SEATTLE (Reuters) – The lawyer representing Robert Bales, the U.S. Army staff sergeant accused of killing 17 Afghan villagers, is objecting to a routine background check required by the military.

Seattle-based attorney John Henry Browne, a self-described ex-hippie who has been married seven times and used to play bass in a rock band, said he has no secrets to hide but is opposed to the check on principle.

“I don’t think a defense lawyer should be ‘vetted’ by the government,” Browne wrote in an email to Reuters on Thursday. “It is intrusive and has a chilling effect on the right to counsel.”

Browne will likely need security clearance to see government material relating to the events of March 11, when Army prosecutors say Bales left his remote post in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province and gunned down 17 Afghan civilians, inflaming U.S.-Afghan relations.

Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, an Army spokesman at Joint Base Lewis McChord, the U.S. home for Bales’ unit, said the background check was “standard procedure” for obtaining security clearance to access classified information.

Browne, an outspoken attorney with a talent for grabbing headlines, has already made waves on the case, accusing prosecutors of blocking his access to witnesses and demanding the removal of his Army co-counsel.

He made his name defending serial killer Ted Bundy and a number of high-profile Seattle-area homicide suspects. Most recently he defended “Barefoot Bandit” Colton Harris-Moore.

SEATTLE, May 1 (Reuters) – The head of Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s fleet management said he is not happy with the weight of Boeing Co’s 747-8 jumbo, but that will not restrict the use of the airline’s newest aircraft.

“On all our in-service fleet, even those in our fleet 10 years, we are never happy with the weight situation, so we are always trying to reduce weight in order to save even more fuel,” said Nico Buchholz, executive vice president of group fleet management at Lufthansa, speaking at a Boeing plant north of Seattle.

“But the 747, we have planned it for certain missions, we will do those missions and we will do the missions as we planned them,” said Buchholz, speaking to reporters as Lufthansa prepared to fly away the first commercial 747-8 that it officially took delivery of last week.

“Yes, we are satisfied, otherwise we wouldn’t have signed the acceptance of the aircraft,” said Buchholz, one of the world’s most powerful airplane buyers.

The German flag carrier is the first commercial airline to deploy the new 747-8 Intercontinental, an upgraded, elongated version of the classic 747, and Boeing’s biggest passenger plane. Lufthansa will use the 747 on long-range, intercontinental routes, putting the first one into service between Frankfurt and Washington DC.

The plane is several tonnes heavier than Boeing’s original target, which generally increases fuel costs. The plane maker said in February it plans to hit its original weight target by 2014.

“Yes, it is a bit overweight, there’s no secret about that, but is that impacting any of our operations? No.”, Buchholz told Reuters after a media conference. “Certain things are better than Boeing promised. When I look at all the elements combined as an aircraft, that’s when I say the aircraft does what we want it do and does it the way we want it to do.”

NEW YORK/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is jumping into the fast-growing e-books market by investing $605 million over five years in Barnes & Noble Inc’s Nook e-reader and college business, as it looks to unlock Amazon.com and Apple Inc’s grip on the exploding tablet computer market.

The move comes just six months before the world’s largest software maker is due to launch its new touch-enabled Windows 8 operating system, and the inclusion of a Nook app on Windows tablets should allow them to compete with Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

It also gives Microsoft a direct interest in electronic publishing just as the market for downloadable college textbooks starts to take off and the publishing industry undergoes a radical shift toward electronic distribution.

“It’s a good strategic deal,” said Sid Parakh, an analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen. “It gets Microsoft in the game for e-readers, and gives them access to a market that has been growing nicely and they’ve basically sat out of. It also makes Windows 8 a more compelling platform from an e-readers perspective.”

In turn, Barnes & Noble gets a much-needed capital injection and a way to enter the digital books market outside the United States. The new unit will be run and majority owned by Barnes & Noble and will maintain a relationship with the U.S. bookstore chain’s nearly 700 stores.

Shares of Barnes & Noble soared as much as 90 percent in early trading, before sliding back and ending with a 52 percent gain at $20.75. Microsoft shares, which recently hit a four-year high, edged up 0.1 percent to close at $32.015.

Microsoft’s initial investment of $300 million, which will give it a 17.6 percent stake in the newly created Barnes & Noble subsidiary, values the new unit at $1.7 billion. Over the next five years, Microsoft has committed to invest another $305 million.

NEW YORK/SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp is jumping into the fast-growing e-books market by investing $300 million in Barnes & Noble Inc’s Nook e-reader and college business, as it looks to unlock Amazon.com and Apple Inc’s grip on the exploding tablet computer market.

The move comes just six months before the world’s largest software maker is due to launch its new touch-enabled Windows 8 operating system, and the inclusion of a Nook app on Windows tablets should allow them to compete with Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

It also gives Microsoft a direct interest in electronic publishing just as the market for downloadable college textbooks starts to take off and the publishing industry undergoes a radical shift toward electronic distribution.

“It’s a good strategic deal,” said Sid Parakh, an analyst at fund firm McAdams Wright Ragen. “It gets Microsoft in the game for e-readers, and gives them access to a market that has been growing nicely and they’ve basically sat out of. It also makes Windows 8 a more compelling platform from an e-readers perspective.”

Shares of Barnes & Noble soared 60 percent, while Microsoft shares, which recently hit a four-year high, were flat. Microsoft’s initial investment values the new unit at $1.7 billion. Over the next five years, Microsoft has committed to invest another $305 million.

The deal – initially worth only 0.5 percent of Microsoft’s cash hoard – is financially small, but strategically important for both companies.

“The deal brings Microsoft technology and engineers into the Nook business – that talent will be tapped to make the Nook even better,” said Albert Greco, a book industry expert at the business school of Fordham University in New York. “It gives Microsoft a tablet already, and Barnes & Noble global reach for the Nook platform, through Windows 8.”

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The U.S. Army announced a new layer of command at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Thursday as it looks to strengthen leadership at the Tacoma, Washington-area post which has earned a reputation as one of the most troubled in the U.S. military.

The joint Army-Air Force base, with 43,000 active-duty military personnel and some 14,000 civilian employees, most recently attracted attention as the home base of Robert Bales, the staff sergeant accused of massacring 17 Afghan villagers in March. It was also home for a so-called “kill team,” convicted of wartime atrocities in 2010.

“This is an appropriate step for the U.S. Army to take,” said John McHugh, Secretary of the Army, to reporters after meeting leaders and soldiers at the base on Thursday.

A civilian, McHugh is effectively chief executive of the U.S. Army, in charge of manpower, equipment, weapons and financial issues. Under his plan, the Army will establish a new division headquarters at the base, under the leadership of two-star general, who has yet to be named.

The division will report to existing leadership at the base and take the lead in training, leadership development and equipment matters for five of the ten brigades stationed there.

McHugh said the change was not the result of recent events, but demanded by recent growth of the base, which has doubled in personnel over the last 10 years. “This analysis has been going on for months, the better part of a year,” said McHugh.

Lewis-McChord, formed in 2010 with the merger of Fort Lewis Army base with the adjacent McChord Air Force base, is now the largest military base on the U.S. west coast, comparable in size to Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Hood in Texas.

By Bill Rigby

(Reuters) – Microsoft Corp beat Wall Street’s profit forecast as computer sales held up better than expected, lifting its shares 2.5 percent after hours.

The world’s largest software maker reported quarterly profit of $5.11 billion, or 60 cents per share, compared with $5.23 billion, or 61 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter when it posted a one-time tax gain.

Profit beat analysts’ average forecast of 57 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Sales rose 6 percent to $17.41 billion, driven by strong demand for its server software products and Office application. Analysts had expected sales of $17.18 billion.

Worldwide personal computer sales rose a modest 1.9 percent in the quarter, according to tech research firm Gartner Inc. That was better than expected in a market facing hard-drive shortages from Thailand and the onslaught of Apple Inc’s iPad.

That helped Microsoft, which supplies the operating system for 90 percent of PCs, to post a 4 percent increase in sales of Windows, still its main product.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The civilian attorney representing the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan villagers wants to replace the military lawyer assigned to the case after disagreements over how to handle his defense.

“You are fired, sorry, but we have much more experience than you,” Seattle-based John Henry Browne, the outspoken lawyer who has been the public face of the defense of Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said in an email to military lawyer Major Thomas Hurley.

The Army assigns defense counsel such as Hurley to soldiers facing court martial but defendants also have the right to hire additional civilian counsel, in this case Browne. Any change in military counsel would have to be approved by the Army.

Browne’s associate Emma Scanlan confirmed the decision, saying she and her boss looked forward to working with another lawyer. “We wish Major Hurley the best in his future endeavors,” she said by email. Hurley declined to comment.

Browne’s team wants to work with a military attorney with death penalty case experience, the email to Hurley from Browne, part of a chain obtained by Reuters, showed. Hurley has more than 60 military cases under his belt, with three involving homicide charges, but none were capital cases.

The decision comes after friction between the civilian and military lawyers over Browne’s aggressive media strategy, and each side has accused the other of not being team players.

“Major Hurley is not a team player and has no experience in murder cases, we do,” Browne wrote in a separate email to Reuters. “We have gotten 17 not guilty verdicts in murder cases and have gotten life verdicts in all our death penalty cases.”

SEATTLE (Reuters) – The lawyer defending the U.S. soldier accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians claims U.S. authorities are blocking his ability to investigate the incident.

John Henry Browne, the lawyer for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, said U.S. forces in Afghanistan have prevented his team from interviewing injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar, and are allowing other potential witnesses to scatter, making it difficult to track them down.

“My gut is the reason is they don’t have much of a case,” said Browne at a press conference at his downtown Seattle office on Friday.

Bales was formally charged last week with the murders of eight adults and nine children in a pre-dawn shooting rampage in southern Afghanistan on March 11, which further eroded U.S.-Afghan relations already strained by a decade of war.

He could face the death penalty if convicted.

No date has been set for a trial, but U.S. military prosecutors are putting together their case while Browne is preparing his defense.

Browne said he has a team of investigators in Afghanistan now, but they are receiving little cooperation from military prosecutors who filed the charges.

SEATTLE (Reuters) – An empty Japanese fishing boat drifting off the coast of western Canada could be the first wave of 1.5 million tons of debris heading toward North America from Japan’s tsunami last March.

The wreckage from flattened Japanese coastal towns – including refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, roofs and fishing nets – is heading inexorably east across the Pacific and could arrive sooner than expected, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The early indication is that things sitting higher up on the water could potentially move across the Pacific Ocean quicker than we had originally thought,” said Nancy Wallace, director of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, which had forecast the appearance of tsunami debris on North American shores only in 2013.

“Those higher-wind, quicker moving items may actually be onshore much sooner – pretty much now.”

On March 20, Canada’s transport department spotted what it said was an empty Japanese fishing vessel 150 nautical miles south of the Queen Charlotte Islands, adjacent to the main coast of British Columbia.

The ship has been declared a hazard to shipping, but Canada has not said what – if anything – it will do with it. The country’s Coast Guard said it will take action only if fuel spills from the ship, which is not likely.

The so-called ghost ship is the first major piece of evidence that Japanese tsunami debris is heading to the United States.

SEATTLE, March 26 (Reuters) – An empty Japanese fishing boat drifting off the coast of western Canada could be the first wave of 1.5 million tons of debris heading toward North America from Japan’s tsunami last March.

The wreckage from flattened Japanese coastal towns - including refrigerators, washing machines, televisions, roofs and fishing nets – is heading inexorably west across the Pacific and could arrive sooner than expected, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The early indication is that things sitting higher up on the water could potentially move across the Pacific Ocean quicker than we had originally thought,” said Nancy Wallace, director of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, which had forecast the appearance of tsunami debris on North American shores only in 2013.

“Those higher-wind, quicker moving items may actually be onshore much sooner – pretty much now.”

On March 20, Canada’s transport department spotted what it said was an empty Japanese fishing vessel 150 nautical miles south of the Queen Charlotte Islands, adjacent to the main coast of British Columbia.

The ship has been declared a hazard to shipping, but Canada has not said what – if anything – it will do with it. The country’s Coast Guard said it will take action only if fuel spills from the ship, which is not likely.

The so-called ghost ship is the first major piece of evidence that Japanese tsunami debris is heading to the United States.