LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Sony Pictures Entertainment has optioned remake rights to Jacques Audiard's critically acclaimed French drama "A Prophet."

Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe will produce the English-language remake for Original Film, which brought the "Fast and Furious" franchise to the big screen.

Story follows a young man's rise to power in a criminal syndicate after he is mentored by a crime boss.

"A Prophet" was nominated for the foreign language Oscar in 2010 and took home the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

"This is an epic crime saga with compelling characters and original storytelling," said Moritz. "I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to make an English-language version of the film and I am grateful to have the trust of Jacques Audiard and his producers, as well as the writers Thomas Bidegain, Nicolas Peufaillit, and Abdel Raouf Dafri."

"We think 'A Prophet' will translate perfectly for English-speaking audiences," added Sony's Hannah Minghella, who made the announcement on Wednesday with Columbia Pictures president Doug Belgrad. "Obviously, we love working with Neal and he has a great track record with this kind of film - we're confident that our film will excite audiences in the same way that the original material did."

Original Film's upcoming movies include "R.I.P.D., "Highlander," "Goosebumps," "Fast and Furious 7" and "22 Jump Street."

1. Eulogio Fonseca Arreola, 26, a street vendor who sells cell-phone accessories with his sister and family. "They went out to have fun. They are not criminals," sister Isabel Fonseca said.

2. Jennifer Robles Gonzalez, 23, a single mother of a 6-year-old boy. Her family said she posted a message on Facebook after 8:30 a.m. Sunday saying she was dancing at the bar less than two hours before the kidnapping allegedly took place.

3. Josue Piedra Moreno, 29, street food vendor who told his mother, Leticia Moreno, he was going out to a club with his brother, Aaron Piedra Moreno.

4. Aaron Piedra Moreno, 20, street food vendor

5. Guadalupe Karen Morales Vargas, 24

6. Alan Omar Athiencia Barranco, 26

7. Said Sanchez Garcia, 19, who helped his mom sell purses and cleaning items in a street market. He was last seen late Saturday when he came home for a sweater before going out to another nightclub and then the bar.

8. Jerzy Ortiz Ponce, 16, went to the party with his friend, Said Sanchez.

9. Gabriela Tellez Zamudio, 34,

10. Rafael Rojas, no age available, married and a merchant in Tepito.

11. Victim unidentified

A service was set for 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at Park Avenue Synagogue in Manhattan.

The liberal Democrat from New Jersey died Monday after suffering complications from viral pneumonia. At 89 he was the oldest member of the Senate and the last of 115 World War II veterans to serve there.

Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and members of Lautenberg's family were set to deliver eulogies.

A color guard ceremony was also scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at the Frank Lautenberg Rail Station in Secaucus, N.J., where his casket was to be put on an Amtrak train to Washington.

Lautenberg was an ardent defender of Amtrak and worked to secure hundreds of millions of dollars for mass transit projects.

His casket was set to arrive at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday and lie in repose in the Senate chamber, on the Lincoln Catafalque, a bier that was built for the coffin of Abraham Lincoln.

Lautenberg, who served in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, will be buried Friday at Arlington National Cemetery.

A multimillionaire businessman, he was first elected to the Senate in 1982 and went on to serve nearly 30 years there in two stints.

He won his last race in 2008 at age 84, becoming the first New Jersey politician ever elected to five Senate terms. He had announced earlier this year he would not seek another term in 2014.

Early in his political career, he was a driving force behind the laws that banned smoking on most U.S. flights and made 21 the drinking age in all 50 states.

Drew, who led Atlanta to playoff berths in each of his three seasons there, reached an agreement in principle to replace Jim Boylan, who stepped in on an interim basis after the Bucks and Scott Skiles parted ways in early January.

"It was clear to us that Larry's track record in Atlanta, along with his experience as an assistant coach and player, make him the right choice to lead our club," Bucks general manager John Hammond said in a statement.

"We look forward to what he will bring to this franchise and we welcome him and his family to Milwaukee."

Drew, 55, who had an 11-year playing career that included stints with the Kings in Kansas City and Sacramento and in Los Angeles with the Lakers and Clippers, has a 128-102 record as a coach.

He takes over a Bucks team that was swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the defending champion Miami Heat.

(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Mark Lamport-Stokes)

Stapleton died on Friday of natural causes at her home in New York City, film and television director John Putch said in a written statement released to Reuters.

The actress won three Emmys for her role as the long-suffering wife of loud-mouthed bigot Archie Bunker, played by the late Carroll O'Connor, in the hit TV sitcom.

Stapleton appeared in "All In The Family" from 1971 to 1979, and continued her role for a time in the 1979 spinoff show "Archie Bunker's Place."

The New York-born Stapleton had a lifelong love of the theater, and her stage roles after "All In the Family" included a part in a 1987 Broadway revival of the play "Arsenic and Old Lace."

In 1990, she received the Village Voice newspaper's Obie Award for her performances in Harold Pinter's plays "Mountain Language" and "The Birthday Party."

After spending a number of years living and working in Los Angeles, Stapleton returned to New York in 2002 to live permanently.

She is survived by her son, John Putch, and her daughter, television producer Pamela Putch. Her husband, William Putch, died in 1983.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Peter Cooney)

The Dow Jones industrial average is on track to advance for a sixth straight month. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is set to gain for a seventh straight month, its longest winning streak since 2009.

On Friday, there was both encouraging and disappointing news on the economy.

Stock indexes started the day lower after the government reported that Americans cut back on spending. They were moving between small gains and losses in afternoon trading Friday.

Consumer spending fell 0.2 percent in April, the first decline since last May, the Commerce Department said early Friday. That news was offset by a report released later showing that a measure of U.S. consumer confidence jumped to the highest level in almost six years in May, lifted by rising home prices and record-high stock prices.

The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index rose to 84.5 in May, up from 76.4 in April and the highest since July 2007. Investors are hoping that increasingly confident consumers will step up their spending, which would contribute to U.S. economic growth.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down six points, or 0.04 percent, to 15,318 as of 2:09 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index was down three at 1,651, or 0.2 percent. The Nasdaq composite lost less than a point to 3,491.

In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.19 percent from 2.12 percent late Thursday. The yield has risen by half a percentage point since the start of the month and is the highest it's been since April 2012.

Rates have risen on concern that the Federal Reserve is considering easing back on its purchases of $85 billion in bonds every month.

The sharp rise in Treasury yields could be trouble for the market if it continues unabated, said David Bianco, chief U.S. equity strategist at Deutsche Bank. The yields on Treasury notes are benchmarks for setting interest rates on many kinds of loans to consumers and businesses. If they rise quickly, lending rates would rise too, holding back the economy by discouraging borrowing and spending.

"I'm not bearish, but I'm a little bit cautious," Bianco said.

The Dow is up 3.3 percent this month and is on track to record its first gain in May since 2009. The S&P 500 index has risen by 3.5 percent.

The S&P 500 has only fallen in one month, October, over the last year.

The "Sell in May" tactic is part of the Stock Trader's Almanac's "Best Six Months" strategy, which recommends investing in the Dow between Nov. 1 and April 30 each year and then switching into fixed income for the remainder of the year.

The Dow rose an average of 7.5 percent between November and April between 1950 and 2011, according to this year's Almanac. The average gain over the six-month period from May 1 to Oct. 31 was only 0.3 percent.

In commodities trading, oil fell 77 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $92.84 a barrel, close to its lowest in a month, after OPEC oil ministers said they would keep their output targets steady. Gold fell $17.30 to $1,395 an ounce, a decline of 1.2 percent.

Among stocks making big moves:

Lions Gate Entertainment rose $1.51, or 5.3 percent, to $19.52. The company reported net income that topped Wall Street's expectations as it benefited from home video sales of the finale to its hit franchise "Twilight."

Palo Alto Networks fell $5.38, or 10 percent, to $48.97 after the network security company posted a quarterly loss and predicted lower profit and revenue in the current quarter than analysts were expecting.

OmniVision Technologies, a maker of mobile camera sensors, jumped $3.22, or 21 percent, to $18.72. The company reported that its net income doubled in its fourth fiscal quarter as revenue rose sharply.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a patent dispute concerning Medtronic Inc over medical devices it manufactures that give the heart electrical jolts when it fails to pump blood properly.

Medtronic wants the Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court finding that it had the burden of showing that it was not infringing on patents owned by Mirowski Family Ventures LLC and licensed exclusively to Boston Scientific Corp.

The legal battle concerns devices, called cardiac resynchronization therapy, or CRT, which monitors the heart to ensure that the left and right ventricles contract at the same time. If they do not, electrical shocks restore a correct rhythm.

The companies have an agreement in which Medtronic licensed the patents in question and agreed to pay royalties on new products if they were found to be using the patents.

In 2007, Mirowski Family Ventures claimed Medtronic was developing new products that would justify royalty payments. Medtronic filed suit, seeking an adjudication that it did not need to pay.

A court in Delaware said Medtronic was not infringing on the patents, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit threw out that ruling.

Oral arguments and a ruling are expected in the court's next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2014.

The case is Medtronic v Boston Scientific Corp, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-1128.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller, Gerald E. McCormick and Maureen Bavdek)

(Reuters) - GameStop Corp raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday after beating fourth-quarter estimates, counting on a boost from new gaming consoles due later this year and further growth in digital and mobile sales.

The videogame industry, which has struggled with declining sales as gamers migrate to mobile and social media platforms, is hoping for a strong finish to 2013 with the release of new titles like Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto V" and Electronic Arts Inc's "Battlefield 4."

New gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony Corp's Playstation4 are expected to launch in coming months. Investors hope the advent of new gaming hardware will give the video game industry a shot in the arm.

GameStop raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast to $2.90 to $3.15 per share, from $2.75 to $3.15 per share previously.

"The expectations are that we're going to have a tough first half until we see titles like Grand Theft Auto and new consoles," Chief Financial Officer Robert Lloyd told Reuters.

Sony Corp said in February it would release its next-generation PlayStation this year, its first videogame console in seven years. And on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, its first new gaming console in eight years, making its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media and video game content.

GameStop shares, which have risen about 46 percent in the last three months, were trading flat at $36.20 in the afternoon.

Analysts say there remained confusion over whether Microsoft planned to take a cut on revenue for used games played on the Xbox One, following news reports that suggested the software company may charge used-game users a fee.

"It appears that Microsoft will assign a unique ID to each game disk loaded onto the Xbox, which could require a second user to pay Microsoft a fee to access Xbox services," R. w. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note on Tuesday.

GameStop executives said they would wait for the software company to communicate that.

"The majority of how the stock is going to trade is going to be the market interpretation of how "Xbox One" is going to handle used-game sales," National Alliance Securities analyst Mike Hickey told Reuters.

Total U.S. sales of videogame hardware and software in April saw a 25 percent drop, following a downward trend that has continued month over month since last year, according to a report by market research firm NPD.

Quarterly profit of the world's largest video games retailer fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

The company, which said its year-to-date market share of PS3 and Xbox 360 software in the United States was 47.7 percent, reported first-quarter revenue of $1.87 billion. Mobile sales rose 290 percent to $46.8 million.

Analysts on average were expecting sales of $1.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly profit fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

For the second quarter, GameStop expects earnings of 1 cent per share to 7 cents per share. Analysts are expecting a profit of 8 cents per share.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Roshni Menon and Alden Bentley)

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Bloomberg's Erik Matuszewski reports"best trick" competitions from any further iterations of the X-Games, its 18-year-old extreme sports challenge. Previously, riders on snowmobiles or specialized dirtbikes would throw themselves off a huge jump to attempt the gnarliest spin or flip moderation they possibly could. It often produced some of the Games'—and, of course, its biggest injuries, leading up this year's fatal one. 

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An  that the decision to cut the events was not tied to Moore's death at all. "Moto X Best Trick and Snowmobile Best Trick were not dropped in response to what happened in Aspen," . "This decision was under consideration before Aspen, and, in fact, our review of Snowmobile Freestyle continues."

This is ESPN's official statement on their reasoning for eliminating the best trick events: 

"This change reflects our decision to focus on motor sports disciplines which feature athletes who also compete in multiple, world-class competitions [e.g., professional events and tours] reflecting the highest degree of athlete participation, competitive development and the global nature of our X Games franchise. Over the past 18 years we have made more than 60 changes to our competition lineups at X Games events to capture the evolution of the sport and these continue that growth."

When you wade through the P.R. jargon, this translates roughly to: We want to focus on competitions that aren't only featured at the X-Games. So, while there are other freestyle snowmobile competitions, there aren't very many "best trick" competitions. It just so happens that the decision came two months after an athlete died in a freestyle snowmobile competition attempting a variation of a trick — the backflip — that's very common in "best trick" competitions. Total coincidence, guys. Nothing to see here. 

So, while there was no prior indication that either "best trick" competition was up for elimination, this was : 

As a result of this accident we will conduct a thorough review of this discipline and adopt any appropriate changes to future X Games.

For 18 years we have worked closely on safety issues with athletes, course designers and other experts. Still, when the world's best compete at the highest level in any sport, risks remain. Caleb was a four-time X Games medalist attempting a move he has landed several times previously.

But the two decisions aren't related. Nope, not at all related. Millions would believe you, ESPN, but somehow we don't.

The dangers of X-Games events , culminating this winter. Moore attempted a backflip during the snowmobile "best trick" competition, but his machine under-rotated. The snowmobile's skis dug into the ground and slammed the machine down on top of a helpless Moore. He was able to walk away from the incident, but was later admitted to the hospital for a concussion and bleeding around his heart. Following complications after surgery, Mooresuffered in competition. 

ESPN is still deliberating whether or not to cut the snowmobile freestyle competition. But the decision to preemptively cut motocross "best trick" is interesting. It, too, has led to major injuries for some of the biggest X-Games stars, though nothing approaching the same level as snowmobiling. Notably, in 2011, Travis Pastrana — one of the most decorated athletes in X-Games history —  on the first day of a planned three-day blitz of events. The , as it was called, was ruined. And it turns out, Pastrana is pretty bummed with the decision to cut one of his favorite competition — arguably the one that brought him the most fame. "Best trick was my favorite event both as a competitor and a spectator," . "Usually these athletes were capable of landing their trick in a foam pit or on special set up but under pressure, they rarely did which added to the dangerousness of it. Either way I was a fan of this event and will be sad to see it go."

Whether this decision indicates freestyle motocross, one of the biggest draws at the Summer X-Games, is in danger of surviving with ESPN remains to be seen. But you can be it will be dangerous.

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To demonstrate the steep drop-off ina graph, using data from the Federal Reserve, showing spending on public construction. We took the same data and made it a bit easier to read.

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In raw dollars, the decline is obvious. From a peak of about $325 billion in March 2009, the monthly amount has plummeted to $258 billion — a big number to upgrade your house, but less so for the entire country.

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But when you compare spending to the entire economic output of the country — how much of what we make that's spent on public construction — the picture becomes more stark. We haven't spent this little of our economic output on public construction since before 1993.

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This drop has been something of a hobby-horse for the president.he's advocated for increased spending on infrastructure— only once, during the stimulus, with any success.

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Again: It's not clear that the bridge in Washington needed federal help. A 2011includes the Skagit River bridge, noting that the deficiency was found in the bridge's deck. The remedy for the problem, however, indicates its severity: "Monitor thru Inspection."

Mother Jones's from the Iowa DOT, explaining what that means.

The fact that a bridge is classified under the federal definition as “structurally deficient" does not imply that it is unsafe. A structurally deficient bridge, when left open to traffic, typically requires significant maintenance and repair to remain in service and eventual rehabilitation or replacement to address deficiencies. To remain in service, structurally deficient bridges are often posted with weight limits to restrict the gross weight of vehicles using the bridges to less than the maximum weight typically allowed by statute.

Emphasis in the original. Aapparently found that the bridge was "functionally obsolete" with a sufficiency rating of 57.4. Both sound bad, but neither necessarily is. "A functionally obsolete bridge," the Iowa DOT glossary explains, "is one that was built to standards that are not used today. These bridges are not automatically rated as structurally deficient, nor are they inherently unsafe." And as , over 750 bridges in Washington state alone have lower sufficiency ratings.

Not that this information makes the state of the bridge strong. Watching not-the-worst bridge collapse is hardly reassuring, particularly since theearlier this year. To remedy all of the problems the group found across the country's infrastructure would require an additional investment of $3.6 trillion by 2020.

Don't hold your breath.