Rumors are flying, speeds are increasing and an Andretti is trying to get back to Victory Lane. Yes, it's starting to feel like the good old days in Indy.

"I've been feeling that resurgence ever since I came back over in 2009 and the momentum around the Indy 500 is just increasing," said Dario Franchitti, the defending race winner who is trying to become the fourth member of the four-time winners club. "It's growing in stature again."

This year's race will be historic for other reasons.

For the first time since 1987, two three-time Indianapolis 500 winners -- Franchitti and Helio Castroneves -- are expected to be in the starting field. For the first time since 1991, excluding the years of the open-wheel split, Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi are arriving at the 2.5-mile oval without a win.

For a change, nobody's talking about whether race organizers can fill the traditional 33-car field. They're talking about whether any late additions could knock one of the 33 on the current entry list out of the starting field.

"I think it's going to be exciting," said Michael Andretti, the former driver whose team has won three of this season's first four races. "Some teams have not been so competitive in years past. But the racing this year has been at the top level and it has to be great for the fans. It's as good as it's ever been."

Who would expect anything else with a field this talented?

Canadian James Hinchcliffe, one of five Andretti drivers trying to qualify next weekend, has won half of the first four races. Defending points champ Ryan Hunter-Reay, one of Hinchcliffe's teammates, won at Alabama but hasn't been on the podium anywhere else. The current leader is 36-year-old Takuma Sato, the first Japanese driver to win an IndyCar race and the driver who crashed on the final lap last May as he tried to pass Franchitti for the lead.

"You go for the win, you know," Sato said. "Anybody in that position would have done it."

Meanwhile, the old guard Castroneves, Franchitti and Tony Kanaan all have their own issues to contend with.

Franchitti, who owns four series titles three with Target Chip Ganassi is trying to fight his way back into contention for the championship. When practice opens Saturday, he'll be 15th in the points. Castroneves has only two wins in his last 37 races, while Kanaan hasn't reached Victory Lane since Iowa in 2010, a span of 41 straight races.

"Every year, I believe it's the year," Kanaan said Thursday while promoting the series' next race at Belle Isle Park in metro Detroit. "Honestly, I've enjoyed going to Indy because of the way the crowd made me feel. I know I haven't won there, but they make me feel wanted and welcome and they make me feel like a winner."

But qualifying weekend could have an old-time flair to it, too.

Most expect speeds to increase significantly in the second year of this engine-chassis combination. Last year, Ryan Briscoe took the pole with a four-lap average of 226.484 mph. This year, with the right conditions, that number could jump significantly.

"I think the pole speed will be close to 230, if not 230," Andretti said.

Off the track, there's just as much being discussed.

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a legislative bill this week that will give track officials $100 million in public financing to upgrade the facility. Potential projects already being discussed include updating the seats, renovating the road course and adding lights at a speedway that has never had night racing.

Of course, it wouldn't be Indy if there wasn't endless speculation about who may find a late ride before the second and final day of qualifying ends on May 19. One name sure to surface, now that he has passed his rookie test, is Kurt Busch even though the 2004 Sprint Cup champion made it clear he's not ready to try "The Double" this May.

" I think the proper thing is to go out and experience this car at another oval track and get into a race and experience what the buffeting is and the movement of the car when all the downforce changes," Busch said after posting a fast lap of 218.21 mph on Thursday.

All of it has given Indy an injection of excitement to opening day at the track.

"I think this race has an aura about it every year because it's such a unique event," Hinchcliffe said. "Our team will try to improve and other teams will try to improve as well, but none of that really matters till you roll the car out on opening day."

Degenkolb, who rides for Argos-Shimano, won in four hours 37 minutes 48 seconds along the mainly flat, 199-kilometre leg from Cosenza to Matera.

It is a first stage victory in the Giro for the 24-year-old German, who finished several bike lengths ahead of Angel Vicioso. Paul Maertens was third.

Victoria's Ryder Hesjedal remained in the mix to defend his 2012 Giro title. Hesjedal remained fifth overall, 34 seconds off the pace, after finishing 24th in Wednesday's stage.

The end saw a crash in the lead group just over a kilometre from the finish line. One of Degenkolb's teammates, Luka Mezgec, crashed on the final turn, bringing several other riders down with him.

Marco Canola raced clear but the Italian was unable to hold off his pursuers.

All the riders delayed by the crash behind Degenkolb were awarded the same time, which meant Paolini kept his pink jersey.

Overall favourite Bradley Wiggins, who lost 17 seconds on Tuesday, remained sixth in the general standings, 34 seconds behind Paolini. Main rival Vincenzo Nibali was still fourth, 31 seconds off the pink jersey.

The stage had another early break and Tomas Gil, Stefano Pirazzi, Alan Marangoni, Ricardo Mestre, Brian Bulgac and Rafael Andriato swiftly built a lead of nearly 10 minutes.

Pirazzi was dropped after 35 but the remaining quintet maintained a healthy advantage.

The breakaway was swallowed up by the peloton on the first of the two climbs near the finish.

Mark Cavendish, who won on the opening day in Naples, fought hard up the climb to Montescaglioso to keep his chances of another stage victory alive.

However, he received no help on the descent and was unable to stay in contention.

Although heavy rain had stopped by the time cyclists arrived at the finish, the roads remained slippery and that perhaps contributed to the crash.

Degenkolb avoided the crash and raced in pursuit of Canola, catching him in the final 300 metres to win by several bike lengths.

Thursday's sixth stage is another mainly flat one, along 168 kilometres from Mola di Bari to Margherita di Savoia.

Experts aren't sure what's behind the increase. Could it be that children are growing up in households so clean that it leaves them more sensitive to things that can trigger allergies?Or are mom and dad paying closer attention to rashes and reactions, and more likely to call it an allergy?

"We don't really have the answer," said Dr. Lara Akinbami of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the senior author of the new report released Thursday.

The CDC survey suggests that about 1 in 20 U.S. children have food allergies. That's a 50 percent increase from the late 1990s. For eczema and other skin allergies, it's 1 in 8 children, an increase of 69 percent. It found no increase, however, in hay fever or other respiratory allergies.

Already familiar with the trend in food allergies are school nurses, who have grown busier with allergy-related duties, like banishing peanuts at school parties or stocking emergency allergy medicine.

Sally Schoessler started as school nurse in 1992 in New York state, and didn't encounter a child with a food allergy for a few years. But by the time she left school nursing in 2005, "there were children in the majority of classrooms" with the disorder, said Schoessler, who now works at the National Association of School Nurses in Silver Spring, Md.

Food allergies tend to be most feared; severe cases may cause anaphylactic shock or even death from eating, say, a peanut. But many food allergies are milder and something children grow out of. Skin conditions like eczema, too, can be mild and temporary.

It's been difficult getting exact numbers for children's allergies, and the new report isn't precise. It uses annual surveys of thousands of adults interviewed in person. The report compares answers from 1997-1999 to those from 2009-2011.

Parents were asked if in the previous year their child had any kind of food or digestive allergy, any eczema or skin allergy, or any kind of respiratory allergy like hay fever.

The researchers did not ask if a doctor had made the diagnosis or check medical records. So some parents may have been stating a personal opinion, and not necessarily a correct one.

"We see a lot of kids in clinic that really aren't" allergic to the foods their parents worry about, said Dr. Morton Galina, a pediatric allergist at Atlanta's Emory School of Medicine.

For example, hives are sometimes blamed on a certain food when a virus was the actual cause, he added.

But experts also said they believe there is a real and unexplained increase going on, too.

One of the more popular theories is "the hygiene hypothesis," which says that exposure to germs and parasites in early childhood somehow prevents the body from developing certain allergies.

The hypothesis argues that there is a downside to America's culture of disinfection and overuse of antibiotics. The argument has been bolstered by a range of laboratory and observational studies, including some that have found lower rates of eczema and food allergies in foreign-born children in the U.S.

There could be other explanations, though. Big cities have higher childhood allergy rates, so maybe some air pollutant is the unrecognized trigger, said Dr. Peter Lio, a Northwestern University pediatric dermatologist who specializes in eczema.

Some suspect the change has something to do with the evolution in how foods are grown and produced, like the crossbreeding of wheat or the use of antibiotics in cattle. But Lio said tests haven't supported that.

Emory's Galina said the new CDC statistics may reflect a recent "sea change" in the recommendations for when young children should first eat certain foods.

In families with a history of eczema or food allergies, parents were advised to wait for years before introducing their young children to foods tied to severe allergies, like peanuts, milks and eggs. But professional associations changed that advice a few years ago after research suggested that allergies were more likely in those kids when the foods were delayed.

The old advice "was exactly the wrong thing to do," and could have contributed to some of the increased cases, Galina said.

The CDC report also found:

Food and respiratory allergies are more common in higher-income families than the poor,

Eczema and skin allergies are most common among the poor.

More black children have the skin problems, 17 percent, compared to 12 percent of white children and about 10 percent of Hispanic children.

The mother of a 13-year-old girl, who is black, runs an eczema support group in suburban Washington, D.C. Renee Dantzler says roughly half the families in her group are African-American. Eczema is an itchy skin condition, which often occurs on the arms or behind the knees. The cause isn't always clear.

Her daughter, Jasmine, started getting rashes at 6 months and got much worse when she was 4.

"Her whole body would flare. If she ate something, you would kind of hold your breath," Dantzler said. "And she's allergic to every grass and tree God made."

Her daughter took to wearing long sleeves and pants, even in hot weather, so people wouldn't see her skin scarred and whitened in spots from scratching. She began to improve about four years ago with steroid creams and other treatments and has gradually become less self-conscious about her skin, Dantzler said.

She's now on a school track team, which means wearing shorts.

"She's the only one on the team with long socks," her mom said.

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Online:

CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/

* Judge orders evidence to be destroyed

* Spanish anti-doping agency to appeal (writes through, adds Spanish anti-doping agency appeal)

By Mark Elkington

MADRID, April 30 (Reuters) - Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, the central figure in the Operation Puerto probe into a doping ring in cycling, got a one-year prison term on Tuesday as the judge ordered all evidence from the case to be destroyed.

Fuentes - who is unlikely to be jailed because sentences under two years in Spain are usually suspended - was convicted for crimes against public health, barred from practicing sports medicine for four years and fined.

However, judge Julia Santamaria's decision not to release case evidence, including bags of blood seized in police raids, to anti-doping authorities for further investigations hit hopes that the case would unmask athletes caught up in the doping programme.

Fuentes's co-defendant Ignacio Labarta received a four-month jail term and was also barred from practice for four years, while Manolo Saiz, Vicente Belda and Fuentes's sister Yolanda were all cleared.

The Spanish anti-doping agency (AEA) said it would appeal the judge's ruling to destroy the evidence.

"It (the verdict) is positive, but clearly unsatisfactory," Ana Munoz, head of the AEA, told a news conference. "It isn't over yet."

"An option is an appeal against the decision... the AEA can and will start the process.

"It will ask for the bags of blood. We respect the sentence and the independence of the judge but we don't share her interpretation."

The Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) also disagreed with the judge's verdict because their request for access to the bags of blood had been denied.

"They would be necessary for the initiation of sporting disciplinary action," the federation said in a statement.

ACCESS TO EVIDENCE

The RFEC, World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), International Cycling Union (UCI) and Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) were all represented in the three-month trial and have asked for access to the evidence.

They are keen to secure the names of athletes involved and to search for possible evidence of wrongdoing in other sports.

The Puerto case has attracted international attention because some of Fuentes's clients were successful professional riders, including American Tyler Hamilton who gave evidence in February.

Fuentes, who denied doping, said in his opening testimony he also had clients in sports including soccer, tennis, athletics and boxing.

The UK's anti-doping chief executive Andy Parkinson said: "We are disappointed in the decision by the Spanish authorities today.

"Dr Fuentes has admitted to having been involved in multiple prohibited doping activities, and linked with multiple unnamed athletes.

"It therefore cannot be right that these names will remain unknown and that no immediate action can be taken by the anti-doping community to protect our clean athletes."

Former cyclist Jesus Manzano who gave evidence in the trial, told Reuters Television: "It's shameful, I sincerely don't know why they bother charging a person in order to deliver a verdict like that.

"You don't have to be a judge to deliver a sentence like that, a builder could it," added the Spaniard.

Former cycling team director Saiz said: "For me Operation Puerto is over and I want to turn that page and to thank my family and lawyer and my friends for all their support over the years... and to a cyclist in particular, Carlos Sastre.

"He remembered me when he was in the Tour de France and that meant a lot to me."

As Spain's current anti-doping legislation was not in force in 2006 when police seized anabolic steroids, transfusion equipment and blood bags in raids, the five co-defendants were tried only for violating public health regulations.

The public prosecutor had asked for jail sentences of two years.

AVOID DETECTION

"It has been proven that since at least 2002 Fuentes was carrying out practices consistent with those of blood extraction... for later re-infusion... with the aim to artificially increase the physical performance of the cyclist," the verdict said.

"In some cases, on top of the extraction and re-infusion of blood, Fuentes dispensed to the cyclists certain specialised pharmaceutical products included on the list of substances banned in sport."

The report listed substances such as EPO, growth hormones and testosterone.

"Fuentes planned the system... co-ordinated their physical preparation with a view to the calendar of competitions in a season for each cyclist," the report added.

"The end was to optimise competition results and at the same time to help the cyclist avoid detection in the anti-doping controls."

The practice of boosting the flow of oxygen in the blood, the use of banned substances, and the methods used constituted "an important risk for the health of the cyclist."

Spain has been hoping the trial would help to dispel the impression that the nation was soft on doping and boost Madrid's bid to win the right to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

The country is pushing through parliament anti-doping legislation which the government says will bring Spain into line with international norms. (Reporting by Mark Elkington; Editing by Clare Fallon and Pritha Sarkar)

In a cautious assessment mirroring that of U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, Cameron said the use of chemical weapons was a red line that should trigger greater pressure on President Bashar al-Assad.

"It is limited evidence but there is growing evidence that we have seen too of the use of chemical weapons, probably by the regime," Cameron told the BBC.

"It is extremely serious: this is a war crime ... We need to go on gathering this evidence and also to send a very clear warning to the Syrian regime about these appalling actions," he said.

The White House said on Thursday the Syrian government had probably used chemical weapons on a small scale in the country's civil war, but insisted Obama needed definitive proof before he would take action.

The disclosure created a quandary for Obama, who has set the use of chemical weapons as a "red line" that Assad must not cross. It triggered calls from some hawkish Washington lawmakers for a U.S. military response, which the president has resisted.

"I think what President Obama said was absolutely right - that this should form for the international community a red line for us to do more ... I have always been keen to do more," Cameron said.

But when he was asked if there could be troops deployed on the ground in Syria, Cameron said: "I don't want to see that and I don't think that is likely to happen, but I think we can step up the pressure on the regime, work with our partners, work with the opposition in order to bring about the right outcome."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress got rid of a headache on Friday when it rescued the flying public from flight delays caused by its budget cutting. But in the view of many lawmakers, the pain is just about to begin.

Members of Congress and groups representing people hit by across-the-board budget cuts, ranging from cancer patients to welfare recipients, say the quick action on air traffic control staffing underscored the importance of being visible to millions of Americans.

"What are we going to do, every time there's a fire we're going to put it out by moving some funds around? That's a shell game," said Representative Gerald Connolly, a Democrat from northern Virginia.

"I'm going to predict that there's going to be more weeping and gnashing of teeth, as sequestration sets in and we're going to continue to approach this on a piecemeal basis," he said.

Next in line for individual funding relief will be advocates for national parks, low-income housing, AIDS funding, meals on wheels and Community Development Block Grants, Connolly said, adding that budget cuts for these and other safety-net services will be felt severely by local communities.

Representatives for some of these other programs said it was the television images of lines in airports and the interviews with angry passengers that led to action, combined with the lobbying power of the travel industry.

"It means we worry about who's going to scream the loudest now," said Chris Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, which has been lobbying against cuts in federal funding of medical research.

A heavy dose of lobbying from the airline and travel industry preceded the legislation enacted Friday, which permitted the Federal Aviation Administration to move money to avoid the furloughs of air traffic controllers that were causing the delays.

Sequestration - the $109 billion in automatic across-the-board budget cuts enacted by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama - formally took effect in March and barring Congressional action to replace it may continue for a decade.

Some programs won relief from Congress in March, notably the meat and poultry industry, which fought successfully to prevent furloughs of U.S. Department of Agriculture meat inspectors.

But because the furloughs in other programs, such as the FAA, were not immediately implemented, the impact was slow to build.

TRAVEL LOBBY

The travel industry began to accelerate its lobbying effort after it learned early last week from the FAA that as many as 6,700 flights per day could be delayed, potentially reducing capacity at major airports by 30 to 40 percent.

Nicholas Calio, president of Airlines for America, or A4A, the main airlines industry group, worked the phones throughout the week, said Jean Medina, senior vice president for communications at A4A.

"He certainly was in very close contact with a lot of people to make sure they understood what needed to happen," she said.

Its first course of action was to ask the administration for a 30-day delay.

When that was denied, the industry group began focusing on a legislative fix that would clear both houses with bipartisan support and be signed into law by Obama.

US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker, who would head the world's largest airline if his carrier's merger with AMR Corp's American Airlines is approved, said he spent the past week making calls to government officials in his airline's hub markets to express concern about the furloughs.

"What I know is we're doing great disservice to the flying public and to the citizens of the United States and we need for this to get resolved," Parker told Reuters from Arizona earlier this week.

The non-profit U.S. Travel Association said it mounted its own "sequester offensive" in response to the furloughs and began a consumer texting campaign that connected travelers who had been delayed at airports to members of Congress.

The association also asked industry workers to contact their representatives in Congress to explain that the travel delays put their jobs at risk.

"We were in frequent contact with Congress urging them to solve this problem as soon as possible," Erik Hansen, director of domestic policy at the U.S. Travel Association, said on Friday. "We were able to generate hundreds of calls and emails to Congress and we're hoping that helped to move the ball forward," Hansen said.

VISIBILITY

Airlines for America reported about $6.3 million in lobbying expenses in 2012 according to the Center for Responsive Politics; the U.S. Travel Association spent about $1.7 million; US Airways and Delta about $2.8 million each.

While other interest groups have a lobbying presence in the national capital, they are hard pressed to match the visibility of air travel.

Compared to "longer lines at airports," said Cynthia Pellegrini, a vice president at the March of Dimes, which raises funds to improve the health of mothers and babies, "you can't see that a child's belly is emptier because her family couldn't get food assistance."

"We are not as well-heeled as the travel industry," said Deborah Weinstein, executive director of the Coalition on Human Needs, an alliance of social welfare organizations. "But I think as more people learn of this appalling choice," that Congress made on Friday, "they will get as mad as I am."

Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, home to a major Delta Air Lines hub in Minneapolis, was among the members backing an FAA budget fix on Thursday when the Senate passed it.

She called it a "practical, pragmatic answer to an immediate problem," but acknowledged that it does nothing to get Congress closer to fixing the problems caused by sequestration. More effects of the cuts, demonstrated dramatically to the public, could do that, she added.

She may not have long to wait. Organizations that have been more quietly protesting the budget cuts were rethinking their strategy on Friday in the wake of Congress' action.

"It is inexplicable why proven and effective Meals on Wheels programs get overlooked from exemption from the sequester when both the business and social case exists," said Ellie Hollander, President and CEO of Meals on Wheels Association of America.

"I guess that's because we need to be a different kind of squeaky wheel."

(Additional reporting by Karen Jacobs, Susan Heavy and Karey Van Hall; Editing by Fred Barbash and Tim Dobbyn)

"Distracted driving is athat has devastating consequences on our nation's roadways,"who has made fighting texting-while-driving one of his personal crusades. According to , distracted driving was instrumental in 10 percent of all traffic deaths in 2011 — 3,331 killed, up from 3,092 in 2010 — and aindicates that texting, dialing, and other smartphone and portable-device use increases the risk of getting into a crash by up to three times.

Specifically, the Transportation Department would like automakers to disable :

* Manual text entry for the purposes of text messaging and internet browsing

* Video-based entertainment and communications like video phoning or video conferencing

* Display of certain types of text, including text messages, web pages, and social media content

Right now, the recommendations are only for devices that automakers install in their cars, and "most of the recommendations are common sense, like limiting text input and what can be displayed on screens or the windshield," . "But this is only the first part in a trilogy of recommendations to limit in-car distractions," and the other two parts will deal with smartphones. "Here's where Samsung, HTC, and Apple have something to worry about."

A new study from the Texas Transportation Institute found that using voice-activated texting apps (think Siri on the iPhone) while driving is  as texting by hand. And a , by two West Virginia University physicians, suggests athat the NHTSA is sure to consider: "The federal government should enact stringent new safety standards that require all handheld devices to be rendered inoperable when the motor vehicle is in motion."

Legislation, stepped-up penalties and enforcement, and education will all help cut down on distracted driving,Dr. Jeffrey Coben and Dr. Motao Zhu, but that isn't enough. In a survey they conducted, 40 percent of drivers admitted they use their cell phone while driving, and 15 percent cop to texting behind the wheel. Abacks that up: 49 percent of adults (and 43 percent of teens) admit to texting while driving, even though 98 percent know it's unsafe, the practice seems to be growing — 60 percent of adults say they didn't text-and-drive three years ago.

The technology is out there to jam your smartphone while behind the wheel — a company called Scosche issuch a device — and LaHood suggested in 2010 that "the government was examining cell phone jammers and scramblers as a possible solution to distracted driving," , "though a Department of Transportation spokesperson later downplayed LaHood's statements."

, arguing that smartphones are more dangerous than built-in devices and that it's unfair to just target navigation, communication, and entertainment add-ons that come in your new vehicle. But before anyone starts mourning their turn-by-turn directions from Siri, it's worth remembering that the NHTSA guidelines are just that — non-binding suggestions, . "And since car infotainment systems are often designed years in advance, it will be some time before we see automakers voluntarily adding the functionality, if ever."

Now, maybe LaHood or his successor can focus on getting drivers to stop driving .

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Administrators for the awards met Friday for the fourth and final time to determine the eligibility of certain shows and ruled that the quartet of actresses who rotate as the lead in "Matilda" are not eligible in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical category.

The group did rule that the four Sophia Gennusa, 9; Oona Laurence, Bailey Ryon and Milly Shapiro, all 10 will receive Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theatre, a non-competitive commendation. "The Tony Awards Administration Committee wishes to recognize their outstanding performances this season," the committee said in a statement.

A Tony Award representative explained Friday that the four girls were not deemed eligible in the category of Best Actress because of the number of their individual performances each week. Each plays the role twice a week.

The use of four rotating Matildas in New York echoes the way it was done in Britain, to huge success. All four actresses in London were jointly declared best actress at the Olivier Awards, the most prestigious honor in British theater.

The move by the Tonys seems strange since the three boys rotating the lead of "Billy Elliot the Musical" David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish all took home a joint best actor Tony in 2006.

The producers of the show were diplomatic in their response: "The 'Matilda' producers appreciate the decision of the Tony Administration committee and The Tony Honors."

The four girls one from New York City, two from the surrounding region and one from Pennsylvania are each making their Broadway debuts. Reviews for the show have been excellent, with raves for each of the Matildas.

The show "Matilda," which opened April 11 at Shubert Theatre, is a witty musical adaptation of the beloved novel by Roald Dahl and is true to his bleak vision of childhood as a savage battleground.

The 2 1/2-hour musical tells the story of a precocious and slightly telekinetic Matilda Wormwood, an English girl who loves to read despite the disdain of her sleazy parents. She is befriended by a kindly teacher but opposed by the fearsome school headmistress.

Tony nominations are Tuesday and the award ceremony in June 9.

___

Online:

http://www.matildathemusical.com

___

Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

Hurd, 27, pleaded guilty in federal court in Dallas to one count of possession of cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute. He pleaded guilty days before his trial was scheduled to begin, without any promise of a more lenient sentence.

He faces 10 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in July.

Standing in an orange jumpsuit, the tall, lanky Hurd leaned into a microphone and asked to address the court.

"I'm sorry for everything I've done," he said in a brief statement, adding that he intended to plead guilty for months and never expected the process to take as long as it did.

Hurd was playing for the Chicago Bears in December 2011 months after signing a contract reportedly worth more than $5 million when he attended a meeting at a Chicago-area steakhouse with an undercover officer and a confidential informant. Prosecutors have alleged in court documents that Hurd accepted a kilogram of cocaine from the officer and signaled that he'd be interested in buying large, weekly quantities of cocaine and marijuana.

Hurd was arrested outside the steakhouse and cut by the Bears shortly afterward.

He was released on bond, but was re-arrested in August after failing drug tests and being accused of trying to arrange another drug buy.

Jay Ethington, one of Hurd's attorneys, said after court Thursday that his client was "an extensive marijuana user," which may have contributed to his involvement in trafficking. Ethington also blamed "parasites," including two former co-defendants who have pleaded guilty, for drawing Hurd into criminal activity.

"Here's a young fellow that had his whole life ahead of him," Ethington said, adding that Hurd was active in charity work on his own. "Now that's all gone."

Hurd, a native of San Antonio, played college football at Northern Illinois and then five seasons with the Dallas Cowboys before signing a three-year contract with the Bears in 2011 that was reportedly worth up to $5.15 million. He had mostly played on special teams, playing in 77 games overall with six starts and two career touchdowns.

Teammates and coaches were shocked by his arrest. According to documents filed by prosecutors, Hurd agreed to purchase up to 10 kilograms of cocaine for $25,000 per kilogram and asked for up to 1,000 pounds of marijuana a week.

Ethington suggested to reporters that those figures were exaggerated. Asked if Hurd had customers lined up to buy drugs from him, Ethington responded, "I know he didn't."

Prosecutors and Hurd's attorneys worked for months on finalizing a guilty plea. One sticking point was what allegations Hurd would acknowledge in a plea agreement.

Hurd's relatives declined to comment after the hearing.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged lower on Monday, as earnings from Caterpillar, Halliburton and other major companies pointed to more volatile trading ahead.

General Electric , down 2.1 percent to $21.29 and McDonald's Corp , off 1.2 percent to $98.66, extended losses from Friday after posting lackluster earnings. Both stocks were declining for the fourth straight day.

Wall Street is coming off a week of extreme volatility, with the CBOE Volatility indexjumping 24 percent, the biggest weekly gain for the so-called fear index this year. The index was up 2.5 percent on Monday.

The swings were largely driven by weak corporate earnings and signs of slowing growth from China, which led to a steep drop in commodity prices. The week's decline fueled talk that the market's long anticipated pullback had arrived, though the S&P remains up nearly 9 percent on the year.

Caterpillarreported disappointing quarterly results and cut its 2013 profit forecast. Its stock advanced 0.6 percent to $80.92 after bullish comments from Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Doug Oberhelman.

Halliburton , the oil field services company, rose 2.6 percent to $38.19 after the company posted quarterly results and said it is in talks to settle private claims against it in a trial.

"This is all going to be very much a direction driven by earnings," said Peter Kenny, managing director at Knight Capital in Jersey City, New Jersey.

"The majors are only off 3 to 4 percent from the high but we have done that fairly efficiently and if earnings are any indication, there is going to be more choppy action ahead."

Earnings also due on Monday included Texas Instrumentsand Netflix Incafter the market's close. For the week, 168 companies in the S&P 500are scheduled to report earnings.

With 104 S&P 500 components having reported through Friday, 67.3 percent of companies have topped profit expectations, according to Thomson Reuters data. Analysts expect earnings growth of 2.1 percent this quarter, up from expectations of 1.5 percent at the start of the month.

The Dow Jones industrial averagedropped 48.66 points, or 0.33 percent, to 14,498.85. The Standard & Poor's 500 Indexshed 3.90 points, or 0.25 percent, to 1,551.35. The Nasdaq Composite Indexlost 3.48 points, or 0.11 percent, to 3,202.58.

Investors will be looking to the S&P 500's 50-day moving average of 1,544.74, which could serve as a level of market support. The index closed under that level for the first time this year on Thursday but rebounded above it on Friday.

The National Association of Realtors said existing-home sales edged down 0.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million units. Economists polled by Reuters had expected home resales to rise to a 5.01 million-unit rate.

Power-One Incsoared 56.4 percent to $6.32 in after ABBagreed to buy the company for about $1 billion.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry)