal with unauthorized immigrants, guest workers and violence along the Mexican border. But the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks of 2001 put an end to that, amid growing unease over illegal immigration.

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ABOUT LAST TIME. ...

The last big immigration legalization plan, in 1986, took six years to get done.

The law, signed by President Ronald Reagan, had three main components: making it illegal to hire unauthorized workers, improving border enforcement and providing for the legalization of a big chunk of the estimated 3 million to 5 million immigrants then in the country illegally.

The results were disappointing on two central fronts: The hiring crackdown largely failed because there was no good way to verify eligibility to work, and it took a decade to improve border security. As a result, illegal immigration continued to grow, fueled by the strong U.S. economy.

What did work as intended: Close to 3 million immigrants living in the U.S. without permission received legal status. By 2009, about 40 percent of them had been naturalized, according to Homeland Security.

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LATINOS RISING

Census figures show that between 1960 and 2010, immigration from Europe declined while the numbers coming from Latin America and Asia took off. As the immigrants' points of origin changed, so did their destinations. Concentrations shifted from the Northeast and Midwest to the South and West.

A few Census Bureau snapshots:

In 1960, there were fewer than 1 million people in the U.S. who were born in Latin America. By 2010, there were 21.2 million.

In 1960, 75 percent of foreigners in the U.S. came from Europe. By 2010, 80 percent came from Latin America and Asia.

In 1960: 47 percent of the foreign-born lived in the Northeast and 10 percent in the South. By 2010, 22 percent lived in the Northeast and 32 percent in the South.

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THE FENCE

The fence between the U.S. and Mexico runs off and on for 651 miles along the 1,954-mile border. Most of it has been built since 2005. At some points, it's an 18-foot-high steel mesh structure topped with razor wire. At others, it's a rusting, 8-foot-high thing, made of Army surplus landing mats from the Vietnam War.

The fencing is one of the more visible manifestations of a massive effort over the past two decades to improve border security. The results of that effort are dramatic. Those images of crowds of immigrants sprinting across the border illegally while agents scramble to nab a few are largely a thing of the past.

Two decades ago, fewer than 4,000 Border Patrol agents worked along the Southwest border. Today there are 18,500.

Plummeting apprehension statistics are one measure of change: 357,000 last year, compared with 1.6 million in 2000. The numbers are down in part because fewer are trying to make it across.

The border isn't sealed but it is certainly more secure.

The Senate bill would require the government to have even tougher border security plans before those who are in the country illegally could become legal permanent residents.

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WHO'S HANGING AROUND

With tighter border security and years of economic difficulty in the U.S., it turns out that most of the immigrants who are in the U.S. without permission have been there for a while. Just 14 percent have arrived since the start of 2005, according to Homeland Security estimates. In contrast, 29 percent came during the previous five years.

At the peak in 2000, about 770,000 immigrants arrived annually from Mexico, most of them entering the country illegally. By 2010, the pace had dropped to about 140,000, most of them arriving as legal immigrants, according to Pew.

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WHO'S LEAVING?

Mexicans, mostly. Since 1986, more than 4 million noncitizens have been deported. Deportations have expanded in the Obama administration, reaching 410,000 in 2012 from 30,000 in 1990. Most of those deported 75 percent are sent back to Mexico. Nearly half of those removed had prior criminal convictions. So far, the Obama administration has deported more than 1.6 million people.

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TO NATURALIZE OR NOT

Lots of U.S. immigrants who are eligible to become naturalized citizens don't bother. As of 2010, about two-thirds of eligible immigrants had applied for citizenship, according to the Migration Policy Institute. That lags behind the rate in other English-speaking countries such as Australia and Canada, which do more to promote naturalization.

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WHY BOTHER?

What's so great about citizenship?

Naturalization offers all sorts of rights and benefits, including the right to vote and run for office. Naturalized citizens are protected from losing their residency rights and being deported if they get in legal trouble. They can bring family members into the U.S. more quickly.

Certain government jobs and licensed professions require citizenship. Citizenship also symbolizes full membership in U.S. society.

In 2010, there was a 67 percent earnings gap between naturalized citizens and noncitizen immigrants, according to a report from the Migration Policy Institute. Even after stripping out differences in education, language skills and work experience, naturalized citizens earned at least 5 percent more.

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SKIPPING IT

Nearly two-thirds of the 5.4 million legal immigrants from Mexico who are eligible to become U.S. citizens haven't done so, according to a Pew study released in February. Their rate of naturalization is half that of legal immigrants from all other countries combined. The barriers to naturalization cited by Mexican nonapplicants include the need to learn English, the difficulty of the citizenship exam and the $680 application fee.

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WORKERS

How do immigrants who are in the U.S. without permission fit into the nation's jobs picture?

In 2010, about 8 million were working in the U.S. or trying to get work. They made up about 5 percent of the labor force, according to Pew. Among U.S. farm workers, about half are believed to be in the country illegally, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Business groups want a system to legally bring in both more highly skilled workers and more lower-skilled workers such as agricultural laborers. The idea is to hire more when Americans aren't available to fill jobs. This has been a sticking point in past attempts at immigration overhaul. Labor groups want any such revamped system to provide worker protections and guard against displacing American workers. Current temporary worker programs are cumbersome and outdated.

The Senate bill would establish a agriculture worker visa system and create more visa programs for high- and low-skilled workers. Farm workers already here illegally would be able to qualify for green cards after five years if they'd already worked in agriculture in the U.S. for two years and if they kept working in the industry.

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EMPLOYERS

Current law requires employers to have their workers fill out a form that declares them authorized to work in the U.S. Then the employer needs to verify that the worker's identifying documents look real. But the law allows lots of different documents, and many of them are easy to counterfeit.

The government has developed a mostly voluntary employment verification system called E-Verify, which has gradually gotten better. But so far just 10 percent of employers are using it, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The system is now required in varying degrees by 19 states.

The Senate proposal would require all employers to implement it within four years.

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FAMILIES VS. JOBS

A big question in the immigration debate centers on how much priority to give to the family members of U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Under current law, the U.S. awards a much larger proportion of green cards to family members than to foreigners with job prospects here. About two-thirds of permanent legal immigration to the U.S. is family-based, compared with about 15 percent that is employment-based, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The rest is largely humanitarian.

Some policymakers think employment-based immigration should be boosted to help the economy. Advocates for families want to make sure any such action doesn't come at the expense of people seeking to join relatives in the U.S.

The Senate plan would prevent citizens from bringing in siblings and would allow them to sponsor married sons and daughters only if the children were under 31. It would raise the cap on visas for high-skilled workers, create a startup visa for foreign entrepreneurs, and set up a new merit visa that would award points to prospective immigrants based on their education, employment, length of residence in the U.S. and other factors.

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WHO CARES?

For all the attention being devoted to immigration right now, it's not the top priority for most people, even for most Hispanics. It ranked 17th on a list of policy priorities in a recent Pew Research Center poll. Among Hispanics, one-third said immigration was an extremely important issue to them, behind such issues as the economy and jobs, education and health care.

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A VIEW FROM THE SOUTH

Is life actually better in the U.S.? A little more than half of Mexican adults think so, according to a 2012 Pew Global Attitudes poll. Thirty-eight percent said they'd move to the U.S. if they had the chance. Nineteen percent said they'd come even without authorization.

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Sources: Pew Hispanic Center, Migration Policy Institute, Department of Homeland Security, Census Bureau, Government Accountability Office, Population Reference Bureau, Encyclopedia of Immigration.

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Associated Press writers Alicia Caldwell and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/nbenac

The 40-year-old mother of two credits a five-day-a-week exercise regimen for keeping her in shape as she grows older.

"It makes me look younger and feel strong," Paltrow told the magazine. "When I first started, I thought, 'I'll never be good at this. This is a nightmare!' But now it's like brushing my teeth, I just do it."

It is the fourth time Paltrow, who is married to Coldplay singer Chris Martin, has been named to the magazine's annual beautiful people issue, but the first time landing the coveted cover as most beautiful woman.

She joins the likes of fellow actresses Jennifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry and Jennifer Aniston to top the list.

Paltrow reprises her starring role as Pepper Potts in the action film "Iron Man 3," which opens next month.

The actress has cut back her film work after giving birth to children Apple, 8, and Moses, 7, and released her second cookbook, "It's All Good," this month.

She is also the founder of lifestyle and clothing website Goop.com.

Paltrow won an Oscar for her role as William Shakespeare's muse in the 1998 film "Shakespeare in Love."

The full list of People's "World's Most Beautiful People" can be found on www.people.com/mostbeautiful

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Sandra Maler)

TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry's new Q10 smartphone, which comes with the physical keyboard that many BlackBerry fans prize, is selling well in both Canada and Britain, an industry analyst said on Friday.

The company introduced the Q10, its second smartphone to run the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, in Canada and Britain this week.

"Our checks indicate broad sellouts with generally limited stock otherwise," Jefferies analyst Peter Misek said in a note to clients on Friday. "Based on our store checks, the BlackBerry Q10 has been selling extremely well and has been sold out or seeing limited availability in Toronto and across the U.K."

Jefferies, which has a "buy" rating on shares of BlackBerry, said its findings were based on checks with top mobile carriers and retailers in both countries, including Bell, Rogers and Telus in Canada, and Carphone Warehouse, Vodafone, and Orange in Britain.

BlackBerry hopes its new line of smartphones, led by the touchscreen Z10 device it introduced earlier this year, will help claw back market share lost to the likes of Apple Inc's iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co's wildly popular line of Galaxy devices, which are powered by Google Inc's Android operating system.

Shares of BlackBerry were up 2.2 percent at $16.04 in early trading in the United States on Friday, while its Toronto-listed shares were up 2.8 percent at C$16.21.

PENTAGON CLEARANCE

The Jefferies report came a day after the Pentagon gave the BlackBerry 10 devices, along with Samsung's mobile devices, security clearance for use on U.S. defense department networks.

Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it also plans to clear Apple mobile devices that use the iOS 6 system at some point in early May.

The move is expected to set the stage for a tough fight over defense department orders among Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry. BlackBerry devices have so far dominated the segment.

The Pentagon said its move to open up its networks to a broad array of mobile devices is part of an effort to ensure the military has access to the latest communications technology without locking itself in to a particular equipment vendor.

That said, the Pentagon's stamp of approval was crucial for BlackBerry as it makes it easier for the company to market the devices to other security-conscious government, legal and financial industry clients.

Last week, international law firm Clifford Chance announced that it would roll out roughly 1,600 BlackBerry 10 smartphones to its employees.

Earlier in April, Canadian Tire Corp, which owns a wide range of retail outlets across Canada, said it planned to roll out the new BlackBerry devices to its corporate team across the country.

SECURITY SOLUTIONS

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry reiterated on Thursday that it plans soon to extend its security capabilities to devices powered by both Apple's iOS software and Google's market-leading Android software.

BlackBerry said in March it planned to offer a service that will separate and secure work and personal data on iOS and Android. The offering is an attempt to encourage large government and corporate customers to continue to use BlackBerry's services to manage mobile devices on their networks at a time when a growing number of people seek to use their personal devices on corporate networks.

The company said testing of the new offering, dubbed "Secure Work Space", has already started and that it will be generally available by the end of June.

The service, powered by the company's mobile device management (MDM) tool BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 (BES 10), will help secure data stored on devices as well as data that is being transmitted to a device.

Misek said he believes that BlackBerry's device management offering is under appreciated and that BES 10 is being widely tested by corporations.

"We think BlackBerry's MDM software will gain traction throughout this year and see a significant ramp in revenues next year," Misek said in his note to clients.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha; Editing by Grant McCool; and Peter Galloway)

Prime Minister Enda Kenny, speaking to reporters after his government published the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, said he hoped the coming weeks of debate would not turn bitter. But he warned Catholic conservatives within his own party to back the bill or be expelled.

"I do hope that we can bring everybody with us, on an issue that I know is sensitive," said Kenny, who said his government was seeking only "a clarification of rights within existing law."

Kenny said the bill would set a maximum 14-year prison sentence for anyone involved in an illegal abortion, whether doctor or patient. The current law, dating to 1861, sets the maximum penalty at life.

Kenny's government took action following the death of a woman last year from blood poisoning after she was refused a termination because her dying fetus still had a heartbeat. The bill, if passed, would change nothing for the vast majority of an estimated 4,000 Irish women who travel annually for abortions in England, nor the growing number who order miscarriage-inducing drugs over the Internet.

Anti-abortion activists, including many in Kenny's own Fine Gael party, protest that the proposed law could become a platform for eventual wider access to abortion in Ireland. Malta is the only other European Union country that bans it.

Activists particularly oppose the bill's provisions for women who threaten to kill themselves if they are denied a termination. The bill specifies that three doctors the woman's obstetrician and two psychologists must determine that the suicide risk is substantial. If denied, the woman would have a right of appeal to a panel of three other doctors.

Most other life-saving abortion cases would require certification by two doctors, or just one in emergencies requiring an immediate decision.

The bill, published after weeks of government infighting on its terms, faces lengthy debate and likely amendments. Kenny wants it passed by July.

During parliamentary debate, left-wing opposition lawmakers who want broader access to abortion accused Kenny of hypocrisy.

"What you've presented is the absolute minimum," lawmaker Clare Daly told Kenny. "The clear intention is to make it so restrictive that most women will not even bother. Instead they'll continue to make the journey to Britain so that you can continue to pretend that there's no Irish abortion."

Countering government claims that Ireland had one of the world's lowest rates of maternal death, Daly said more pregnant women would have died from complications or killed themselves if not forIreland's "proximity to Britain."

Ireland's abortion law has been muddled since 1992, when the Supreme Court ruled that abortions should be legal when doctors deem it necessary to save the woman's life. The judges defined a credible suicide threat as one reasonable ground.

That ruling was made in the case of a 14-year-old girl who had been raped by a family friend, a crime that her parents reported to police. The government ordered the girl not to travel to England for an abortion, and she threatened to kill herself if forced to give birth. The Supreme Court ruled that she should receive an abortion in Ireland, given her suicide threats. The girl then miscarried.

While the ruling had the power of law, a series of governments refused to enact supporting legislation, fearful of a voter backlash in a country that is more than 80 percent Catholic.

Obstetricians long have complained they need clearly defined abortion regulations to avoid lawsuits or even criminal murder charges.

"We're pleased to see legislators doing the job they're paid to do. After 21 years," said Peter Boylan, a prominent obstetrician who ran a Dublin maternity hospital.

Boylan said dozens of life-saving abortions had been performed annually in Irish hospitals, but only involving the most clear-cut emergencies. Too often, he said, doctors advised patients to go to England.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2010 that women's lives were being unnecessarily endangered by a system that forced seriously ill women to travel while pregnant.

The government took action after a 31-year-old woman, Savita Halappanavar, died in an Irish hospital in October. Halappanavar, who was 17 weeks pregnant, died from blood poisoning one week after being admitted at the start of a miscarriage. As her condition worsened, doctors rejected pleas to abort the fetus because its heart was still beating. Subsequent investigations determined that by the time the fetus died, it was too late to save the woman.

Some of Ireland's approximately 350 psychiatrists have formed rival lobbying groups. Those opposed argue that abortion is never an acceptable treatment for someone contemplating suicide.

Anthony McCarthy, one of only three psychologists in Ireland who specializes in counseling pregnant women, welcomed the bill but forecast its provisions would affect only "a tiny number" of patients.

Over the past 16 years, McCarthy said he'd helped women suffering from self-destructive delusions or hallucinations, who may have stabbed themselves in the stomach or taken drug overdoses in attempts to kill themselves, their fetuses or both. However, he believed that only one of those patients was really serious about suicide.

"The vast majority do not want termination of their pregnancy. They want help with their depression and suicidal thinking," McCarthy said.

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Online:

Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill, http://bit.ly/17x26dq

The graphic points out some other interesting parts of college aid data, includingthat 29% of college attendance comes from grants and scholarship awards, 28% comes from parent income/savings, 18% comes from student borrwing and the rest is made up of student income, parent borrowing and friends/relatives.

Heres a broad look:

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But sometimes, fear grips dogs so tightly they shake, cower, bite, growl or pee. It can be constant, painful and hard to overcome. Such dread can consume a dog when it's freed from a cage at a puppy mill or hoarder's home because that's the only life the dog has ever known.

Until now, it was up to animal shelters to ease the fears, knowing if they didn't, euthanasia was the likely alternative. But this week, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opens its Behavioral Rehabilitation Center at St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center in Madison, N.J.

It's a two-year research project being financed by the ASPCA.

For now, dogs seized from puppy mills and hoarders will be the primary patients, said Kristen Collins, ASPCA's director of anti-cruelty behavior rehabilitation and director of the center. It will also include some dogs that have been confined for long stretches as evidence in court cases.

Dogs will come from shelters across the country as well as from seizures involving the ASPCA.

It's groundbreaking and exciting, Collins said. "It's the first ever facility that's dedicated strictly to providing rehabilitation for dogs that are victims of animal cruelty."

The research will also provide some numbers, Collins said. No one knows how many shy dogs are being placed in homes now. And little is known about how they fare after placement, so center staff will spend a lot of time following up on animals.

There are 27 kennels, an office, real life rooms, treatment rooms and common areas at the center.

The average stay for most dogs will be six to eight weeks, "but we don't have a hard and fast rule. All dogs are individuals. We will be flexible," Collins said.

A team of 10 people, including two behavior experts from St. Hubert's, will staff the center. Volunteers and daily caretakers will feed the dogs and clean kennels.

Graduating dogs will return to a shelter for placement and ASPCA shelter partners will continue working with the dogs if needed, Collins said.

St. Hubert's is a longtime disaster partner of the ASPCA and jumped at the chance to be involved, said President and CEO Heather Cammisa.

Fear and anxiety are major factors that can hinder a dog's quality of life, she said.

"If they are hiding in the back of the cage and they are fearful, No. 1, they don't have a good quality of life and, No. 2, they are not going to be selected for adoption and when they go home, they are not really prepared to be the family pet that adopters seek, so this is just a win-all-around," she said.

The ASPCA spent over half a million dollars on the building, Cammisa said, and will pay all other expenses, including vaccinations, spaying or neutering, treatments and other care.

Weather permitting, the first few dogs will arrive in the next day or two from the Pacific Northwest, Collins said.

They will be the last of 213 Alaskan malamutes seized from a Montana breeder who was convicted in December 2012 of 91 counts of animal cruelty. After being starved and living in filth at the breeding facility, the dogs then had to be kept in kennels as evidence for 16 months while the trial played out.

Malamutes are 75-pound dogs. "Eighteen of the dogs were pregnant. One pregnant dog only weighed 48 pounds and had eight pups. Only one survived," said Bob Sutherland of Anchorage, president of the Alaska Malamute Assistance League.

The dogs were released to a humane society in Helena, Mont., where they were spayed and neutered, and another group helped place the animals.

While some dogs are in malamute rescues waiting for the right owner, many have found forever homes. Sutherland and his wife, Nicole McCullough, adopted one.

When the dogs were in evidence custody, Sutherland would visit to help out once a month. Cinder, a 6-year-old female, became his special project.

She is missing the tip of her ear, has broken teeth and a broken toe, injuries Sutherland said were caused when what little food was given to the dogs was thrown over a fence, causing food fights. Many of the dogs are even missing their tongues, he said.

Cinder has come a long way. "We took a shy dog, and she's all grins and giggles now. If you work with these dogs, they rise and shine. That's why this ASPCA facility is so valuable to us. We were super excited to get these dogs in there to go through a training regimen. It saves us a lot of heartbreak about what we do with these dogs," Sutherland said.

There will be those dogs that cannot overcome the fear, Collins said. But behaviorists will do everything possible and consider euthanasia as a last resort only if the dogs are suffering from an extremely poor quality of life or if they pose a significant threat to the public, she said.

The center will only be able to handle about 400 dogs during the project's two scheduled years, so it won't take an immediate burden off shelters, Collins said, but if researchers can come up with new ways to ease fear, anxiety and shyness in abused dogs, it could have a widespread impact.

And success could mean another phase in the study, to include fighting dogs, or even cats, Collins said.

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Online:

http://www.sthuberts.org

http://www.malamuterescue.org

http://www.aspca.org

ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - A New York state high school English teacher who asked students to imagine they were Nazis and give reasons why Jews were evil could be reprimanded or dismissed, a school district superintendent said on Friday.

City School District of Albany Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard apologized at a news conference and pledged officials would personally express regret to Albany High School students who were given the assignment and their families.

"This assignment for some of our students at Albany High School was completely unacceptable. It displayed a level of insensitivity that we will not tolerate in our school community," Vanden Wyngaard said.

"I'm deeply apologetic to all of our students, to all of our families and the entire community," she said, appearing with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League and the United Jewish Federation (UJF) of Northeastern New York at the UJF office in Albany.

The teacher, who Vanden Wyngaard declined to name, was removed from class for now and faced disciplinary action.

"It can go anywhere from a letter of counsel, to a letter of reprimand, all the way through to termination. There is a broad spectrum," Vanden Wyngaard said.

A letter would go out to all families in the school district, she said.

Vanden Wyngaard first issued an apology through the Times Union on Thursday night after the newspaper reported the assignment on its website. She responded with "absolute horror" when a parent presented her with the assignment on Thursday.

The teacher gave three classes of 10th grade students a persuasive writing assignment as part of a class project to demonstrate how Nazis thought and showed their loyalty to the Third Reich before World War Two.

"You need to pretend that I am a member of the government in Nazi Germany, and you are being challenged to consider that you are loyal to the Nazis by writing an essay convincing me that Jews are evil and the source of our problems," the assignment instructions said.

One-third of the students refused to complete the task, which was assigned following a class review of Nazi propaganda and directed them to imagine that their teacher was a Nazi official, said Ron Lesko, a spokesman for the district.

Students were asked for an introduction, conclusion and a list of arguments and were advised, "Please remember your life (here in Nazi Germany in the 30s) depends on it!"

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and Alden Bentley)

In a tongue-in-cheek challenge issued at a news conference, the 28-year-old royal warned his competitors that the Brits would have some tea "ready for you when you join us at the Pole."

Harry and his fellow Walking With The Wounded teammates will participate in the 208-mile (335-kilometer) South Pole Allied Challenge in November and December of this year.

That may be the height of the Antarctic summer, but conditions will still be bitterly cold. The four-week expedition will see racers drag sleds weighing more than 150 pounds (68 kilograms) and face extreme temperatures and savage winds.

Harry has already taken part in one expedition with Walking With The Wounded, a charity which raises funds and keeps injured servicemen and women in the public eye through feats of endurance.

In 2011, he took part in the charity's North Pole trek, but had to withdraw earlier to attend his brother Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton.

During the news conference, Harry was given a red polar coat by adventurer Inge Solheim, who served as the North Pole treks' guide.

This time around Solheim will be the guide for the American team from Soldiers to Summits, which is made up of Mark Wise from Colorado Springs, Colorado, Therese Frentz, from Del Rio, Texas, Margaux Mange, from Lakewood, Colorado, and Ivan Castro, from Raeford, North Carolina.

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Online:

http://walkingwiththewounded.org.uk/