Record Mega Millions numbers: 2-4-23-38-46, MB 23

"CHICAGO (AP) - Across the country, Americans plunked down an estimated $1.5 billion on the longest of long shots: an infinitesimally small chance to win what could end up being the single biggest lottery payout the world has ever seen.

The numbers drawn Friday night in Atlanta were 2-4-23-38-46, Mega Ball 23. Lottery officials expected to release details about possible winners a couple of hours after the 11 p.m. Eastern drawing.

Forget about how the $640 million Mega Millions jackpot could change the life of the winner. It's a collective wager that could fund a presidential campaign several times over, make a dent in struggling state budgets or take away the gas worries and grocery bills for thousands of middle-class citizens.

And it's a cheap investment for the chance of a big reward, no matter how long the odds - 1 in 176 million.

"Twenty to thirty dollars won't hurt," said Elvira Bakken of Las Vegas. "I think it just gives us a chance of maybe winning our dream."

So what exactly would happen if the country spent that $1.5 billion on something other than a distant dream?

For starters, it could cure the everyday worries of hundreds of thousands of American families hit by the Great Recession. It costs an average of $6,129 to feed the typical family for a year - meaning the cash spent on tickets could fill up the plates of 238,000 households.

As gas prices climb faster than stations can change the numbers on the signs, the money spent on tickets could fill the tanks of 685,000 households annually.

Or it could play politics. So far in this campaign, Republicans and President Barack Obama have spent $348.5 million. The amount spent on Mega Millions tickets could cover that tab four times over.

Could the money dig governments out of debt? That's a problem that even staggering ticket sales can't solve. It could trim this year's expected $1.3 trillion federal deficit by just over a tenth of 1 percent. In Illinois, the money would disappear just as fast into that state's $8 billion deficit.

On a personal level, that much money staggers. Giving $1.46 billion to a broker could purchase 2.4 million shares of Apple stock. (It would also be enough to buy about 2.4 million iPads at the starting price of $499. That's almost as many as the 3 million new iPads that Apple has already sold.)

Or consider the whimsical: A family of up to 12 could live for more than a century at Musha Cay, magician David Copperfield's $37,000-a-night private island resort in the Exuma Cays of the Caribbean.

For a more celestial vacation, the nearly $1.5 billion wagered could purchase about 7,300 tourist tickets for a ride into space aboard Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. And it would pay for 26 rides for U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

It would even buy a stake in pop culture. Want to influence the next winner of American Idol? If it costs a quarter to text in a vote to Ryan Seacrest, and it takes 122 million votes to win as it did last season, the money could control the outcome of the next 47 seasons.

For the states that participate, the money spent on lotto tickets is hardly a waste. It doesn't all end up as the winner's personal fortune - much of it is used by states to fund education and other social service programs, which is why advocates promote the lottery.

Though the specifics vary among the 42 participating states and the District of Columbia, only about half of ticket sales go into the actual jackpot. Another 35 percent goes to support government services and programs, while the rest funds lottery operating costs.

On Friday, the lottery estimated that total ticket sales for this jackpot, which has been building up since Jan. 28, will be about $1.46 billion, said Kelly Cripe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Lottery Commission.

You're about 20,000 times more likely to die in a car crash than win the lottery, but that doesn't matter to most people.

"Part of it is hope. ... The average person basically has no chance of making it really big, and buying a lottery ticket is a way of raising the ceiling on what could possibly happen to you, however unlikely it may be," said George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied how rich and poor consumers make a choice to buy lottery tickets.

The odds are much better that someone will begin their weekend a winner. Aaron Abrams, a mathematician at Emory University, said he calculated that there was only a 6 percent chance that no one would hold the winning numbers.

"Every time the jackpot gets higher, more and more people buy tickets, which makes it more and more likely that someone will win," Abrams said. "So the chance that it rolls over this many times in a row is very small. It's quite a rare event."

The estimated jackpot dwarfs the previous $390 million record, which was split in 2007 by two winners who bought tickets in Georgia and New Jersey.

The rarity of Friday's jackpot was fueling the fervor. Lines formed at grocery stores, gas stations, liquor stops and other venues across the country.

In Arizona, a café worker reported selling $2,600 worth of tickets to one buyer. In Indiana, hundreds lined up for a giveaway of free tickets. Hundreds from Utah and Las Vegas streamed in to neighboring California or Arizona to buy tickets because their states don't participate.

Accountant Ray Lousteau, who bought 55 Mega Millions tickets Friday in New Orleans, knows buying that many tickets doesn't mathematically increase his odds, and that his $55 could have gone elsewhere. He spent it anyway.

"Mathematically, it doesn't make a difference, and intellectually we know that. But for some reason buying more tickets makes you feel more lucky," Lousteau said. "Even people who know better are apt to feel that way."

In Chicago, Peter Muiznieks bought a ticket at a liquor store. He knows his chance of winning is a long shot, and that the money the country is spending on tickets could go elsewhere. He still couldn't help himself, and laughed as the apparent contradiction of his opinion and his actions.

"Lottery and games of chance are a stupidity tax and the more we all buy into this, the less rational we are as a society," he said." - Noreen Gillespie and Paul Wiseman, Associated Press.

Mega Millions winners are rich, but not THAT rich

"ST. LOUIS (AP) - Congratulations, Mega Millions winners! You've just won the biggest lottery in history! Move over Bill Gates and Warren Buffett!

Not so fast, Richie Rich.

There's no doubt that you're now each a member of the 1 percent. A life of comfort and leisure awaits, and managed wisely, it just might await your friends and family for generations to come.

Let's just not get carried away.

A luxury box at the stadium you can afford, but forget about buying the franchise and becoming the "No. 1 fan" of your favorite NFL or Major League Baseball team. The Los Angeles Dodgers just sold for $2 billion, besting the NFL record price of $1.1 billion for the Miami Dolphins by nine times your take-home winnings.

If you'd like to turn the keys at the sweetest pad in New York City - an $88 million apartment at 15 Central Park West - you'll have to spend nearly all of it to close the deal. But don't get into a bidding war: You're sure to lose out to the current owner, the 22-year-old daughter of a Russian billionaire.

Even if you're looking to become the next great philanthropist, your good deeds can't compete - at least in terms of dollars and cents - with that Gates guy. His foundation has given away close to $26 billion since it was established in 1994.

So, you've got some catching up to do. Don't worry, you're starting from a good place.

In the hours before the dramatic Friday night drawing, the jackpot was estimated at $640 million. If you each take the lump-sum payout, the cartoon checks made out to you will be worth about $150 million. Uncle Sam gets his share, and your state might, too.

All told, you'll each have roughly 100 million reasons to call April 2, 2012, the best Monday morning of your life.

If you follow the advice of those who know money, you won't splurge on those big-ticket items that you can afford, such as a top-of-the-line Gulfstream G650 jet ($64 million, excluding pilot, maintenance, hanger and fuel costs) and a place to fly it, your own private island (let's call that $25 million even).

Had you won the whole pot, and invested the $300 million conservatively, Steve Fazzari, an economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said you could have expected to collect a nice "salary" of about $7 million "after taxes every year for the rest of your life and the rest of the life of your heirs."

Put another way, that's $19,000 a day. Forever. And even a one-third share of that is pretty sweet. "If you put it in perspective, you're pretty rich," Fazzari said.

It's more than enough to join up with the 1 percent, which the Congressional Budget Office pegged as households with incomes that average more than about $350,000 a year.

But it's still not all THAT much, at least according those buzzkills at Forbes. Just 30 years ago, the total after-taxes take of $300 million would have been more than enough to land a single winner on the magazine's annual list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2011, you would have needed $1.05 billion to tie four others for last place on a list topped by Gates.

In fact, your $100 million isn't even two-tenths of 1 percent of Gates' estimated $61 billion net worth. Using Fazzari's math on conservative investing, the Microsoft co-founder can expect to bring in an annual salary of $1.4 billion - or 14 times your share of the historic jackpot.

But that's Bill Gates, America's richest man. Surely you'll be the richest guy on your block?

Perhaps, but not in the city centers of New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. In Chicago alone, Forbes says there are 18 billionaires, including six members of one family.

Even in a smaller city such as St. Louis, you're likely to find yourself a handful of zeros from the top: Under the Gateway Arch, the big money belongs to Enterprise Rent-A-Car's Jack Taylor and his family. They're worth an estimated $9 billion.

But none of that matters, right? So what if there are hundreds of billionaires out there whose wealth makes yours look like that of a pauper, or that there are limits you never imagined facing to a jackpot you could ever imagine winning. Surely that $100 million will at least solve all your cares and provide a lifetime of happiness.

Yeah, not so much.

"After they win the jackpot, most of them self-destruct and they end up much more unhappy than they were before," Dr. Tom Manheim, who offers financial therapy in Solana Beach, Calif. "It's really kind of a sad state of our economy where we think that money, once again, is going to bring us happiness and it doesn't."

So, uh, yeah, congratulations, we guess, to the Mega Millions winners.

(And no, those of us who didn't win aren't bitter. Not one little bit.) " - Jim Salter and Michael Tarm, Associated Press.

Lin-surgery! Knicks guard to have knee operation

"NEW YORK (AP) - Say so long to Linsanity.

Jeremy Lin will miss the rest of the regular season because he needs knee surgery that will sideline him six weeks and could leave the Knicks without their star point guard in the playoffs - if they make it that far.

Lin had an MRI exam this week that revealed a small, chronic meniscus tear and he has elected to have surgery next week in New York.

With the regular season ending April 26, the biggest story in basketball this season is done unless the Knicks make a deep postseason run.

Speaking slowly during a pregame press conference, Lin was unable to hide his disappointment with the decision that was reached earlier Saturday after a painful workout.

"It (stinks) not being able to be out there with the team," he said.

Later, he updated his Facebook page with the message: "Thanks for all the love! (I'll) return from this surgery stronger and better than before ... and hopefully in time for the playoffs!"

Upcoming: Lin-surgery.

He was barely holding on to a place in the NBA back in February. Now, after the back-to-back Sports Illustrated covers and popularity around the world, and now it's over.

"If this was done very early in the year, obviously ... I don't know where my career would be. I could be, would be definitely without a job and probably fighting for a summer league spot," Lin said. "But having said that, this happening now hurts just as much, because all the players, we really put our heart and souls into the team and into season, and to not be there when it really matters most is hard."

The Knicks will continue to turn to Baron Davis in place of Lin, the undrafted Harvard alum who became the starter in February and turned in a series of brilliant performances, kicking off a phenomenon that was called Linsanity.

Lin is averaging 14.1 points and 6.1 assists, but the numbers only tell a small part of the story.

The Knicks were under .500 and looking like a mess when Lin was given a chance to play extended minutes at point guard for then-coach Mike D'Antoni on Feb. 4 against New Jersey.

Lin, the first American-born player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play in the NBA, scored 25 points with seven assists in that New York victory, was inserted into the starting lineup two days later against Utah, and took the Knicks on a seven-game winning streak that gained world-wide attention.

The 23-year-old Lin left the Knicks' easy victory over Detroit last Saturday after feeling discomfort, saying afterward he could have returned for the fourth quarter if the game had been close. He took part in shootaround before their game Monday and at first believed he could deal with the pain.

Though the swelling went down, the pain never did. He said he got three or four opinions that all said the same thing, and after testing it again Friday and Saturday, he decided to have the surgery.

"I can't really do much. Can't really cut or jump, so it's pretty clear that I won't be able to help the team unless I get this fixed right now," Lin said before the Knicks played Cleveland. "It's disappointing for me, it's hard to watch the games and I think I'd want to be out there obviously more than anything right now. But hopefully, it's a six-week rehab process but I tend to heal fast, so hopefully I can come back as soon as possible and still contribute this season hopefully."

It's the second serious injury loss of the week for the Knicks, who are in eighth place in the Eastern Conference. Amare Stoudemire is out two to four weeks with a back injury, leaving the Knicks without their second- and third-leading scorers for perhaps the remainder of the regular season.

Davis still isn't 100 percent after a herniated disk in his back kept him out of action until February. The Knicks also have Mike Bibby and Toney Douglas, plus rookie Iman Shumpert as point guard options, but none as good as Lin.

"We've got to go on, but he's a big piece of our puzzle and what we were doing as of late before he actually went out," interim coach Mike Woodson said. "All's not bad. Again, we've got three veteran point guards sitting over there and the rookie we could play some at the point. We're just going to have to make do until he's able to get back into uniform. But it is a big blow."

Lin flourished in D'Antoni's offense, and there was immediate speculation he would struggle - or even lose his starting spot - when Woodson replaced him on March 14. Instead, Lin kept on rolling, leading the Knicks to six wins in seven games before he was hurt.

Woodson said he's known of players that have played through meniscus tears, but that only Lin knows his body. Lin knew he would need surgery eventually, but hoped to delay it until after the season.

"He's elected to have the surgery and we've got to respect that, because only he knows the pain that he's feeling. And there is a problem, so it's got to be fixed," Woodson said.

The Knicks had already tried three point guards when they finally turned to Lin, who had been cut by Golden State and Houston before signing with the Knicks. D'Antoni immediately elevated him to the starting lineup after his performance against the Nets, and Lin responded with the greatest beginning stretch ever for a starter.

He was the first player with at least 20 points and seven assists in each of his first five starts since the Elias Sports Bureau began charting starts in 1970. He had a 3-pointer to win a game in Toronto, scored 38 points to outplay Kobe Bryant in a national TV victory over the Lakers, then had 28 points and 14 assists in another nationally televised victory over the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks.

All along, the frenzy around him increased. Commissioner David Stern said he had never seen so much interest created by one player in such a short period of time. Knicks games were picked up by TV stations in basketball-crazed Asia, and Lin actually pleaded for privacy for his family in Taiwan.

Lin will be a free agent after the season and said he hopes to return to New York, but otherwise wasn't thinking that far in the future.

"I'm not even worried about that right now," he said. "It's not like a career-ending thing or it's not something that will bother me. Once it's fixed, it's fixed, it's the most simple surgery you can have and so I'm more concerned about the season."" - Brian Mahoney, Associated Press.

Tim Hortons is focused on expanding in its "core" U.S. markets near its Canadian base, including Ohio and Michigan

"TORONTO -- Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee shop chain looking to make deeper inroads south of the border, is under mounting pressure by animal rights activists to assure that its U.S. pork and egg suppliers adopt more humane practices.

The Humane Society of America said on Tuesday it will propose a shareholder vote in May on whether the chain should work to stop the practice of confining hens in cages and sows in gestation crates.

"When it comes to addressing cruelty to animals, an issue that American consumers feel strongly about, Tim Hortons is severely lagging," Matthew Prescott, food policy director at the Humane Society, said in a statement announcing the proposal.

In response, Tim Hortons said it was actively working with its suppliers to make "realistic long-term improvements" in animal welfare. It said it will provide an update on the initiative and address the shareholder proposal in the next month.

"While we are not directly involved in the raising or handling of animals, Tim Hortons has significant initiatives and procedures in place to make sure our supply chain practices are consistent with both regulatory and industry norms," spokeswoman Alexandra Cygal said.

The Humane Society can claim a string of successes in persuading the U.S. food industry to treat its animals more humanely.

Fast food chain McDonald's Corp said earlier this month it would work to phase out the use of gestation crates.

The Humane Society said 70 per cent of the U.S. pork industry confines its pregnant pigs to the crates, which are banned in the European Union and eight U.S. states - including California, Ohio and Michigan.

Sows are often confined in the crates - which are typically too narrow to allow them to turn around - from just before the birth of their piglets until the young pigs are weaned months later.

Tim Hortons is focused on expanding in its "core" U.S. markets near its Canadian base, including Ohio and Michigan.

The Humane Society said it owns 130 Tim Hortons shares, just enough to submit the proposal at the chain's annual meeting.

Named after Tim Horton, a Hall of Fame hockey player who was one of the founders, the chain dominates the coffee and light-lunch trade in its home market, blanketing the country with its Spartan yellow and red stores. It says it brews eight out of every 10 cups of coffee sold in Canada.

The company is facing tough competition from McDonald's, which has been renovating Canadian stores, promoting its coffee and introducing espresso drinks. For its part, Tims has beefed up its menu with items like lasagna casserole." - Alistair Sharp, Reuters.

Zimmerman will be brought to justice.

Zimmerman arrest follows puzzling disappearance

"SANFORD, Fla. (AP) - The neighborhood watch volunteer who shot Trayvon Martin to death had been out of touch and, his ex-lawyer says, "a little bit over the edge" before his arrest on a second-degree murder charge.

As George Zimmerman turned himself in Wednesday in the Feb. 26 shooting of the unarmed black teen, experts offered this advice: Stop talking.

"My advice to the client would be, 'Save it for the trial. It can't help you.'" said Roy Kahn, a Miami defense attorney,.

The 28-year-old Sanford man was in custody in Florida after a puzzling disappearance that had his lawyers expressing concern for his health and announcing they couldn't represent him anymore. Zimmerman had called special prosecutor Angela Corey, his former lawyers said, had an off-the-record chat with a Fox News Channel host and put up a website asking supporters for money.

"It would not be in a client's best interest to give any statement before it's his time to testify at trial," Kahn said. "For him to give a statement, since he already has given an interview to the police, any additional statement at the State Attorney's Office would just create the possibility of him creating conflict with his previous statements."

Zimmerman's new attorney, Mark O'Mara, said after his client's arrest Wednesday that Zimmerman "is very concerned about the charges, but he is OK."

"I'm not concerned about his mental well being," O'Mara said.

Former lawyers Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig on Tuesday portrayed Zimmerman as erratic, said he hadn't returned their calls and texts and was buckling under the pressure that has built in the month since the shooting.

Jack Schafer, a professor at Western Illinois University and a former FBI behavioral analyst, said Zimmerman's behavior shouldn't cause undue concern. After all, Schafer said, he wasn't charged with any crime and was free to go wherever he wanted after he spoke to authorities after the shooting.

"If I were him, I'd go somewhere in hiding," said Schafer. "His life is at risk, not by jurisprudence, but by angry people who are rushing to judgment."

Leslie Garfield, a Pace University law professor in New York, said Zimmerman's behavior over the last 48 hours should not affect his prosecution.

"Whatever else goes on behind the scenes before charges aren't really a factor," she said. "All that should matter is what his intentions were at the time of the shooting."

Zimmerman showed the strain in his own words on his website, bearing the American flag.

"As a result of the incident and subsequent media coverage, I have been forced to leave my home, my school, my employer, my family and ultimately, my entire life," he wrote. "This website's sole purpose is to ensure my supporters they are receiving my full attention without any intermediaries."

Kahn said anything Zimmerman says now, to Corey or the public, could be taken the wrong way.

"The only thing he can do is make the case worse for himself if he says something stupid," he said. "It may not be incriminating, but if it's stupid, even if it's an insignificant fact that shows it's something he lied about, that's enough for them to say, 'Well, he's lying.'"

"You're better off not saying anything at this point in the game." " - Tamara Lush, Associated Press.

Murder charge brought in Trayvon Martin case

"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - Amid furious public pressure to make an arrest in the killing of Trayvon Martin, the special prosecutor on the case went for the maximum Wednesday, bringing a second-degree murder charge against the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot the unarmed black teenager.

George Zimmerman, 28, was jailed in Sanford - the site of the shooting Feb. 26 that set off a nationwide debate over racial profiling and self-defense - on charges that carry a minimum of 25 years in prison and a maximum sentence that could put him in prison for life.

In announcing the arrest, prosecutor Angela Corey would not discuss how she reconciled the conflicting accounts of what happened or explain how she arrived at the charges, saying too much information had been made public already. But she made it clear she was not influenced by the uproar over the past six weeks.

"We do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition. We prosecute based on the facts on any given case as well as the laws of the state of Florida," Corey said.

Martin's parents, who were in Washington when the announcement came, expressed relief over the decision to prosecute the killer of their 17-year-old son.

"The question I would really like to ask him is, if he could look into Trayvon's eyes and see how innocent he was, would he have then pulled the trigger? Or would he have just let him go on home?" said his father, Tracy Martin.

Many legal experts had expected the prosecutor to opt for the lesser charge of manslaughter, which usually carries 15 years behind bars and covers reckless or negligent killings, rather than second-degree murder, which involves a killing that results from a "depraved" disregard for human life.

The most severe homicide charge, first-degree murder, is subject to the death penalty in Florida and requires premeditation - something that all sides agreed was not present in this case.

"I predicted manslaughter, so I'm a little surprised," said Michael Seigel, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Florida. "But she has more facts than I do."

Zimmerman's new attorney, Mark O'Mara, said Zimmerman will plead not guilty and will invoke Florida's powerful "stand your ground" law, which gives people wide leeway to use deadly force without having to retreat in the face of danger.

The lawyer asked that people not jump to conclusions about his client's guilt and said he is "hoping that the community will calm down" now that charges have been filed.

"I'm expecting a lot of work and hopefully justice in the end," O'Mara said.

Zimmerman, whose father is white and whose mother Hispanic, turned himself in earlier in the day and will make a court appearance as early as Thursday, when his lawyer plans to ask for bail.

Corey's decision followed an extraordinary 45-day campaign by Martin's parents to have Zimmerman arrested despite his claim that he shot in self-defense. They were joined by civil rights activists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, as well as many politicians and supporters in Sanford and cities across the nation.

Protesters wore hooded sweatshirts like the one Martin had on. And the debate reached all the way to the White House, where President Barack Obama observed last month: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

The confrontation took place in a gated community where Martin was staying with his father and his father's fiancée. Martin was walking back in the rain from a convenience store when Zimmerman spotted him and called 911. He followed Martin despite being told not to by a police dispatcher, and the two got into a struggle.

Zimmerman told police Martin punched him in the nose, knocking him down, and then began banging Zimmerman's head on the sidewalk. Zimmerman claimed he shot Martin in fear for his life.

A judge could dismiss the charge based on "stand your ground," legal experts said. But not if prosecutors can show Zimmerman was to blame.

"If you're the aggressor, you're not protected by this law," said Carey Haughwout, public defender in Palm Beach County.

Zimmerman's brother Robert Zimmerman told CNN on Wednesday night: "Our brother literally had to save his life by taking a life. And that's a situation nobody wants to be in, ever."

On Tuesday, Zimmerman's former lawyers portrayed him as erratic and in precarious mental condition. O'Mara, who signed on after Zimmerman's previous attorneys withdrew, said that Zimmerman seemed to be in a good state of mind but that the pressure had weighed mightily on him.

"He is troubled by everything that has happened. I cannot imagine living in George Zimmerman's shoes for the past number of weeks. Because he has been at the focus of a lot of anger, and maybe confusion and maybe some hatred, and that has to be difficult," the attorney said.

O'Mara also said the difficult case is compounded by the heavy media attention, which might make it hard to seat an impartial jury. Corey, similarly, complained: "So much information got released on this case that never should have been released. We have to protect this prosecution and this investigation for Trayvon, for George Zimmerman."

Corey, the prosecutor in Jacksonville, was appointed to handle the case by Republican Gov. Rick Scott after the local prosecutor disqualified himself. She has tried hundreds of homicide cases and is known for tough tactics aimed at locking up criminals for a long time and making it difficult to negotiate light plea bargains.

The U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division is conducting its own investigation. But federal authorities typically wait until a state prosecution is complete before deciding how to proceed.

Tensions had risen in recent days in Sanford, a town of 50,000 outside Orlando. Someone shot up an unoccupied police car Tuesday as it sat outside the neighborhood where Martin was killed. But as the hour of the prosecutor's announcement neared, the Martin family and their lawyer pleaded for calm.

Outside Sanford City Hall, Stacy Davis, a black woman, said she was glad to see Zimmerman under arrest.

"It's not a black or white thing for me. It's a right or wrong thing. He needed to be arrested," she said. "I'm happy because maybe that boy can get some rest." - Brendan Farrington and Gary Fineout, Associated Press.

U.S. to sue Apple and ci for prices of eBooks

"WASHINGTON (AP) - The government says avid best-seller readers who use electronic books have been getting ripped off. Tina Fey's "Bossy Pants," Tim Tebow's "Through My Eyes" and Keith Richards' "'Life" - maybe they should have cost less.

The Justice Department and 15 states sued Apple Inc. and major book publishers Wednesday, alleging a conspiracy that raised the price of electronic books. They said the scheme cost consumers more than $100 million in the past two years by adding $2 or $3, sometimes as much as $5, to the price of each e-book.

If there was price fixing, even the e-book version of the hot-selling Walter Isaacson biography of Steve Jobs, the late genius behind Apple computers, may have cost too much.

Attorney General Eric Holder said executives at the highest levels of the companies conspired to eliminate competition among e-book sellers. Justice's antitrust chief, Sharis Pozen, said the executives were desperate to get Amazon.com - the marketer of Kindle e-book readers - to raise the $9.99 price point it had set for the most popular e-book titles, because that was substantially below their hardcover prices.

The federal government reached a settlement with three of the publishers, Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Shuster. But it will proceed with its lawsuit in federal court in New York City against Apple and Holtzbrinck Publishers, doing business as Macmillan, and The Penguin Publishing Co. Ltd., doing business as Penguin Group.

Connecticut and Texas, two of the 15 states filing a separate lawsuit, reached agreements with Hachette and HarperCollins to provide $52 million in restitution to consumers, using a formula based on the number of states participating and the number of e-books sold in each state. Other states in the case may sign onto the agreement, and other companies might be persuaded to join.

Susan E. Kinsman of the Connecticut attorney general's office said it's too early to say how consumers can go about getting refunds. But there could be millions of people applying. A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 21 percent of adults said they had read an e-book in the last year.

Since Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, e-book sales have surged. They represented just 2 percent of all titles sold in the United States that year, but soared to 25 percent last year. In 2010, about 114 million e-books were sold at a total cost of $441.3 million.

Holder told a Justice Department news conference that "we believe that consumers paid millions of dollars more for some of the most popular titles" as a result of the alleged conspiracy. Pozen said the scheme added an average of $2 to $3 to the prices of individual e-books.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen said the individual book markups went as high as $5 and the total cost to consumers was more than $100 million since April 2010, when the scheme allegedly took effect.

The government lawsuits did not disclose individual titles whose prices were allegedly jacked up. The Fey, Tebow, Richards and Isaacson books all came out in electronic versions from the named publishers after April 2010.

According to Pozen, Apple's Steve Jobs told publishers involved in the alleged conspiracy that "the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway."

The lawsuit said the effort to get e-book prices increased by Amazon.com came as Apple was preparing to launch the iPad. The government said the conspirators agreed that instead of selling books to retailers and letting them decide what retail price to charge, the publishers would convert the retailers into "agents" who could sell their books but not alter the publisher-set retail price. The scheme called for Apple to be guaranteed a 30 percent commission on each e-book it sold, the lawsuit said.

"To effectuate their conspiracy, the publisher defendants teamed up with defendant Apple, which shared the same goal of restraining retail price competition in the sale of e-books," the lawsuit said.

The European Union conducted an investigation that paralleled the U.S. probe. The Union's Joaquín Almunia, vice president of the commission in charge of competition policy, said in Brussels that he welcomes the fact that the five companies are making proposals to reach an early resolution of the EU case. "We are currently engaged in fruitful discussions with them," said Almunia.

Hachette denied it was involved in any conspiracy to illegally fix the price of e-books and said it changed its pricing structure - the central government allegation - to facilitate entry by a new retail competitor, Apple.

"Two years ago, Amazon effectively had a monopoly on the sale of e-books and e-readers, and was selling products below cost in an effort to exclude competitors," said Hachette.

Amazon called the settlement "a big win for Kindle owners, and we look forward to being allowed to lower prices on more Kindle books."

After reading the federal complaint, the Consumer Federation of America called it "a 'slam-dunk' case of collusive, anti-competitive behavior."

At Apple, spokesman Tom Neumayr declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Macmillan CEO John Sargent said in a letter to authors, illustrators and agents that the company has not settled because it is "hard to settle a lawsuit when you know you have done no wrong."

Sargent said there were months of discussions with the Justice Department over a possible settlement, but the government's proposed terms "were too onerous" and "could have allowed Amazon to recover the monopoly position it had been building before our switch to the agency (pricing) model."

"We also felt the settlement the DOJ wanted to impose would have a very negative and long-term impact on those who sell books for a living, from the largest chain stores to the smallest independents." he said.

Sargent denied he colluded with competitors to change Macmillan's pricing. "After days of thought and worry, I made the decision on January 22nd, 2010, a little after 4:00 AM, on an exercise bike in my basement. It remains the loneliest decision I have ever made, and I see no reason to go back on it now," he wrote.

"We have done nothing wrong," said Penguin Group's chairman and CEO, John Makinson. "The decisions that we took, many them of them costly and difficult, were taken by Penguin alone."

At the heart of the e-book pricing debate is the industry's ongoing concern about Amazon. Publishers see the "agency model" as their best, short-term hope against preventing the online retailer from dominating the e-book market and driving down the price of books to a level unsustainable for publishers and booksellers.

What the agency model achieved was to shift the power for setting retail prices on e-books from the retailer - in this case primarily Amazon - to the alleged conspirator publishers, who then exerted pressure on Amazon to comply with the higher prices. The alleged scheme applied to New York Times bestselling titles, all titles that have gone on sale in the current year and mass market paperback titles.

Amazon's $9.99 price for best-sellers was such a deep discount from list prices of $20 and more that it was widely believed Amazon was selling the e-books at a loss to attract more customers and force competitors to lower their prices. Amazon also has been demanding higher discounts from publishers and stopped offering e-books from the Independent Publishers Group, a Chicago-based distributor, after they couldn't agree to terms.

When Apple launched its tablet computer two years ago, publishers saw two ways to balance Amazon's power: Enough readers would prefer Apple's shiny tablet over the Kindle to cut into Amazon's sales, and the agency model would stabilize prices.

Apple's iBookstore has yet to become a major force, but publishers believe the new price model has reduced Amazon's market share from around 90 percent to around 60 percent, with Barnes & Noble's Nook in second at 25 percent. The iBookstore is believed to have 10 percent to 15 percent.

Macmillan's Sargent has been at the heart of the dispute. In early 2010, as publishers were trying to get Amazon to agree to Apple's pricing system, Amazon pulled all the listings for Macmillan books, including titles like Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections" and Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickle and Dimed." Sargent refused to back down and Amazon eventually gave in.

New e-books from Macmillan and the other publishers investigated by the Justice Department often are priced initially between $12.99 and $14.99, with Amazon making a point of noting that the price was set by the publisher. Ironically, publishers usually make less money off the agency model than the traditional one because they receive a smaller percentage of the proceeds.

Random House Inc. was the only "Big Six" publisher not to agree to the agency model in 2010 and was not part of the lawsuit. But it did agree to terms with Apple last year. Spokesman Stuart Applebaum said Random House would have no comment Wednesday.

According to federal court papers, the settlement agreement with three publishers said that for two years they will not restrict, limit or impede an e-book retailer's ability to set, alter or reduce the retail price of any electronic book. It said the retailers will be able to offer price discounts and other forms or promotions to encourage consumers to buy one or more electronic books.

The 15 states in the state complaint are Texas, Connecticut, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia. Puerto Rico also joined that lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Austin, Texas." - Pete Yost, Associated Press.

Police say no crime occurred in Houston's death

"BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) - Police have closed their investigation into Whitney Houston's death without finding any evidence to suggest it was anything than an accidental drowning, investigators announced Wednesday.

The Beverly Hills Police Department did not release a detailed report on the case, but Lt. Mark Rosen said the conclusion came after detectives reviewed the complete findings of the coroner's office. Coroner's officials ruled Houston drowned accidentally at the Beverly Hilton on Feb. 11 and that heart disease and cocaine use contributed to her death.

Beverly Hills authorities also released a minute-long 911 call made by a hotel worker who summoned police and paramedics to Houston's suite at the hotel. The call revealed few details, other than that people in the Grammy-winning singer's room repeatedly hung up on hotel personnel after discovering Houston in a bathtub.

The dispatcher had asked to be patched into the room to deliver lifesaving instructions, but the security worker said that wasn't possible. He said a woman who notified the hotel that Houston was unresponsive was "irate" and didn't provide many details.

Rosen re-iterated condolences to Houston's family and friends in a brief statement.

Houston's death on the eve of the Grammy Awards stunned the world. The singer had been attempting a comeback and had finished work on a remake of the film "Sparkle" when she drowned.

Toxicology results showed cocaine throughout her body, and coroner's officials said the results indicated chronic use. In the bathroom, investigators found a small spoon described by investigators as having a "crystal-like substance" in it, and they discovered a white powdery substance in a drawer, a coroner's report released last week showed.

Houston had a history of drug abuse which marred her career, robbing her of her voice and reputation, but family and friends described her as intent on returning to glory in the months before her death. Her unexpected death at age 48 sparked a renewed interest in her music and movies, sales of which will benefit her only daughter, Bobbi Kristina." - Anthony McCartney, Associated Press.