While working a full case load as chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, Rader gives up to 100 speeches a year - frequently abroad - extolling the American patent system that his court oversees. He's a practicing Mormon who has never intentionally consumed alcohol (he says he once drank from a spiked punch bowl by mistake), but Rader also sings vocals in a rock band.

Van Morrison and Rolling Stones covers are favorites at legal conference gigs. "Rock music is energy," said Rader, who likes to stroll the stage, mic in hand. "We want to project that energy."

Rader's frenetic personality makes him an able ambassador for the Federal Circuit, created in 1982 to handle patent appeals from around the country in order to bring uniformity to a highly technical area of law.

Rader sees the court as a protector of U.S. innovation - it is at the center of a roiling debate over tech policy with billions of dollars at stake, hearing cases such as the smartphone wars between Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.

But the competitive judge has had a harder time at bringing his colleagues together on some high profile legal issues, which is another key aspect of the job. That lack of consensus in chambers is stoking a broader debate about the court's role.

In the midst of a new tech boom, a recent University of Iowa study found the rate at which Federal Circuit judges unanimously agreed in its patent cases went from about 80 percent in 2005 down to 60 percent last year.

On Friday the Supreme Court agreed to review a closely watched case on software patents which the Federal Circuit had been unable to resolve. Where historically the Supreme Court had been content to let the Federal Circuit have the final say on patents, now it frequently marches onto the Federal Circuit's turf.

At a Federalist Society panel earlier this year, Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner said Rader's court "has trouble getting its act together."

Posner's colleague, Seventh Circuit Chief Judge Diane Wood, recently suggested that the law would be sharper if Congress ended the Federal Circuit's monopoly on patent cases, allowing multiple appeals courts to hammer away at key issues.

This is the third time the magazine has chosen a pope as its Person of the Year. Time gave that honor to Pope John Paul II in 1994 and to Pope John XXIII in 1963.

The Argentine pontiff - who, as archbishop of Buenos Aires was known as the slum cardinal for his visits to the poor and penchant for subway travel - beat former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and gay rights activist Edith Windsor for the award.

Other finalists included Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and U.S. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas.

"What makes this Pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all," Time said in its cover story.

"In a matter of months, Francis has elevated the healing mission of the church — the church as servant and comforter of hurting people in an often harsh world — above the doctrinal police work so important to his recent predecessors."

Time said the final selection was made by its editors, who had considered suggestions from the magazine's more than 2 million Twitter followers.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Pope Francis, the first non-European pope in 1,300 years, the first from Latin America and the first Jesuit, was not seeking fame.

"It is a positive sign that one of the most prestigious recognitions by the international media has been given to a person who proclaims to the world spiritual, religious and moral values and speaks out forcefully in favor of peace and greater justice," Lombardi said in a statement.

"If this attracts men and women and gives them hope, the Pope is happy. If this choice of 'Person of the Year' means that many have understood this message, even implicitly, he is certainly glad."

In September, Francis gave a groundbreaking and frank interview, in which he said the Vatican must shake off an obsession with teachings on abortion, contraception and homosexuality, and become more merciful.

And in July, Francis told reporters he was not in a position to judge homosexuals who are of good will and in search of God, marking a break from his predecessor, Benedict, who said homosexuality was an intrinsic disorder.

Francis replaced Benedict in March after he abdicated.

Documents published by the Washington Post refer to the NSA and GCHQ's use of "GooglePrefIDs" - files containing a numeric code placed on computers to help the search firm remember users.

The paper said the US and UK spy agencies piggybacked the files to "home in" on targets already under suspicion.

Google has not commented.

However, the news may add to existing tensions between the firm and the authorities.

Google's chairman Eric Schmidt said last week that the company had considered moving its servers outside of the US following the publication of earlier leaks, before deciding it was impractical.

"Google's position is we are outraged on this," he said in reference to claims that the NSA and GCHQ had taken data from communication links used by his firm.

"It's government overreach, is the best way to explain it."

The cookie surveillance technique is the latest in a series of alleged spy agency activities described by papers released to journalists by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor now living in Russia.

Ad trackers Google says it uses "preferences" cookies to enhance people's use of the internet.

"These cookies allow our websites to remember information that changes the way the site behaves or looks, such as your preferred language or the region you are in," it explains on its site.

"The Pref cookie may store your preferences and other information, in particular your preferred language (eg English), how many search results you wish to have shown per page (eg 10 or 20), and whether or not you wish to have Google's SafeSearch filter turned on."

The file - which contains a randomly-generated numeric code, rather than the name of the user - is also used by the firm to personalise the adverts shown to people who are not signed into its service.

Since many other firms make use of Google's technologies to place ads, a user may have PrefIDs on their computer even if they have never visited the search firm's own services.

There are tools on the internet with which users can reset the cookie's numeric code to make themselves anonymous. One expert said the company would be concerned if the leaks encouraged more people to use them.

Kevin Bollaert is accused of being behind UGotPosted, a site that published intimate photographs of people against their wishes.

It would link to relevant social networks of the subjects pictured.

Prosecutors said the website also sought to extort money from the people featured on the site by charging a fee to have pictures taken down.

"This website published intimate photos of unsuspecting victims and turned their public humiliation and betrayal into a commodity with the potential to devastate lives," California Attorney General Kamala Harris said in a statement.

"Online predators that profit from the extortion of private photos will be investigated and prosecuted for this reprehensible and illegal internet activity."

The authorities alleged that Mr Bollaert also ran changemyreputation.com, a site that offered services to have pictures from UGotPosted removed for a fee of about $300 (£180).

According to court documents, he is said to have made "around $900 per month from advertising on the site and records obtained from his changemyreputation.com PayPal account indicate that he received payments totalling tens of thousands of dollars".

More than 10,000 images had been posted to the site, arranged by location, police said.

In addition to the photographs, each entry would display a range of contact details - including links to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, places of work and other personal information.

Mr Bollaert is being held in a San Diego jail on $50,000 (£30,000) bail. He has not yet entered a plea.

Distress

As part of the investigation, a search warrant was obtained to look through emails sent to ugotposted@gmail.com - the address used by the site administrator. "Please help!" read one email. "I am scared for my life!"

The woman - named in court only as Jane Doe #6 - said she felt unable to go back to work as people who had seen the picture had then called her office.

Jane Doe #6 also noted that she may have been under 18 years old when the pictures in question had been taken.

Another victim said over 100 people had tried to contact her after her pictures appeared on the website. ID theft

Revenge porn sites have typically been difficult to shut down thanks to what many see as outdated laws surrounding the publishing of images.

The healthcare enrollment website, a key part of President Barack Obama's sweeping healthcare law, crashed on its October 1 launch and was subjected to weeks of emergency fixes.

"I am asking the Inspector General to review the acquisition process, overall program management, and contractor performance and payment issues related to the development and management of the HealthCare.gov website," Sebelius said in a blog post.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, requires most Americans to have at least enrolled in health coverage by the end of next March or pay a penalty.

The number of people seeking health insurance under the law more than doubled in November to around 250,000, according to a government report released on Wednesday, showing Obamacare is still far from its goal of extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

The website's disastrous debut created a political crisis for Obama and fellow Democrats.

Sebelius, who is scheduled to testify before a congressional panel later Wednesday, also said she had asked Marilyn Tavenner, the chief of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to create a new chief risk officer position at CMS.

The new official's first assignment would be to review information technology contracting and identify the "risk factors that impeded the successful launch of the HealthCare.gov website," Sebelius said.

Columns of police abandoned positions around a protest camp and state buildings occupied by demonstrators enraged at Yanukovich's decision to spurn an EU trade deal and move Ukraine further into Russia's orbit.

Within hours, after meetings with U.S. and European Union officials who had urged him to compromise, Yanukovich asked his opponents to meet him to negotiate a way out of the impasse:

"I invite representatives of all political parties, priests, representatives of civil society to national talks," he said in a statement that also called on the opposition not to "go down the road of confrontation and ultimatums".

There was no immediate response from opposition leaders.

Overnight the police had cleared streets near the protest camp, bulldozed tents and skirmished with demonstrators. They later surrounded the City Hall, where protesters who have set up a makeshift hospital in the occupied building sprayed them with water hoses to prevent it from being stormed.

At stake is the future of a country of 46 million people, torn between popular hope of joining the European mainstream and the demands of former Soviet master Russia, which controls the flow of cheap natural gas needed to stave off bankruptcy.

At the main protest camp on Independence Square, pop stars, politicians and priests pleaded with police not to shed blood. Opposition politicians called for mass demonstrations to protect the square and predicted that Yanukovich would soon be toppled.

The interior minister called for calm and promised that the square would not be stormed. But even after the police left the streets, Vitaly Klitschko, a world boxing champion who has emerged as one of the main figures of the opposition, said the overnight action had "closed off the path to compromise".

"We had planned to have talks with Yanukovich. We understand that Yanukovich has not wish to talk to the people and only understands physical force," he told a news conference.

They calculated how many Earth rocks big enough to shelter life were ejected by asteroids in the last 3.5bn years.

The Chicxulub impact was strong enough to fire chunks of debris all the way to Europa, they write in Astrobiology.

Thousands of potentially life-bearing rocks also made it to Mars, which may once have been habitable, they add.

"We find that rock capable of carrying life has likely transferred from both Earth and Mars to all of the terrestrial planets in the solar system and Jupiter," says lead author Rachel Worth, of Penn State University. "Any missions to search for life on Titan or the moons of Jupiter will have to consider whether biological material is of independent origin, or another branch in Earth's family tree."

Panspermia - the idea that organisms can "hitchhike" around the solar system on comets and debris from meteor strikes - has long fascinated astronomers.

But thanks to advances in computing, they are now able to simulate these journeys - and follow potential stowaways as they hitch around the Solar System.

In this new study, researchers first estimated the number of rocks bigger than 3m ejected from Earth by major impacts. Three metres is the minimum they think necessary to shield microbes from the Sun's radiation over a journey lasting up to 10 million years.

They then mapped the likely fate of these voyagers. Many simply hung around in Earth orbit, or were slowly drawn back down.

Others were pulled into the Sun, or sling-shotted out of the Solar System entirely.

Yet a small but significant number made it all the way to alien worlds which might welcome life. "Enough that it matters," Ms Worth told BBC News.

About six rocks even made it as far as Europa, a satellite of Jupiter with a liquid ocean covered in an icy crust.

"Even using conservative, realistic estimates... it's still possible that organisms could be swimming around out there in the oceans of Europa," she said.

Travel to Mars was much more common. About 360,000 large rocks took a ride to the Red Planet, courtesy of historical asteroid impacts. Perhaps the most famous of these impacts was at Chicxulub in Mexico about 66 million years ago - when an object the size of a small city collided with Earth.

The impact has been blamed for the mass extinction of the dinosaurs, triggering volcanic eruptions and wildfires which choked the planet with smoke and dust.

It also launched about 70 billion kg of rock into space - 20,000kg of which could have reached Europa. And the chances that a rock big enough to harbour life arrived are "better than 50/50", researchers estimate.

Zhou is the most senior official to be ensnared in a graft scandal since the Communists came to power in 1949. He was the domestic security tsar and a member of the party's Politburo Standing Committee - the pinnacle of power in the country - when he retired last year.

Chinese President Xi Jinping ordered a special task force formed in late November or early December to look into several accusations brought against Zhou by political rivals, sources with ties to the leadership told Reuters, requesting anonymity to avoid repercussions for discussing secretive elite politics.

"Zhou Yongkang's freedom has been restricted. His movements have been monitored," one source said, adding that he cannot leave his Beijing home or receive guests without prior approval.

Zhou is being investigated for violating party discipline, official jargon for corruption, the sources said. They did not say what the specific allegations were.

Xi was installed as head of the party just over a year ago, and as president in March, and the investigation illustrates his growing power and confidence that he can manage any rift that may ensue.

In ordering the investigation, Xi has broken with an unwritten understanding that members of the Standing Committee will not be investigated after retirement.

But Xi has yet to decide whether Zhou would be publicly prosecuted, pending completion of the internal probe, the sources said. Xi has declared war on corruption, vowing to go after powerful "tigers" like Zhou as well as lowly "flies".

"Xi has pulled out all the tiger's teeth," a second source said, referring to the downfall of Zhou's men, including Jiang Jiemin, who was the top regulator of state-owned enterprises for just five months until September when state media said he was put under investigation for "serious discipline violations".

Jiang was previously chairman of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) - Zhou Yongkang's power base - as well as one of its subsidiaries, oil-and-gas behemoth PetroChina. Zhou served as CNPC's general manager from 1996-1998, having risen through the ranks.

"Zhou Yongkang is a toothless tiger and tantamount to a dead tiger. The question is: will Xi skin the tiger?" the source said, referring to a trial.

The hackers sent emails with malware-ridden attachments purporting to detail a possible US intervention in Syria.

The company has not revealed which ministries were targeted but said the malware samples were meant for individuals involved in the G20 talks.

In total nine computers had been compromised, the company told the BBC.

Network reconnaissance The computers had been targeted in the run-up to the annual summit of the G20 group of nations - which includes China - in St Petersburg, Russia, in September, FireEye said. The talks were dominated by the civil war in Syria.

For a week in August, the researchers said, they had been able to monitor one of the 23 computer servers used by the hackers, which they have dubbed the Ke3chang group after the names of one of the files used in its malicious code.

During the week the malware had been observed in action, no documents had been stolen, they said.

"At that stage it appeared to be about network reconnaissance," senior FireEye researcher Narottama Villeneuve told the BBC.

Carla Bruni The Ke3chang group has been active since at least 2010, according to the researchers.

Traditionally it has targeted the aerospace, energy and manufacturing industries but they have also delivered malware to hi-tech companies and governments, according to FireEye.

In 2012 it used a London Olympics themed attack and a year earlier used emails purporting to show nude pictures of the then French president's wife, Carla Bruni, researchers said.

But in their latest attack "they appeared to be specifically targeting foreign ministries", Mr Villeneuve told the BBC.

"The hackers were based in China but it is difficult to determine from a technology point of view how or if it is connected to a nation state," he added.

Mr Villeneuve explained how he had gained entry to the hackers' server.

"When they shift infrastructure, the servers are open. I just happened to check the servers when they weren't secured," he said.

However the glimpse into the inner workings of the hackers' command and control centre was short-lived, lasting for just over a week.

Tensions between China and the West over cyber-espionage have been increasing in recent years.

The day after the U.S. Treasury announced it had sold the last of its GM shares, the company said in a statement that Akerson, who is also the chairman, will leave on January 15, moving forward his planned departure by several months. His wife was recently diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer.

Barra, 51, GM's executive vice president for global product development, purchasing and supply chain, was elected by the board as the next CEO and will become a director. Theodore Solso, 66, will succeed Akerson, 65, as chairman.

"I will leave with great satisfaction in what we have accomplished, great optimism over what is ahead and great pride that we are restoring General Motors as America's standard bearer in the global auto industry," Akerson said in a message to employees.

"My goals as CEO were to put the customer at the center of every decision we make, to position GM for long-term success and to make GM a company that America can be proud of again," he added. "We are well down that path, and I'm certain that our new team will keep us moving in that direction."

Under Akerson, GM had moved to eliminate some of its historic bureaucracy and inefficiencies, recovered its investment grade credit rating, and pared financial losses in its European business.

The U.S. Treasury's exit on Monday was another sign that could clear the way for GM to restore a common-stock dividend, a move investors have been hoping for.

Sources told Reuters last month that Akerson might step down in 2014. He was appointed CEO just before GM re-entered public markets on November 2010, following a $49.5 billion government bailout and bankruptcy reorganization.

Speculation on his exit gained steam in April, when GM disclosed in a securities filing that his compensation plan had changed. The CEO did not receive any restricted stock units last year "in acknowledgement of the possibility of his retirement before the completion of the three-year vesting period," which would be in 2015.

The pioneering government-sponsored bill establishes state regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals.

Cannabis consumers would be allowed to buy a maximum of 40 grams (1.4 ounces) each month from state-regulated pharmacies as long as they are over the age of 18 and registered on a government database that will monitor their monthly purchases.

Uruguayans would also be allowed to grow up to six plants of marijuana in their homes a year, or as much as 480 grams (about 17 ounces). They could also set up smoking clubs of 15 to 45 members that could grow up to 99 plants per year.

The bill, which opinion polls show is unpopular, passed the lower chamber of Congress in July and is expected to easily pass the Senate on the strength of the ruling coalition's majority.

Uruguay's attempt to undo drug trafficking is being followed closely in Latin America where the legalization of some narcotics is being increasingly seen by regional leaders as a possible way to end the violence spawned by the cocaine trade.

"Our country can't wait for international consensus on this issue," Senator Roberto Conde of the governing Broad Front left-wing coalition said as Senate debate opened. He said organized crime had turned Uruguay into a transit country for drugs, such as marijuana from Paraguay and cocaine from Bolivia.

Rich countries debating legalization of pot are also watching the bill, which philanthropist George Soros has supported as an "experiment" that could provide an alternative to the failed U.S.-led policies of the long "war on drugs."

The bill gives authorities 120 days to set up a drug control board that will regulate cultivation standards, fix the price and monitor consumption.

The use of marijuana is legal in Uruguay, a country of 3.3 million that is one of the most liberal in Latin America, but cultivation and sale of the drug are not.

Other countries have decriminalized marijuana possession and the Netherlands allows its sale in coffee shops, but Uruguay will be the first nation to legalize the whole chain from growing the plant to buying and selling its leaves.

Several countries such as Canada, the Netherlands and Israel have legal programs for growing medical cannabis but do not allow cultivation of marijuana for recreational use.

The Edinburgh University emeritus professor shared this year's physics prize with Francois Englert for work on the theory of the Higgs boson.

In the 1960s, they were among the physicists who proposed a mechanism to explain why the most basic building blocks of the Universe have mass.

Winners in other Nobel categories will also receive their awards at the event.

These include this year's laureates in chemistry, economics, medicine and literature.

King Carl Gustav presented Prof Higgs with his Nobel medal by Sweden's King Carl Gustav at the Stockholm Concert Hall just before 1600 GMT.

Higgs was at Edinburgh University when he came up with the theory. The mechanism he helped devise predicts a particle - the Higgs boson - which was finally discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider on the French-Swiss border.

The Nobel award was somewhat controversial because several physicists were responsible for developing the mechanism at the same time: others include Robert Brout (who is now deceased), Gerald Guralnik, Carl Hagen and Tom Kibble.

The issue had been discussed for some time because the physics prize can be awarded to a maximum of three people.

Commenting on the discovery of the Higgs boson in a speech before the presentation, particle physicist Prof Lars Brink said: "On July 4 2012, [scientists] spread the news that they had found the particle.

"It had been found that Nature follows precisely that law that Brout, Englert and Higgs had created - a fantastic triumph for science."

At the weekend, Higgs told the Guardian newspaper that no university would employ him today because he would not be considered sufficiently "productive".

Prof Higgs said he "became an embarrassment to the department" when they carried out research assessment exercises. A message would go round to academics asking them for a list of recent publications. Higgs said: "I would send back a statement: 'None'."

But he said that he doubted a similar breakthrough could be made in today's academic culture because of the expectation on researchers to churn out papers.

"It's difficult to imagine how I would ever have enough peace and quiet in the present sort of climate to do what I did in 1964," he told the newspaper.