Will.i.am, Legend take part in young voters event

WASHINGTON (AP) — Will.i.am says though he's an active supporter of President Barack Obama, don't expect the Black Eyed Peas leader to become a politician.

"Nope. I like it from this angle," he said in an interview Saturday night.

Will.i.am attended an event for OurTime.org, a non-profit organization that encourages young people to vote. Several hundred people packed the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, where John Legend, Common and T-Pain performed.

The event was just one of will.i.am's inaugural appearances: He's attending the Candle Light Inaugural Ball and Green Inaugural Ball on Sunday and will be a guest at Obama's public swearing in ceremony Monday and at the Inaugural Ball later that day.

He said it "feels good" to lend his hand to the Obama campaign and that he wants to see young voters do more.

"This is important for the youth to realize how powerful they are and to stay active and stay informed, and go out when it's time to vote. And not just for a presidential candidate, but for local government, too," he said.

Common kicked off the live performances with songs like "The People" and "Testify." He even danced and kissed a fan onstage — and on the lips — while Beyonce's "Party" blasted in the background.

"Just be whoever you are no matter what they say," Common said to the crowd.

The rapper also hit the stage with John Legend, who played piano as Common performed "The Light." Legend slowed the night's upbeat mood, crooning on songs like "Green Light," ''Tonight (Best You Ever Had)" and "Ordinary People."

Newly crowned Miss America 2013 Mallory Hagan, actress Sophie Bush and Arianna Huffington also attended.

Rapper-singer T-Pain closed the night, performing hits like "Bartender" ''5 o'clock," ''Good Life" and "Blame It."

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Well: Holly the Cat's Incredible Journey

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richter’s house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of the University of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Cats navigate well around familiar landscapes, memorizing locations by sight and smell, and easily figuring out shortcuts, Dr. Bradshaw said.

Strange, faraway locations would seem problematic, although he and Patrick Bateson, a behavioral biologist at Cambridge University, say that cats can sense smells across long distances. “Let’s say they associate the smell of pine with wind coming from the north, so they move in a southerly direction,” Dr. Bateson said.

Peter Borchelt, a New York animal behaviorist, wondered if Holly followed the Florida coast by sight or sound, tracking Interstate 95 and deciding to “keep that to the right and keep the ocean to the left.”

But, he said, “nobody’s going to do an experiment and take a bunch of cats in different directions and see which ones get home.”

The closest, said Roger Tabor, a British cat biologist, may have been a 1954 study in Germany which cats placed in a covered circular maze with exits every 15 degrees most often exited in the direction of their homes, but more reliably if their homes were less than five kilometers away.

New research by the National Geographic and University of Georgia’s Kitty Cams Project, using video footage from 55 pet cats wearing video cameras on their collars, suggests cat behavior is exceedingly complex.

For example, the Kitty Cams study found that four of the cats were two-timing their owners, visiting other homes for food and affection. Not every cat, it seems, shares Holly’s loyalty.

KittyCams also showed most of the cats engaging in risky behavior, including crossing roads and “eating and drinking substances away from home,” risks Holly undoubtedly experienced and seems lucky to have survived.

But there have been other cats who made unexpected comebacks.

“It’s actually happened to me,” said Jackson Galaxy, a cat behaviorist who hosts “My Cat From Hell” on Animal Planet. While living in Boulder, Colo., he moved across town, whereupon his indoor cat, Rabbi, fled and appeared 10 days later at the previous house, “walking five miles through an area he had never been before,” Mr. Galaxy said.

Professor Tabor cited longer-distance reports he considered credible: Murka, a tortoiseshell in Russia, traveling about 325 miles home to Moscow from her owner’s mother’s house in Voronezh in 1989; Ninja, who returned to Farmington, Utah, in 1997, a year after her family moved from there to Mill Creek, Wash.; and Howie, an indoor Persian cat in Australia who in 1978 ran away from relatives his vacationing family left him with and eventually traveled 1,000 miles to his family’s home.

Professor Tabor also said a Siamese in the English village of Black Notley repeatedly hopped a train, disembarked at White Notley, and walked several miles back to Black Notley.

Still, explaining such journeys is not black and white.

In the Florida case, one glimpse through the factual fog comes on the little cat’s feet. While Dr. Bradshaw speculated Holly might have gotten a lift, perhaps sneaking under the hood of a truck heading down I-95, her paws suggest she was not driven all the way, nor did Holly go lightly.

“Her pads on her feet were bleeding,” Ms. Richter said. “Her claws are worn weird. The front ones are really sharp, the back ones worn down to nothing.”

Scientists say that is consistent with a long walk, since back feet provide propulsion, while front claws engage in activities like tearing. The Richters also said Holly had gone from 13.5 to 7 pounds.

Holly hardly seemed an adventurous wanderer, though her background might have given her a genetic advantage. Her mother was a feral cat roaming the Richters’ mobile home park, and Holly was born inside somebody’s air-conditioner, Ms. Richter said. When, at about six weeks old, Holly padded into their carport and jumped into the lap of Mr. Richter’s mother, there were “scars on her belly from when the air conditioner was turned on,” Ms. Richter said.

Scientists say that such early experience was too brief to explain how Holly might have been comfortable in the wild — after all, she spent most of her life as an indoor cat, except for occasionally running outside to chase lizards. But it might imply innate personality traits like nimbleness or toughness.

“You’ve got these real variations in temperament,” Dr. Bekoff said. “Fish can by shy or bold; there seem to be shy and bold spiders. This cat, it could be she has the personality of a survivor.”

He said being an indoor cat would not extinguish survivalist behaviors, like hunting mice or being aware of the sun’s orientation.

The Richters — Bonnie, 63, a retired nurse, and Jacob, 70, a retired airline mechanics’ supervisor and accomplished bowler — began traveling with Holly only last year, and she easily tolerated a hotel, a cabin or the R.V.

But during the Good Sam R.V. Rally in Daytona, when they were camping near the speedway with 3,000 other motor homes, Holly bolted when Ms. Richter’s mother opened the door one night. Fireworks the next day may have further spooked her, and, after searching for days, alerting animal agencies and posting fliers, the Richters returned home catless.

Two weeks later, an animal rescue worker called the Richters to say a cat resembling Holly had been spotted eating behind the Daytona franchise of Hooters, where employees put out food for feral cats.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Barb Mazzola, a 52-year-old university executive assistant, noticed a cat “barely standing” in her backyard in West Palm Beach, struggling even to meow. Over six days, Ms. Mazzola and her children cared for the cat, putting out food, including special milk for cats, and eventually the cat came inside.

They named her Cosette after the orphan in Les Misérables, and took her to a veterinarian, Dr. Sara Beg at Paws2Help. Dr. Beg said the cat was underweight and dehydrated, had “back claws and nail beds worn down, probably from all that walking on pavement,” but was “bright and alert” and had no parasites, heartworm or viruses. “She was hesitant and scared around people she didn’t know, so I don’t think she went up to people and got a lift,” Dr. Beg said. “I think she made the journey on her own.”

At Paws2Help, Ms. Mazzola said, “I almost didn’t want to ask, because I wanted to keep her, but I said, ‘Just check and make sure she doesn’t have a microchip.’” When told the cat did, “I just cried.”

The Richters cried, too upon seeing Holly, who instantly relaxed when placed on Mr. Richter’s shoulder. Re-entry is proceeding well, but the mystery persists.

“We haven’t the slightest idea how they do this,” Mr. Galaxy said. “Anybody who says they do is lying, and, if you find it, please God, tell me what it is.”

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Algeria Begins ’Final Assault’ on Gas Field; 7 Hostages Reported Killed

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Thank You to the OpenStack Members Who Voted in the Individual Director Election

HP Cloud Services would like to thank all of the OpenStack® Foundation member/electors who participated in the recent Individual Director election.

The OpenStack Foundation regularly conducts elections for Individual Directors of the Foundation’s Board.  This process is very important for the legitimacy of the Foundation and for the health of the project. These directors represent the voices and interests of the developers and contributors to the OpenStack project as a whole, and of the operators of OpenStack-based clouds. Read more about Thank You to the OpenStack Members Who Voted in the Individual Director Election »

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J.J. Abrams to produce Lance Armstrong biopic

LOS ANGELES (AP) — He's already gotten the Oprah treatment. Now Lance Armstrong is headed for the silver screen.

Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams' production company, Bad Robot, are planning a biopic about the disgraced cyclist, a studio spokeswoman said Friday.

They've secured the rights to New York Times reporter Juliet Macur's upcoming book "Cycle of Lies: The Fall of Lance Armstrong," due out in June. Macur covered the seven-time Tour de France winner for over a decade.

No director, writer, star or start date have been set.

Armstrong is in the midst of a two-part interview with Oprah Winfrey in which he admits to using performance-enhancing drugs to reach his historic victories, something he'd defiantly denied for years. The International Olympic Committee stripped him of his 2000 bronze medal this week.

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Business Briefing | Medicine: F.D.A. Clears Botox to Help Bladder Control

Botox, the wrinkle treatment made by Allergan, has been approved to treat adults with overactive bladders who cannot tolerate or were not helped by other drugs, the Food and Drug Administration said on Friday. Botox injected into the bladder muscle causes the bladder to relax, increasing its storage capacity. “Clinical studies have demonstrated Botox’s ability to significantly reduce the frequency of urinary incontinence,” Dr. Hylton V. Joffe, director of the F.D.A.’s reproductive and urologic products division, said in a statement. “Today’s approval provides an important additional treatment option for patients with overactive bladder, a condition that affects an estimated 33 million men and women in the United States.”

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Analysis: Amid Tears Lance Armstrong Leaves Unanswered Questions in Oprah Winfrey Interview

In an extensive interview with Oprah Winfrey that was shown over two nights, Lance Armstrong admitted publicly for the first time that he doped throughout his cycling career. He revealed that all seven of his Tour de France victories were fueled by doping, that he never felt bad about cheating, and that he had covered up a positive drug test at the 1999 Tour with a backdated doctor’s prescription for banned cortisone.

Armstrong, the once defiant cyclist, also became choked up when he discussed how he told his oldest child that the rumors about Armstrong’s doping were true.

Even with all that, the interview will most likely be remembered for what it was missing.

Armstrong had not subjected himself to questioning from anyone in the news media since United States antidoping officials laid out their case against him in October. He chose not to appeal their ruling, leaving him with a lifetime ban from Olympic sports.

He personally chose Winfrey for his big reveal, and it went predictably. Winfrey allowed him to share his thoughts and elicited emotions from him, but she consistently failed to ask critical follow-up questions that would have addressed the most vexing aspects of Armstrong’s deception.

She did not press him on who helped him dope or cover up his drug use for more than a decade. Nor did she ask him why he chose to take banned performance-enhancing substances even after cancer had threatened his life.

Winfrey also did not push him to answer whether he had admitted to doctors in an Indianapolis hospital in 1996 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs, a confession a former teammate and his wife claimed they overheard that day. To get to the bottom of his deceit, antidoping officials said, Armstrong has to be willing to provide more details.

“He spoke to a talk-show host,” David Howman, the director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said from Montreal on Friday. “I don’t think any of it amounted to assistance to the antidoping community, let alone substantial assistance. You bundle it all up and say, ‘So what?’

Jeffrey M. Tillotson, the lawyer for an insurance company that unsuccessfully withheld a $5 million bonus from Armstrong on the basis that he had cheated to win the Tour de France in 2004, said his client would make a decision over the weekend about whether to sue Armstrong. If it proceeds, the company, SCA Promotions, will seek $12 million, the total it paid Armstrong in bonuses and legal fees.

“It seemed to us that he was more sorry that he had been caught than for what he had done,” Tillotson said. “If he’s serious about rehabbing himself, he needs to start making amends to the people he bullied and vilified, and he needs to start paying money back.”

Armstrong, who said he once believed himself to be invincible, explained in the portion of the interview broadcast Friday night that he started to take steps toward redemption last month. Then, after dozens of questions had already been lobbed his way, he became emotional when he described how he told his 13-year-old son, Luke, that yes, his father had cheated by doping. That talk happened last month over the holidays, Armstrong said as he fought back tears.

“I said, listen, there’s been a lot of questions about your dad, my career, whether I doped or did not dope, and I’ve always denied, I’ve always been ruthless and defiant about that, which is probably why you trusted me, which makes it even sicker,” Armstrong said he told his son, the oldest of his five children. “I want you to know it’s true.”

At times, Winfrey’s interview seemed more like a therapy session than an inquisition, with Armstrong admitting that he was narcissistic and had been in therapy — and that he should be in therapy regularly because his life was so complicated.

In the end, the interview most likely accomplished what Armstrong had hoped: it was the vehicle through which he admitted to the public that he had cheated by doping, which he had lied about for more than a decade. But his answers were just the first step to clawing back his once stellar reputation.

On Friday, Armstrong appeared more contrite than he had during the part of the interview that was shown Thursday, yet he still insisted that he was clean when he made his comeback to cycling in 2009 after a brief retirement, an assertion the United States Anti-Doping Agency said was untrue. He also implied that his lifetime ban from all Olympic sports was unfair because some of his former teammates who testified about their doping and the doping on Armstrong’s teams received only six-month bans.

Richard Pound, the founding chairman of WADA and a member of the International Olympic Committee, said he was unmoved by Armstrong’s televised mea culpa.

“If what he’s looking for is some kind of reconstruction of his image, instead of providing entertainment with Oprah Winfrey, he’s got a long way to go,” Pound said Friday from his Montreal office.

Armstrong acknowledged to Winfrey during Friday’s broadcast that he has a long way to go before winning back the public’s trust. He said he understood why people recently turned on him because they felt angry and betrayed.

“I lied to you and I’m sorry,” he said before acknowledging that he might have lost many of his supporters for good. “I am committed to spending as long as I have to to make amends, knowing full well that I won’t get very many back.”

Armstrong also said that the scandal has cost him $75 million in lost sponsors, all of whom abandoned him last fall after Usada made public 1,000 pages of evidence that Armstrong had doped.

“In a way, I just assumed we would get to that point,” he said of his sponsors’ leaving. “The story was getting out of control.”

In closing her interview, Winfrey asked Armstrong a question that left him perplexed.

“Will you rise again?” she said.

Armstrong said: “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what’s out there.”

Then, as the interview drew to a close, Armstrong said: “The ultimate crime is the betrayal of these people that supported me and believed in me.”

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As Rescue Operation Continues in Algeria, Fate of Hostages Remains Unclear

BAMAKO, Mali — An Algerian military operation against heavily armed kidnappers holding American and other hostages at a remote gas field facility in the Sahara continued Friday, and the fate of some captives remained unclear.

Kjetil Alsvik/Statoil, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

An undated photo of the In Amenas gas field in Algeria, where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign hostages on Wednesday.

Adding to the deep uncertainties, a spokesman for the militants, who belong to a group called Al Mulathameen, said Friday that they planned further attacks in Algeria, according to a report on Friday by the Mauritanian news agency ANI, which maintains frequent contact with militant groups in the region. The spokesman called upon Algerians to “keep away from the installations of foreign companies, because we will suddenly attack where no one would expect it,” ANI reported.

A United States Africa Command spokesman, Ben Benson, said an Air Force aircraft had landed at an airstrip near the facility and was evacuating Americans and people from other countries involved in the hostage event. He said they would be flown to an American facility in Europe.

The Algerian military operation began on Thursday without consultation with the foreign governments whose citizens worked at the plant. It has been marked by a fog of conflicting reports, compounded by the remoteness of the gas plant, near a town called In Amenas hundreds of miles across the desert from the Algerian capital, Algiers, and close to the Libyan border.

Algeria’s state radio, citing an official source, reported on Friday that 18 militants had been killed, the first precise death count offered by state media. But there was no official word on the number of hostages who had been freed, killed or were still held captive. Estimates of the foreign casualties ranged from 4 to 35, though one Algerian official said the higher figure was “exaggerated.”

On Friday, the official Algerian government news service said the country’s special forces were seeking to reach a “peaceful solution” with a “terrorist group” that was holding hostages at the gas field. The account gave some sense of the scale of the operation, saying about 650 people had been freed or had escaped, including 573 Algerians and “more than half of the 132” foreigners — the highest figures to emerge from several days of confused and unconfirmed tallies. Many of the employees inside the sprawling facility hunkered down during the military operation, and never came into contact with the kidnappers before slipping out.

But that still seemed to leave dozens unaccounted for.

Speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said the number of Britons at risk was estimated late Thursday at “less than 30.” That number has now been “quite significantly reduced,” he said, adding that he could not give details because the crisis is continuing.

Offering a broad account of Algeria’s handling of the operation, he told lawmakers: “We were not informed of this in advance. I was told by the Algerian prime minister while it was taking place. He said that the terrorists had tried to flee, that they judged there to be an immediate threat to the lives of the hostages and had felt obliged to respond.”

He added: “This is a large and complex site and they are still pursuing terrorists and possibly some of the hostages in other areas of the site. The Algerian prime minister has just told me this morning that they are now looking at all possible routes to resolving this crisis.”

BP, the British-based energy giant that jointly controls the gas installation in Algeria, said in a statement on Friday that there was a “small number of BP employees” at the facility “whose current location and situation remain uncertain.” The company said it flew out 11 of its staff members along with hundreds of employees of other oil companies on Thursday.

The Japanese government said on Friday that three of its citizens had escaped but that 14 were still unaccounted for. On Friday, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta met with Mr. Cameron in London as Pentagon officials were continuing to try to learn details about the raid.

“We are working around the clock to ensure the safe return of our citizens and we will continue to be in close consultation with the Algerian government,” Mr. Panetta said in a speech in London before meeting with Mr. Cameron.

Senior American military officials said an unarmed American Predator drone was monitoring the gas field site. One senior official said that seven to eight Americans were among the hostages — the first official indication of the number of Americans involved — and that he did not know if any had been killed in the raid.

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako and Alan Cowell and Scott Sayare from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Rick Gladstone from New York; Elisabeth Bumiller, Julia Werdigier and John F. Burns from London; Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger from Washington; Martin Fackler and Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo; and Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo.

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Mo. lawmaker wants tax on violent video games

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Republican lawmaker from rural Missouri bucked her party’s anti-tax bent on Tuesday and called for a sales tax on violent video games in response to a deadly Connecticut school shooting.

Rep. Diane Franklin, of Camdenton, said the proposed 1 percent sales tax would help pay for mental health programs and law enforcement measures aimed at preventing mass shootings. The tax would be levied on video games rated “teen,” ”mature” and “adult-only” by the Entertainment Software Rating Board, the organization in charge of rating video games.

The rating board classifies games as “teen” if they contain violence, suggestive themes and crude humor. The popular music game “Guitar Hero” has a teen rating and would be taxed under Franklin’s plan. Another popular title, “Call of Duty,” has a mature rating and also would be subject to the sales tax. “Mature” games are deemed suitable for people 17 and older and may contain intense violence and gore.

“History shows there is a mental health component to these shootings,” Franklin said, referring to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 20 students and six adults in Newtown, Conn., and the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting that left 14 dead.

Franklin’s plan is the latest in a string of measures proposed in response to recent mass shootings. Another Missouri Republican has filed a measure that would allow teachers to carry guns in the classroom. On the national level, Vice President Joe Biden is leading an effort to reduce gun violence and is expected to reveal recommendations Wednesday that include steps to improve school safety and mental health care, as well as address violence in entertainment and video games.

Franklin’s proposal already faces opposition from the Entertainment Software Association, which represents companies that publish computer and video games.

“Taxing First Amendment protected speech based on its content is not only wrong, but will end up costing Missouri taxpayers,” the association said in a written statement.

Tax increases typically are a hard sell in Missouri. This past November, voters rejected a proposed tobacco tax increase for the third time in a decade, choosing instead to leave the state’s cigarette tax at the lowest level in the nation. Republican legislative leaders and Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon both have taken stands against tax increases.

Other proposals to tax violent video games failed in Oklahoma in 2012 and New Mexico in 2008. In Oklahoma, Republican state Rep. William Fourkiller had proposed a violent video games tax to combat childhood obesity and school bullying, but his plan failed to make it out of a committee.

Other non-tax efforts to curb the effect of violent video games also have fallen short. U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., put forward a measure last year for the study of the impact of violent video games on children, but it failed. A California law banning the sale of violent games to minors was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011.

The Entertainment Merchant’s Association sent a letter to Biden last week urging him to look elsewhere when it comes to his plans on gun violence.

“Make no mistake: blaming movies and video games is an attempt to distract the attention of the public and the media from meaningful action that will keep our children safer,” wrote the merchant’s association, a lobbying group for the home entertainment industry.

Others, however, have criticized the video game industry and its role in mass shootings.

“There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people,” National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said at a December news conference.

Franklin said she hopes her bill will “start a discussion” on the relationship between violent games and mental illness. Franklin, who has a granddaughter in kindergarten, added she is concerned about the safety of schools and universities in the state.

In 2008, there were 298 million video games sold in the U.S., generating $ 11.7 billion in revenue. Six of the 10 best-selling games included violence, and four carried a “mature” rating.

Franklin’s bill was formally introduced Monday and must be referred and approved by a committee before being considered on the House floor.

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Armstrong admits doping: 'I'm a flawed character'

CHICAGO (AP) — He did it. He finally admitted it. Lance Armstrong doped.

He was light on the details and didn't name names. He mused that he might not have been caught if not for his comeback in 2009. And he was certain his "fate was sealed" when longtime friend, training partner and trusted lieutenant George Hincapie, who was along for the ride on all seven of Armstrong's Tour de France wins from 1999-2005, was forced to give him up to anti-doping authorities.

But right from the start and more than two dozen times during the first of a two-part interview Thursday night with Oprah Winfrey on her OWN network, the disgraced former cycling champion acknowledged what he had lied about repeatedly for years, and what had been one of the worst-kept secrets for the better part of a week: He was the ringleader of an elaborate doping scheme on a U.S. Postal Service team that swept him to the top of the podium at the Tour de France time after time.

"I'm a flawed character," he said.

Did it feel wrong?

"No," Armstrong replied. "Scary."

"Did you feel bad about it?" Winfrey pressed him.

"No," he said. "Even scarier."

"Did you feel in any way that you were cheating?"

"No," Armstrong paused. "Scariest."

"I went and looked up the definition of cheat," he added a moment later. "And the definition is to gain an advantage on a rival or foe. I didn't view it that way. I viewed it as a level playing field."

Wearing a blue blazer and open-neck shirt, Armstrong was direct and matter-of-fact, neither pained nor defensive. He looked straight ahead. There were no tears and very few laughs.

He dodged few questions and refused to implicate anyone else, even as he said it was humanly impossible to win seven straight Tours without doping.

"I'm not comfortable talking about other people," Armstrong said. "I don't want to accuse anybody."

Whether his televised confession will help or hurt Armstrong's bruised reputation and his already-tenuous defense in at least two pending lawsuits, and possibly a third, remains to be seen. Either way, a story that seemed too good to be true — cancer survivor returns to win one of sport's most grueling events seven times in a row — was revealed to be just that.

"This story was so perfect for so long. It's this myth, this perfect story, and it wasn't true," he said.

Winfrey got right to the point when the interview began, asking for yes-or-no answers to five questions.

Did Armstrong take banned substances? "Yes."

Did that include the blood-booster EPO? "Yes."

Did he do blood doping and use transfusions? "Yes."

Did he use testosterone, cortisone and human growth hormone? "Yes."

Did he take banned substances or blood dope in all his Tour wins? "Yes."

In his climb to the top, Armstrong cast aside teammates who questioned his tactics, yet swore he raced clean and tried to silence anyone who said otherwise. Ruthless and rich enough to settle any score, no place seemed beyond his reach — courtrooms, the court of public opinion, even along the roads of his sport's most prestigious race.

That relentless pursuit was one of the things that Armstrong said he regretted most.

"I deserve this," he said twice.

"It's a major flaw, and it's a guy who expected to get whatever he wanted and to control every outcome. And it's inexcusable. And when I say there are people who will hear this and never forgive me, I understand that. I do. ...

"That defiance, that attitude, that arrogance, you cannot deny it."

Armstrong said he started doping in mid-1990s but didn't when he finished third in his comeback attempt.

Anti-doping officials have said nothing short of a confession under oath — "not talking to a talk-show host," is how World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman put it — could prompt a reconsideration of Armstrong's lifetime ban from sanctioned events.

He's also had discussions with officials at the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, whose 1,000-page report in October included testimony from nearly a dozen former teammates and led to stripping Armstrong of his Tour titles. Shortly after, he lost nearly all his endorsements, was forced to walk away from the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997, and just this week was stripped of his bronze medal from the 2000 Olympics.

Armstrong could provide information that might get his ban reduced to eight years. By then, he would be 49. He returned to triathlons, where he began his professional career as a teenager, after retiring from cycling in 2011, and has told people he's desperate to get back.

Initial reaction from anti-doping officials ranged from hostile to cool.

WADA president John Fahey derided Armstrong's defense that he doped to create "a level playing field" as "a convenient way of justifying what he did — a fraud."

"He was wrong, he cheated and there was no excuse for what he did," Fahey said by telephone in Australia.

If Armstrong "was looking for redemption," Fahey added, "he didn't succeed in getting that."

USADA chief Travis Tygart, who pursued the case against Armstrong when others had stopped, said the cyclist's confession was just a start.

"Tonight, Lance Armstrong finally acknowledged that his cycling career was built on a powerful combination of doping and deceit," Tygart said. "His admission that he doped throughout his career is a small step in the right direction. But if he is sincere in his desire to correct his past mistakes, he will testify under oath about the full extent of his doping activities."

Livestrong issued a statement that said the charity was "disappointed by the news that Lance Armstrong misled people during and after his cycling career, including us."

"Earlier this week, Lance apologized to our staff and we accepted his apology in order to move on and chart a strong, independent course," it said.

The interview revealed very few details about Armstrong's performance-enhancing regimen that would surprise anti-doping officials.

What he called "my cocktail" contained the steroid testosterone and the blood-booster erythropoetein, or EPO, "but not a lot," Armstrong said. That was on top of blood-doping, which involved removing his own blood and weeks later re-injecting it into his system.

All of it was designed to build strength and endurance, but it became so routine that Armstrong described it as "like saying we have to have air in our tires or water in our bottles."

"That was, in my view, part of the job," he said.

Armstrong was evasive, or begged off entirely, when Winfrey tried to connect his use to others who aided or abetted the performance-enhancing scheme on the USPS team

When she asked him about Italian doctor Michele Ferrari, who was implicated in doping-related scrapes and has also been banned from cycling for life, Armstrong replied, "It's hard to talk about some of these things and not mention names. There are people in this story, they're good people and we've all made mistakes ... they're not monsters, not toxic and not evil, and I viewed Michele Ferrari as a good man and smart man and still do."

But that's nearly all Armstrong would say about the physician that some reports have suggested educated the cyclist about doping and looked after other aspects of his training program.

He was almost as reluctant to discuss claims by former teammates Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis that Armstrong told them, separately, that he tested positive during the 2001 Tour de Suisse and conspired with officials of the International Cycling Union officials to cover it up — in exchange for a donation.

"That story wasn't true. There was no positive test, no paying off of the labs. There was no secret meeting with the lab director," he said.

Winfrey pressed him again, asking if the money he donated wasn't part of a tit-for-tat agreement, "Why make it?"

"Because they asked me to," Armstrong began.

"This is impossible for me to answer and have anybody believe it," he said. "It was not in exchange for any cover-up. ... I have every incentive here to tell you yes."

Finally, he summed up the entire episode this way: "I was retired. ... They needed money."

Ultimately, though, it was Landis who did the most damage to Armstrong's story. Landis was stripped of the 2006 Tour title after testing positive and wound up on the sport's fringes looking for work. Armstrong said his former teammate threatened to release potentially destructive videos if he wasn't given a spot on the team. That was in 2009, when Armstrong returned to the Tour after four years off.

Winfrey asked whether Landis' decision to talk was "the tipping point."

"I'd agree with that. I might back it up a little and talk about the comeback. I think the comeback didn't sit well with Floyd," Armstrong recalled.

"Do you regret now coming back?"

"I do. We wouldn't be sitting here if I didn't come back," he said.

The closest Armstrong came to contrition was when Winfrey asked him about his apologies in recent days, notably to former teammate Frankie Andreu, who struggled to find work in cycling after Armstrong dropped him from the USPS team, as well as his wife, Betsy. Armstrong said she was jealous of his success, and invented stories about his doping as part of a long-running vendetta.

"Have you made peace?" Winfrey asked.

"No," Armstrong replied, "because they've been hurt too badly, and a 40-minute (phone) conversation isn't enough."

He also called London Sunday Times reporter David Walsh as well as Emma O'Reilly, who worked as a masseuse for the USPS team and later provided considerable material for a critical book Walsh wrote about Armstrong and his role in cycling's doping culture.

Armstrong subsequently sued for libel in Britain and won a $500,000 judgment against the newspaper, which is now suing to get the money back. Armstrong was, if anything, even more vicious in the way he went after O'Reilly. He intimated she was let go from the Postal team because she seemed more interested in personal relationships than professional ones.

"What do you want to say about Emma O'Reilly?" Winfrey asked.

"She, she's one of these people that I have to apologize to. She's one of these people that got run over, got bullied."

"You sued her?"

"To be honest, Oprah, we sued so many people I don't even," Armstrong said, then paused, "I'm sure we did."

Near the end of the first interview installment, Winfrey asked about a federal investigation of Armstrong that was dropped by the Justice Department without charges.

"When they dropped the case, did you think: 'Now, finally over, done, victory'?"

Armstrong looked up. He exhaled.

"It's hard to define victory," he said. "But I thought I was out of the woods."

___

AP Sports Writers Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, Eddie Pells in Denver and Dennis Passa in Melbourne contributed to this report.

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