City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

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Israeli Police Evict Palestinian Protesters from E-1

JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinians who pitched tents at a strategic West Bank site to protest plans to build a Jewish housing project there were evicted early Sunday, the police said.

The protesters put up tents in the area known as E-1 on Friday, saying they wanted to “establish facts on the ground” to stop Israeli construction in the West Bank. They were borrowing a phrase and a tactic usually associated with Jewish settlers, who believe establishing communities means the territory will remain theirs once structures are built.

Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said officers evicted about a hundred protesters from the site early Sunday morning after a court decision authorizing their removal. He did not know which court had allowed the eviction.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the eviction was carried out despite a temporary Supreme Court injunction preventing it.

Mr. Rosenfeld said that no arrests were made during the half-hour eviction and that no injuries were sustained on either side. He said that the tents were not dismantled, but that a decision on that would be made later in the day.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered roads leading to the area closed on Saturday evening, and had the military shut off access. Mr. Netanyahu’s office said the state was petitioning the Supreme Court to rescind its injunction blocking the evacuation.

Israel announced it was moving forward with the E-1 settlement after the United Nations recognized a de facto state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in November.

Palestinians said E-1 would be a major blow to their statehood aspirations, as it blocks East Jerusalem from its West Bank hinterland. They are demanding these areas, along with Gaza, for their future state.

The protesters said they wanted to build a village called Bab al-Shams at the site.

The construction plans drew unusually sharp criticism from some of Israel’s staunchest allies, including the United States, who strongly oppose the E- 1 project.

Israeli officials have said actual construction on the project may be years away, if it ever happens, while Israeli critics have questioned whether Mr. Netanyahu actually intends to develop E-1 or is pandering to hard-liners ahead of the country’s Jan. 22 election.

In a separate episode Saturday, the Israeli military said soldiers shot at a Palestinian who tried to enter Israel from the West Bank. The military said soldiers called on the man to stop, then fired warning shots in the air, and finally fired at his legs when he refused to stop.

The Palestinian police said he later died of his wounds.

It was the second shooting death on the borders with the Palestinian territories in two days. On Friday, Palestinian officials in the Gaza Strip said a man was shot and killed near the coastal territory’s border fence. The Israeli military said he was part of a group who rushed the fence to damage it.

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Microsoft taps Krikorian to help run its Xbox business

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it hired technology entrepreneur Blake Krikorian to help run its Interactive Entertainment Business as the world’s largest software company plans bigger things for its Xbox gaming console.

Krikorian will be corporate vice president for the Interactive Entertainment Business, reporting to Marc Whitten, chief product officer for the division, Microsoft added.

The appointment follows Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Krikorian’s company, id8 Group R2 Studios, which had developed an application that allows users to control home heating and lighting systems from smartphones.

Microsoft is trying to transform Xbox from a gaming device into a broader service that controls most aspects of home entertainment, including music, movies, TV and sports.

“We look forward to his contribution to our team as Xbox continues to evolve and transform the games and entertainment landscape,” Whitten said in a statement.

Krikorian’s Sling Media – which was sold to EchoStar Communications in 2007 – made the Slingbox device for watching TV over the Internet.

Krikorian resigned from Amazon.com Inc’s board in late December after about a year and a half as a director at the company, the Internet’s largest retailer.

(Reporting By Alistair Barr; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Ravens top Broncos in double OT 38-35

DENVER (AP) — Welcome to NFL immortality, Joe Flacco.

Somewhere up there in the all-time playoff archives near the "Hail Mary" by Staubach and the "Immaculate Reception" by Franco now lives the "Flacco Fling" by the Baltimore Ravens quarterback.

One big throw down the sideline, 70 make-or-break yards on a wing and a prayer — a high, arcing touchdown pass that soared through the icy air, flew over two defenders, landed in the hands of Jacoby Jones, saved the game for Baltimore and kept Ray Lewis' 17-year career going at least one more week.

The record will show Justin Tucker kicked a 47-yard field goal 1:42 into the second overtime Saturday to give the Ravens a 38-35 victory over Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos. The highlight? That would be Flacco's game-tying touchdown to Jones on third-and-3 from the 30 with 31 seconds left in regulation and no timeouts.

"At that point," Flacco said, "you have to start taking shots. You have to get a little lucky."

And while Flacco gets to celebrate that throw, Manning will have a long offseason to think about a really bad one.

On Denver's second possession of overtime, he stopped and threw across his body to the middle of the field and into the arms of Ravens cornerback Corey Graham at Denver's 45. Baltimore (12-6) ran five plays and gained 16 yards before Tucker sailed his winning kick down the middle.

The Manning throw, intended for Brandon Stokley, was one that quarterbacks from junior high to the pros are advised not to make. It's a throw that unraveled all the good Manning has accomplished during this, his comeback season from neck surgery during which he threw for 37 touchdowns and led the Broncos (13-4) to top seeding in the AFC.

"Yeah, bad throw," Manning said. "Probably the decision wasn't great either. I thought I had an opening, and I didn't get enough on it, and I was trying to make a play and certainly a throw I'd like to have back."

Lewis, who led the Ravens with 17 tackles over this nearly 77-minute game in 13-degree weather, kneeled down to the ground and put his helmet on the rock-solid turf when it was over.

"I've never been a part of a game so crazy in my life," he said.

After he thaws out, the Ravens, 9½-point underdogs for this one, will get ready for a game at either New England or Houston, who meet Sunday for the other spot in the AFC title game.

This game, the longest since the Browns beat the New York Jets 23-20 in 1987, was an all-timer — up there with San Diego's 41-38 double-overtime victory over Miami for drama. But Flacco's throw might best be bookended next to one made by Dallas quarterback Roger Staubach, who famously brought the term "Hail Mary" to football after his game-winning toss to Drew Pearson beat Minnesota in the 1975 playoffs.

Staubach was near midfield when he threw his.

Flacco, who finished with 331 yards and three scores, was standing around the 20 for his throw, buying time in the pocket when he saw Jones sprinting down the right sideline into double coverage.

Defensive back Tony Carter slowed up and let Jones streak by him. Instead of staying step for step with Jones, safety Rahim Moore tried to leap and knock down the ball. Flacco, who throws the high, deep ball as well as anyone, got it over Moore's head and into Jones' hands.

"I started to step up in the pocket and I kept my eye on the safety's depth at that point," Flacco said. "Just felt I had a shot of maybe getting over him. At that point in the game, you don't have any timeouts, when you've got to go a pretty decent length you've got to start taking shots at some point. It happened to work out."

Jones caught it and pranced into the end zone, blowing kisses toward the crowd.

"I was kissing to God. I was thanking the lord," Jones said. "I don't disbelieve in myself. I've been believing in myself since I was born. Never no disbelief."

Moore was on the verge of tears after the game.

"The loss, it was my fault," Moore said. "I got a little too happy. It was pathetic. My fault. Next time I'll make that play."

The teams were tied at 14 after the first quarter, 21 at halftime, 28 after three quarters and at 35-35 after regulation.

They punted three times to start overtime, the last of them setting up Denver on its 7-yard line.

Manning was moving the Broncos along slowly and steadily. But on second-and-6 from the 38, he rolled to his right, stopped, planted and threw across the field. Graham stepped in front of Stokley for the interception. The Ravens D-back also had a first-quarter interception, which he returned 39 yards for a touchdown and a 14-7 lead.

On many days, the two interceptions would have made him the star of the game. On this day — he was just another player making big plays for Baltimore. Even he was amazed at the Flacco-Jones touchdown.

" It was one of those miraculous plays," Graham said. "I don't think it'll ever be forgotten."

The wind chill at kickoff was 2 degrees, and Manning, wearing an orange-and-gray glove to get more feel in the icy weather, fell to 0-4 lifetime in playoff games when the temperature is 40 or less. He finished 28 for 43 for 290 yards and accounted for all three Denver turnovers — the two picks and a lost fumble that set up the touchdown that tied the game at 28 late in the third quarter.

Combined, the mistakes nullified a record-setting day for returner Trindon Holliday, who returned a punt 90 yards for a touchdown and a kickoff 104 yards for another score. Both were playoff records for longest returns, as was the 248 total return yards he had.

This was, more or less, the unthinkable for the Broncos, who came in on an 11-game winning streak and the odds-on favorite, at 3-1, to win the Super Bowl — in Manning's hometown of New Orleans, no less.

Instead, this loss goes down with the most devastating in Denver history. Right there with the 30-27 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Jan. 4, 1997 — another year when Denver looked very much like Super Bowl material.

"Certainly we did a lot of good things this season, but as of right now, it's hard to think about anything besides the loss tonight," Manning said.

Baltimore, meanwhile, will get ready for its second straight trip to the AFC title game.

Last year, Billy Cundiff missed a 32-yard field goal against New England that would have tied that game at the end of regulation.

This year, the Ravens had Tucker, and though the temperature was cold and the ball was hard, coach John Harbaugh showed zero desire to get the ball closer after Ray Rice ran for 11 yards to the Denver 34 near the end of the first overtime.

Tucker was making them from 67 yards in pre-game warmups and was practicing during the break between overtime periods.

"I always feel good when I go out on the field," he said. " Not many people get to do this. This is a heck of a lot of fun."

While he finished the day 1 for 1, Broncos kicker Matt Prater missed his only try, from 52 yards, when he hit the turf, then the ball, on an attempt at the end of the first half.

Broncos coach John Fox will be second-guessed about the decision to go for the long kick, especially considering the way Flacco responded: Throwing and completing three straight passes after the miss for a 58-yard touchdown drive that tied the game at 21 going into halftime.

The touchdown was a 32-yard connection to Torrey Smith, marking the second time Smith beat Broncos cornerback Champ Bailey. Smith also got behind the 12-time Pro Bowler for a 59-yard touchdown in the first quarter.

"The first one — I lost it," Bailey said. "The second one, he just made a great play. I was in position, he made a good play. That's why he's in the league."

All part of an uncharacteristic day for the Broncos, who routed Baltimore on its home field, 34-17, less than a month ago.

But on this day, the coldest playoff game in Broncos history, these were different teams playing for different stakes.

Flacco improved to 7-4 in playoff game. Rice finished with 131 yards and a score. With Lewis manning the middle of the field, the Broncos offense didn't look like the well-oiled machine it had over a winning streak dating to a 35-24 comeback win over San Diego in October.

The Ravens, meanwhile, looked more like the team that began the season 9-2 instead of the one that finished it losing four of their last five. And boy did they and the Broncos put on a show.

"That football game," Harbaugh said, "did football proud."

___

Online: http://pro32.ap.org/poll and http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Treasury Will Not Mint $1 Trillion Coin to Raise Debt Ceiling

WASHINGTON — The Treasury Department said Saturday that it will not mint a trillion-dollar platinum coin to head off an imminent battle with Congress over raising the government’s borrowing limit.

“Neither the Treasury Department nor the Federal Reserve believes that the law can or should be used to facilitate the production of platinum coins for the purpose of avoiding an increase in the debt limit,” Anthony Coley, a Treasury spokesman, said in a written statement.

The Obama administration has indicated that the only way for the country to avoid a cash-management crisis as soon as next month is for Congress to raise the “debt ceiling,” which is the statutory limit on government borrowing. The cap is $16.4 trillion.

“There are only two options to deal with the debt limit: Congress can pay its bills, or it can fail to act and put the nation into default,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement. “Congress needs to do its job.”

In recent weeks, some Republicans have indicated that they would not agree to raise the debt limit unless Democrats agreed to make cuts to entitlement programs like Social Security.

The White House has said it would not negotiate spending cuts in exchange for Congressional authority to borrow more, and it has insisted that Congress raise the ceiling as a matter of course, to cover expenses already authorized by Congress. In broader fiscal negotiations, it has said it would not agree to spending cuts without commensurate tax increases.

The idea of minting a trillion-dollar coin drew wide if puzzling attention recently after some bloggers and economic commentators had suggested it as an alternative to involving Congress.

By virtue of an obscure law meant to apply to commemorative coins, the Treasury secretary could order the production of a high-denomination platinum coin and deposit it at the Federal Reserve, where it would count as a government asset and give the country more breathing room under its debt ceiling. Once Congress raised the debt ceiling, the Treasury secretary could then order the coin destroyed.

Mr. Carney, the press secretary, fielded questions about the theoretical tactic at a news conference last week. But the idea is now formally off the table.

The White House has also rejected the idea that it could mount a challenge to the debt ceiling itself, on the strength of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which holds that the “validity of the public debt” of the United States “shall not be questioned.”

The Washington Post earlier published a report that the Obama administration had rejected the platinum-coin idea.

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Former Lab Technician Denies Faulty DNA Work in Rape Cases

A former New York City laboratory technician whose work on rape cases is now being scrutinized for serious mistakes said on Friday that she had been unaware there were problems in her work and, disputing an earlier report, denied she had resigned under pressure.

The former lab technician, Serrita Mitchell, said any problems must have been someone else’s.

“My work?” Ms. Mitchell said. “No, no, no, not my work.”

Earlier, the city medical examiner’s office, where Ms. Mitchell said she was employed from 2000 to 2011, said it was reviewing 843 rape cases handled by a lab technician who might have missed critical evidence.

So far, it has finished looking over about half the cases, and found 26 in which the technician had missed biological evidence and 19 in which evidence was commingled with evidence from other cases. In seven cases where evidence was missed, the medical examiner’s office was able to extract a DNA profile, raising the possibility that detectives could have caught some suspects sooner.

The office declined to identify the technician. Documents said she quit in November 2011 after the office moved to fire her, once supervisors had begun to discover deficiencies in her work. A city official who declined to be identified said Ms. Mitchell was the technician.

However, Ms. Mitchell, reached at her home in the Bronx on Friday, said she had never been told there were problems. “It couldn’t be me because your work gets checked,” she said. “You have supervisors.”

She also said that she had resigned because of a rotator cuff injury that impeded her movement. “I loved the job so much that I stayed a little longer,” she said, explaining that she had not expected to stay with the medical examiner’s office so long. “Then it was time to leave.”

Also on Friday, the Legal Aid Society, which provides criminal defense lawyers for most of the city’s poor defendants, said it was demanding that the city turn over information about the cases under review.

If needed, Legal Aid will sue the city to gain access to identifying information about the cases, its chief lawyer, Steven Banks, said, noting that New York was one of only 14 states that did not require routine disclosure of criminal evidence before trial.

Disclosure of the faulty examination of the evidence is prompting questions about outside review of the medical examiner’s office. The City Council on Friday announced plans for an emergency oversight committee, and its members spoke with outrage about the likelihood that missed semen stains and “false negatives” might have enabled rapists to go unpunished.

“The mishandling of rape cases is making double victims of women who have already suffered an indescribably horrific event,” said Christine C. Quinn, the Council speaker.

A few more details emerged Friday about a 2001 case involving the rape of a minor in Brooklyn, in which the technician missed biological evidence, the review found. The victim accused an 18-year-old acquaintance of forcing himself on her, and he was questioned by the police but not charged, according to a law enforcement official.

Unrelated to the rape, he pleaded guilty in 2005 to third-degree robbery and served two years in prison. The DNA sample he gave in the robbery case was matched with the one belatedly developed from evidence the technician had overlooked in the 2001 rape, law enforcement officials said. He was recently indicted in the 2001 rape.

Especially alarming to defense lawyers was the possibility that DNA samples were cross-contaminated and led to false convictions, or could do so in the future.

“Up to this point,” Mr. Banks said, “they have not made information available to us, as the primary defender in New York City, to determine whether there’s an injustice that’s been done in past cases, pending cases, or allowing us to be on the lookout in future cases.” He added, “If it could happen with one analyst, how does anyone know that it stops there?”

The medical examiner’s office has said that the risk of cross-contamination was extremely low and that it does not appear that anyone was wrongly convicted in the cases that have been reviewed so far. And officials in at least two of the city’s district attorneys’ offices — for Brooklyn and Manhattan — said they had not found any erroneous convictions.

But Mr. Banks said the authorities needed to do more, and that their statements thus far were the equivalent of “trust us.”

“Given what’s happened,” he said, “that’s cold comfort.”

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Immigration Arrests Lead to Online Outcry, and Release

PHOENIX — Immigration agents arrested the mother and brother of a prominent activist during a raid at her home here late Thursday, unleashing a vigorous response on social media and focusing new attention on one of the most controversial aspects of the Obama administration’s policies on deportation.

The agents knocked on Erika Andiola’s door shortly after 9 p.m., asking for her mother, Maria Arreola.

Ms. Arreola had been stopped by the police in nearby Mesa last year and detained for driving without a license. Her fingerprints were sent to federal immigration officials as part of a controversial program called Secure Communities, which the Obama administration has been trying to expand nationwide.

That routine check revealed that Ms. Arreola had been returned to Mexico in 1998 after she was caught trying to illegally cross the border into Arizona with Erika and two of her siblings in tow. As a result, she was placed on a priority list for deportation.

After being seized on Thursday, she could have been sent back to Mexico in a matter of hours, but Obama administration officials moved quickly to undo the arrests. Officials had been pressured by the robust response from advocates — through phone calls, e-mails and online petitions, but primarily on Twitter, where they mobilized support for Ms. Andiola, a well-known advocate for young illegal immigrants, under the hashtag #WeAreAndiola.

The reaction offered the Obama administration a taste of what it might expect when it gets into the thick of the debate over an immigration overhaul, which Congress is expected to tackle this year. President Obama has already been under harsh criticism for the number of illegal immigrants deported since he took office — roughly 400,000 each year, a record unmatched since the 1950s.

Ms. Andiola, 25, posted a tearful video on YouTube shortly after her mother and brother were handcuffed and driven away. “I need everybody to stop pretending that nothing is wrong,” she said in the video, “stop pretending that we’re all just living normal lives, because we’re not. This could happen to any of us anytime.”

She is the co-founder of the Arizona Dream Act Coalition, one of the groups pushing for a reprieve for immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children, as she was. She has been arrested while camped in front of Senator John McCain’s office here, protested outside the United States Capitol, and appeared on the cover of Time magazine in June under the headline, “We are Americans — just not legally.”

In November, Ms. Andiola got a work permit under a program begun by the Obama administration last year that gives certain young illegal immigrants temporary reprieve from deportation. She graduated from Arizona State University in 2009.

On Friday afternoon, her mother returned home from a detention center in Florence, 70 miles southeast of Phoenix and usually the last stop for certain illegal immigrants before they are deported. Her brother, Heriberto Andiola Arreola, 36, who had been kept in Phoenix, was let go earlier, at 6 a.m.

Their swift releases underline the power of the youth-immigrant movement and their social media activism, which was critical in spreading Ms. Andiola’s story overnight.

In a statement, Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said a preliminary review of the case revealed that it contains some of the elements outlined in the agency’s “prosecutorial discretion policy” and would “merit an exercise of discretion.” Advocates have long argued that the policy has done little to keep families from being broken apart by deportations.

Ms. Andiola said in an interview that she told her mother to go to her room before opening the door Thursday night; she suspected the men standing outside worked for immigration. By the time the men came in, her brother, who was outside talking to a neighbor, was already in handcuffs, she said.

“Where’s Maria?” the men asked her, she recalled.

Ms. Arreola walked out of the room and, in Spanish, the men asked her to accompany them outside, where they placed her under arrest.

Though she and her son are free, their future is uncertain, as they could be arrested again while their cases are under review or deported should the eventual ruling go against them, said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the groups helping the family.

Stories like this, Ms. Hincapié went on, “happen every day, in every state,” outside of the media spotlight. What made it different this time is that Ms. Andiola had connections and wasted no time mobilizing them. There are others, she said, whom “you never hear about.”

Julia Preston contributed reporting from New York.

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A sense of dread shrouds Nintendo’s Wii U

The latest Wii U sales numbers are out from Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom — and unease is deepening. In Japan, Famitsu Magazine reported Wii U weekly sales slipping to 70,000 units from 76,000 units during the important period ending in January 6. This is the week many Japanese teenagers spend their New Year’s money and sales of consoles tend to bounce. During the week, the portable 3DS sold 305,000 units, up sharply from the already impressive 266,000 units in the previous week. The seven-year-old Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3 managed to increase its sales to 64,000 units from 54,000 units. The equally ancient PSP climbed to 53,000 from 34,000. Even the star-crossed PS Vita managed to vault to 31,000 from 18,000.

[More from BGR: LG reportedly halts Nexus 4 production to make way for new Nexus device]

As Wii U sales are mired close to PlayStation 3 levels in Japan, it is getting hammered by the aging Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360 in America. NPD just reported that Xbox 360 moved 1.4 million units in December while Wii U limped through the holiday season with 460,000 units. This is below the 600,000 unit level that the earlier Wii console managed years ago against a much younger console competition in 2006. Back then, Wii launched head-to-head with Sony’s PlayStation 3 in the US market, and the Xbox 360 had been launched just one year earlier.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry Z10 shown off in leaked marketing materials]

In 2012, Wii U debuted against two rival home consoles that were more than half a decade old. The results are not pretty. Meanwhile in the U.K., the Wii U shifted 40,000 units during its launch weekend, but none of the titles cracked the top 10 of the GfK game software chart.

It is clear that the lack of compelling software is hurting Wii U right now. Nintendo (NTDOY) wanted to push it out well before the buzz around the next generations of Sony and Microsoft consoles started building. The problem with the rush is that Wii U is now facing several fallow months before big titles arrive. The January-April sales period could be spectacularly ugly and may cause real damage to Nintendo’s home console reputation if it leads to U.S. sales dipping below 300,000 a month and Japanese sales dipping below 30,000 a month. The danger here is that if consumers start suspecting that the Wii U is a lame duck, they may choose to wait for one of the big rival vendors to roll out some spectacular hardware next winter.

All in all, it’s hard to avoid the notion that the console gaming universe is shrinking. In the U.S., game software sales contracted by a disastrous 26% in December. PS Vita is in dire straits and may leave Nintendo’s 3DS as the only viable portable console in 2014. Wii U is wobbling badly, possibly leading to a 2014 scenario when only Sony and Microsoft are left standing in the home console battle. U.S. consumers are still wild about huge, violent console epics like Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Halo. Those are titles that define PlayStation and Xbox. The casual gaming that defines Wii U is under siege by the smartphone/tablet gaming frenzy that shows no sign of abating.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Rookies rule at the Sony Open

HONOLULU (AP) — Two days into his PGA Tour career, Russell Henley was in the record book.

Henley putted for birdie on every hole Friday on his way to a second straight round of a 7-under 63, giving him a two-shot lead over fellow rookie Scott Langley and Scott Piercy in the Sony Open.

He was at 14-under 126, breaking the 36-hole tournament scoring record by two shots.

"It's pretty surreal," Henley said.

In the first full-field event of the season, the rookies were leading the way. All they did on another windy, warm day along the shores of Oahu was trade places atop the leaderboard. Langley opened with a 62 and followed that with a 66. That typically would be enough to stay in the lead.

Langley said he tried to stay aggressive, and then he felt he had no choice. He birdied his last three holes to reach 128.

Piercy looked as though he had a chance to catch Henley in the afternoon, even as a gentle wind turned into nothing more than a breeze, but he spent most of his time grinding over pars. A birdie on the par-5 ninth, his last hole, gave him another 64.

That means Henley and Langley will be paired together for the third straight day, this time in the last group going into the weekend.

The college graduates have been good friends for the past few years, each helping when the other was going through a bad spell. They have been linked together since they shared low amateur honors at Pebble Beach in the 2010 U.S. Open.

"It's never easy to back up a really good round, I kind of got off to a little slower start," Langley said. "But it was certainly nice to finish the way I did and kind of get back in it with Russ. He played so well, and I was just trying to keep pace as much as I can. To finish that way was really good."

The previous 36-hole record at the Sony Open was 128 by five players, most recently John Cook in 2002.

Matt Kuchar made eagle on the 18th hole to finish off a 63. He was three shots behind.

That the scores were low — six players had a 63 or better on Friday — was no surprise. Oahu hasn't received much rain over the last several months, and in tropical sunshine, the fairways were running fast and the greens were pure. And for those coming over from a windy week on Maui, it truly felt like paradise.

"Coming from last week, it feels really easy out there," Kuchar said. "This course, as simple as it seems, it's one of the tougher courses on tour. If you're not playing well, you're going to make some bogeys. ... I understand the wind is supposed to really die down over the weekend, so I certainly expect low scoring. The course is in great shape, greens are beautiful, so there's going to be a lot more birdies and foot has definitely got to be down on the pedal."

Dustin Johnson won't get a chance to match Ernie Els as the only players to sweep the two Hawaii events. Johnson, who won last week at Kapalua, withdrew after playing nine holes because of the flu.

"I feel like I'm coming down with whatever my caddie's got," said Johnson, who was 3 over at the turn. "Just not feeling well. Stomach hurts, headache, tired."

Chris Kirk made a pair of tap-in eagles — a 5-iron into the wind to 3 feet on the ninth, a 7-iron with the wind to 2 feet on the 18th — for a 62 that put him at 10-under 130 along with Tim Clark (66) and Charles Howell III (64).

Pat Perez, working on his new attitude of seeing silver linings instead of black clouds, ran off three straight birdies early in his round for a 63 and was another shot back.

The last rookie to win his PGA Tour debut was Garrett Wilson when he captured the Tucson Open in 2001, the same week of the Match Play Championship in Australia. The Sony Open is only at the halfway point, which made the debut of the rookies no less impressive.

Henley took over the lead for the first time with a shot into 8 feet to a front pin on No. 2, his 11th hole of the day. With birdies on the fifth and sixth holes, it looked as though he might pull away when he stretched his lead to four shots.

Langley came to life with a 7-iron and a 20-foot birdie putt on the seventh, then a sand wedge into the par-4 eighth and more work than he wanted on the par-5 ninth, when he got up-and-down for birdie from near the hospitality tent to the right of the green.

"This feels like a Monday qualifier," Langley said of the low scores, not to mention the company he has been keeping. Langley and Henley were born two weeks apart.

They became friends after Pebble Beach when they flew together to Royal Portrush for the Palmer Cup, and they helped each other on the practice range when their games were in need of repair.

The difference was their road to the PGA Tour.

Henley won a Nationwide Tour event while still at Georgia, and then he won twice on that tour last year to easily finish among the top 25 on the money list.

Langley, a former NCAA champion from Illinois, went through a bad patch last year when he finished last in the second stage of Q-school and had no status. He kicked around the smaller tours, tried a few Monday qualifiers, and then made his way through Q-school and earned his card with two shots to spare.

They're neck-and-neck going into the weekend, both hopeful they ride their momentum.

Piercy didn't know much about them, and he wasn't alone.

"It's Russell something and Langley? I think Russell won when he was in college, right?" Piercy said. "Hey, they're playing well. I think I played in five final groups as a rookie and didn't come through. There's a learning curve. But maybe their curve is quicker than mine."

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DealBook: Wells Fargo's Mortgage Gains May Be Unsustainable

8:40 p.m. | Updated

Wells Fargo has turned its mortgage business into an enormous profit machine. The San Francisco-based bank posted earnings of $5.1 billion in the fourth quarter, a 24 percent increase from the previous year.

But its strong gains may not be sustainable, unless interest rates drop significantly or the housing market recovers substantially. Both are long shots.

“Rates really don’t have to go up very much to discourage a whole swath of people from returning to the housing market,” said Lance Roberts, chief economist at StreetTalk Advisors, an investment advisory firm.

In recent years, Wells Fargo has aggressively expanded its mortgage business, a strategy that has helped drive record profits. The company reported net income of $18.9 billion in 2012, up 19 percent from 2011. Revenue rose 6 percent in the same period.

“We saw robust growth across the entire bank, proving that there is a lot of value in a strong, diversified business,” said Timothy J. Sloan, chief financial officer of Wells Fargo.

But after 12 consecutive quarters of rising profits, Wells Fargo may find it difficult to keep up the pace.

The bank’s recent mortgage profits largely reflect the government’s efforts to stimulate the economy, rather than a robust recovery in the housing market.

As the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates, millions of borrowers have refinanced their home loans to reduce costs. Refinancing accounted for 72 percent of Wells Fargo’s mortgage origination in the fourth quarter.

That business has been especially lucrative of late.

Banks pass on most of their mortgages to government entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which guarantee that the loans will be repaid. With the guarantee attached, banks sell the mortgages to bond investors and book a financial gain.

Profits have ballooned with the government intervention. The Fed has been a big buyer of mortgage bonds in an effort to drive down interest rates. But banks have not cut ordinary borrowers’ rates by the same amount.

That means the difference, or spread, between the rates increased last year. Wells Fargo’s gains from this activity totaled $10.3 billion in 2012, more than double the previous year.

Those gains may be hard to beat.

While the Fed has promised to purchase more mortgage bonds, interest rates may not fall much further. If mortgage rates stagnate or rise, fewer borrowers are likely to refinance or buy a house. And if the mortgage bond market weakens, banks will make less of a gain when selling the mortgages.

Already, refinancing activity appears to be slowing. In the fourth quarter, Wells Fargo handled $125 billion of mortgage originations, up 4 percent from the previous year. But loan production was higher earlier in the year, peaking at $139 billion in the third quarter.

At the same time, the Fed’s low rates are actually hurting other parts of the business. An important measure of a bank’s overall lending profitability, the net interest margin, has eroded. In the fourth quarter, Wells Fargo’s net interest margin dropped slightly to 3.56 percent, from 3.89 percent a year earlier.

Investors shrugged off the strong profits because of such concerns. Wells Fargo’s shares fell slightly on Friday, to $35.10, a 0.85 percent drop.

In an effort to assuage investors’ concerns about the refinancing business, Mr. Sloan, the chief financial officer, said in a conference call on Friday that he saw “billions of dollars in refinancing opportunities.”

Housing market numbers support his optimism. Over 70 percent of mortgages had interest rates above 4 percent in the fall, according to CoreLogic, a housing data firm. Some of those borrowers would benefit financially from refinancing, given that the interest rate on fixed, 30-year loans is 3.4 percent.

If the refinancing boom does sputter, a significant increase in new mortgages could help fill the void. That depends largely on the health of the housing market. While house prices posted annual gains last year, the recovery is far from robust.

Wells Fargo’s servicing business, in which the bank collects payments from homeowners, could also soften the blow. In the fourth quarter, the company reported $926 million in fees from that activity, up 6 percent from a year earlier.

Wells Fargo can also rely on other businesses to pick up some of the slack. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Sloan said that strong loan growth throughout the bank, including in autos and credit cards, reflected potential opportunity.

The bank reported gains in its wealth management business, where profit increased 13 percent, to $351 million. It has also been focusing on its brokerage business as regulations have curbed profits in other areas.

Cost-cutting could be another option. In the past, the bank has shown it can be aggressive on that front.

Recently, Wells Fargo has been developing its online and mobile banking operations so that it can trim staffing costs in its branches. It has also refocused on core businesses and sold units like H. D. Vest Financial Services, which it put on the auction block in 2011.

The company has also cleaned up much of the costly legal mess stemming from the mortgage crisis, striking several deals with federal regulators over the last year. This week, Wells Fargo was among the 10 banks that agreed to an $8.5 billion settlement with the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve over claims of shoddy foreclosure practices, including sloppy paperwork used in home seizures and botched loan modifications. Separately, the bank has allotted $1.2 billion to prevent foreclosures.

With the settlement, Wells Fargo puts an end to an expensive foreclosure review that was mandated by regulators. The review cost the bank an estimated $125 million each quarter.

“By putting these issues behind us, we can focus more of our resources on serving our customers,” the bank’s chief executive, John G. Stumpf, told analysts on Friday.

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