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Disgraced US basketball referee Tim Donaghy, who admitted to betting on games he officiated and passing on inside information to bookies, was sentenced on Wednesday to 15 months in prison.

Donaghy, 41, a National Basketball Association official for 13 seasons, pleaded guilty last August to wire fraud conspiracy to defraud the NBA and to transmitting gambling information across state lines in a scandal that sparked league reforms.

"I'm very sorry, I brought shame on myself, my family, and to the profession that I love," Donaghy told US District Judge Carol Amon at Brooklyn Federal Court.

Donaghy had admitted taking cash payoffs from gamblers in exchange for inside information, such as the physical condition of certain players and which referees would officiate games.

Amon, who also ordered Donaghy to undergo mental health counseling, said of the referee's compulsive gambling disorder that "although it contributed to his criminal conduct, it does not excuse it.

"Many people relied on him to faithfully perform that job," she told the court.

Prosecutors said Donaghy received up to $5,000 for each prediction that turned out to be correct and that he had accepted money at least three times.

Donaghy resigned from the league last summer during an FBI investigation into his gambling activities.

"We're thrilled with the outcome today in court," John Lauro, Donaghy's lawyer, told reporters outside the court, describing the sentence as "fair and reasonable and a victory for the truth."

Lauro said that Donaghy, who was ordered to turn himself in by Sept. 23 to begin serving his sentence, will be likely be liable to pay the NBA about $200,000 in restitution.

Last week, two co-defendants, both high school friends of Donaghy, were sentenced respectively to 15 months and one year and one day in prison for their roles in the scheme.

Lauro told the court that half of all NBA referees were "engaged in gambling," saying,

"There's no question in my mind that the NBA has to be looked at from top to bottom."

"The NBA has done nothing except criticize the messenger," he said.

The NBA this month named retired US Army Major General Ronald Johnson to a newly created position to oversee referees in a move that separates the functions of the referees from the basketball operations.

As Senior President Vice for Referee Operations, Johnson will supervise all aspects of the NBA's referee program, including recruiting, training, and work rules enforcement.

State Rep. Brian Palmer's advice to whoever succeeds him as the elected speaker for the 36th District in Lansing: be bold.

"We need people who will take bold steps to turn things in the state around," the outgoing state legislator said. "We don't want more of the same. We need people to be bold and take a chance."

Palmer, R-Romeo, is term-limited at three two-year terms.

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On Aug. 5, voters in the 36th District will choose a Republican and a Democrat to face off Nov. 4.

The district, which is viewed as Republican territory based on its voting history, includes the northern Macomb County communities of Bruce Township, Shelby Township, the village of Romeo and Washington Township.

Those who vote in the Democratic primary will have three candidates from which to choose; those who cast votes in the GOP primary will have two.

Jeff Grundy, 62, and Greg Moore, 55, both of Washington Township, and Robert Murphy, 51, of Romeo are running as Democrats.

Their rivals from the Republican Party are Matthew Hedge, 39, and Pete Lund, 44, both of Shelby Township.

All five say the top issues facing the district -- as well as Metro Detroit and the rest of the state -- are Michigan's stagnant economy, its growing unemployment and rising energy costs.

Grundy believes lawmakers must step up efforts to retain businesses in Michigan and lure new ones to the state to improve the state's health. He also thinks his background as a business development manager equips him the best for that task.

"We've had lots of lawyers and bean counters, but we haven't had enough real business people in Lansing," he said.

Meanwhile, Moore's plan for helping the district's residents focuses on promoting education -- especially for children.

"I'm also pledging to donate $10,000 of my salary to my district to help its citizens, if I'm elected," said Moore, who boasts more than 20 years experience in the health care industry. The base salary for a state representative is $79,650.

And Murphy, a mediation specialist, believes his skill as a negotiator makes him the best-suited candidate.

"My training and experience has been invaluable in resolving problems," Murphy said. "I'm going to work closer with our U.S. congressional delegation to get funding for my district and the state from Washington."

If elected, Hedge, who has more than a decade of experience in corporate finance management, plans to introduce legislation to lower taxes and cut government spending.

"We have to lower taxes across the board and everything will follow from that," he said. "That'll attract capital into the Michigan marketplace and allow us to compete with other states."

Pete Lund is arguably the most well known of the candidates because he's served as a Macomb county commissioner for the last 10 years.

He is also the owner of a direct mailing company and an adjunct professor of finance and economics at Walsh College.

"I understand how to work with others, put coalitions together and get things done," Lund said. He said his top priority will be to push for the repeal of the Michigan Business Tax to attract businesses to the state.

Palmer's other of piece of advice for his successor: "You're going to have to do those things, which are the right things to do but they don't get you re-elected," he said. "You have to make your own way."

San Francisco - Intel is readying a second release of the Moblin open-source platform for mobile computing, with plans set for an alpha-level version in a few weeks, an Intel official said at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) in Portland, Ore. on Wednesday.

Moblin is a project for mobile Linux that is centered on a range of devices, with Intel eyeing Moblin for its Atom processor for mobile systems. "Our focus as a company right now is on the Atom platform, but I'm sure other people in the community will drive it [in] other directions," said Dirk Hohndel, chief Linux and open-source technologist at Intel.

Intel is putting together the software stack for Moblin 2, featuring a forking off of Fedora and the Gnome mobile stack. "We're going to open this up to the public," Hohndel said. "I want to see the community that really takes this project and runs with it and makes it their project."

Hohndel stressed that Intel was firmly in the open-source camp. "Open source is something that we believe really helps change the game," Hohndel said.

Also at the conference Wednesday, O'Reilly Media CEO Tim O'Reilly brought up two MySQL dignitaries from Sun Microsystems to quiz them on how things were going since Sun acquired the open-source database company earlier this year. The two MySQL officials, Michael Widenius and Brian Aker, waxed positive about the merger.

"It's actually been really rewarding," Aker said.

"Sun has given use more free hands to do what we want to do," said Widenius.

Commenting on Sun's switch from a proprietary to open-source software company, Aker did note that there are inevitable tensions when engineers have to go public with their code.

Aker also called Microsoft "irrelevant." Additionally, he said he wanted a new iPhone but hoped that Google gets its Android systems out fast enough that it works well enough that he could use it.

An audience member asked why the open-source world can not do anything as "insanely great" as iPhone. O'Reilly cited potential developments in that direction, such as Android and Openmoko.