Seven people are under arrest in the U.S. in connection with the case, which prosecutors said involved thousands of thefts from ATMs using bogus magnetic swipe cards carrying information from Middle Eastern banks. The fraudsters moved with astounding speed to loot financial institutions around the world, working in cells including one in New York, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said.

She called it "a massive 21st-century bank heist" carried out by brazen thieves.

One of the suspects was caught on surveillance cameras, his backpack increasingly loaded down with cash, authorities said. Others took photos of themselves with giant wads of bills as they made their way up and down Manhattan.

Here's how it worked:

Hackers got into bank databases, eliminated withdrawal limits on pre-paid debit cards and created access codes. Others loaded that data onto any plastic card with a magnetic stripe an old hotel key card or an expired credit card worked fine as long as it carried the account data and correct access codes.

A network of operatives then fanned out to rapidly withdraw money in multiple cities, authorities said. The cells would take a cut of the money, then launder it through expensive purchases or ship it wholesale to the global ringleaders. Lynch didn't say where they were located.

It appears no individuals lost money. The thieves plundered funds held by the banks that back up prepaid credit cards, not individual or business accounts, Lynch said.

She called it a "virtual criminal flash mob," and a security analyst said it was the biggest ATM fraud case she had heard of.

There were two separate attacks, one in December that reaped $5 million worldwide and one in February that snared about $40 million in 10 hours with about 36,000 transactions. The scheme involved attacks on two banks, Rakbank in the United Arab Emirates and the Bank of Muscat in Oman, prosecutors said.

The plundered ATMs were in Japan, Russia, Romania, Egypt, Colombia, Britain, Sri Lanka, Canada and several other countries, and law enforcement agencies from more than a dozen nations were involved in the investigation, U.S. prosecutors said.

The accused ringleader in the U.S. cell, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Pena, was reportedly killed in the Dominican Republic late last month, prosecutors said. More investigations continue and other arrests have been made in other countries, but prosecutors did not have details.

An indictment unsealed Thursday accused Lajud-Pena and the other seven New York suspects of withdrawing $2.8 million in cash from hacked accounts in less than a day.

Such ATM fraud schemes are not uncommon, but the $45 million stolen in this one was at least double the amount involved in previously known cases, said Avivah Litan, an analyst who covers security issues for Gartner Inc.

Middle Eastern banks and payment processors are "a bit behind" on security and screening technologies that are supposed to prevent this kind of fraud, but it happens around the world, she said.

"It's a really easy way to turn digits into cash," Litan said.

Some of the fault lies with the ubiquitous magnetic strips on the back of the cards. The rest of the world has largely abandoned cards with magnetic strips in favor of ones with built-in chips that are nearly impossible to copy. But because U.S. banks and merchants have stuck to cards with magnetic strips, they are still accepted around the world.

Lynch would not say who masterminded the attacks globally, who the hackers are or where they were located, citing an ongoing investigation.

The New York suspects were U.S. citizens originally from the Dominican Republic, lived in the New York City suburb orf Yonkers and were mostly in their 20s. Lynch said they all knew one another and were recruited together, as were cells in other countries. They were charged with conspiracy and money laundering. If convicted, they face 10 years in prison.

Arrests began in March.

Lajud-Pena was found dead with a suitcase full of about $100,000 in cash, and the investigation into his death is continuing separately. Dominican officials said they arrested a man in the killing who said it was a botched robbery, and two other suspects were on the lam.

The first federal study of ATM fraud was 30 years ago, when the use of computers in the financial community was growing rapidly. At the time, the Bureau of Justice Statistics found nationwide ATM bank loss from fraud ranged from $70 and $100 million a year.

By 2008, that had risen to about $1 billion a year, said Ken Pickering, who works in security intelligence at CORE Security, a white-hat hacking firm that offers security to businesses.

He said he expects news of the latest ring to inspire other criminals.

"Once you see a large attack like this, that they made off with $45 million, that's going to wake up the cybercrime community," he said.

"Ripping off cash, you don't get that back," he said. "There are suitcases full of cash floating around now, and that's just gone."

___

AP Technology Writer Peter Svensson in New York, AP National Writer Martha Mendoza in San Jose, Calif., and Associated Press writer Ezequiel Abi Lpez in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this report.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - While Brazil struggles to finish its stadiums in time for the 2014 World Cup, Twitter is already working to cash in on what the U.S. company's head of revenue, Adam Bain, sees as a potentially huge business opportunity.

Robust consumer spending, growth potential from still-low Internet penetration and fast adoption of smart phones have turned this nation of 194 million people into an attractive market for Twitter and other online giants.

With soccer's World Cup rapidly approaching and the 2016 Olympics around the corner, Brazil stands out as the kind of opportunity a company under pressure to monetize its 200 million-strong user base doesn't want to miss.

"You think about the next 10 years in Brazil and it is really going to be amazing from a business perspective," Bain, Twitter's global president of revenue, said in an interview on a visit to Sao Paulo this week.

"Brazil is the largest opportunity we see in Latin America and frankly across all of the other markets," the executive said. "That's why we are here building and we will continue to invest in this market in a big way."

The World Cup and the Olympics are meant to showcase Brazil's status as an emerging economic power. But with just a year left before the opening match, Latin America's biggest economy is struggling to finish new stadiums and put in place key infrastructure such as G4 mobile networks.

For Twitter, the international sports events are also crucial. The San Francisco-based company saw record levels of traffic during the 2012 London Olympics and launched a model of integration with TV that company executives like Bain think may be a substantial part of its monetizing strategy.

Twitter makes money through its "promoted tweets" or advertisement posts that users receive in their tweet feeds. The company is expected to generate nearly $600 million in revenues this year, according to the research firm eMarketer.

Bain, the man in charge of turning Twitters' huge user base into money, came to Brazil to talk to businesses that are starting to lay out their strategies for the World Cup and the Olympics.

"Some of our most strategic deals that we have signed with marketers, which are global deals that we have signed over multiple years, many of them include work that they want to do here in Brazil during the World Cup and the Olympics," he said.

The challenge is not so much explaining to marketers why they have to incorporate the microblogging platform into their marketing strategies as it is to show them how to do it.

BRAZIL, A NO-BRAINER

Twitter is one of the latest U.S. Internet companies to land in Brazil, an emerging market that has embraced social media with almost religious zeal.

Just six months ago the company hired a former Yahoo! executive to lead the charge and the sense of work in progress is apparent in the impersonal, half-empty rental office Twitter occupies in Sao Paulo's financial district.

But things have changed since rival Facebook got here a couple of years ago. Brazil's once hefty economic growth slowed down to a mere 0.9 percent in 2012 and mounting inflation is beginning to dent consumer confidence, dimming some of the enthusiasm over the Internet's potential here.

And yet Bain says opening an office in Brazil was a no-brainer. Even before setting foot here, the country was already Twitter's No. 3 market after the United States and Japan, with an estimated 40 million subscribers.

"The overall impact has potential to be huge," he said when asked when asked about the revenue Twitter expected from the World Cup and the Olympics, which he declined to estimate.

An Internet penetration rate of just 44 percent - half that of the United States - combined with soaring sales of smart phones to a booming middle class, make Brazil attractive in the long run for companies like Twitter and Facebook.

And, according to Bain, users in Brazil are responding better than others to advertisement in the form of "promoted tweets," with an engagement rate two or three times higher than the global average.

"The world's spotlight is going to move to Brazil in a very dramatic fashion and investment certainly follows with that."

(Reporting by Esteban Israel; Editing by Vicki Allen)

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On Wednesday, Carney said the edits to Benghazi talking points were "," but theinclude removing references to terrorist activity in Libya in the months before the September 11 attack. In particular, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in the emails between bureaucracies that references to al Qaeda-linked groups should be deleted, because they "could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings."

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It's likely the off-the-record meeting was the White House explaining its version of the story behind the emails. What would that be? That this wasn't about election politics, but bureaucratic infighting. That's a theory floated by , who writes, "the final version of the talking points may have been so wan because officials simply deleted everything that upset the two sides. So they were left with nothing."  ABC News posted an update to its  about the 12 revisions earlier Friday, saying:

UPDATE: A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA’s first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress: 1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and, 2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department’s expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.

After the game, Halladay acknowledged he has a sore right shoulder. He said he will undergo tests this week in Los Angeles and be examined by Dr. Lewis Yocum.

The right-hander did not take questions from reporters after his second poor outing in a row.

Kevin Slowey (1-2) pitched seven shutout innings for his first win since September 2010. He allowed two hits while striking out seven and walking two.

Slowey had been winless in 22 major league appearances, including 15 starts. His previous victory came on Sept. 18, 2010, as a starter for the Minnesota Twins.

Justin Ruggiano homered twice off Philadelphia relievers, and rookie Marcell Ozuna went 3 for 4 with two doubles and three RBIs for the Marlins, who set a season high for runs. The output by the league's worst offense was surprising especially against Halladay (2-4).

The two-time Cy Young Award winner and eight-time All-Star had his worst start since his rookie season. He left after giving up nine runs on four hits, four walks and two hit batters in 2 1-3 innings. Halladay, whose ERA ballooned to 8.65, has given up at least five earned runs in four of his seven starts this season.

Meanwhile, the Phillies' hitters continued to have their own problems. A night after managing only one hit off 20-year-old rookie Jose Fernandez in a 2-0 loss, Philadelphia had just four against Slowey and relievers A.J. Ramos and Jon Rauch.

The Marlins' five runs in the first inning off Halladay were more support than they had given Slowey in 37 2-3 innings entering Sunday. The right-hander had pitched well this season, entering with a 2.15 ERA, but had received just four runs of support from Miami's offense, which entered last in the majors in runs (84) and batting average (.226).

Halladay, who has the most complete games (67) and shutouts (20) of any active pitcher, had 35 wins since Slowey's last one. But he hasn't resembled that pitcher for most of this season. Following Tuesday's poor outing in which he allowed eight runs on nine hits in 3 2-3 innings of a 14-2 loss to Cleveland, Halladay continued the troubling trend against Miami.

The Phillies have been outscored 28-4 in his last two starts.

Halladay helped the Marlins in the first with three walks and a hit batter. With the bases loaded, Ozuna put Miami on the board with a two-run double. Umpires reviewed the play to see if it was a home run but upheld the call on the field that the ball hit the top of the wall. After Halladay walked Greg Dobbs to load the bases again, Hechavarria, who entered batting .169, cleared them with a triple to right.

After a 1-2-3 second inning that featured two strikeouts, Halladay's struggles resumed in the third. The right-hander opened the inning by hitting Ruggiano with a pitch for the second time in the game. It was the fourth hit batter of the season for Halladay, who plunked just five per season over the last four years in an average of 220 innings.

A walk to Ozuna and a single by Dobbs loaded the bases with nobody out. After Miguel Olivo struck out, Hechavarria hit a grand slam just over the wall in right to give Florida a 9-0 lead and prompt Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel to lift Halladay.

He exited to a mixture of boos and cheers, though the majority of the crowd politely applauded. The nine earned runs were the second-most of his career, topped only by the 11 he gave up as a rookie with Toronto in a 17-1 loss to the Angels on April 29, 1999.

The homer by Hechavarria was first ruled a double but umpires reversed the call after reviewing the replay.

NOTES: Phillies C Carlos Ruiz went 0 for 2 and is 2 for 20 this season since returning from a 25-game amphetamine suspension. ... Phillies SS Jimmy Rollins got a hit as a pinch hitter in the ninth. ... Miami placed OF Austin Kearns on the bereavement list and recalled C Kyle Skipworth from Triple-A New Orleans. ... Dobbs' third-inning single raised his average to .455 (10 for 22) against Halladay. ... Philadelphia LHP Cliff Lee (2-2, 3.46 ERA) is scheduled to face Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner (3-0, 1.55) when the teams open a three-game series Monday night in San Francisco. ... Miami lefty Wade LeBlanc (0-4, 6.23) faces Padres RHP Andrew Cashner (1-2, 4.24) on Monday night when the teams open a three-game set in San Diego.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Led Zeppelin, that band that wrote the book on heavy rock, is now helping to rewrite the book on digital publications.

Acclaimed rock photographer Neal Preston's new e-book breaks ground for the genre with interactive video, 80 contact sheets and photos never previously published.

Preston followed the band throughout the '70s and opened up his vast archive to create a rich, intimate experience with the world of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant.

Sharon Waxman grilled Preston on "Led Zeppelin: Sound and Fury," which was published on Monday and available on iTunes. You've had this archive forever, but you only published many of these photos now. Were you just waiting for the iPad to be born?

No. I wasn't even waiting for computers to be born. This is the direction that book publishing is taking. It's a little leap of faith, we're in uncharted territory here.

How so?

It differs exponentially from a traditional coffee-table book. The photos look killer on the new iPad with the retina display. It was a way to really give the fans even more of what they so crave - all that behind-the-scenes stuff. In this kind of book you can include so much more -- audio captions, video interviews.

You shot that famous photo of Jimmy Page drinking from a Jack Daniels bottle backstage. Do you tell that story?

There's audio caption of taking that photo. Sometimes you remember shooting a picture, sometimes you don't. I remember that photo. I happened to be sitting to his right in the dressing room; I had a Nikon with a 24mm lens on my lap, and I was going to say something to Jimmy and I saw the bottle move toward his mouth and I picked up the camera, shot one frame, and I don't know if he even realized I was there shooting it.

Was he upset that you published it?

I don't believe we released that photo initially. I was brought in to work for them. In 1970 I was 18 and I ended up at press conference to announce that Led Zeppelin had supplanted the Beatles as No. 1 band in the world in a MelodyMaker poll.

The reason I was hired was they were notoriously cloistered. Not secretive but with very small inner circle unlike the Stones, when Mick Jagger had 100 people getting his laundry. It was pretty amazing they let any photographer come in and have the run of the store. I was that guy.

How did that come about?

Danny Goldberg, their publicist, hired me. I'd done work for the band through Atlantic Records. He called me up and said: "Pack your bags if you want to go on tour with us." I got that call in November 1974. January 1975 I was working for them.

What's so great about these images is you really feel like you're on stage with those guys.

In one of those, Jimmy's looking right at me, there's dry ice, you see Robert - during song called "No Quarter." Right after I shot that he came up to me and started talking to me. Reason I love that photo is that it feels like being on stage with Led Zeppelin. It sucks you right in.

Access is the currency I have to trade in. Night after night, day after day, week after week, as a photojournalist, you become invisible. When you become invisible, that's when you can capture the magic.

Did the band approve the photos in book?

No, the band was not part of this book, though they received it and I understand they like it very much. This was a different platform, and a new one, and one that hasn't really been exploited in terms of this kind of book, this kind of band.

This book is $9.99 - it's inexpensive compared to a coffee-table book. Is this the world photographers live in now? It's a digital book. You can't have tactile experience with it. However, this is the way publishing is going. There are two things that I hope people get out of this book. One is for the fans, it's a total wet dream. It's right up the vein.

To get the contact proof sheet - you start to see photographically how I think. They can hear the stories they wouldn't hear unless they were up in my house having dinner. And I hope fans get a sense of how much of myself I've put into this book.

I'm very proud of my writing. Stevie Nicks did my intro, because back in the day, she was the first person who sat and looked at a stack of my prints, and said, "You've got to do a book."

Judge Hank Goldberg approved the divorce settlement for the couple, who broke up after just 72 days following their made-for-TV wedding in August 2011.

Celebrities usually settle their divorces through negotiation rather than at a trial that can fuel publicity.

Humphries, 28, had been demanding an annulment, alleging that Kardashian, who cited irreconcilable difference when filing for divorce, had no intention of keeping to the marriage, which was filmed as part of her reality show.

Terms of the divorce were not made public. Kardashian, 32, attended the hearing, but Humphries, who plays for the Brooklyn Nets, did not.

Kardashian's publicist declined to comment on the settlement. Humphries' spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The socialite started dating rapper Kanye West in April last year and is now about six months pregnant with her first child.

The divorce will be Kardashian's second. She was married to music producer Damon Thomas for four years, separating in 2004.

Kardashian, who stars with her sisters in reality show "Keeping Up with the Kardashians," also has a clothing line and several product endorsements, and was the most-searched person on the Yahoo! website in 2012.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Mohammad Zargham)

But amid the debates over morality and choice, there stood yesterday, one small victory. A federal judge ordered that , otherwise known as emergency contraception, must be made available over-the-counter, to all ages, without a prescription, or any other restrictions, starting within the next 30 days.

The FDA still has the option of appealing that ruling, though whether or not they will is up for debate.

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Instead of one of those weather graphics with smiling sunshine or evil thunderbolts, the first thing you'll see upon opening the Yahoo! Weather app is a beautiful image, like the one to the right, of your current city — and its current conditions, but photographically. The photo, you see, changes based on both location and weather. It doesn't change in real time, but it's always a great shot. The images come from Yahoo's massive () photo app, Flickr, which has initiated athat seems built for an app like this. Yahoo! Weather takes those user submitted photos, , and then uses them to reflect the day's weather. (If you want to participate in the photo-sharing part of this all, .) Since Flickr tends to draw more professional photographers, the images that cycle the app — the background changes every so often — are super-high quality... unlike the new , which features a few too many baby pictures if you ask us. And because the weather background images come from an ever-growing and crowdsourced database, you can look forward to new and interesting shots on a regular basis. And maybe some clouds, but still.

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Scrolling down on the app provides the more comprehensive look at the day's conditions that we're accustomed to from other apps, including the ever important hour-by-hour forecast (simply swipe left to see each of the 24 hours ahead) and a five-day forecast. Yahoo! Weather pulls this information Weather Underground —  for pulling info from the National Weather Service and from "weather enthusiasts," people who love to track precipitation in their own backyards. So, rather than just give the conditions near an airport, the new app gives more accurate data, at least in theory.

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And just as Weather Underground has all sorts of maps and satellites, Yahoo's weather app offers a lot more detail, which is particularly useful for someone who likes to know exactly what the chance of rain is — you know, for the purposes of picking out your shows, or travelling. Just below the detail screen is a written-out explanation of the weather, which provides even more detail that's useful without being overwhelming  For example, the hourly images may not show a chance of rain, but the explanation below notes a "slight chance of an afternoon shower." That's important for bringing an umbrella to the office with you! The Yahoo app also has precipitation information even further down, again with the nice pictures. There's a map, too, which is arguably the app's worst feature since it doesn't have the quickest response time. But the app does have animated windmills for wind, and a little widget for sunrise and sunset. In other words, Yahoo! Weather is incredibly comprehensive, on top of being very wonderful.

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The only real drawback of the app is that it doesn't come preinstalled on the iPhone, like the Yahoo powered "Weather" app that comes native to the phone. In fact, it's a little curious that Yahoo didn't turn this into an update of that app. Perhaps it's preparing for Apple to cut ties with it, à la the whole Google Maps situation. Or maybe Apple, in its controlling way, wouldn't let Yahoo add all these bells and whistles. Whatever the case, it doesn't matter: The Yahoo! Weather app is here, it's beautiful, and you should all go download it right now.

(Reuters) - Honeywell International Increported a first-quarter profit above analysts' expectations and raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast as margins improved in a slow-growth economy, sending its shares up 4 percent.

Margin expansion was driven by raw material and general cost cuts, Chief Executive David Cote said on a post-earnings conference call.

Honeywell, which makes cockpit electronics and systems to manage the security of large buildings, has been trying to boost productivity across its four divisions and consolidate its businesses.

Gross margins rose to 16.2 percent in the first quarter ended March from 15.2 a year earlier. Honeywell has set a target of expanding gross margins to as much as 18 percent by 2014.

The company also funded over $30 million of new restructuring projects in the first quarter, Cote said.

Cote has been one of the loudest voices in corporate America calling on policy leaders in Washington to address the nation's debt load.

While sales in Europe and the United States remain subdued, Honeywell said it expected its business in China to pick up after a weak start to the year.

"Inventory levels (in China) are returning to normal and order rates are improving, particularly in our long cycle businesses, signaling a modest recovery over the remainder of the year," Cote said.

Honeywell now expects to earn at least $4.80 per share in 2013, above its prior forecast of at least $4.75. It maintained the top end of its forecast at $4.95.

First-quarter revenue was flat at $9.33 billion. Gross margins, however, rose to 16.2 percent from 15.2 a year earlier.

Net income attributable to the company rose to $966 million, or $1.21 per share, in the quarter ended March, from $823 million, or $1.04 per share, a year earlier.

Analysts on average expected earnings of $1.14 per share on revenue of $9.44 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company's shares were up 3 percent at $73.41 in early Friday trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

They have gained more than 20 percent in the last 12 months and have outperformed the wider S&P 500index, which has risen about 11 percent.

(Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bangalore; Editing by Roshni Menon, Supriya Kurane)