Panasonic is looking to raise funds by selling shares in the healthcare unit, whose products include blood sugar monitoring equipment, hearing aids and electronic medical record-keeping systems.

The deadline for the second round of bids is set for Monday. U.S. investment fund Bain Capital has teamed up with Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co Ltd and Development Bank of Japan Inc for the auction, said the sources, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Panasonic is expected to shortlist a bidder in early September for exclusive negotiations, the sources said.

(Reporting by Taiga Uranaka and Taro Fuse; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

Detective Kurt Spivey is trying to find the people who record or collect such images. He has 30 days to locate as many as he can. After that, the trail could go cold as the data on the hard drive dissolves.

Spivey is a 43-year-old police detective who parlayed his nine years in vice and experience with computers into a position on the city's cybercrime unit. It's part of central Indiana's Internet Crimes Against Children task force, which has become one of the nation's most aggressive and effective child pornography hunters, with a reach that extends around the globe.

"They are really cutting-edge," said Francey Hakes, who worked for three years as a special assistant to the U.S. Attorney General overseeing child exploitation units in various agencies within the Justice Department. "I would say that most districts that have learned of some of the techniques and tactics used there have tried to model and adopt them as best they can."

At first blush, Indiana isn't a likely location for such a group. Though it has its share of violent crime, the state is better known for its hospitality, auto racing and love of basketball than as an international hotbed of perversion.

Yet in 2011, the latest year for which U.S. Department of Justice statistics are available, Indiana's task force made 166 arrests for manufacturing, distributing or possessing child pornography. New York City's task force made 16 arrests, and Chicago's team made 71.

And Indiana did all this with about $100,000 less funding than New York City.

Much of the success of the Indiana team, which includes federal, state and local agencies, stems from the reach the Internet provides. The team also benefits from a rare level of cooperation among the law enforcement agencies that has largely eliminated turf wars.

That cooperation is essential as child pornography trafficking, which had largely been eliminated in the United States by the mid-1980s, has exploded, fueled by the Internet, social networking and digital technology that make it easy to produce and access.

"The thing with social networking is, no matter what your interest is, you can find people with the same interest or even more extreme interest ... so by extension, you can feel normal," said Indiana State Police Lt. Chuck Cohen, chief of the state's Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says it reviewed 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child pornography in 2011. That's four times more than 2007.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steve DeBrota, who began pursuing child pornography cases in 1991 as a green federal prosecutor because no one else wanted them, said the technology can be a curse because it creates more avenues for sharing pornography.

But it's also a blessing, because the Internet has no boundaries. So long as there's a trail to follow, it doesn't matter whether the investigator is in a rural farmhouse in Indiana or in a hut in Indonesia. The Indiana team has followed the cyber trail to suspects in the United Kingdom and Australia.

"Steve really pioneered the idea of what I call the spider-web investigation," said Hakes, who runs a consulting firm based in Atlanta that advises police on child exploitation.

One such bust started Nov. 17, 2010, when a nondescript van pulled up in front of David Bostic's home in Bloomington, Ind., and FBI agents, state troopers and local police officers swarmed to Bostic's front door to serve a search warrant. Computer geeks using a mobile crime lab started digging through Bostic's home computer, while others searched the house for DVDs or other evidence of sex crimes. The technique is called forensic triage, and Hakes says the Indianapolis-based unit pioneered it.

When searchers found images Bostic had deleted from his PC, interrogators immediately peppered Bostic with questions. He first admitted to collecting child porn, and then to producing it with children he babysat some of them infants, none older than 5. He also told investigators he'd shared the images by email and other avenues with dozens of fellow collectors.

According to court records, the Indiana-based team then followed the trail that began on Bostic's computer link by link through Internet Service Providers to an email account in the United Kingdom. Authorities there traced the account to a registered sex offender. While British authorities revoked his probation, investigators back in Indiana used his email contacts to track down his fellow collectors.

The case that started at Bostic's house has resulted in 24 arrests including some in Serbia and the UK. Bostic was sentenced to 315 years in prison in November 2011.

More importantly, DeBrota says, 24 children have been rescued.

Another Indiana case that was the largest at the time, with more than 50 arrests, spun off another investigation that led to 72 arrests, the biggest child porn bust in U.S. history.

Deputy U.S. Attorney Jay Exum of the Eastern District of North Carolina, who led that bust, credits DeBrota one of a handful of prosecutors advising the attorney general on big child pornography investigations and his team.

"You really need somebody who kind of steps into the darkness and stays there to fight. And that's the kind of guy Steve is," Exum said.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who have diets high in omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish are less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those who skimp on fish, new research suggests.

Researchers surveyed Swedish women about their diets and found over the course of more than seven years, long-term consumption of more than one serving of fatty fish each week was tied to a lower risk of developing the condition.

"This study is the first to attribute the protective effect of fish against rheumatoid arthritis to its content of omega-3 fatty acids," Daniela Di Giuseppe, a doctoral student at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the study, told Reuters Health in an email.

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease that causes joint inflammation, deformities and disability. People with the condition also have a higher risk of heart disease, some infections, anxiety, depression and blood cancers like leukemia.

According to the American College of Rheumatology, between 0.5 and 1 percent of the U.S. population has rheumatoid arthritis. Women are two to three times more likely than men to develop the disease, which most commonly starts affecting people in their 60s.

Di Giuseppe and her colleagues followed over 32,000 women born between 1914 and 1948 who were part of the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Information about fish consumption was gathered from diet questionnaires sent to women in 1987 and 1997.

National registries were used to identify new diagnoses of rheumatoid arthritis between 2003 and 2010.

The researchers separated women into five groups based on the amount of fish-based omega-3 fatty acids in their diet, ranging from 0.21 grams or less per day to at least half a gram daily.

Eating 0.21 grams per day of omega-3 fatty acids equates to about one serving per week of salmon and other fatty fish, or four servings per week of lean fish such as cod.

During follow-up, 205 women developed rheumatoid arthritis, the researchers reported in Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

Long-term consumption of any fish at least once per week, compared to less than one weekly serving, was tied to a 29 percent lower risk of rheumatoid arthritis. However, that finding could have been due to chance, the researchers found.

Women who reported getting more than 0.21 grams of omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish per day both in 1987 and 1997 had a 52 percent decreased risk of developing the disease, compared to those who ate the least.

The researchers found a threshold effect, suggesting more omega-3s may not always be better. Below 0.35 grams per day, the risk of rheumatoid arthritis increased, but above it, the benefits seemed to taper off.

The results are consistent with other studies that have found threshold effects, and with recommendations from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, which advise eating at least two servings of fish per week.

The researchers concluded that "moderate consumption of fish is sufficient to reduce risk of diseases."

Genes and lifestyle may both play a role in rheumatoid arthritis. Dr. Simon Helfgott, a rheumatoid arthritis researcher at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said the top three things people can do to prevent the disease are not smoke, avoid gum disease by having good oral hygiene and improve their diet.

"When we say diet there's really only one influence that seems to affect rheumatoid arthritis and that's fish consumption," Helfgott, who was not involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

Omega-3 fatty acids are used by the body to make molecules that help regulate inflammation, known as eicosanoids. The current thinking is that eicosanoids derived from essential fatty acids in meat promote more inflammation than those from omega-3 fatty acids in fish, researchers said.

"This study lends credence to a strongly considered hypothesis in rheumatology circles, which is that we might be able to intervene in preventing rheumatoid arthritis in some individuals," Helfgott said.

Source: http://bit.ly/172ipzX Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, online August 12, 2013.

BERLIN/LONDON (Reuters) - Germany confirmed on Friday it had enjoyed its fastest rate of economic expansion in more than a year in the second quarter, and Britain revised up its growth to the same rate.

Although recession still haunts many of Europe's major economies, like Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, analysts said the German and British data showed that at least two of the region's major economic engines are moving into a higher gear.

Consumer morale has jumped to its highest level in two years this month, other data showed on Friday, in a bright sign for the current quarter as well.

Strong domestic demand drove a 0.7 percent quarterly increase in German gross domestic product in the second quarter, matching its growth rate in the first quarter of 2012.

Britain's economy expanded at the same rate as Germany's, equaling the growth it recorded in the third quarter of last year, fuelled by a broad-based pick-up in activity.

The signs of robust growth have also led to more upbeat comments from the region's central bankers, who have hitherto hinted at interest rates remaining low for some time to come.

The German figures reflected a construction flurry after a harsh winter, firms' strong appetite for machines and equipment and healthy private consumption.

"The composition of growth is very good. It is being driven more strongly from within, which is good for Germany and the euro zone," said economist Holger Sandte at Nordea.

The euro zone exited a year and a half of recession in the second quarter.

"It is also positive that firms are investing more in equipment and are not so hesitant anymore," added Sandte on the German data.

Policymakers are sounding a bit more positive, too. European Central Bank policymaker Ewald Nowotny said in an interview on Thursday that he saw no reason for an interest rate cut now.

And German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, who is preparing for a federal election next month, said he welcomed the prospect of the ECB raising interest rates once the economy improves.

"Low rates are above all an expression of insecurity on debt markets. That cannot last forever - even if it is a relief to the federal budget," he told business daily Handelsblatt.

ECB President Mario Draghi said after the last rate-setting meeting on August 1 that rates will remain low for some time. The ECB has based this 'forward guidance' on the inflation outlook remaining subdued and growth weak.

Purchasing managers indexes this week confirmed strong growth in Germany this month, although they suggested companies in No.2 euro zone economy France are still struggling.

Analysts said that was hard to reconcile with preliminary figures last week showing the French economy grew 0.5 percent in the second quarter.

In Britain, however, signs of recovery have been far less ambiguous over the last couple of months.

"It does look like the recovery is becoming more self-sustaining," said Philip Shaw, economist at Investec.

Stocks gained after the data, which also showed output rose by a surprisingly strong 1.5 percent from a year ago.

British exports rose at the fastest rate since late 2011, and business investment grew faster than household spending, suggesting a shift towards more balanced growth in an economy that has been driven mainly by domestic consumption and imports.

To encourage spending and investment, the Bank of England said earlier this month it would not raise borrowing costs while unemployment remains above 7 percent, a level it did not expect to be breached for at least three years.

But the threshold may be crossed sooner if Britain's recovery maintains momentum, and since the bank gave its forward guidance, the news on the economy has been predominantly upbeat.

"The Bank of England is therefore facing a growing challenge of how to convince the markets and households that interest rates will not need to rise over the next three years," said Chris Williamson, economist at financial data company Markit.

(Writing by Andy Bruce; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Brooke Astor's 89-year-old son, in prison for swindling his late philanthropist mother, is slated to appear before the New York State Parole Board this week to seek an early medical release, a Department of Corrections spokeswoman said on Monday.

Anthony Marshall, convicted in 2009 of grand larceny and other charges for taking advantage of his aging mother, suffers from Parkinson's disease and is unable to walk or feed himself, according to his lawyers.

He began serving his sentence on June 21.

A decorated veteran from the Second World War, Broadway producer and U.S. diplomat, he has been serving his one- to three-year sentence in a medical unit at Fishkill Correctional Facility, about 70 miles north of New York City.

To be eligible for medical parole, inmates must be "so physically or cognitively debilitated or incapacitated that there is a reasonable probability" that they no longer present any danger to society, according to the state Department of Corrections.

The department did not release a specific date for the parole hearing, but a decision on whether to grant Marshall medical parole will be made before this Friday, said spokeswoman Linda Foglia.

Marshall's lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

Marshall was convicted of taking advantage of his mother's deteriorating mental state and stealing millions of dollars from her the years before she died at the age of 105 in 2007. The thrice-married Astor was a philanthropist for much of her life, heading the Vincent Astor Foundation for almost 40 years.

If Marshall is denied parole, his earliest potential release date would be June 2014, said Foglia. If he is granted parole, his release might take several weeks.

Since New York's compassionate release law took effect in 1992, 398 inmates have been granted medical parole, Foglia said.

Last year, 11 inmates received parole under the law, six with terminal illnesses and five with non-terminal illnesses, she said.

(Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Leslie Gevirtz)

A month after suddenly abandoning his claims of innocence and accepting a 65-game suspension from Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers slugger admitted he took a cream and a lozenge containing banned substances while rehabilitating an injury during his 2011 NL MVP season.

In a statement released by the Brewers on Thursday night, Braun took responsibility for his actions. He also apologized to many people, including the sample collector he castigated after an arbitrator overturned the outfielder's suspension from a 2011 positive test.

"I have no one to blame but myself. I know that over the last year and a half I made some serious mistakes, both in the information I failed to share during my arbitration hearing and the comments I made to the press afterwards," Braun said. "I have disappointed the people closest to me."

Still, his lengthy act of self-reproach was missing several key details. Among them: The five-time All-Star doesn't say who gave him the PEDs or where they came from; he doesn't reveal the banned substance in the products; he doesn't say if he knew the cream and lozenge were tainted at the time he took them.

For now, the apology will have to do.

"To me, it doesn't really matter what they say. Let's lay down the penalties and move on," San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.

On July 22, Braun agreed to a suspension resulting from Major League Baseball's investigation of the now-closed Biogenesis of America anti-aging clinic, which was accused of providing banned substances to players.

At that time he acknowledged only that he made "mistakes," leaving people, including Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, wanting more.

He laid out his story Thursday: "Here is what happened," the statement says.

Still tied to Milwaukee for at least seven more years and $117 million, Braun also sent a separate letter of apology to Brewers fans.

Braun was the first of 14 players disciplined this year as a result of the Biogenesis probe. Twelve accepted 50-game penalties, including a trio of All-Stars: Texas outfielder Nelson Cruz, Detroit shortstop Jhonny Peralta and San Diego shortstop Everth Cabrera.

Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is appealing his 211-game penalty, assessed for violations of the drug program and labor contract.

In his initial meeting with MLB investigators to discuss Biogenesis, Braun declined to answer questions. But in the statement, he said he initiated a second session with MLB during which he admitted his guilt and began discussing a penalty.

"After my interview with MLB in late June of this year, I came to the realization that it was time to come to grips with the truth," Braun said. "I was never presented with baseball's evidence against me, but I didn't need to be, because I knew what I had done."

Braun's urine tested positive for elevated testosterone from a sample collected on Saturday, Oct. 1, 2011, after Milwaukee's NL division series opener against Arizona. The drug collector, Dino Laurenzi Jr., stored the samples from Braun and two other players at home and dropped them off at a Federal Express office on Monday, rather than send them immediately, as specified in baseball's drug collection rules.

The players' association argued that the specimen was handled improperly, and arbitrator Shyam Das overturned the discipline on Feb. 23 last year.

During a news conference the following day on the field at Milwaukee's spring training stadium in Phoenix, Braun proclaimed he had been vindicated and questioned Laurenzi's methods. A week later Braun's lawyer criticized Laurenzi when the collector defended himself.

"I have no one to blame but myself. I know that over the last year and a half I made some serious mistakes, both in the information I failed to share during my arbitration hearing and the comments I made to the press afterwards," Braun said. "I have disappointed the people closest to me the ones who fought for me because they truly believed me all along. I kept the truth from everyone. For a long time, I was in denial and convinced myself that I had not done anything wrong."

After he accepted his suspension 50 games for the drug infraction and 15 games for his conduct at the time of the grievance Braun was heavily criticized by players around the major leagues.

"I thought this whole thing has been despicable on his part," Detroit pitcher Max Scherzer said then. "When he did get caught, he never came clean. He tried to question the ability of the collector when he was caught red-handed. So that's why the whole Braun situation, there is so much player outrage toward him."

Braun hopes this is a step in the right direction.

"I also understand that I will now have to work very, very hard to begin to earn back people's trust and support. I am dedicated to making amends and to earning back the trust of my teammates, the fans, the entire Brewers' organization, my sponsors, advisors and from MLB," Braun said. "I am hopeful that I can earn back the trust from those who I have disappointed and those who are willing to give me the opportunity."

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AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in San Francisco contributed to this report.

The Pew Research Center finds thatclimate change is real, but it regularly ranks at the bottom of people's priority lists. The centerthat the public generally supports more production of all kinds of energy, including fossil fuels and renewables. Various polls conducted by interest groups have found survey results that differ quite a lot from Pew's polling. Indeed, polls can often produce a wide array of results depending on how questions are framed.

What polling have you seen or conducted that offers a perspective on these issues? Does the public support or oppose a tax on carbon emissions or gasoline? What other energy and climate issues has the public taken positions on, according to the latest polling?

What factors, including geographical, political, and economic, go into the position a person takes on energy and climate issues? What kind of influence should public polling have on the policies Washington's decision-makers are crafting?

How do Americans' views on energy production and climate change differ from those around the world? Is this distinction important, and why or why not?

Earlier this month, the British government placed a temporary export ban on the gold-and-turquoise ring in the hope that money could be found to keep it in Britain.

The Jane Austen's House museum said it had raised 103,200 pounds of the 152,450-pound asking price since launching a fundraising campaign on Friday, most of it from a single anonymous donation.

"We are two-thirds of the way there in 48 hours, which is tremendous, but we're not there yet," said museum fundraiser Louise West.

The author of "Pride and Prejudice," who died at age 41 in 1817, left the ring to her sister Cassandra. It remained in the family until it was sold at a Sotheby's auction last year.

The museum at Austen's former home in Chawton, southern England, had hoped to buy the ring last year but was outbid when it sold for five times the estimated price.

Clarkson an Austen fan who owns a first edition of the author's novel "Persuasion" was the successful buyer. But she has been prevented from taking the ring home to the U.S. by a power that allows the British government to temporarily halt the export of works judged to be national treasures.

The museum has until December to raise the rest of the money, and Clarkson has agreed to sell the ring should a buyer come forward.

West said the situation is a shame for Clarkson, "but the ring should stay in this country, because there is so little of Austen's personal effects left."

West said the museum had invited the 2002 "American Idol" winner to come visit the next time she is in Britain. She said Clarkson's interest in the author was another sign that Austen's popularity remains strong, 200 years after she published her most famous novel, "Pride and Prejudice."

"It is very good for Jane Austen PR that a young, famous American pop star expresses a love for her," West said.

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Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

The Cavaliers on Tuesday did not release the terms of the deal but the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported it is worth $16.7 million over three years.

Bennett entered the draft after being voted the top freshman in the Mountain West Conference last season, when he averaged 16.1 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.

He made league history as the first Canadian-born player to be taken first in the draft.

Bennett joins fellow Canuck Tristan Thompson who was taken fourth overall by the Cavaliers at the 2011 draft.

Bennett was born in Toronto and the scouts like him because he is a strong rebounder and has a nice scoring touch.

He becomes just the second UNLV player to go number one after Larry Johnson, who was chosen first overall in 1991 by the Charlotte Hornets.

The Cavaliers are hoping Bennett can help them forget about the loss of LeBron James, who fled the city for Miami following the 2010 season.

James led Miami to an NBA championship this year and was named MVP of the finals.

Cleveland went 24-58 last season and has missed the playoffs for the past three seasons.