By Natasha Baker (Reuters) - Americans looking to buy a used car can turn to two new smartphone apps that provide wholesale prices, which the app makers say can help them negotiate a better deal. The apps give the wholesale, or auction value, of a car when it scans the vehicle's identification number (VIN), which is found on the car's dashboard or driver side door. "Dealers really prey on consumers," said Alexander Kiss, co-founder of New York-based company Green Sky Labs, creators of the Vinny iPhone app.

Law enforcement officials from New York and San Francisco launched a nationwide campaign Thursday to curb smartphone theft with the help of the companies that make the coveted devices. A Secure Our Smartphones Initiative led by New York State attorney general Eric Schneiderman and San Francisco district attorney George Gascon calls for thwarting theft with technology that renders stolen mobile phones useless.

SAN FRANCISCO - The top prosecutors in San Francisco and New York, seeking ways to curb thefts of mobile devices, said Monday they will reserve judgment of Apple's new security feature designed to make it harder to reactivate a stolen iPhone. San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have been asking the leading wireless device makers to create a "kill switch" that would render stolen phones useless. The prosecutors said they aren't judging Apple's new activation lock feature until they can fully determine its effectiveness.

___ Leak highlights key role of private contractors NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government monitors threats to national security with the help of nearly 500,000 people like Edward Snowden — employees of private firms who have access to the government's most sensitive secrets. When Snowden, an employee of one of those firms, Booz Allen Hamilton, revealed details of two National Security Agency surveillance programs, he spotlighted the risks of making so many employees of private contractors a key part of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.